News & Announcements

24 Items

Natalie Jaresko at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Benn Craig

News

Natalie Jaresko discusses her time as Finance Minister of Ukraine with Harvard's Future of Diplomacy Project

| Dec. 21, 2016

Natalie Jaresko (MPP ’89), former Finance Minister of Ukraine, returned to Harvard on October 31st, 2016 to take part in the Future of Diplomacy Project’s international speaker series. In a public seminar moderated by Faculty Director Nicholas Burns, Jaresko, who currently serves as chairwoman of the Aspen Institute Kyiv, reflected on her time in office from 2014 to 2016. In her two years in office, the Ukrainian government  had to contend with the Russian annexation of Crimea, a national debt crisis, widespread governmental corruption, and political instability.

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Secretary of Defense Carter Opens Innovation Unit in Cambridge

August 1, 2016

Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter was in Cambridge on Tuesday, July 26 to open the east coast office of the Defense Department's Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental (DIUx). The DIUx was launched by Carter a year ago to "rebuild the bridges between our national security endeavor...and America's wonderfully innovative and open technology community."

News

Podcast: "Can the United States 'Manage' the Middle East? Should it Try?" with Stephen M. Walt

| May 5, 2015

An audio recording from Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

On April 29, 2015 at MEI, Prof. Stephen Walt assessed U.S. policy and interests in the Middle East, arguing that scaled back involvement might yield better results for the U.S. and the region.

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Harvard Kennedy School Students Attend the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism

February 2015

Harvard Kennedy School MPP students Léa Steinacker, Julia Stern, and Olivia Zetter traveled to Washington D.C. in February to attend part of the first-ever White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). Three years after the release of President Obama’s national security strategy on domestic CVE, the event brought together practitioners from local, national, and foreign governments, academia, and the private sector, to share best practices on community-based approaches. The Kennedy School students were recommended for the summit by Farah Pandith, Belfer Center senior fellow, who served previously as the first-ever special representative to Muslim communities, appointed by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Ashton B. Carter: A Salute

| Dec. 05, 2014

Following President Barack Obama's December 5th nomination of Ashton B. Carter for Secretary of Defense, Belfer Center Director Graham Allison commented on the nomination:

President Obama's nomination of Ash Carter to be the next Secretary of Defense makes all of us at the Belfer Center proud.  Ash is a model of the Belfer Center's mission to advance policy-relevant knowledge about the central challenges of international security and train future leaders in making policy in this arena.

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis for Today’s Crises

| November 2, 2012

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.

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Press Release - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Winners of Cuban Missile Crisis Lessons Contest Announced

October 22, 2012

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 50th anniversary of the crisis that narrowly averted nuclear war in October 1962.