International Security & Defense

The summit between President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, ended Thursday without any deal. The two sides failed to reach an agreement due to a standoff over U.S. sanctions on the reclusive nation.

Michael Beckley explains how power can be measured more accurately by calculating a country’s net resources.

In this co-authored piece with Leo Carter, Belfer Center senior fellow Anja Manuel weighs in on the possible benefits of blockchains for U.S. national security.

Coming from academia and the national security community, its contributors analyze key institutions and processes that promote the peace and prosperity of the United States and, by extension, its allies and other partners. By examining contemporary challenges to U.S. national security, contributors consider ways to advance national interests.

Extreme weather events have tragically upended lives and damaged communities across the United States in the past two months. Climate change deniers are hard pressed to continue insisting that there is no connection between human activity and rising temperatures and stronger hurricanes: the American people are living with the evidence, from California wildfires to torrential storms and biblical-scale flooding in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean. September 2017 was the most intensive month for Atlantic hurricanes on record and more than a million acres have burned in California this year due to the most damaging wildfires on record.

The Homeland Security Project, an initiative of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, has announced the appointment of Jeh Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security, as the Project’s new non-resident Senior Fellow.

The United States has a vital national interest in continuing to avoid hostile or failed states on its borders. A prolonged crisis with Mexico — not least because of effects on ordinary Americans and U.S. domestic politics — would inevitably divert the administration’s time, attention, and resources away from other U.S. core national interests — including working with allies to contain China’s hegemonic ambitions in Asia and Russia’s neo-imperial policies in Europe, as well as to successfully combat international terrorism.

"The question is not whether the IDF needs the F35, it does....The Air Force is Israel's strategic arm and must be equipped with weapons systems at the very forefront of technology. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon us that we question how many aircraft truly are needed, when, and what the possible alternative uses of the budgetary resources are."