Articles

In this Q&A, Joseph S. Nye talks about his advice for the interim and future president of Harvard in the wake of Claudine Gay's resignation, which countries should be highest on our radar to prevent the threat of nuclear war, what role the U.S. should play in the Russia-Ukraine war, the significance of U.S. alliances in the Middle East, and more.

Power transitions affect a state’s ability to exercise economic statecraft. As a dominating and a rising power approach parity, they face structural incentives to decouple their economies. This decoupling affects business-state relations: high-value businesses within the dominant power tend to oppose their state’s economic statecraft because of its costs to them, whereas low-value businesses within the rising power tend to cooperate because they gain from it. 

Why does the U.S. Army rely on persuasion to influence military partners to improve their forces despite repeated failures that undermine U.S. foreign policy goals? The army prioritizes its role as a fighting force, not an advisory group. U.S. leaders have developed an ideology—the cult of the persuasive—to advance army bureaucratic interests.

David C. Logan and Robert C. Watts IV respond to Isaac B. Kardon and Wendy Leutert's spring 2022 article, "Pier Competitor: China's Power Position in Global Ports."

In an interview with The Harvard Gazette, Henry Lee welcomes California's aggressive move toward electric vehicles, but sees one ‘huge mistake’ policymakers need to avoid and a surefire way to anger drivers.
 

The surging prices of materials, especially lithium, have stirred up wide concerns about future EV development. In this commentary, with a focus on lithium, Xin Sun and co-authors argue that although the current price spike gives the EV market a sharp short-term shock, it will not hinder transportation electrification in the long run.

The global demand for desalinated water is increasing at a remarkable rate. In a future with increasing demand for water and low-carbon electricity, an interesting ecological dilemma emerges. In a decarbonized world, providing desalinated water for domestic use and aquatic ecological restoration could increasingly come at the expense of open space lost to renewables such as solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind turbines. In this article we examine the environmental tradeoffs of providing freshwater from desalination under a solar photovoltaic-based decarbonization strategy, using Israel as an example.

Opportunistic repression arises when states use crises to suppress the political opposition. An examination of the relationship between COVID-19 shutdown policies and state violence against civilians in Africa, including and a subnational case study of Uganda, tests this theory.

America is a country built on immigrants and refugees, a truth acknowledged by former President George W. Bush in his recent collection of post-White House paintings, “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants.” That spirit inspired a namesake Belfer Center Future of Diplomacy Project event featuring three notable women portrayed in the book who discussed the role of foreign-born Americans and their own decisions to enter public service in their adoptive nation.

Joseph Nye, Jr.'s Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump skillfully examines modern American presidents and ethics.