News & Announcements

The historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore this month (June 12) has drawn both skepticism and optimism from experts. A panel of senior American and South Korean diplomats with experience negotiating with North Korea weighed in at an event hosted by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs’ Korea Working Group on Tuesday (June 19).

Belfer Center experts offer insight and analysis of the Trump-Kim summit through statements and interviews.

North Korea is warning of a pre-emptive strike after Sec. of State Rex Tillerson said that the U.S. could pursue military action over North Korea’s growing nuclear program.

Leading up to and during the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, Belfer Center experts released reports, published commentary, and provided insight and analysis into global nuclear security. In advance of the Summit, the Project on Managing the Atom set the stage for discussion with the report Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: Continuous Improvement or Dangerous Decline?

An in-progress compilation of the expert commentary and analysis is available here.

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.

Cambridge, MA – Harvard University announced today that Robert and Renée Belfer, along with their son Laurence, are investing an additional $15 million to advance the work of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School in addressing the world’s most critical security issues.

Reflecting their philanthropic mission to build a more secure, peaceful world, the Belfer family’s gift puts the Belfer Center on the front lines of what CIA Director John Brennan calls the greatest threat to U.S. national security in the decade ahead: cyber threats. In particular, it launches a major new Cyber Security Project, which seeks to help create the conceptual arsenal for strategists to confront this growing challenge.

North Korea’s report that it tested a hydrogen bomb this week set off alarm bells around the world. Though analysts are casting doubt on the nature of the detonation, Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test is a reminder of the regime's unpredictability. How serious is this action and how should foreign powers respond? Belfer Center experts Graham Allison, Jieun Baek, Matthew Bunn, Nicholas Burns, Olli Heinonen, John Park, Gary Samore, and William Tobey weigh in on the significance and implications of North Korea’s latest nuclear test.

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.