Nuclear Issues

The Spring 2019 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features two major reports: A Vision for Nuclear Security, from the Project on Managing the Atom, and NATO in Crisis, a  70th anniversary report from former NATO Ambassadors Nicholas Burns and Douglas Lute. The newsletter also highlights Center Korea scholars' reactions to the shortened Trump-Kim Summit in Hanoi, and some takeaways from nuclear experts who recently examined samples of Iranian nuclear-related documents spirited out of Iran by a clandestine Israeli intelligence operation.

And there's much more.

The Belfer Center’s Iran Project and the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) co-sponsored a luncheon panel on the Iranian nuclear negotiations and the scenarios for the potential breakdown of current international talks on Iran, entitled “And Then What? Imagining the Middle East if Nuclear Negotiations with Iran Fail.”

Belfer Center at IDEASpHERE 2014

Incisive questions and ambitious answers marked Harvard Kennedy School’s IDEASpHERE celebration in late spring. Belfer Center thinkers shared their big ideas in more than a dozen sessions, ranging from China's rise to nuclear weapons.

Below is a sampling of notable thoughts from those sessions. For more, including summaries and video highlights, see belfercenter.org/ideasphere2014.

The Winter 2011-2012 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features news, analysis and insight by Belfer Center scholars on issues that include increasingly important info-tech policy challenges and the first U.S.-Russian joint threat assessment on nuclear terrorism. The Center’s deepening impact on defense policy is highlighted with an article about the recent appointments of Ashton B. Carter and Eric Rosenbach to senior Pentagon posts and a Q&A with Carter, the new deputy secretary of defense. Additional articles focus on issues ranging from the Palestinian bid for statehood to Calestous Juma’s role in Lagos’ launch of the first innovation advisory council in Africa.

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

Kevin Ryan is director of the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism.

"In an effort to address this [nuclear terrorism] threat, the Belfer Center has teamed with other United States and Russian partners to form the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism. The goal of the Initiative is to contribute to improved joint U.S.-Russian assessment of the threat of nuclear terrorism and concepts, strategy, and actions to prevent a successful nuclear attack by terrorists."

"The purpose of the exercise was to illuminate the possible evolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis over the next year based on policy choices made by concerned countries.... Several participants offered their takeaways from the exercise."

"I summarized my own takeaway from the Iran simulation in a poor-man's version of Yogi Berra: if the river is pushing your raft to where you don't want to go, if you just hang on, you'll get there. My second: if you don't want to go where the river is pushing your raft, you better get off."

Several representatives of the Dubai Initiative at the Belfer Center participated in the 4th annual Arab Strategy Forum (ASF), which took place in Dubai in December. The Dubai School of Government (DSG) played a key role in developing the format and content for the ASF, a center of Arab strategic thinking and the main launch pad for regional programs and initiatives.