News & Announcements

"Transatlantic Security in the Age of Insecurity – The Road to Warsaw 2016" marked the first seminar of the Project's annual Europe Week. Speakers, Douglas Alexander, former UK Shadow Foreign Secretary and Senior Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project; and Kori Schake, former U.S. Deputy Director of Policy Planning and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, led a panel discussion, moderated by the Project's Executive Director, Cathryn Clüver, on February 22, 2016.

The Future of Diplomacy Project held its annual Europe Week during February inviting influential practitioners and experts on European affairs. Their public discussions offered Harvard Kennedy School students and faculty a unique opportunity to grapple with the intractactable geopolitical issues at play in Europe concerning NATO, the EU migration crisis, German leadership, and the rise of European populism.

In this installment of “Conversations in Diplomacy," the Future of Diplomacy Project's Executive Director, Cathryn Clüver, is joined by Kori Schake, former U.S. Deputy Director of Policy Planning and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Douglas Alexander, former UK Shadow Foreign Secretary and Senior Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project.

Cambridge, MA – Michael Sulmeyer, former Director for Plans and Operations for Cyber Policy at the Department of Defense, has joined the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as Director of its new Cyber Security Project. The Project, created by a $15 million gift from Center namesake Robert Belfer and his family, aims to build a conceptual arsenal to address the ways conflict may be waged and avoided in cyberspace. Sulmeyer’s research will anchor this effort, focusing on key questions such as the function of deterrence in cyberspace and how government and the private sector can work together in a crisis.

An audio recording of a session of the Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution featuring speakers Yavuz Baydar, Turkish journalist and former Joan Shorenstein Fellow (Fall 2014), Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and Lenore Martin, Associate, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Emmanuel College.

An audio recording of a public talk by Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, Washington, DC.

Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter discussed defense issues with Belfer Center Director Graham Allison and answered questions from Harvard students at a Harvard Kennedy School JFK Jr. Forum December 1, 2015 titled “A Conversation with Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter."

A video and transcript of the event are available.

The terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, which killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds of others, stunned the international community. In the days since, there has been renewed debate over a host of issues, including the strategy to defeat ISIS, the Syrian migrant crisis, and where the terrorist group might strike next. The attacks have also intensified the diplomacy surrounding the Syrian Civil War, and reopened the debate over the proper balance between security and privacy in the Western world.

Belfer Center experts have been weighing in on these and related topics. See our guide to their thoughts and insights.

Former UK Ambassador to Lebanon, Tom Fletcher, and BBC war correspondent, Paul Wood, participated in a conversation on Syria moderated by Future of Diplomacy Project Executive Director, Cathryn Clüver, titled “Tolerating the Intolerable: Syria Four Years On” on September 30. Both speakers gave a highly variegated and in-depth response of the major and corollary issues at play in the Syrian conflict and beyond, including the difficulty of finding moderate forces on the ground, the dangers of warzone journalism, the migrant crisis, and Russia's strategic interests.