Articles

52 Items

Hezbollah supporters distribute sweets to passersby, as they celebrate the fall of the Syrian town of Qusair to forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah fighters, in Bazzalieh village, Lebanon, near the Lebanese-Syrian border, Wednesday, June 5, 2013.

AP Photo/Hussein Malla

Journal Article - International Security

Foreign Intervention and Internal Displacement: Urban Politics in Postwar Beirut

| Winter 2023/24

Dozens of in-depth interviews in Lebanon after its civil war show how wartime displacement transformed localities in ways that transcend religious identity. With more than 80,000 people displaced from southern Lebanon because of fighting since October 7, 2023, the Israel-Gaza war is likely to strengthen Hezbollah’s grip when the displaced populations return and in localities in south Lebanon where displaced populations settle. 

Iranians protests the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini

AP/Middle East Images, File

Journal Article - Foreign Affairs

Iran's Women on the Frontlines

| Oct. 31, 2022

The authors write that this is a moment of great hope for Iran but also great worry. Although the extensive frontline participation of women in protest movements often makes them more effective, it also raises the stakes dramatically. Defeat of today's protesters could be followed by an even deeper patriarchal backlash. 

Military watching the start of work on the first part of some 180 kilometers of a 5.5 meter-high metal wall

AP/Czarek Sokolowski

Magazine Article - Foreign Affairs

When Migrants Become Weapons: The Long History and Worrying Future of a Coercive Tactic

| March/April 2022

Kelly Greenhill argues that by exploiting political divisions that exist within targeted states, the threatened or actual deployment of engineered flows of migrants has long been a distressingly effective policy instrument, and it is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Unless policymakers begin to confront the forces that enable weaponized migration, the favored policy responses seem destined to increase, rather than curtail, its use.

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Journal Article

Preference for Democracy in the Arab World

| Dec. 14, 2016

We take a new look at the question of the Arab democratic exception by looking at the preference for democracy among individuals in the Arab world in a comparative context. We use the new sixth wave of the World Value Survey, which was collected between 2012 and 2013, and which included for the first time 12 Arab countries (up from only four in wave 5) and 68 non-Arab countries.

President Gerald Ford meets in the Oval Office with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller to discuss the American evacuation of Saigon, Oval Office, White House, Washington D.C., April 28, 1975.

White House

Magazine Article - Foreign Affairs

The Case for Offshore Balancing: A Superior U.S. Grand Strategy

| July/August 2016

"For nearly a century, in short, offshore balancing prevented the emergence of dangerous regional hegemons and pre­served a global balance of power that enhanced American security. Tellingly, when U.S. policymakers deviated from that strategy—as they did in Vietnam, where the United States had no vital interests—the result was a costly failure."

President Barack Obama listens as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, April 4, 2016.

AP

Magazine Article - The National Interest

Principled Pragmatism: Fredrik Logevall on Obama's Legacy

    Author:
  • Paul Richard Huard
| May 23, 2016

"I think that he has on some level grasped the difficulties I mentioned a moment ago: the difficulties of counterinsurgency and nation building, the limits of American power. I think he has acted on the basis of those convictions. I think he has a fundamental faith in diplomacy, which I think is right. He understands that diplomacy and negotiations can be a very powerful tool in the tool kit of American strategists, and I think that he is exactly right. So I am appreciative of the fact and supportive of the fact that he has pursued negotiations with Iran most notably, also with Cuba."

Members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front celebrate at Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, Philippines on Thursday March 27, 2014 as they await the signing of a peace accord between the government and their group in Manila.

AP/ Froilan Gallardo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

United They Fall: Why the International Community Should Not Promote Military Integration after Civil War

| Winter 2015/16

Many international peacebuilders have suggested that integrating opposing combatants into a national military after civil war helps prevent conflict from recurring. Analysis of eleven cases of post–civil war military integration, however, reveals little evidence to support this claim. Underlying political conditions, not military integration, determine whether peace endures.

An Institute of Politics forum asked its panel of policy experts if Syria should be attacked. It also allowed audience participation. With clickers in hand, 45 percent of the audience cast their vote in favor of military action and 55 percent voted no.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

Magazine Article - Harvard Gazette

Volatile Syria

| September 12, 2013

Read about the Harvard Kennedy School’s JFK Jr. Forum event that drew more than 700 people on Wednesday night to listen to an expert panel discuss Syria. The panel of Graham Allison, Joseph Nye, Nicholas Burns, Marisa Porges, and Niall Ferguson, debated on whether or not the U.S. should intervene militarily in Syria. At the end of the Forum, the audience was polled for their take, with 55 percent voting against military action.