Research

Dr. Mariana Budjeryn, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center:

The announcement of Russia’s decision to deploy nuclear weapons to Belarus is the continuation of Russia’s tactic to use nuclear saber-rattling to induce nuclear anxieties in the West. In terms of military utility, Russian nuclear deployments to Belarus don’t change anything. Russia has plenty of bases, delivery systems and nuclear weapons deployed on its own territory, some of them very close to the Ukrainian border, that could serve the same mission as anything deployed to Belarus. So the move is purely political.  

Dr. Stephen Herzog, Senior Researcher, ETH Zurich, Center for Security Studies:

Putin's statement about moving Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus is, of course, concerning. The forward deployment of nuclear weapons to regions close to conflict zones increases risks of escalation, nuclear weapons use, and misperception. Although, there is no evidence yet that the Kremlin has moved any of its arsenal to Belarus. But I expect to see reports from open-source intelligence analysts in the near- to medium-term future tracking any potential movement of warheads from Russia to Belarus.

To commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Shannon Felton Spence spoke with John Bew, 10 Downing Street Head of Foreign Affairs and Integration Review Policy Unit. Professor Bew works across foreign affairs, defense and Northern Ireland policy as Special Advisor to the British Prime Minister. He grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and his is father is Lord Bew was a key figure in advising Nobel Peace Prize winner and unionist leader David Trimble.

Teams from Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) have been working together on how to maximize the likelihood that the carbon-neutrality goals announced by the United States and China for around mid-century can be met. This statement by senior members of the two teams conveys key findings from the first phase of the collaborative project. 

In January, Harvard Kennedy School students Jonny Yau (MPP 2024) and Stirling Haig (MPP 2024) traveled to Tromsø, Norway, for a week-long intensive workshop hosted by the Arctic Academy for Social and Environmental Leadership (ARCADE). As part of the workshop, Yau and Haig joined Arctic Initiative team members at the 2023 Arctic Frontiers Conference, an annual meeting of scientists, policymakers, and business leaders focused on sustainable development in the Arctic.

In the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases (NDD) in the United States, affecting approximately 10.5 million individuals. This number is predicted to triple in the next 30 years.¹ However, in comparison to other disease areas such as oncology, the approval of NDD drugs has been relatively limited. Our team has explored the NDD drug development ecosystem from three perspectives: stakeholders, funding, and policy. This article summarizes our key findings and presents a case study to suggest that the scarcity of new drug development may be attributable to insufficient basic scientific research. Finally, we outline our objectives for the upcoming semester.

Breaking up Big Tech companies could trigger unintended, and possibly irreparable, collateral damage to America’s quest to remain the world’s leader in new technologies, write Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Steven C. Currall.

How have Appalachia’s coal-dependent communities adjusted to historical and contemporary declines in demand for coal, and how do these shocks – and their consequences for the educational composition of affected communities – influence the capacity for future generations to adapt to new challenges? In this policy brief, Eleanor Krause presents estimates of how Appalachia’s coal country has adjusted to recent declines in coal mining employment (“coal shocks”), and demonstrates how this adjustment process is, in part, dictated by the persistent consequences of historical employment shocks in Appalachia.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision to visit Moscow this week in his first trip abroad since his reelection comes as no surprise to those who have been watching carefully. When one steps back and analyzes the relationship between China and Russia, the brute facts cannot be denied: Along every dimension—personal, economic, military, and diplomatic—the undeclared alliance that Xi has built with Russian President Vladimir Putin has become much more consequential than most of the United States’ official alliances today.

For over a decade, American officials have been touting the wisdom of a strategic “pivot” away from the Middle East in order to face the threat of a rising China. During that same period, Beijing has identified the Middle East as a primary arena for great power competition with the United States. 

Creating the DPGP Index has provided our research team with a unique perspective to analyze the ecosystem of solutions. Below are a few of our key takeaways.