News & Announcements

Matthew Meselson, a driving force behind the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), has received the $50,000 Future of Life Award for his successful efforts to ban biological weapons – one of the most inhumane forms of warfare known to humanity. The award was presented on April 9 during the Keynote Ceremony of the Conference of World Affairs at the University of Colorado, Boulder. April 9 marked the eve of the 47th anniversary of the signing of the BWC.

David S. Cohen, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has been named a Senior Fellow with Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Cohen, who as the Agency’s second-in-command from 2015-2017 helped oversee all CIA operations, served previously as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

As a non-resident Senior Fellow with the Center’s Intelligence and Defense Project, Cohen will conduct a study that focuses on the “CIA in the Digital Age,” looking into steps the Agency can take to improve its capacity for anticipating and tackling intelligence challenges in our increasingly interconnected world.

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to Farah Pandith, senior fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project and adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, about the evolution of presidential rhetoric on acts of terrorism and the groups that perpetrate them.

Two days after presenting his credentials to President Trump, His Excellency Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the newly appointed Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, expressed optimism about bilateral relations between the two countries. Respondent Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was more cautious in his assessment of the relationship after years of "reset."

Ambassadors Daniel Feldman, Marc Grossman, and Rick Olson, former Special Representatives to Afghanistan and Pakistan, spoke about the status of the conflict and made recommendations for current and future administrations. 

A pioneer in the field of CVE (Countering Violent Extremism), Farah Pandith spent over a decade developing strategies to prevent and defend against the spread of extremist ideology, a policy area that has been under the microscope since President Trump declared his intention to “unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth,” during his inaugural address on January 20^th.

At a Future of Diplomacy Project seminar on February 13, Pandith spoke about the evolution of CVE policy and the importance of soft power in combating the spread of extremist ideology. She identified three distinct phases in the development of US counter-terrorism strategy after September 11.

Audio recording of a February 2, 2017 MEI Book Talk with Dr. Olivier Roy, Joint Chair Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies, Chair in Mediterranean Studies, European University Institute on his most recent book Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of the Islamic State.