Diplomacy and International Politics

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow on Tuesday with perhaps more experience negotiating with Russians than any new secretary of state since John Quincy Adams — whose first diplomatic mission to Saint Petersburg preceded his admission to Harvard, and who served as our young republic’s first minister to the czarist court. Tillerson needs no advice on how to deal with Moscow, but he leaves behind a country riven by arguments about Russia. Democrats are furious over interference in the U.S. presidential election, whereas some Republicans have developed a blind spot in the weather eye they traditionally train on U.S. national security issues. Reestablishing a rough consensus on principles to guide American relations with Russia, therefore, is a high foreign policy priority. Five ideas might start that process.

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.