Nuclear Issues

An audio recording from His Royal Highness Prince Turki Al Faisal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, former Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States (2005-2007) and former Director General of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Directorate (1977-2001).

On November 18, 2014 Prince Turki spoke on regional instability and forces at work in the region, including power politics, energy markets, violent extremism, and theological divides, in a public address moderated by Kennedy School professor Nicholas Burns.

The last seven decades without war among the great powers – what historians describe as “the long peace” – is a remarkable achievement. “This is a rare and unusual fact if you look at the last few thousand years of history,” said Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center and moderator of the IDEASpHERE panel “Winning the Peace.” “Furthermore, it is no accident. Wise choices by statesmen have contributed to ‘the long peace,’ which has allowed many generations to live their lives.”

The thought that what we are now witnessing in Ukraine could trigger a cascade of actions and reactions that end in war will strike most readers as fanciful. Fortunately, it is, writes Graham Allison. But we should not forget that in May 1914, the possibility that the assassination of an Archduke could produce a world war seemed almost inconceivable. History teaches that unlikely, even unimaginable events do happen.

An audio recording from November 4, 2013, when Professor Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, interviewed Mr. Dan Meridor, Harvard Kennedy School Lamont Lecturer and former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, about US-Israel relations, Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

This seminar examined the prospects for further nuclear arms reductions between the United States and Russia, including the possibility that negotiations might be expanded to weapons not limited by the New START Treaty. The seminar covered U.S. and Russian differences over missile defense and how those might be resolved to allow a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense arrangement for Europe.

In Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s view, “the significant unknowns” during the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly catapulted John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev into nuclear war. For former diplomat Nicholas Burns, the principal take-away from the crisis was the importance of giving an adversary a way out of a confrontation short of complete surrender. Allison and Burns were panelists on Oct. 14 at a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to consider the modern lessons flowing from the missile crisis. The event kicked off an intensive series of seminars and workshops for scholars from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to mark the 50th anniversary of the missile crisis. Panel moderator Juliette Kayyem, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy, reminded the audience that the missile crisis is often framed through the myth of the tough American president staring down the Russian foe and making him blink. Kayyem said that version fails to capture the nuanced secret diplomacy and the American concessions that made a deal possible.

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former director of intelligence and counterintelligence at the Department of Energy, argues that despite not falling victim to a major terrorist event in the last 10 years, the United States must not be complacent in its counter-terrorism efforts. Mowatt-Larssen said in a Belfer Center seminar in September that he believes the possibility of a major attack is higher in the next 10 years than in the preceding decade.

In 1985, researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School published a book called “Hawks, Doves, and Owls,” and gave it an ambitious subtitle: “An Agenda for Avoiding Nuclear War.” Those scholars gathered again at the School on Monday (May 16) for a seminar on the current challenges in avoiding nuclear war — and to marvel at just how drastically the nuclear threat has morphed in the two decades since the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed.

In a year marked by both hopeful trends and alarming challenges, the Belfer Center’s mission to provide thoughtful, policy-relevant research and insights for a more secure, peaceful world has never been more timely. In 2015, our faculty and fellows delved into critical issues from Iran’s nuclear program, China’s rise, and Russian relations to violent extremism, climate talks, U.S. leadership, and economic growth. Whether in books, reports, testimony, commentary, or multimedia, see the ways our experts responded to a world in need of impactful ideas.