Diplomacy and International Politics

President Trump is off the hook. Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t. That seems a fair, concise reading of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, at least as summarized Sunday by Attorney General William Barr. Understandably, the first half of this formulation is getting the most attention right now, but the second half is equally important for America’s leaders and citizens to keep in mind in the months ahead.

Air Vice Marshall (Ret.) of the Indian Air Force and Fellow at Harvard's Asia Institute, Dr. Arjun Subramaniam spoke at the Future of Diplomacy Project with its Faculty Director, Nicholas Burns about the intricacies of the India-China relationship.

"What happens when, after another dozen major attacks, the chain of their barbarism outpaces the chain of our human solidarity? When is the permissible moment to start asking if we can muster as much wisdom and realism to fight terror as we do to harness emotions of solidarity? The recent increasing pace and widening geographic scope of terror suggest we are dealing with a qualitatively new kinds of terrorists — but the policy responses of governments and the emotional responses of entire societies suggest we have no idea how to respond to quell this monster."

Sometime over the next several years, the next U.S. president could confront a genuinely dangerous threat from a faraway place — a North Korean missile that can hit U.S. territory with a nuclear warhead. David Ignatius, Senior Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project examines the threat from across the Pacific.

The Future of Diplomacy Project held its annual Europe Week during February inviting influential practitioners and experts on European affairs. Their public discussions offered Harvard Kennedy School students and faculty a unique opportunity to grapple with the intractactable geopolitical issues at play in Europe concerning NATO, the EU migration crisis, German leadership, and the rise of European populism.

We should be cheering the fact that the American and Iranian foreign ministers are now trading accusations in public about who is to blame for the lack of a full agreement in last week’s Geneva negotiations on the issues of Iran’s nuclear industry and the UN and American sanctions on Iran. It is so much healthier to have the foreign ministers exchanging ideas of how to reach a negotiated agreement than to have them threaten each other with more sanctions and faster development of nuclear capabilities.

The dramatic developments in Egypt since June 30 will continue to unfold at a brisk pace and many outcomes are possible, but we can draw four main lessons from the events to date, related to the Muslim Brotherhood, the opposition, the armed forces, and the citizenry as a whole and its determination to complete the democratic transition that started in January 2011. This week’s events and what is to follow are the inevitable attempt by masses of ordinary Egyptians to transform the “popular legitimacy” that was born in January 2011 into institutions of participation and accountability in the public political realm.

China and India's simultaneous rise weighs closely on the destiny of Southeast Asia, writes Belfer Center International Council member Anindya Barkie. Their cooperation would benefit all surrounding neighbors; their contensions could tear the region apart.

The Summer 2010 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 involvement with the Nuclear Security Summit, which was organized by Center alumni Gary Samore and Laura Holgate.

"The Nobel Peace Prize Committee cited Obama's dedication to arms control and nonproliferation when announcing last Friday his selection as this year's laureate. If he creates a positive, mutually reinforcing dynamic in the way he presents and sequences the two treaties [NPT and CTBT], it will give momentum and coherence to follow-on negotiations and the agreements that they produce."