Nuclear Issues

As a young man in the small city of Ogden, Utah, Brandon Parker found himself increasingly interested in the U.S. Air Force, a service where his step-father had made his career. Recruited by the Air Force Academy to play basketball, Parker didn't initially want to become a pilot. But after his initial flight-screening program, he called his mother out of excitement to let her know that he had found exactly what he was meant to do. Until recently, Lieutenant Colonel Parker commanded a nuclear bomber unit based in North Dakota. This year, Parker a research fellow with the Center's International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, is conducting research on nuclear nonproliferation.

As U.S. and Soviet forces converged in Germany in the final days of WWII, both armies met at the River Elbe near Torgau. That meeting of comrades, united in the face of common threats, is the inspiration for the Belfer Center’s “Elbe Group,” whose purpose is to maintain an open and continuous channel of communication on sensitive issues of U.S.-Russian relations. In late March, the Elbe Group met in Jerusalem for its eighth meeting since its founding in 2010.

The Spring 2013 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 edition highlights the Belfer Center’s deepening engagement with China.

International Security is America’s leading journal of security affairs. It provides sophisticated analyses of contemporary security issues and discusses their conceptual and historical foundations. The journal is edited at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and published quarterly by the MIT Press.

John Park, a senior research associate at the U.S. Institute of Peace and currently a visiting fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, recently sat down with for a one-on-one interview where he talked about his work with the Center and his contributions to the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit.

The Belfer Center's Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Ashraf Hegazy, Joseph S. Nye, and Stephen Walt consider the U.S.'s shifting foreign policy in the Middle East.

The Belfer Center is both proud and humbled that a number of its members have been asked to serve in the Obama Administration. The group's experience and expertise span many of the international challenges confronting the nation today.

Two groups focusing on nuclear weapons, both chaired by James Schlesinger – former secretary of energy, defense, and central intelligence and head of the Belfer Center International Council – recently released reports detailing the threats facing and challenges of the United States’ nuclear stockpile and policy.