Former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon to Assess U.S.-Asia Rebalance for Belfer Center

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon will write a report for Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs that assesses the U.S. strategic rebalance to Asia.

Donilon was named a non-resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center last summer, shortly after he stepped down from his position as President Obama’s national security advisor. While at the NSC, Donilon presided over the administration‘s rebalance toward Asia after more than a decade of intense focus on wars and conflict in the Middle East.

For the Belfer Center, Donilon will analyze the policy implications and opportunities arising from that rebalance, and its impact on U.S political relationships, regional security and the global economy.

Donilon said he looks forward to working with Harvard Kennedy School faculty, including Belfer Center Director Graham Allison, and Asia scholars from elsewhere in the university, including the law school and business school.  Donilon also plans to involve graduate students from Harvard Kennedy School as well as undergrads from Harvard College in his research.

Donilon met with faculty and research fellows at the Kennedy School this week to lay the groundwork for the study.

"The project will explore the genesis and execution of the rebalance while offering an assessment of progress to date and recommendations on a way forward,” Donilon said.

Allison, who is also the Douglas Dillon professor of government, said, “Tom Donilon will bring to this work many years of hands-on experience dealing with changing global realities.  We are pleased that he now wants step back and assess the forces at play in the rebalance, and to offer some ideas on how to manage these evolving relationships, not least the one between the United States and China.”

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The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is the hub of Harvard Kennedy School's research, teaching, and training in international security affairs and diplomacy, environmental and resource issues, and science and technology policy.  The Center has a dual mission: to provide leadership in advancing policy-relevant knowledge about the most important challenges of international security and other critical issues where science, technology, environmental policy, and international affairs intersect; and to prepare future generations of leaders for these arenas.

Contact: James F. Smith, director of communications, Belfer Center, james_smith@hks.harvard.edu 617-495-7831