The United States needs to change its strategy of coercive diplomacy if it is to have any chance of achieving its highest-priority goals in North Korea. 

With U.S. oil production on a long-term uptick, the long-standing ban on direct exports of crude should be abolished. Bills in both houses of Congress propose to do just that, and on July 30 the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee sent one of them, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s Energy Policy Modernization Act, to the Senate floor for a vote.

Let’s hope the export ban is lifted with broad bipartisan support. The result will increase U.S. jobs and increase the country’s influence in world oil markets, with little risk of higher gasoline prices for consumers.

The Secretary of Energy on December 20, 2013 established the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) Task Force on Nuclear Nonproliferation (TFNN) and charged it to “advise the DOE on future areas of emphasis for its nuclear nonproliferation activities by addressing the following questions:

1. What are the current and likely future challenges to nuclear nonproliferation?

2. What should DOE be doing to help the United States Government prepare to meet those challenges?

3. What are DOE’s current areas of emphasis in nuclear nonproliferation?

4. In what ways should DOE’s nuclear nonproliferation efforts be modified and/or expanded?

5. What obstacles stand in the way of making the recommended changes in DOE’s nuclear nonproliferation activities, and how might they be overcome?”

Today the Senate Intelligence Committee released reports from the majority and minority concerning CIA detention and interrogation activities following the 9/11 attacks. Americans and their friends should not welcome the report of the majority members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is inaccurate, it endangers U.S. security, and it is unfair to administration officials, members of Congress and intelligence officers.

"President Obama has put energy and the environment at the top of his second-term agenda. The focus has been on climate change, and on exploiting the unexpected plenty of North American oil, gas and energy technology. The administration's progress has been notable...," writes John Deutch.

"The president's highest priority is to reduce the carbon-dioxide emissions of existing electricity generating power plants....The projected CO2 reductions—about 30% below 2005 levels by 2030—are reasonable and shouldn't significantly increase industry or consumer costs."

The president's new manufacturing technology initiative understandably stresses the potential advantage to U.S. firms and workers, write John Deutch and Edward Steinfeld. However, they argue, "It doesn't acknowledge the growing global character of manufacturing, especially in high-technology fields, or the difficulty of designing assistance programs that target 'inside the U.S.' activities only."

"Two summers ago, natural gas cost $4.50 per thousand cubic feet, which was less than half what it had cost two summers earlier. Today the price is under $2.50," writes John Deutch, former director of teh C.I.A. and a member of the Belfer Center's International Council. "A United States hopelessly dependent on imported oil and natural gas is a thing of the past. Most energy experts now project that North America will have the capacity to be a net exporter of oil and natural gas by the end of this decade."

Mr. Obama took a giant step beyond the Bush administration's "Afghanistan policy" when he named the issue "AfPak" -- Afghanistan, Pakistan and their shared, Pashtun-populated border. But this is inverted. We suggest renaming the policy "PakAf," to emphasize that, from the perspective of U.S. interests and regional stability, the heart of the problem lies in Pakistan.

John Deutch, MIT professor and member of the Belfer Center’s Board of Directors and International Council, testified on September 12, 2008 before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources’ Senate Energy Summit on the importance of taking several simultaneous energy-related actions to achieve a sustainable future.

Deutch noted that the U.S. economy is not meeting the three great energy challenges the country faces – moving away from a petroleum based economy, reducing CO2 emissions, and managing foreign policy consequences of energy dependence.  He proposed seven priority actions the country should take - ranging from establishing a charge for greenhouse gas emissions to expanding the use of commercial nuclear power.