North America

An excerpt from an interview with Fran Ulmer, Senior Fellow with the Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative, explains what we might expect from the transition to Norwegian leadership, as well as possible paths forward for the Arctic Council and Arctic governance more broadly. The interview was conducted by Belfer Center Communications and Outreach Specialist Elizabeth Hanlon. 

Whether they regard it as competitive, cooperative, or confrontational, virtually all observers agree that the U.S.-China relationship is consequential. From cyber norms and AI to military tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the global struggle to turn the tide on climate change, how Washington and Beijing manage their shared future will shape the globe for decades to come. Through research and relationship-building, the Center is dedicated to helping the U.S. and China collaborate and compete without conflict.

Whenever Washington or Moscow unveils a new weapon, ears in the other capital perk up and analysts try to divine how the new system fits into U.S. or Russian military strategy—not least of all, strategy toward its Cold War-era nemesis. But how often do decisions related to national security arise because of institutional forces only tenuously related to states’ strategic planning? More specifically, how do the countries’ respective defense industries influence policy? The Belfer Center’s Russia Matters project asked two scholars—one American, one Russian—to investigate the latter question. Their articles, published in November, reveal fascinating differences (and similarities) in the way this influence is exercised in countries with vastly different political and economic systems.

With the launch of the U.S. Digital Corps this summer, the Biden Administration has signaled a desire to attract early-career technologists and put their skills to work in the federal government. Nick Sinai, Senior Fellow with the Technology and Public Purpose Project (TAPP), co-founded the U.S. Digital Corps. 

We asked Sinai to tell us how the Digital Corps came about and his experience working with and making connections between Harvard Kennedy School students and fellows and other young technologists. 

In late January, at the peak of America’s COVID-19 outbreak, and nearly two months after the first vaccine was approved, Graham Allison and research assistant Hugo Yen found that hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses were being left unused on shelves due to sluggish rollouts by state governments....By simplifying the array of vaccination statistics provided by the CDC into clear metrics, Allison and Yen developed a COVID-19 Vaccine Report Card to help citizens easily understand their states’ performance in the vaccine rollout and better hold their state governments accountable. 

In late September, more than 600 participants from across Harvard and the national security community convened for a two-day conference focused on building a more diverse and capable United States Intelligence Community (IC). Co-hosted by the Belfer Center’s Intelligence and Cyber Projects, the conference took place over two consecutive mornings and served as a kick-off to a year-long initiative focused on highlighting workforce diversity in the IC as a mission critical element to US national security.

The Arctic region is changing rapidly, and the speed of ongoing change makes adaptation extremely challenging. Governments, indigenous peoples, local communities, researchers, and businesses must work together to build resilience to the social-ecological changes that are underway. With that goal in mind, the Arctic Initiative this fall helped launch the Arctic Resilience Forum—a highly successful 10-week international online forum. 

Since March, the Belfer Center’s scholars and practitioners have been physically distanced but intellectually close. They’ve faced the pandemic head-on, launching new types of research to explore the unusual, tragic circumstances of this year. 

These new products include tips and advice regarding COVID, health, and safety from Juliette Kayyem, Faculty Director of our Homeland Security Project, and a series of reports and recommendations regarding preparing for and responding to future pandemics from the OPCAST Ad-Hoc Pandemic Response Group, led by John P. Holdren.

A number of factors in the fall of 2020 made it easier for agents of disinformation to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election process and results—before, during, and after election day. Working to thwart them, however, was an army of well-trained election officials. Much of their training was carried out by the Belfer Center’s Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P). 

From trade disputes to digital governance to multilateral institutions in need of reform, the incoming Biden Administration faces a full international economics policy agenda. Rising U.S.-China tensions will exacerbate these policy challenges as the world’s two largest economies compete for economic power and global influence. This fall, the Belfer Center’s Economic Diplomacy Initiative, led by Aditi Kumar, Nicholas Burns, and Lawrence H. Summers, hosted a series of discussions examining the U.S.-China economic relationship.