Diplomacy and International Politics

Dr. Ian Bremmer, expert in political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group, gave a seminar sponsored by the the Future of Diplomacy Project on Thursday, November 9 at the Harvard Kennedy School, titled “Managing Risk in an Unstable World."

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

The tensions unsettling the Saudi royal family became clear in September, when Joseph Westphal, the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh, flew to Jiddah to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, nominally the heir to the throne. But when he arrived, he was told that the deputy crown prince, a brash 30-year-old named Mohammed bin Salman, wanted to see him urgently. Senior Fellow, David Ignatius, discusses Mohammed bin Salman opportunity to transform Saudi Arabia.

The agreement to freeze production was geopolitical not economic, writes Meghan O’Sullivan in the Financial Times.

In this article, Professor Burns illustrates all that Russian President Vladimir Putin has done to destabilize Eastern Ukraine during the past twelve months. He also makes the point that President Obama and Chancellor Merkel must now push back in three ways if the current cease-fire continues to unravel: 1) to agree on significantly stronger economic sanctions; 2) to provide much more substantial economic assistance to the Ukrainian government; and 3) to deliver lethal military assistance to the Ukrainian government.

In a Harvard Kennedy School IDEASpHERE session titled "Challenges to US Global Leadership," Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, David Gergen, David Ignatius, and Meghan O’Sullivan discussed challenges as well as opportunities facing the United States. Burns moderated the session.

Challenges include the rise of China and the future of the U.S.-China relationship, the crises taking place around the world, and the reputation of the U.S. worldwide. An unexpected opportunity is the increase in available energy sources in the United States.

According to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, currently a Fischer Family Fellow with the Belfer Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project, “Any presidential election is in part a referendum on the 3 a.m. question: Whom do you trust to answer and make a wise decision if the red phone rings in the middle of the night with a nuclear crisis? The remaining weeks of this presidential campaign will focus more on the foreign policy issues that will help Americans make this decision. And it should help concentrate our minds that this month marks the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous moment in modern American history, the Cuban missile crisis.”

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.