International Security

Speaker: Paul Behringer, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

Massacres are a common occurrence during times of war. Although the reasons vary as to why and the context within which this type of killing transpires, massacres also share certain characteristics across space and time. The greatest atrocity of the Russian Civil War in the Far East occurred in 1920 at Nikolaevsk, a town of 15,000 residents located near the mouth of the Amur River. By examining those who perpetrated the massacre, the types of violence they deployed, the victims who died, and how observers chose to document it, scholars and policymakers can understand what often seems at first glance to be senseless violence.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcuce2uqjssGtQlipRsIG2OTS0adywtkgT-

A Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) seminar with Caitlin Talmadge, Associate Professor of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and Brendan Green, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati.

Speaker: Anina Schwarzenbach, Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program

Nowadays, the availability of large databases on terrorist events allows researchers to shed light on patterns of terrorist activities and provides for new insights on how and where terrorism proliferates. Still, scholars and policymakers know little as to why in some countries, and periods in time, terrorist activities are much more frequent than in others. As for now, popular explanations on the root causes of terrorism, such as poverty, have resulted in inconsistent empirical evidence. Other concepts widely applied in political science and criminology, such as approaches drawn from political legitimacy, have been neglected in the study of terrorism.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUqcuGsrTwrH9fnixp6gfngWf4DMq5itcO4

Speaker: William James, Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Fellow, International Security Program

Why did Britain withdraw from its military bases in the Persian Gulf, Malaysia, and Singapore? The current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, believes that the drawdown was a mistake, taken rashly in January 1968 as pro-European Cabinet members seized on a financial crisis to end the "East of Suez" role. This interpretation — that retrenchment was the result of Britain's weak economic position and domestic politics — aligns with most of the historiography. In this seminar, that view will be questioned. Based on extensive archival research, the speaker offers an alternative explanation on the timing and motives for the withdrawal. The talk will conclude with policy recommendations for current practitioners in London, who are charting a return "East of Suez" under the post-Brexit banner of "Global Britain."

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/v5MocuCqqzIi2Lg5FwAv24-wwUO2wr5XXg

A Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) book talk with Daniel Ellsberg on his book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

Speaker: Ariel Petrovics, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

Economic sanctions are one of the most common coercive tools of foreign policy, used regularly in an effort to change target state behavior. Yet despite their versatility and prevalence in international relations, sanctions are at best an unreliable tool of foreign policy. Indeed, many of the most important and publicized sanction attempts have failed to produce any desired change in the target. Existing literature on the effectiveness of sanctions has largely focused on whether or not sanctions eventually succeed, but this overlooks the arguable more policy relevant questions of when and under what conditions sanctions are effective tools of statecraft. The speaker's research  finds that sanctions with the greatest implications for international security — such as those that combat nuclear proliferation or foreign military aggression — fail even more catastrophically than their less salient counterparts.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Click here. Meeting ID number: 810311271

A Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) book talk with Fred Kaplan, author of The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War.

Speaker: John Holland-McCowan, Research Fellow, International Security Program

In the U.S.-led coalition's campaign against ISIS in Syria, the controversial and understudied Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have served as the tip of the spear. This seminar will present what underpinned the Syrian Kurds' remarkable success from mid 2014 to mid 2017 before discussing the broader implications for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom!  Click here. Meeting ID number: 596848662

A Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) seminar with Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund.

This seminar will be held online via Zoom. RSVP below to receive the livestream link.

Speaker: Nathaniel L. Moir, Ernest May Postdoctoral Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

This seminar investigates how Vietnam War scholar and Indochina expert, Bernard Fall (1926–1967), developed his conception of Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare and how he applied this knowledge to his analysis of the First and Second Indochina Wars.

Please join us online via Zoom!  Click here.  Meeting name: International Security Program - March 26 2020