Science, Technology, and Public Policy

While the most recent leaked NSA document isn't much of a smoking gun, it's yet more evidence of widespread Russian attempts to interfere last year.

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.

"The key to a solution to both — the quagmire that has unfolded in Syria and the threat posed by Islamic terrorism — is to deprive the terrorist groups of their main propaganda tools and to form a new Syrian government that excludes Assad (and his foreign Shiite allies) but includes representatives from all of the non-fundamentalist groups involved in the civil war."

"Insofar as Iran demonstrates a willingness to compromise, U.S. policymakers will need to carefully weigh their interest in supporting regional alliesintent on confronting Iran against the U.S. objective of encouraging Iranian nuclear restraint by reducing tensions."

"Nigeria is Africa's largest economy and 26th in the world. Its GDP stands at $510 billion with immense growth potential. A stable and peaceful Nigeria will contribute to Africa's rise and integration into the global economy. On the other hand, an unstable, stagnant and conflict-driven Nigeria will be a threat to regional and global stability."

The ninth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will be held at the UN Headquarters in New York from April 27-May 22, 2015. This is the fourth such conference since the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995. Participating governments will discuss nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy with a view to arriving at consensus on a number of issues.

"Iran...may not have been the United States' best friend in the past three and a half decades, but it remains a legitimate nation-state. It has a political system with a series of checks and balances and some level of accountability and debate. Importantly, Iran can be deterred. Ideology is certainly a driver behind Tehran's decision-making, but its national interests dictate much of its actions. These interests in turn do not always converge with those of the United States, nor do they always conflict."