8 Events

James Brooke, White Rajah of Sarawak, 1847. Portrait by Francis Grant

Public Domain

Seminar - Open to the Public

Long-term Political Order as the Result of Bandwagoning and Balancing: The Brookes of Sarawak

Thu., Feb. 17, 2022 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Jacqueline L. Hazelton, Associate, International Security Program

This is a story of external rule creating and supporting long-term political order over 100 years in what was then the state of Sarawak, in Southeast Asia. The success of the Brooke family is puzzling given the difficulties of empire over three centuries and current frustrations with Western state-building efforts. The Brookes flourished without the trappings and tools of empire; used personal influence; organized violence by a small number of armed Englishmen sufficient to balance power among armed indigenous groups; and made partnerships with indigenous peoples to take and retain power. Their success as outsider rulers rested on their use of balancing and bandwagoning.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIlcuqvqDkvGtIDPr8oVb0n2M1n_gBkqvjT

Seminar - Open to the Public

Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare

Thu., Apr. 15, 2021 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Jacqueline L. Hazelton, Associate, International Security Program

In her new book, the speaker challenges the claim that winning "hearts and minds" is critical to successful counterinsurgency campaigns. Good governance, this conventional wisdom holds, gains the besieged government popular support, denies support to the insurgency, and enables military and political victory. Hazelton argues that major counterinsurgent successes since World War II have resulted not through democratic reforms but rather through the use of military force against civilians and the co-optation of rival elites.

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Please register before the event:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcudOytrzovGtL_lCnvAJzYNe5X0RwkVgKY 

President Richard Nixon Bidding Farewell to South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu at the Door to the Air Force One Helicopter, Flanked by an Honor Guard on the Helipad of the Western White House, La Casa Pacifica, in San Clemente, California, 3 April 1973

White House Photo Office Collection

Seminar - Open to the Public

The Client's Dilemma: Great Powers, Counterinsurgent Governments, and Resistance to Reforms

Thu., Oct. 15, 2020 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Jacqueline L. Hazelton, Associate, International Security Program

This seminar presents a theoretical mechanism explaining the hierarchy of interests the counterinsurgent government considers and the options available to it when a great power intervener insists on reforms. It demonstrates this mechanism in a paired set of cases, South Vietnam under President Ngo Dinh Diem, when the United States was supporting the government in an advisory role, and under President Nguyen Van Thieu, when the United States was withdrawing from the war as quickly as possible.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Register in advance for this meeting: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJApceCpqD8oHdCDM-o59vdrub4glAuUoFqc

Seminar - Open to the Public

Ruling Beyond Empire: The "White Rajahs" of Sarawak, Coercion, and Balancing

Thu., Sep. 26, 2019 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Jacqueline L. Hazelton, Assistant Professor, Department of Strategy and Policy, U.S. Naval War College

A now little-known British adventurer named James Brooke ruled absolutely over a substantial territory in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo in what is now Malaysia, in the 19th century. He bequeathed his country to his descendants, who ruled until the last "White Rajah" sold Brooke's Sarawak to the British Crown after World War II. The story of the Brookes of Sarawak is full of tropes from Romantic-era novels, from the prodigal son returning to England unrecognizable from smallpox scars, to battles with pirates and headhunters, to the suicide of a faithful man of business who helps his master perpetrate a fraud and then kills himself out of remorse. Behind the drama are serious questions about how the three "White Rajahs" controlled their multi-ethnic, multi-faith, mountainous, unruly territory for a century. the speaker will argue that the Brooke rajahs used a combination of political accommodation of local political elites and a balancing strategy to build fighting alliances against troublesome challengers to their rule.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Seminar - Open to the Public

"No Such Thing as a Little War": The Ideas Driving Great Power Military Intervention

Thu., Sep. 28, 2017 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Jacqueline L. Hazelton, Assistant Professor, Department of Strategy and Policy, U.S. Naval War College

What beliefs influence liberal great power policymakers to back a government threatened by an insurgency? Why do great powers continue seeking insurgent defeat when costs rise? This seminar identifies a core belief about national and international security in the literature on pacification from the post–World War II era to the current period of liberal interventionism. It analyzes how this belief distorts analyses of past interventions and shapes policymakers' intervention choices.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Troops traverse the Midway Road through Dhofar's desolate terrain in 1974. This track, the only built-up road in the Omani province at the time, was the lone land link to northern Oman.

Ian Gordon Photo

Seminar - Open to the Public

Compellence and Accommodation in Counterinsurgency Warfare

Thu., Oct. 6, 2011 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369

The United States defines its greatest security threats as insurgents and terrorists. It is trying to defeat them with a method of counterinsurgency (COIN) known as the population-centric approach. Is the conventional wisdom correct in claiming that the population-centric approach is the key to defeating insurgencies?

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Afghan army officers and U.S. Marines take part in a shura meeting to discuss damage done during an Aug. 12 raid to a family compound in Dahaneh, Afghanistan, Aug. 14, 2009. Compensation was paid, part of a U.S. effort to win "hearts and minds."

AP Photo

Seminar - Open to the Public

Compellence and Accommodation in Counterinsurgency Warfare: A Challenge to the Hearts-and-Minds Narrative of Counterinsurgent Success

Thu., Oct. 21, 2010 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369

Insurgency poses a particularly difficult problem for a state because its armed adversary mingles invisibly with the populace. Indeed, the guerrillas belong to the populace and demand political change on its behalf. Despite the state's preponderance of power, states decisively defeat insurgencies less than half of the time. Under what conditions do states succeed?

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

April 12, 1985: former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick inspects a bombed out cottage in Santa Cruz La Loma, El Salvador with a guard, right, and U.S. Amb. to El Salvador Thomas Pickering. Guerrillas attacked the town, killing 20 people, mostly civilians.

AP Photo

Seminar - Open to the Public

Compellence and Accommodation in Counterinsurgency Warfare: The Cases of Dhofar, Oman, and El Salvador

Thu., Apr. 8, 2010 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369

When may states succeed in using military force to bend other actors to their will? In an era when the United States identifies the political problems of terrorism, insurgency, and ungoverned spaces as core national security threats and relies on its military to defeat them, the question is a pressing one. This project cuts into the question of what military force can achieve in the political realm by asking under what conditions states defeat guerrilla insurgencies.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.