Diplomacy and International Politics

Nicholas Burns, former American diplomat and current professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, joined Chad to react to the current situation in Syria and his thoughts on how the United States need to handle it.

According to Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. ambassador who served Bill Clinton and in both Bush administrations, Trump’s approach in Syria has more in common with Obama’s than either would likely admit. “I think that the president’s tweet yesterday was specific enough that he has effectively drawn a red line as well. I think that the president needs to respond to this.”

Robert Danin, a senior fellow with the Future Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center, comments on the Syria gas attack and the Trump administration's response. 

Putin and his government seek respect, stability from next U.S. administration, panel says.

A conversation with UN Under-Secretary-General Sigrid Kaag, the Special Coordinator for the OPCW-UN Joint Mission to eliminate the chemical weapons program in Syria, hosted by Future of Diplomacy Project Executive Director Cathryn Clüver.

"The worsening situation in Syria threatens the Middle East in many ways that will continue to evolve in the months and years ahead, but perhaps the most troubling threat is the continued expansion of the hardline groups of Salafist-takfiri Islamists, such as Al-Nusra Front and The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), that have established themselves in parts of Syria."

The US can no longer afford to stay on the sidelines in Syria, writes Professor Burns in this week's GlobalPost piece.  The stakes and consequences are just too high to do otherwise.

The Summer 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features analysis and advice by Belfer Center scholars regarding the historic upheavals in the Middle East and the disastrous consequences of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Center’s new Geopolitics of Energy project is also highlighted, along with efforts by the Project on Managing the Atom to strengthen nuclear export rules.