21 Events

Oil Pump Jack Between Seminole and Andrews, West Texas, August 13, 2008.

Flickr CC/Paul Lowry

Seminar - Open to the Public

Globalizing Oil, Unleashing Capital: An International History of the 1970s Energy Crisis

Thu., Oct. 14, 2021 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Marino Auffant, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

How did the 1970s Energy Crisis reorder the world? Until 1973, successive U.S. administrations had relied on Venezuela and Canada as the country's main energy partners and had actively restricted oil imports from the Middle East. However, with the promise of Saudi petrodollars inflows, the United States ended these longstanding partnerships and tied its economic fate to that of the Persian Gulf. This shift had long-lasting consequences: Not only did the United States make itself vulnerable to the Arab oil embargo, but this First Oil Shock gave rise to the world's current monetary architecture, entangled the United States geopolitically in the Persian Gulf, and destabilized the Middle East by spawning the Iranian and Iraqi nuclear programs.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYud-2oqjgtGNQql4LL49mfK3w1KHzWmm1b 

Members of the public tour the Atoms For Peace mobile exhibit. The program was launched under President Eisenhower to supply equipment and information to schools, hospitals and research institutions.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Seminar - Open to the Public

Light Water Capitalism: Nonproliferation and U.S. Global Power

Thu., Mar. 11, 2021 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Jayita Sarkar, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

How do the exports of U.S. power reactors relate to nonproliferation, global capitalism, and U.S. empire? And what does that tell us about the dominance by design of U.S. government and businesses in the decolonized world, where they promised development but delivered debt? This seminar pursues this inquiry through investigating the role of the light water reactor as an instrument of U.S. nonproliferation policy from the mid-1950s until the end of the 1980s.

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Register before the seminar here:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMscOyspz0uHdDEEReU3VaamAmpD7qRPMrO

U.S.-Sino Relations

Pixabay/Henrix

Seminar - Open to the Public

China, the United States, and the Future World Order

Mon., Dec. 14, 2020 | 5:00pm - 6:30pm

Online

Speakers: Thomas J. Christensen (Columbia University); Evelyn Goh (Australian National University); and Yasheng Huang (MIT Sloan School of Management).

The existing global political-economic order has been ruptured by the rise of China, a broad backlash against globalization, uncertainties about the U.S. commitment to a rules-based system, and most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. What form(s) might a future world order take, and what principles should guide efforts to construct it?

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Register in advance for this meeting:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0qd-mhrz0pE9K_7GElJAKyLNi5L7Y_WpcJ

eCommerce Week of UNCTAD, 17 April 2018

Wikimedia CC/UNCTAD

Seminar - Open to the Public

The Future World Order: Digital Trade

Fri., Oct. 30, 2020 | 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Online

Speakers: Meredith Crowley, Reader in International Economics, University of Cambridge; Gregory Shaffer, Chancellor's Professor, University of California, Irvine; Mark Wu, Vice Dean, Graduate Program and International Legal Studies and Henry Stimson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Moderator: Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School

Arrangements designed to manage global trade and investment in new technologies will be a critical part of any future world order.

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Register in advance for this meeting: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYld-2rrD8sHNCn-5Gk-s48kTqNV1MBF7Xp

A nighttime view of the Lujiazui peninsula of Shanghai, seen from the Bund, 25 November 2019. Lujiazui is Shanghai’s financial district.

Wikimedia CC/Phizz

Seminar - Open to the Public

When Fast-Growing Great Powers Slow Down: Historical Evidence and Implications for China

Thu., Sep. 24, 2020 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Michael Beckley, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Tufts University

Most discussion on U.S.-China policy focuses on the implications of a rising China. This presentation, by contrast, considers some of the challenges that could be posed by an economically stagnating China. How would a severe and sustained economic growth slowdown affect China's foreign policy and military modernization? Would military conflict between China and the United States become more or less likely? This presentation addresses these questions by comparing China to past rising great powers that experienced major economic slowdowns.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/j/96550562494?pwd=REx3b1RWaVYxZWdhVW5Hbk9Ra3JEQT09

Argentina's Mauricio Macri alongside Germany's Angela Merkel and China's Xi Jinping at the G20 2017 summit, 7 July 2017.

