Articles

The International Energy Agency predicted last month that demand for global oil for transport will peak around 2026, plateau for all uses by 2028, and possibly hit a zenith by the end of the decade. Harvard experts say the forecasts track with what’s going on in the developed world, but the energy needs of less-wealthy nations pressing to develop their economies could foil expectations for years to come.

Low-carbon energy technology (LCET) startups could play a key role in accelerating India’s decarbonization. Yet, understanding of the LCET startup landscape and what shapes it remains low. This paper provides an analysis of the Indian LCET startup landscape to fill this gap.

As latecomers to the industrialization process, developing countries may face barriers to upgrading from the production of mass-produced goods to higher-value technologies. Using a comparative qualitative case study focusing on three renewable energy technologies, this paper develops a typology of catching-up opportunities in green energy industries and finds that policymakers should target certain technologies in their industrial strategies based on certain technology characteristics, and should seek opportunities to capitalize on a local niche that creates a need for innovation.

A narrow focus on technology innovation and deployment outcomes by academic researchers can lead to recommendations for the design of policy mixes that compromise key dimensions of sociotechnical change, such as job creation, find Alejandro Nuñez-Jimenez, Christof Knoeri, Joern Hoppmann, and Volker Hoffmann.

Recent quantitative scholarship uses warhead counts to examine whether nuclear superiority offers political or military benefits beyond having a secure second-strike capability. These analyses overlook other elements of a state’s nuclear capability such as state perceptions and beliefs.

The expansion of renewable energies not only lowers carbon emissions, it also redistributes resources among actors. This article argues that green industrialization – specifically, manufacturing and the development of renewable energy technologies — creates economic gains that impact political processes and increase renewable energy policy ambition. Building on a combined framework of policy feedback and global value chain literature, authors Laima Eicke and Silvia Weko see domestic value creation as a key determinant of coalition strength and learning effects for policymakers. 

The costly Ground-based Midcourse Defense system remains unproven and unreliable in deterring North Korea’s threat to use intercontinental ballistic missiles. An airborne boost-phase intercept system may offer an alternative defense against North Korea without threatening Russian or Chinese deterrents.

Could a conventional war between China and the United States escalate to the nuclear level? An assessment of three mechanisms of China-U.S. inadvertent escalation—use-it-or-lose-it, unauthorized/accidental, and damage limitation—concludes that the risk of China-U.S. inadvertent nuclear escalation is extremely low.

What types of foreign policy cues are most likely to turn public opinion against a popular emerging norm? Since 2017, the U.S. government has sought to discredit the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and its nuclear nonpossession norm among the largely prodisarmament American public. The authors fielded a national U.S. survey experiment (N=1,219) to evaluate the effects of these elite cues as well as social group cues on public opinion. Their study thus offers one of the first experimental assessments of public attitudes toward nuclear disarmament.

Christopher Ford, John Harvey, Franklin Miller, Keith Payne, and Bradley Roberts respond to Scott Sagan and Allen Weiner’s spring 2021 article, “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine.”