International Security

As nationalism spreads worldwide, some countries have tried to convince others to adopt their models. But it is time to revisit a classic idea that has gone out of fashion: sovereignty, Stephen M. Walt writes.

Recently declassified archival documents offer new insight into Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat’s decision to accelerate the peace process with Israel by visiting Jerusalem. The historical evidence provides strong support for a prospect-theory explanation of Sadat’s bold diplomatic initiative.

While China’s grand strategy under Xi Jinping is clearly distinctive, it does not fundamentally break with the grand strategy that Chinese leaders have embraced since the early 1990s—one that aims to realize China’s “dream of national rejuvenation.”

International Security, the quarterly journal edited at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and published by The MIT Press, received top rankings for impact in 2019 based on the high number of times the journal's articles were referenced in other publications.

An explosion and fire at a workshop at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility on July 2, which destroyed the better part of an entire building, was followed by a flurry of speculation about the cause. Perhaps a domestic dissident group had planted a bomb, a foreign government had conducted a cyberattack, or an underground gas pipeline simply exploded by accident. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization announced on July 5 that it had determined the cause, but was withholding that information because of “security considerations.” Still, there is mounting circumstantial evidence that Israel and the United States were involved in what was a deliberate act of sabotage.

Calder Walton explains why the British and U.S. governments should know from their own history the value of secret deals with communication companies—and rigging their hardware—to collect intelligence.

Stephen Walt unpacks foreign-imposed regime change and concludes that if the United States can't stop COVID-19 transmission at home, there is no reason to think it should ever try running another country.

Calder Walton writes that autocratic regimes — China, Russia and Iran — have been using social media to try to influence U.S. public opinion. History reveals how and why a one-party regime used disinformation to salvage its reputation following a disaster — the Soviet Union's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, whose history also reveals how such disinformation can be countered.

The authors write that the demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd represent the largest sustained mobilization in the United States in their lifetimes. They detail the new geography of activism.

The KGB was the notorious strong arm of the Kremlin. Run afoul and you died. Learn all about them in a podcast featuring a discussion of Calder Walton's article, "Spies, Election Meddling, and Disinformation: Past and Present," which appeared in the Brown Journal of World Affairs.