87 Items

Taliban fighters patrol on the road

AP/Abdul Khaliq, file

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

Should the United States Normalize Relations with the Taliban?

| Aug. 21, 2023

Foreign Affairs has recently published a number of articles on how the United States should engage with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, extremist forces within the regime, how the West can help ordinary Afghans, and the fate of the country’s women. To complement these essays, Foreign Affairs asked a broad pool of experts for their take. As with previous surveys, Foreign Affairs approached dozens of authorities with expertise relevant to the question at hand, along with leading generalists in the field. Participants were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with a proposition and to rate their confidence level in their opinion. Two Belfer Center experts participated, International Security Executive Editor Jacqueline L. Hazelton and Future of Diplomacy Project Senior Fellow Paula Dobriansky.

A crowd gathers on Tunis' main avenue, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019. Tunisian polling agencies are forecasting that conservative law professor Kais Saied has overwhelmingly won the North African country's presidential election.

AP Photo/Hassene Dridi

Analysis & Opinions - Harvard Kennedy School Magazine

A Fragile State

| Feb. 04, 2020

PRIOR TO THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP, and the current season of hand- wringing about democracy’s prospects for survival in the United States and Europe, Western social scientists tended to think of democracy as something “we” had achieved and “they”—that is, the peoples of the so-called developing world—had yet to grasp. The hypothesized reasons for this gap between “us” and “them” were many.

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Journal Article - Études

Hong Kong, a Democratic Voice in China

| Spring 2020

Hong Kong is unique. While the writer Han Suyin’s description—“a borrowed place, on borrowed time” —seemed redundant upon the return of the territory to China on July 1, 1997, the former British colony appears to be perpetually exposed to uncertainty over its future. Despite long months of sociopolitical crisis and violence, Hong Kong has once again shown that it has lost none of its personality. Amidst the climate of upheaval and faced with a Chinese regime determined to obstruct any hopes of democracy, the people of Hong Kong have managed to attract international and media attention, marking them out from any other Chinese territory—including those that enjoy special status: Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Macao, and even Xinjiang, where nearly a million people from the minority Uyghur ethnic group are confined to “re-education” camps. No other Chinese region has been able to attract such attention.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns Testifies in Front of the House Foreign Affairs (March 26, 2019)

House Foreign Affairs Committee

Testimony

The Historic Alliance between the United States and Europe Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy and the Environment

| Mar. 26, 2019

Maintaining U.S. leadership in the NATO Alliance and sustaining the critical relationship between the U.S. and the European Union will continue to be among the most vital strategic aims of the United States in the decade ahead. Both of our political parties and the great majority of Americans in recent public opinion polls support a continuation of American leadership in NATO. We should also continue to view the over 500 million people who live in the European Union as our allies, friends and economic partners.

US President Trump Calls the Findings of the Mueller Report a ‘Complete and Total Exoneration'

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Wall Street Journal

Mueller Report Clears President Trump — but Not President Putin

| Mar. 25, 2019

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.

Afghan National Army-Territorial Force members prepare for an exercise at the Kabul Military Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 11, 2018. (Tech. Sgt. Sharida Jackson/Air Force)

Associated Press

Analysis & Opinions - Miami Herald

Peace with the Taliban? Trump Warned of Afghan Pullout Risks

| Jan. 30, 2019

Trump administration claims of progress in talks with the Taliban have sparked fears even among the president's allies that his impatience with the war in Afghanistan will lead him to withdraw troops too soon, leaving the country at risk of returning to the same volatile condition that prompted the invasion in the first place.

Jordanian protesters shout "bread" in front of the Labour Union offices in Amman, Jordan Wednesday, June 6, 2018. "Corruption equals hunger," is written in Arabic on loaves of bread. (AP Photo/Raad al-Adayleh)

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Jordan faces its historical reckoning

| July 31, 2018

The streets of Amman today appear calm and everyone seems to be going about their business as usual. But just two months ago, the country faced massive protests which mirrored others it had seen before. The script of the May-June events developed along the usual lines: public protests over price increases made the king dismiss the government, freeze price increases, name a new prime minister, and ask for fresh reforms.

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Speech - Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Navigating the Crisis in Transatlantic Relations

| Apr. 24, 2018

Launch of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at the Belfer Center.

With panelists: Pedro Morenés Ambassador of Spain to the United States David O’Sullivan Ambassador of the European Union to the United States; Julianne Smith Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program, Center for a New American Security; and Peter Wittig, Ambassador of Germany to the United States.

Moderated by: Nicholas Burns, Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, and Faculty Chair of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship and the Future of Diplomacy Project.

Opening Remarks by: Douglas Elmendorf, Dean and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Sen. Angus King of Maine

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Newspaper Article - Harvard Gazette

Senator Angus King: ‘We know’ Russia Hacked Election

    Author:
  • Christina Pazzanese
| Nov. 28, 2017

Though President Trump says he is not convinced that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine said Monday that he and his colleagues on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is probing the matter, have “no doubt whatsoever” of Moscow’s involvement.