International Security & Defense

Contribution and consequence. That’s how Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter described the “magic” of Harvard Kennedy School’s spirit of public service during a JFK Jr. Forum here in December. Carter, a former Kennedy School professor and Belfer Center director, joined Graham Allison and a forum full of students, faculty, and service members for a homecoming conversation on topics ranging from ISIS and the South China Sea to cyber threats and innovation at the Department of Defense.

Daniel Schrag, the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology and professor of environmental science and engineering at Harvard, is the new director of the Belfer Center’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP). Schrag, who has a doctorate in geology, also directs the Harvard University Center for the Environment. He studies climate and climate change in the distant past and works on issues related to energy technology and policy. Schrag is also a member of President Obama’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.

For the past four years, faculty and fellows from Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have partnered in a project called "Explorations in Cyber International Relations." The ECIR project’s brief is "to explore alternative cyber developments, assess challenges and threats, and identify possibilities and opportunities in cyberspace for security and well-being."

The Belfer Center is keeping up its impressive track record of sending Center affiliates to take up senior positions in the federal government. This fall, two Center veterans were tapped for jobs that are among the most challenging in the Department of Defense. Ashton B. Carter was named deputy secretary of defense and Eric Rosenbach was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy.

The Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom convened a workshop in April to discuss measures for strengthening restraints on the transfer of enrichment and recycling technologies, with a particular focus on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).  The workshop was held in Washington DC and hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).