Framed as a future U.S. governmental attempt to understand and summarize the devastation wrought in a calamitous resumption of the Korean War, Lewis populates the novel with today’s political leaders in an environment shaped by recent events. In this review, Andrew Facini writes thatThe 2020 Commission Report is a realistic and compelling drama written to bring this grim subject back into the popular conversation.

This Wednesday, millions of cell phones will receive a “Presidential alert” straight from the White House. It will be the first test of the Emergency Alert System’s new national wireless capability, but the notion of receiving any compulsory message from the president has already sparked controversy and even resistance. That skepticism represents an alarming erosion of public trust in an essential government function that should concern everyone.

By virtue of geography, the South China Sea is home to some of the world’s most important shipping lanes. Ships carrying exports and imports between markets in Asia and in Europe, Africa, and the Americas must transit through the South China Sea; it is estimated that $5.3 trillion in trade passes through the region annually. Circumnavigating the region would involve both considerable expense and time delay in the delivery of goods. As a result, most nations have a direct stake in ensuring that freedom of navigation is respected in the South China Sea.

Unfortunately, however, the South China Sea is home to a number of longstanding territorial disputes. Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam have overlapping sovereignty claims to various maritime features and areas of water in the South China Sea. Most of these territorial disputes center on features located in the Paracel and Spratly island groups.

Harvard’s Iran Matters is an online one-stop shop for best analysis and best facts about the core issues of the Iranian nuclear challenge. A panel of experts at the Belfer Center, co-chaired by Graham Allison and Gary Samore, provides regular updates identifying what the panel judges the best analyses for competing answers to core questions.

"As the financial and environmental costs of current-generation energy sources continue to mount, development and implementation of innovative new energy sources have become increasingly important. Belfer Center experts are putting their research to work to foster changes in government and industry alike to push forward these energy technologies."

Domestically, the issue of climate change is again heating up, following President Obama’s State of the Union speech, where he surprised many by discussing the issue more openly and at greater length than anticipated. An “insider’s viewpoint” of the political environment on climate change was presented by veteran Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin in January.

Questions about the very nature of scientific discovery are being raised by Belfer Center experts Venkatesh (Venky) Narayanamurti, Tolu Odumosu, and Lee Vinsel...Their new discussion paper, entitled “The Discovery-Invention Cycle: Bridging the Basic/Applied Dichotomy,” describes the longstanding  paradigm that separates  basic research and discovery from applied research and implementation – for example, separating the study of  the DNA of a bacteria from the application of  that knowledge to develop new drugs and compounds.