Wikimedia CC/Casa Rosada

Seminar - Open to the Public

Burning (Atlantic) Bridges? U.S. Grand Strategy and the Rise of China in Europe

Thu., Feb. 13, 2020 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Thomas Cavanna, Visiting Assistant Professor, Center for Strategic Studies, Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University

Is the United States losing Europe to China? What could that mean from a grand strategic perspective? Those questions may appear far-fetched given the huge influence that America has exerted over Europe since 1945, the benefits that it has provided to its allies, and the latter's recent push back against Beijing and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Yet the China challenge is real and emerges in a time of major uncertainty over Washington's intentions and capabilities.

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

Protest outside of a Lotte supermarket in Jilin, China, May 2018. The Lotte Group is a South Korean conglomerate which approved a land swap with the South Korean government so that the THAAD anti-missile system could be deployed near Seoul.

VOA

Seminar - Open to the Public

Commerce and Coercion in Contemporary China

Thu., Nov. 21, 2019 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Kacie Miura, Research Fellow, International Security Program

Why do some local leaders in China respond to foreign provocations by protecting foreign commerce from diplomatic tensions, while others engage in economic retaliation? Understanding this variation is important because whether local leaders are willing to serve as agents of state punishment has implications for China's use of economic coercion. Given China's strong central government, this variation in local leader behavior is surprising, especially during foreign policy crises, when national interests are at stake. To explain local leader participation in economic retaliation, the speaker proposes a theory that draws on the economic incentives and political concerns of local leaders in China. She provides evidence from a recent foreign policy crisis between China and South Korea over the latter's deployment of the THAAD missile defense system.

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

Secretary of State George C. Marshall (3rd from right) talks with Harvard President James Bryant Conant on the steps of Widener Library during Commencement in June 1947.  Marshall had announced the Marshall Plan that day in Harvard Yard.

Harvard University Archives

Seminar - Open to the Public

Why the United States Prioritizes Europe or East Asia

Fri., Nov. 1, 2019 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Taubman Building - Allison Dining Room, 5th Floor

Speakers: Luis Simón, Professor in International Relations, Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel 

Linde Desmaele, Ph.D. Candidate and Researcher, Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel 

Why does the United States prioritize Europe or East Asia?  The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy speaks of the erosion of America's competitive edge and warns about how Russian revisionism and China's rise threaten the balance of power in Europe and East Asia.  Drawing on insights from balance of power theory, the speakers provide a framework that explains why the United States prioritizes Europe or East Asia. Such a decision, they contend, hinges primarily on the degree to which a particular competitor is able to upset the regional balance across three key domains simultaneously: military, economic, and political-diplomatic. The speakers assess their framework against those competing explanations that may point to threat or bureaucratic politics as the main drivers of U.S. regional prioritization. To probe their hypothesis, they examine how the Europe vs. Asia dilemma played out during the Cold War and post–Cold War periods.

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

Map of the countries which signed China's Belt and Road Initiative cooperation documents as of 27 April 2019 (in blue).

Wikimedia CC/owennson

Seminar - Open to the Public

Crafting Payoffs: Strategies and Effectiveness of Economic Statecraft

Thu., Oct. 24, 2019 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Audrye Wong, Grand Strategy, Security, & Statecraft Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program

Economic statecraft — the use of economic tools to pursue political goals — is an important foreign policy strategy for many major powers and has been an increasingly important tool for China. The speaker will provide a theoretical framework to explain the effectiveness of economic statecraft, focusing on positive inducements, which have been relatively understudied. She will argue that effectiveness is influenced by the interaction between two variables: (a) the type of inducement strategy; and (b) the level of public accountability in the target country. 

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

Map of Europe in 1914. During WWI,  The United Kingdom and Germany continued to trade certain items, such as hosiery needles used in textile manufacturing.

Wikimedia CC/Varmin

Seminar - Open to the Public

Planning for the Short Haul: Trade with the Enemy During War

Thu., Mar. 7, 2019 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Mariya Grinberg, Research Fellow, International Security Program

In times of war, why do belligerents continue to trade with each other? The speaker shows that states set product level commercial policies to balance two potentially conflicting goals — maximizing state revenue from continued trade during the war and minimizing the ability of the opponent to benefit from security externalities of the trade. States are more likely to trade with the enemy in (1) products that their opponents take a long time to convert into military capability and (2) products that are essential to the domestic economy. The amount of time it takes the opponent to convert gains from trade into military capabilities determines which products are too dangerous to be traded during a war. The mitigating factor is the amount of revenue the state can extract from trade. The more essential the product is to the domestic economy, the less a state can afford to lose trade in it.

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