1280 Events

Aerial view of flooding, Pakistan, September 15, 2010. The flooding led to a conflict de-escalation between the Pakistani government and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

Wikimedia CC/Australian Government (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade)

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

Climate Change, Disasters, and Armed Conflicts

Thu., Oct. 5, 2023 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Tobias Ide, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia

The number and impact of disasters like droughts, earthquakes, floods, and storms is rising globally, among others due to climate change. As a consequence, disasters are playing a key role in academic, public, and policy debates about environmental security and the climate-conflict nexus. While extensive research has studied how disasters shape the risk of armed conflict onset, scholars and policymakers know little about the impact of disasters on armed conflict dynamics. In other words: How do conflict parties react if a disaster strikes a civil war zone? The speaker will present insights from a comprehensive study on this question, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from 31 civil wars in 21 countries. Among others, he finds that disasters open opportunities for rebel groups, that disasters can also facilitate conflict de-escalation, and that situational (rather than structural) factors shape the responses of conflict parties.

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee & Tea Provided.

1955:  Zhou Enlai With PM Jawaharlal Nehru at the Bandung Conference

Public Domain

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

China Marching with India: India's Cold War Advocacy for the People's Republic of China at the United Nations, 1949–1971

Thu., Sep. 28, 2023 | 12:15pm - 1:45pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Anatol Klass, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

Throughout the period when the People's Republic of China (PRC) was formally excluded from the United Nations (1949-1971), the India was a constant advocate for unrecognized Chinese government at the international organization, even as relations between the two countries deteriorated in the run-up to and aftermath of the 1962 border war. Based on sources from the PRC's Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives, this presentation explores the nature of PRC-India cooperation over United Nations affairs during the Cold War including the tensions caused by the two nations' competing conceptions of how the decolonizing world should fit into the international system and who should be at the helm. Despite these disagreements, the Cold War UN provided a setting where geopolitical tensions and divergent post-colonial visions could be sublimated into meaningful international cooperation.

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee & Tea Provided.

South Sudanese girl at independence celebration, 9 July 2011

Public Domain/Jonathan Morgenstein/USAID

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

Reviving the Spirit of South Sudan

Thu., Sep. 21, 2023 | 12:15pm - 1:45pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

This event is postponed.

Speaker: Peter Biar Ajak, Fellow, Middle East Initiative

On July 9, 2011, a momentous occasion unfolded as hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese converged at the Dr. John Garang Mausoleum to witness the birth of their newfound nation. However, just two years later, this optimism was eclipsed by a power struggle between the president and vice president, sparking a devastating civil war. Tragically, this conflict swiftly assumed ethnic dimensions, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, the displacement of millions, and the severe deterioration of the economy. The initial euphoria of independence was soon replaced by profound disillusionment. Today, South Sudan finds itself languishing at the lowest rungs of international indicators. The question that begs an answer is: What precipitated this unfortunate turn of events, and is there still hope for South Sudanese to rekindle the unity and sense of purpose that characterized their proclamation of independence?

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee & Tea Provided.

The stage is set with glass between seats ahead of the vice presidential debate at the University of Utah, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City.

AP/Julio Cortez

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

The Commander-in-Chief Test: How the Politics of Image-Making Shape and Distort U.S. Foreign Policy

Thu., Sep. 21, 2023 | 12:15pm - 1:45pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Jeffrey A. Friedman, Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College; 20232024: Visiting Professor of Government, Harvard University

This seminar will be based on Dr. Friedman's forthcoming book, The Commander-in-Chief Test: Public Opinion and the Politics of Image-Making in U.S. Foreign Policy (Cornell, 2023). The book explains how leaders can use foreign policy issues to shape their personal images. It argues, in particular, that presidents and presidential candidates can use hawkish foreign policies to craft valuable impressions of leadership strength. This dynamic can give leaders incentives to take foreign policy positions that are more hawkish than what voters actually want. 

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee & Tea Provided.

A Maoist rebel speaks to villagers in the area around Piskar, a mountain village about 200 kilometers east of the capital Kathmandu, during the Nepalese Civil War.

