International Security

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.

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.

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.

Speaker: Jeffrey A. Friedman, Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College; 2023–2024: 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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