8 Items

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."

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.

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

- 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."

President Barack Obama and moderator Bob Schieffer, right, listen to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, left, during the third presidential debate at Lynn University, Oct. 22, 2012, in Boca Raton, Fla.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

Shopping List Foreign Policy

| October 23, 2012

"...[T]onight's debate didn't change many (any?) voters' opinions about either candidate. And it left national security wonks I know banging their heads against the table, still wondering how the election will affect America's foreign policies in the years ahead. But at least we're now certain the military has fewer bayonets than it did in 1916."

Mar. 23, 2011: Afghan detainees are seen through mesh wire fence inside the Parwan detention facility near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Oversight of the main U.S. detention center in Afghanistan has been transfered to the Afghan government.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

Dead Men Share No Secrets

| September 25, 2012

"But this one-sided approach — always opting to kill instead of capture — is a major weakness of America's current approach to counterterrorism. It deprives us of significant amounts of intelligence about what Al Qaeda is thinking and planning, and information that could help find other senior terrorists. After all, it was intelligence from a detainee that helped American forces track down Bin Laden."