Articles

Former U.S. lead climate negotiator Sue Biniaz shares her thoughts on the postponement of COP26 in this interview by Professor Robert Stavins. Stavins and Biniaz explore ways to reimagine future United Nations climate negotiations, unresolved concerns from COP25, and how the United States might approach rejoining the Paris Agreement.

Matthew Bunn and Steven E. Miller reflect on the late Martin B. Malin, who lost his battle with cancer in April 2020.

Nathaniel Moir reviews Maxwell Taylor's Cold War: From Berlin to Vietnam by Ingo Trauschweizer.

Since the coronavirus spread from a metropolis on the Yangtze River across the globe, hard-liners in both Washington and Beijing have accelerated efforts to decouple elements of the relationship.

In his new book, Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump, Joseph S. Nye developed a scorecard to determine how U.S. presidents since 1945 factored questions of ethics and morality into their foreign policy. In an interview, Henry Farrell asked him a few questions to get to the heart of his findings.

Nicholas Burns, an old friend of Greece and well known in the country having served as US ambassador in Athens between 1997 and 2001, is now professor of practice of diplomacy and international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and an adviser to Joe Biden’s campaign for the White House. Burns also served as US ambassador to NATO (2001-05) and under secretary of state for political affairs (2005-08). A few days ago he talked to Kathimerini from his home in Boston about Greece’s remarkable performance in tackling the crisis, the challenges Europe and the US are facing, President Donald Trump and how the pandemic is influencing the global balance of power. 

The Arctic Initiative is pairing policy and science scholars with local experts to find practical climate solutions.

Harvard University has created a Presidential Committee on Sustainability (PCS) to advise President Larry Bacow and the University's leadership on sustainability vision, goals, strategy, and partnerships. The Harvard Gazette spoke with committee chairs Rebecca Henderson, the John and Natty McArthur University Professor; John Holdren, the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard Kennedy School; and Katie Lapp, executive vice president, about why it is so important to act now; the role of the PCS in developing collaborative and innovative projects; and how the campus community can get involved.

Recent hate crimes and violent assaults against people of Asian descent should sound an alarm for America. Within the past couple of weeks alone, ac acid attack against a woman in Brooklyn caused her to suffer severe burns, and a man in Texas has been charged with attempted murder after attacking an Asian American family. Such stories have become disturbingly frequent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the FBI has warned that this trend may continue.

We, the undersigned, are alarmed by the severity of such hate crimes and race-based harassment against people of Asian descent in the United States - assaults that endanger the safety, well-being, dignity and livelihoods of all those targeted.

The U.S. military’s prevailing norms of military professionalism are poorly suited to meet today’s civil-military challenges. They undermine the military’s nonpartisan and apolitical ethos, weaken civilian leaders' control of military activity, and undercut the country’s strategic effectiveness in armed conflict.