7 Items

The Republican Palace in Baghdad, Iraq, 22 Feb. 2010. The palace served as the headquarters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the Green Zone developed around it.

Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Don't Knock Offshore Balancing Until You've Tried It

| December 8, 2016

"Offshore balancing has not failed in the Middle East because it hasn't been U.S. strategy for almost a generation. The United States did act like an offshore balancer from 1945 to about 1990: It had vital interests in the region and wanted to prevent any state (including the Soviet Union) from controlling the Gulf. But it pursued this goal first by relying on Great Britain (until 1967) and then by turning to local allies like the shah of Iran. After the shah fell in 1979, the United States created the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) so it could affect the balance of power swiftly and directly and thus deter a possible Soviet foray into the Gulf. But it didn't park the RDF in the Gulf or elsewhere in the region; instead, it kept it offshore and over the horizon and didn't use it until Iraq seized Kuwait in August 1990."

ISIS as Revolutionary State

Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

ISIS as Revolutionary State

| November/December 2015

"Regional actors will no doubt try to pass the buck and get Americans to do their fighting for them. U.S. leaders should reject such ploys politely but firmly and pass the buck right back. ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States, to Middle Eastern energy supplies, to Israel, or to any other vital U.S. interest, so U.S. military forces have no business being sent into harm's way to fight it."

Floor statement by U.S. Senator John McCain on Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA Interrogation Methods. December 9, 2014.

U.S. Congress

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Failures to Launch

| December 11, 2014

"Contrast that admirable clarity and responsiveness with the way that the United States deals with far more costly foreign policy screw-ups. Even when the strategic and/or human consequences are enormous, the U.S. government finds it nearly impossible to evaluate what went wrong in a candid, clear-eyed, and timely manner. It is even harder for the government to assign responsibility for wrongdoing; if anything, officials tend to bend over backward to shield wrongdoers..."

Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby briefs reporters at the Pentagon, Sept. 25, 2014. Kirby showed slides and videos highlighting U.S. airstrikes on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant targets in Syria.

DoD

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Much Ado About the Islamic State

| October 13, 2014

"Absent effective political institutions, efforts to move from authoritarian to more participatory forms of government tend to provoke bitter quarrels between previously advantaged groups and those who have been excluded from wealth or power. In a world where most states are in fact multiethnic or multinational, democratization was bound to provoke greater internal conflicts, at least in the short term."

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security

Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2011

| Spring 2011

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.

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

Belfer Center Newsletter Winter 2010-11

| Winter 2010-11

The Winter 2010/11 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 a major Belfer Center conference on technology and governance, the Center's involvement in the nuclear threat documentary Countdown to Zero, and a celebration of Belfer Center founder Paul Doty.