International Security

Juliette Kayyem argues that the Biden administration should lay out transparent plans to safeguard the electoral process no matter who is ultimately sworn in.

As the war in Israel and Gaza continues, Professor Stephen Waltf and Ambassador Edward Djerejian were two of the five Harvard faculty and affiliates with expertise in the region who spoke with The Crimson about their views on the future of the conflict.

Stephen Walt writes that this event—and the many clashes that preceded it—may also reveal the limits of power. War is the continuation of politics by other means, and powerful states sometimes win on the battlefield and still lose politically. Hamas will never be able to defeat Israel in a direct test of strength, but its attack is a tragic reminder that Israel is not invulnerable and the Palestinian desire for self-determination cannot be ignored. It also shows that the Abraham Accords and the recent efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are no guarantee of peace; indeed, they may have made this latest conflict more likely.

Calder Walton recounts the succession of intelligence failures against the West over which Russian President Vladimir Putin has presided, the greatest of which being his decision to invade Ukraine.

Calder Walton recounts how Russia and China are using their intelligence agencies to reverse the outcome of the Cold War

A Better Peace welcomes Nate Moir to discuss his book, Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare, which analyses Fall's life to understand what drove his thinking and understanding of the situation. He joins host John Nagl to explain how Fall was consistently ahead of the conventional wisdom.

Ivan Arreguin-Toft analyzes the West's information technology asymmetry of capability, which has given way to asymmetry of vulnerability. While democracies worldwide remain threatened, they also contain the means to restore themselves.

The world’s oceans have always provided ships with room to hide. New technology is changing that. Small satellites now collect terabytes of global data daily. Computational analytics can mine that data as humans cannot. Increasingly, this information expands the ability to identify and track ships and their activities, including those affecting national and international security. 

Joseph S. Nye writes that If there is one person other than Vladimir Putin who can end Russia's war in Ukraine, it is Chinese President Xi Jinping. But Xi has so far remained on the sidelines and is likely to stay there, owing to various domestic political vulnerabilities and his own lack of courage and imagination.

The Gazette spoke with Erica Chenoweth, Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Chenoweth studies mass protest movements, civil resistance, and political violence, and is the author of "Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know."