News & Announcements

Is Russia deliberately trying to impact the U.S. presidential election? What are the consequences of these cyber leaks for our democracy and our society, not just in the remaining days of this election, but beyond November 8th?

Putin and his government seek respect, stability from next U.S. administration, panel says.

Director Michael Sulmeyer of the Cyber Security Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs welcomed industry experts Robert Lee, CEO of Dragos Security and former U.S. Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer, and Mudge, founder of the Cyber Independent Testing Laboratory, with previous experience as a DoD official for DARPA and Deputy Director of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects Division, to get to ground truth on this attack and its implications.

In this “Conversation in Diplomacy" with former NATO Secretary-General and 2015 spring Fisher Family Fellow, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Future of Diplomacy Project Director R. Nicholas Burns discusses NATO's collective security issues, Russian aggression in Ukraine, and the destined leadership of the U.S. in the liberal democratic global community.

In Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s view, “the significant unknowns” during the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly catapulted John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev into nuclear war. For former diplomat Nicholas Burns, the principal take-away from the crisis was the importance of giving an adversary a way out of a confrontation short of complete surrender. Allison and Burns were panelists on Oct. 14 at a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to consider the modern lessons flowing from the missile crisis. The event kicked off an intensive series of seminars and workshops for scholars from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to mark the 50th anniversary of the missile crisis. Panel moderator Juliette Kayyem, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy, reminded the audience that the missile crisis is often framed through the myth of the tough American president staring down the Russian foe and making him blink. Kayyem said that version fails to capture the nuanced secret diplomacy and the American concessions that made a deal possible.

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Foreign Policy Magazine have announced the winners and runners-up of the “Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis Contest,” held to mark the 50^th anniversary of the crisis that narrowly averted nuclear war in October 1962.

Kevin Ryan, a retired brigadier general with extensive experience in political-military affairs, missile defense, intelligence, and US-Russian military relations, has been selected to become the new executive director for research at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center of International Affairs, director Graham Allison announced today.

An interview with Dr. Ashton B. Carter; Carter discusses the prospects for an American National Missile Defense system.