A group of top-level American and Japanese academics and officials gathered for a Belfer Center conference in March to discuss the U.S.-Japan alliance and the rise of China.

Former NATO Ambassador Douglas E. Lute joined the Belfer Center in April as a Senior Fellow with the Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project.

A lively discussion of “Russiagate” at the JFK Jr. Forum on Tuesday, May 2, launched the 2017 annual meeting of the Belfer Center International Council . 

Never before has a nation risen so fast on so many dimensions. 

Senator Dan Sullivan (R - Alaska) discusses Graham Allison's book Destined for War: Can American and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? during a senate session on May 8, 2017.

Graham Allison, veteran foreign policy analyst at Harvard’s Kennedy School, warns us about the dangers of new power players caught in an old game. The so-called “Thucydides Trap,” Allison explains, is a predictable pattern of conflict that crops up when rising and declining powers meet on the staircase of international hierarchy. Whether it’s Athens and Sparta in Thucydides’s day, or the U.S. and China today, the conflicts in these scenarios seem almost inevitable.

The Belfer Center's incoming senior fellows, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers, provided their insights into Russia's influence over the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Belfer Center Director Graham Allison moderated.

Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf announced on March 28 that Belfer Center Director Graham Allison will step down as director of the Center at the end of the academic year and will be succeeded by former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Carter’s former Chief of Staff Eric Rosenbach. Both Carter and Rosenbach are alumni of the Belfer Center.

Carter will join Harvard Kennedy School as the Belfer Center director and the Belfer Professor of Technology and Global Affairs, a new professorship established by a gift from Robert and Renée Belfer. As Secretary of Defense, Carter, a physicist, became known for pushing the Pentagon to “think outside its five-sided box.” At Harvard, he will focus his scholarship on the role of innovation and technology in addressing challenges at home and around the world.

Belfer Center Director Graham Allison's forthcoming book examines the potential for a war to erupt between the U.S. and China.

As this newsletter went to press, we had cause to celebrate: Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is coming home to Harvard to lead the Belfer Center. I am thrilled to pass the Director's baton to such a towering scholar, strategist, and public servant. Ash exemplifies the Center's commitment to build a more secure, peaceful world.

Together, with his new co-director, Eric Rosenbach - a Center alumnus and a leading cyber security and defense official - a great Center is set to become even greater. As one of Ash's conditions for taking the job, I promised to stay actively involved at the Center: teaching, researching, and writing.