- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

From the Director: Graham Allison

| Spring 2017

As this newsletter went to press, we had cause to celebrate: Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is coming home to Harvard to lead the Belfer Center. I am thrilled to pass the director’s baton to such a towering scholar, strategist, and public servant. Ash exemplifies the Center’s commitment to build a more secure, peaceful world.

Together with his new co-director, Eric Rosenbach—a Center alumnus and a leading cyber security and defense official—a great Center is set to become even greater. As one of Ash’s conditions for taking the job, I promised to stay actively involved in the Center: teaching, researching, and writing. Bob Belfer and Doug Elmendorf went above and beyond in helping me triple-team Ash. Thanks to their tenacity, a Center dedicated to scholarship and practice is now led by the ultimate scholar and practitioner. With renewed leadership, we are ready to climb the next mountain.

 

A week before he was asked by President Trump to become his new National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster spent an hour in my office.  He was set to retire this summer after 33 years in the Army.  We both expected he would join us. Harvard’s loss is America’s huge gain. H.R. has earned a reputation as a brilliant and courageous subordinate. His bestselling book, Dereliction of Duty, indicted America’s political and military leaders (including my hero, JFK) for their disastrous decisions in the Vietnam War. Ever since, he has repeatedly spoken uncomfortable truths to his superiors—and not only survived but thrived.

Like America’s saltwater corridors, much of Harvard is stuck somewhere in the five stages of grief over the election. Center experts ground their work in facts and analysis. So while many urge resistance or resignation, we embrace the maxim to deal with the world as it is—in order to try to make it the world we would like it to be.

On a globe that seems to spin ever faster toward a new international disorder, our mission has never been more relevant: Capture the key facts, clarify analysis, and identify more effective ways to cope with a rising China and resurgent Russia; contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions; reduce carbon emissions while meeting energy demands; secure nuclear materials; accelerate innovation in Africa; protect the homeland; manage deadly pathogens; enhance cybersecurity; map the future of diplomacy, and more. All this makes our talented scholars, staff, and students eager to get to work.

Our community has been enriched by the addition of a number of former high-ranking government officials as faculty, senior fellows, and associates. We are especially pleased to welcome back the longest-serving White House science advisor in history, John Holdren, who will co-direct the Center’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program. In addition, Kelly Ayotte, Ehud Barak, Alan Bersin, John Carlin, Jim Clapper, Laura Holgate, Ray Mabus, Lisa Monaco, Ernie Moniz, Mike Rogers, Jake Sullivan, and Jon Wolfsthal will be joining us.

Earlier this year, the University of Pennsylvania announced its annual ranking of the world’s nearly 7,000 think tanks. For the fourth year in a row, the Belfer Center was named the world’s No. 1 university-affiliated think tank. Such reviews have limits, but we are heartened to be recognized by our peers at a time when the marketplace of ideas has never been more competitive.

 

For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation:

Allison, Graham, "From the Director: Graham Allison." Belfer Center Newsletter, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School (Spring 2017).