13 Items

The amphibious transport dock ships USS San Antonio (LPD 17) and USS New York (LPD 21) are underway together in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia, June 9, 2011. Suspected terrorists have been held aboard both of these ships.

USMC Photo

Analysis & Opinions - The Atlantic

America's Floating Prisons

| June 27, 2014

"The U.S. government has also embraced the approach because it has limited options for holding and interrogating men like Abu Khattala after capture. The Obama administration remains committed to ending detention operations at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. While the facility is still home to almost 150 alleged terrorists, the United States has not sent any new detainees there since March 2008. Detaining suspected terrorists at other overseas facilities is likewise not an option."

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

Don't Bank On It

| July/August 2014

"Mobile-based financial tools are thus highly vulnerable to abuse by money launderers and terrorist financiers. But if governments and financial institutions find ways of addressing these security issues, the mobile-finance revolution could provide benefits far beyond helping the poor."

U.S. Airmen with the 451st Expeditionary Operations Group participate in a Memorial Day ceremony at Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, May 27, 2013.

DoD Photo

Analysis & Opinions - New Yorker

Memorial Day, at War

| May 24, 2014

"For most of Kabul, it was a mundane Monday. For soldiers on a small base in the city’s center, it was another day at war, another day planning a response to the Taliban spring offensive. For the Americans in that group, it was also Memorial Day."

UK-funded food vouchers are distributed to Syrian refugees in Amman, Jordan, through the World Food Programme, Aug. 29, 2013. Over 500,000 Syrian refugees are staying in urban host communities in Jordan and depend on humanitarian support.

DFID Photo via CC

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

Jordan's Urban Refugees

| March 17, 2014

"To avoid further destabilizing Jordan, Washington and Amman must act now to contain the Syrian spillover. First, both countries must seek out medium- and long-term solutions, shifting their focus from a stopgap emphasis on humanitarian aid to a combination of aid and development assistance. This means, in part, supporting Jordan's recent request for $4.1 billion from the international community to improve health, education and other public services used by Syrian refugees in urban areas."

Syrian refugees in Lebanon staying in small cramped quarters, 3 September 2012.

VOA Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Philadelphia Inquirer

Between a Rock, a Hard Place, and a Humanitarian Crisis

| March 9, 2014

"...While politicians at home and overseas focus on how to help end the war through anything short of direct intervention, it's time for the international community — both public and private sectors — to focus on long-term strategies to support the growing Syrian refugee population."

Book Chapter

Saudi Arabia's 'Soft' Approach to Terrorist Prisoners: A Model for Others?

| 2014

Faced with an extremist prisoner population numbered in the thousands, Saudi officials developed tools intending to prevent prisoner radicalization, to mitigate the risk when an alleged or convicted terrorist was released, and to deal with domestic political concerns about prisoner treatment. What emerged was a unique and highly tailored approach that included rehabilitation-oriented programs in prisons and at prisoner rehabilitation centers, and 'aftercare' support for recently released prisoners.

GHŌR, Afghanistan: May 28, 2012, Former Taliban fighters line up to handover their rifles to the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during a reintegration ceremony at the provincial governor's compound.

DoD Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Christian Science Monitor

Pakistan's Release of Taliban Prisoners—An Empty Deal

| November 12, 2013

At the request of Afghan officials, Pakistan has reportedly released almost 40 Taliban combatants, supposedly to help spur peace negotiations. But experience shows this is wishful thinking. These prisoner releases give the Taliban something they want, while providing nothing in return.

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Marisa Porges on Syria, Russia, the U.S. and the Rebels

| September 18, 2013

Did the U.S. threat of force push Bashar Assad's regime to relinquish its chemical weapons? International Security Program Fellow Marisa Porges isn't so sure. Porges dives into the complicated situation in Syria, analyzing the interests of various players including the Russians, the United States, and the hundreds of individual groups that comprise the Syrian resistance

First stage in the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, 20 October 1986.

Wikimedia Commons

Report - International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence

Talking to the Taliban: Hope over History?

| July 2013

Talking to the Taliban: Hope over History? provides a history of attempts to talk to the Taliban. The publication of the report coincides with the announcement that the United States will begin direct negotiations with the Taliban within days. The report charts the history of talks with the Taliban and their forebears. It explains that such talks are nothing new and that contacts have existed between the Taliban and the West for many years and argues that attempts to negotiate with the Taliban since 2001 have been characterised by wishful thinking, bad timing, poor management and the 'chaos of good intentions'.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Marisa Porges' Journey from Naval Flight Officer to Counterterror Expert

    Author:
  • Wesley Nord
| Summer 2013

"Belfer Center Fellow Marisa Porges' career has already spanned the worlds of academia and policymaking, the government and the military. As an undergraduate at Harvard, Porges earned honors with a degree in geophysics and, during senior year, commanded her Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps unit. After graduation, she commissioned as a naval flight officer in the U.S. Navy and managed the weapons systems aboard EA-6B Prowlers, a carrier-based electronic warfare jet.... [now] as a doctoral candidate in the Department of War Studies at King's College London and a research fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program, she now combines scholarship and practice."