Nuclear Issues

Nicholas Burns, former U.S. undersecretary of State, provides insight to top international trouble spots next year, including containing North Korea, China trade, and U.S. relations with Russia.

Belfer Center Director and former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was interviewed about North Korea by Robert Siegel on NPR's All Things Considered. Carter said that while U.S. defense systems should stop a North Korean attack, he believes the threat must be met with coercive diplomacy.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Fall 2017 Fisher Family Fellow at the Future of Diplomacy Project and Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs outlined the U.S. Department of Energy's role in diplomacy, "energy diplomacy," while she was Deputy Secretary for the Department. The conversation was moderated by Nicholas Burns, Faculty Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations.

Ambassador Douglas Lute, former ambassador to the North Atlantic Council, NATO's principal decision-making body, spoke at the Future of Diplomacy project on NATO's role today, adapting to current threats, and Russia's relationship with NATO and its member States.

Douglas Lute, former Ambassador to the North Atlantic Council, speaks with Nicholas Burns (who held the Ambassadorship before Ambassador Lute) about the strategic inflection point that NATO faces, particularly because of Russia.

President Donald Trump, in unprecedented fashion, has been able to get the Chinese government to turn the screws on North Korea in hopes of getting Kim Jong Un to halt military provocations, according to a former diplomat who has advised Republican and Democratic presidents.

"The Chinese have done more under President Trump's prodding than any other American president. They signed on to the UN sanctions. There are now individual Chinese sanctions; the central bank governors instructed banks in China to wind up loans to North Korea," Nicholas Burns told CNBC on Friday. He appeared on "Squawk Box," a week before Trump embarks on a trip to Asia, which includes stops in China and South Korea.