Wikimedia CC

Seminar - Open to the Public

Gendered Approaches to Organizing Insurgency: Why Rebels Conform to or Subvert Patriarchal Gender Norms

Thu., May 18, 2023 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Apekshya Prasai, Gender & Security Predoctoral Fellow, International Security Program

When organizing insurgency, all rebels face gendered choices. Insurgents operate in, recruit from, and depend on communities where half the population is female.  This seminar seeks to describe and explain the differentially gendered approaches insurgents adopt to organizing violence.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwqcemrpjsvG9GQejHVwaRw0GWln_pX8n0g

Centaur 2, a mobile base for Robonaut 2, is put through its paces in the Arizona desert during the September 2010 Desert RATS, or Research and Technology Studies, field test. The Robonaut 2 torso could be attached to Centaur to allow the dexterous humanoid robot to explore the surfaces of distant planets in the future.

Public Domain/NASA

Seminar - Open to the Public

When Knowledge Became Power: Technology, the United States, and Hegemony in the Twentieth Century

Thu., May 11, 2023 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Michael Falcone, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

This presentation will examine how today's model of superpowers as science-powers stemmed from highly contingent historical processes — a whole paradigm of global competition that emerged from a specific set of transatlantic personal networks and rivalries in the 1940s. It will also explore how the United States built its high-tech identity by siphoning other countries' intellectual property and state-science models, much as it charges China with doing today. Finally, it will deconstruct what scholars and policymakers alike really refer to when use the fuzzy concepts of nations being "ahead" or "behind" their technological rivals.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMpdOisqT4iGNB1X9jxHKY-xh-B5Vc-QmgP

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin met at Yalta in February 1945 to discuss their joint occupation of Germany and plans for postwar Europe.

Public Domain/Army Signal Corps

Seminar - Open to the Public

Power Vacuums in Great Power Politics: The Consequences of Retrenchment and Collapse

Thu., May 4, 2023 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Moritz Sebastian Graefrath,  Grand Strategy, Security, & Statecraft Fellow, International Security Program

Differing beliefs about how great powers react to the emergence of power vacuums in international politics play a central role in the current debate on U.S. grand strategy: on the one hand, those who believe that power vacuums are inevitably filled by adversaries seeking to expand their influence abroad tend to call for a more involved grand strategy; on the other hand, those who are more sanguine about the possible consequences of creating power vacuums tend to support calls for the United States to withdraw from some of its international commitments.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcoc-CprDMqGNUDYFVtQDRONPhLlXED9kwn

Screenshot from a Hamas video showing the launch of rockets from a populated civilian area.

Flickr CC/Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Seminar - Open to the Public

Asymmetric Coercion and Rules of the Game: Theory and Evidence from the Israel-Hamas Conflict in the Gaza Strip

Thu., Apr. 27, 2023 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Daniel Sobelman, Research Fellow, International Security Program

Despite the vast military disparity between them, the Hamas-run Gaza Strip has in recent years become a significant factor in Israel's strategic environment. Drawing on a conceptual framework of asymmetrical coercive bargaining, this seminar will discuss different stages in the evolution of the conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip over the past two decades, but especially since Hamas's takeover in 2007.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIrd-mqqTMpH9dP2KfAGgAVLV3Ckzm9dLQv

Seminar - Open to the Public

States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security

Wed., Apr. 26, 2023 | 4:00pm - 6:00pm

S050 CGIS South Building

Speaker: Joshua W. Busby, Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin

Chair:  Dustin Tingley, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Climate Change. Professor of Government, Department of Government, Harvard University.

Joshua Busby will talk about his new book, States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge: 2022), and explore why climate change leads to negative security outcomes in some places and not others.

SPONSORED BY THE WEATHERHEAD RESEARCH CLUSTER ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Cosponsored by the International Security Program and the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability

The Meanderings of a Weapon Oriented Mind When Applied in a Vacuum Such as the Moon, U.S. Army Weapons Command, Directorate of R&D, Future Weapons Office, June 1965

Public Domain/DOD

Seminar - Open to the Public

"Lunartics!"; Or, How We Avoided a Space War

Thu., Apr. 20, 2023 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Stephen Buono, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

After the Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite—Sputnik I—in 1957, U.S. military officials began thinking about the cosmos as a vast new theater of war. Convinced that a techno-saturated space war was just around the bend, far-flung laboratories and offices under the Department of Defense began planning for it.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIldO-vpzwtE9Lu85mJOOJfpNtFVHhSAPiS