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The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, northern Japan, on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.

AP

Newspaper Article - NBC News

China bans seafood from Japan after Fukushima nuclear plant begins releasing wastewater

| Aug. 24, 2023

“This is not a decision or set of steps that are happening in haste by any means, and this is a practice that is common and consistent around the world and with the nuclear energy industry,” said Marina Lorenzini of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

According to data posted online by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, water with much higher levels of tritium has been discharged by nuclear facilities in countries including China, South Korea, Canada and France in line with local regulations.

Lorenzini said that the IAEA’s active engagement in the Fukushima process “makes me feel a lot more comfortable and confident with the events we see playing out today.”

The IAEA said this week that it would maintain an onsite presence at the Fukushima plant, where it opened an office last month, and publish real-time and near real-time monitoring data.

“I think we have good reason to believe that this will be a well-monitored and well-maintained operation,” Lorenzini said.

A security guard stands near a sculpture of the Chinese Communist Party flag at the Museum of the Communist Party of China on May 26, 2022, in Beijing.

AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Strategic Substitution: China’s Search for Coercive Leverage in the Information Age

    Author:
  • Fiona Cunningham
| Summer 2022

After the mistaken U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, China turned to information-age weapons to create a risk of escalation to nuclear war with the United States. This shift helps compensate for its conventional military inferiority.

an alert from the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

AP/Jon Elswick

Journal Article - Foreign Affairs

The End of Cyber-Anarchy?

| January/February 2022

Joseph Nye argues that prudence results from the fear of creating unintended consequences in unpredictable systems and can develop into a norm of nonuse or limited use of certain weapons or a norm of limiting targets. Something like this happened with nuclear weapons when the superpowers came close to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. The Limited Test Ban Treaty followed a year later.

Ambassador Ivor Richard, left, of the United Kingdom, and U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young, right, raise their arms during vote, Friday, Nov. 4, 1977 at the United Nations Security Council.

(AP Photo/Dave Pickoff)

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Caught Red-Handed: How States Wield Proof to Coerce Wrongdoers

| Fall 2021

States frequently acquire proof that other states have violated norms. Yet, existing theories do not fully explain how states wield such proof to coerce wrongdoers. Four case studies of nuclear proliferation probe a novel theory of how states coerce norm violators by concealing, sharing privately, or publicizing proof of guilt.

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Magazine Article - Economist

Digital Dominance: A new global ranking of cyber-power throws up some surprises

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.

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Newspaper Article

Chinese cyber power is neck-and-neck with US, Harvard research finds

| Sep. 08, 2020

As conventional wisdom goes, experts tend to rank the U.S ahead of China, U.K.IranNorth KoreaRussia, in terms of how strong it is when it comes to cyberspace. But a new study from Harvard University’s Belfer Center shows that China has closed the gap on the U.S. in three key categories: surveillance, cyber defense, and its efforts to build up its commercial cyber sector.

“A lot of people, Americans in particular, will think that the U.S., the U.K., France, Israel are more advanced than China when it comes to cyber power,” Eric Rosenbach, the Co-Director of Harvard’s Belfer Center, told CyberScoop. “Our study shows it’s just not the case and that China is very sophisticated and almost at a peer level with the U.S.”

A crane carries a bucket containing concrete to the foundation of a reactor during the first concrete pouring for the Light Water Reactor Project in North Korea on August 7, 2002.

AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Normalization by Other Means—Technological Infrastructure and Political Commitment in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

| Summer 2020

The 1994 Agreed Framework called for North Korea to dismantle its plutonium-production complex in exchange for civilian light water reactors (LWRs) and the promise of political normalization with the United States. Political and technical analysis reveals how the LWR project helped build credibility for the political changes promised in the Agreed Framework.