Meghan L. O'Sullivan is a lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. From July 2004 to September 2007, she was special assistant to President George W. Bush and served as deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan during part of that tenure. She spent more than two years in Iraq, most recently in fall 2008 at the request of Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General Raymond Odierno, to help conclude the security agreement and strategic framework agreement between the United States and Iraq.

The Belfer Center's Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution (ICP) traveled to meet with leaders and officials in Rwanda and Malawi in January to discuss the 2008 Index of African Governance.

President Obama has nominated PDP Co-Director Dr. Ashton B. Carter to serve as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L).

President Barack Obama announced Monday that he has nominated Dr. Ashton B. Carter to serve as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

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.

According to demographic projections, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian fundamentalists will gain significant ground against their liberal and secular counterparts by 2050, even surpassing them in some cases, Belfer Center Fellow Eric Kaufmann said at last week’s International Security Program (ISP) brownbag presentation.

Israelis and Palestinians must reconcile their differences from within before they can have productive talks with each other about moving toward a peace agreement, according to two Middle East experts at Wednesday’s [February 11] John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, “The Road to Peace After Gaza.”

Former Vice President Al Gore charged universities with the task of bringing the truth of the climate crisis into the global consciousness yesterday at Harvard’s Sustainability Celebration.

The U.S. must work with other countries – both those with nuclear capacities and those without – to move toward a nuclear-free world, according to former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA).

"African countries need new constitutional orders to cope with modern economic challenges, Calestous Juma said at a recent lecture....A major challenge is based in the constitutions and laws left behind for the newly liberated countries. 'What was being negotiated as independence was really an exercise in constitutional continuity from the colonial period through independence,' Juma said....While there is enormous pressure on African countries to focus on economic programs, they are unable to because the governmental framework left behind did not integrate the economic role of the colonizer into the new role of president."