Articles

Matthew Evangelista examines the precedents and possibilities for postwar European security in an interview with International Security Executive Editor Jacqueline L. Hazelton.

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.

In an interview with Nada Ramadan Ahmed, North Africa Analyst with MEES magazine, she quotes Marina Lorenzini on the topic of the El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant in Egypt: "Putin has used the Russian nuclear energy industry, through Rosatom, as a strategic export to build deep dependencies with geopolitically significant countries, such as Bangladesh, Egypt, and Turkey. So, even as times get tough in Moscow, Rosatom's foreign projects may not receive an immediate axe."

Other companies cannot necessarily replace Rosatom if needed, leaving Cairo "in a bind to negotiate with Moscow on a point-by-point basis on how to purchase and integrate new equipment. Moscow will likely not welcome such a move, and Cairo may not have a strong enough bargaining position, especially if it's not paying its bills on time, in order to introduce non-Russian supplies on site."

Jay Mens asks: Why won't the U.S. admit that Iran's proxies, which include Hamas, are acting in concert?

“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.

Calder Walton recounts how Russia and China are using their intelligence agencies to reverse the outcome of the Cold War

CIPHER BRIEF INTEL REPORT — During a recent visit to Kyiv centered around The Cipher Brief’s Kyiv Economic and Security Forum, a small Cipher Brief delegation met with a variety of representatives from government, business, and civil society, who conveyed a consistent and compelling message of unity and determination to win the war that Russia started in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea, and since February 24, 2022, when it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Previously rare events, mass protest movements have become popular vehicles for those seeking political, economic, and social change. How do scholars and policymakers evaluate movement success? Most studies addressing movement outcomes are grounded in the goal attainment approach, where movement success is dependent upon fulfilling one's stated demands. The models derived from this approach heavily rely on visibility and transparency in the policymaking process. These offer limited analytical utility for scholars studying movements in authoritarian states, where policymaking is shrouded and media is state-controlled. Evaluating movements solely on their fulfillment of mission goals is highly problematic, as movements produce more outcomes than their intended goals. Movements also produce unintended benefits: concessions unrelated to the movement's mission. These include negative consequences, or societal costs.

In the past decade, myriad studies have explored the effects of nonviolent resistance (NR) on outcomes including revolutionary success (short-term and long-term) and democratization, and how nonviolent mobilization can play a similar role to violence in affecting social change in some settings. This special issue seeks to advance scholars' and policymakers' understanding of the role of nonviolence by tackling some key assumptions in existing work that are complicated by historical and contemporary realities of deepening polarization worldwide. This issue addresses four key areas within conflict and peace research that limit scholars' and policymakers' ability to make sense of NR: (a) the fragmented nature of civil resistance campaigns in terms of supporters and demands; (b) the increasing prevalence of authoritarian or anti-egalitarian nonviolent campaigns; and (c) the complicated nature of revolutionary success. Cutting across all three of these substantive areas is another key area, which is: (d) the United States as an increasingly salient site of conflict and contention.

Human rights abuse tends to increase during national crises, such as civil wars and mass nonviolent uprisings. Under what conditions does this abuse abate or persist? The author argues that violent challenges provoke much more coercive state responses, exposing more personnel within the security forces to extreme forms of repression and priming them (both leaders and followers) to reproduce these behaviors after the conflict has terminated. This effect is mitigated or avoided when challengers rely on nonviolent tactics instead of violence, leading to less post-conflict abuse.