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Whenever Washington or Moscow unveils a new weapon, ears in the other capital perk up and analysts try to divine how the new system fits into U.S. or Russian military strategy—not least of all, strategy toward its Cold War-era nemesis. But how often do decisions related to national security arise because of institutional forces only tenuously related to states’ strategic planning? More specifically, how do the countries’ respective defense industries influence policy? The Belfer Center’s Russia Matters project asked two scholars—one American, one Russian—to investigate the latter question. Their articles, published in November, reveal fascinating differences (and similarities) in the way this influence is exercised in countries with vastly different political and economic systems.

Every other Tuesday, early in the morning and no matter the weather, you can usually spot 17 National Security Fellows (NSFs) making their way from different parts of Boston to a Belfer Center third-floor conference room in Cambridge. They come from all military services, the Coast Guard, Office of the Secretary of Defense, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and National Reconnaissance Office. Their research at the Center this year covers a broad range of national security issues from governance and corruption in multiethnic societies to defense technology, artificial intelligence, and space capabilities. They are as different as their professional backgrounds suggest, but on these Tuesday mornings they are united by their eagerness to hear directly from one of the most disciplined military thinkers of our times - General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. (ret.). 

We asked Fredrik Logevall, author of JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century (Random House, 2020), why he decided to write a biography of John F. Kennedy, what surprised him in his research, and whether he thinks Kennedy would have won the 2020 presidential election.

In this issue, we highlight five new books by Belfer Center members.

Since publishing his book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, three years ago, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Graham Allison has been searching for ways to escape the dangerous dynamic that could lead Washington and Beijing to stumble into a catastrophic conflict neither side wants. Convinced that there is no monopoly of strategic wisdom on either side of the Pacific, Allison decided to take a classroom assignment on crafting a grand strategy to meet the China challenge and open it to the public as a case competition. His office received dozens of valuable submissions from across the world.