Research

While foreign policy has barely figured in the presidential campaign, national security is plainly on the ballot. If everything feels chaotic and dangerous, it’s because we face a remarkable convergence of security challenges.

The existing global political-economic order has been ruptured by the rise of China, a broad backlash against globalization, uncertainties about the U.S. commitment to a rules-based system, and most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. What form(s) might a future world order take, and what principles should guide efforts to construct it? The Future World Order event series will address these questions by examining individual topics ranging from traditional security issues such as arms control to newer, relevant issues such as digital trade. Professors Dani Rodrik and  Stephen M. Walt will moderate individual sessions.

Anthony Foxx, Mary Elizabeth Taylor, Sasha Baker, and Syra Madad will share expertise with the HKS community.

In this brief, we outline the common motivations driving central bank work on CBDCs. We then explore CBDCs’ potential impacts on financial inclusion, a primary motivation in developing and emerging markets that has also gained significant traction in developed economies during the COVID-19 related global recession. We conclude that for CBDCs to achieve its financial inclusion goals, more technical advancement in offline adaptability and policy deliberations around issues of identity and traceability are needed. 
 

The Security and Global Health Project is proud to present a weekly web series with Security Mom Juliette Kayyem and Medicine Mom Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux. Each week, our experts will answer your questions from quarantine and give you advice on staying sane and sanitary in a global crisis. We hope you'll join our Moms every Tuesday, and if you have a question that you want answered, tweet with #QuestionsFromQuarantine.

From the development of the SWIFT network in the confrontation of terror financing, to the economic sanctioning of Russia in response to its aggressive actions in neighboring territory, understanding of the power brandished by American policymakers in global finance is critical to protecting national interests.

Today, on the United Nations International Day of Peace, the Muhammad Ali Center announced the appointment of Ms. Farah Pandith as its first-ever Muhammad Ali Global Peace Laureate.

The relationship between China and Russia is getting stronger by the hour. To ascertain that this is the case, one needs to look no further than Xi Jinping’s and Vladimir Putin’s calendar of visits. The two have met about 30 times and show no sign of developing fatigue from seeing each other.

A group of nuclear scientists recently published a call for anti-racist action in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, urging researchers and their colleagues to confront a long legacy of racial disparities and injustices in the history of the nuclear field, many of which continue today.

China has the world’s largest army. Russia wields the most tanks. America owns the fanciest satellites. But who has the most cyber-power? A new National Cyber Power Index by the Belfer Centre at Harvard University ranks 30 countries on their level of ambition and capability. Offensive cyber-power—the ability to do harm in or through computer networks—is one measure. But so too are the strength of a country’s defences, the sophistication of its cyber-security industry and its ability to spread and counter propaganda.