Reports & Papers

This report, based on three prolonged trips to the Kingdom over the past year, the most recent in January 2019, will take a deep look at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who dominates every aspect of foreign and domestic policy, to try to answer what lies behind his Mona Lisa smile. It will also examine the Kingdom’s social progress, its economic stagnation and its growing political repression. Readers will have to evaluate for themselves whether the social progress he has offered Saudis in general—and women in particular—offset his autocratic tactics at home and abroad.

During the fall 2015 semester, former Minister Hedi Larbi convened eight distinguished experts, each with direct operational and academic experience in Arab countries and economies to participate in a study group titled Rewriting the Arab Social Contract: Toward Inclusive Development and Politics in the Arab World. Over the course of seven sessions during the semester, these experts contributed  to an integrated approach to the historical, social, political, and economic dimensions of the Arab uprisings, focusing in particular on the often overlooked economic and social issues at the root of the uprisings.

During the spring 2015 semester, Professor Michael C. Hudson assembled eight leading Middle East scholars under the auspices of the Middle East Initiative at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to participate in a study group titled Rethinking the Arab State: the Collapse of Legitimacy in Arab Politics. Over the course of the semester these experts used a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to  analyze the crisis of legitimacy of the Arab state in the wake of the 2011 uprisings.

This paper will make a case for the U.S. government to pursue three strategies if its operational objective is to force North Korea to reappraise its own interests. Individual self-determination and access to information—two properties the Kim regime fears most for its citizens to possess –are the short-term goals for North Koreans. This objective and two goals do not necessarily equate to regime change.

This paper explains changes in NATO's nationbuilding strategy for Afghanistan over time as an internal push-and-pull struggle between the major NATO contributors. It distinguishes between he "light footprint" phase, which had numerous problems connected to limited resources and growing insurgency (2003–2008), NATO's adoption of a comprehensive approach (CSPMP) and counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy (2009–2011), the transition and drawdown (2011–2014), and the Enduring Partnership (beyond 2014). The paper explains NATO's drawdown, stressing both increased budgetary strictures compelling decisionmakers to focus on domestic concerns nd predominant national narratives connected to a protracted stabilization effort in Afghanistan.

The Harvard-NUPI-Trinity report Obstacles to a Resolution of the Syrian Conflict explores the Syria crisis from the broad range of actors involved in it. Through interviewing representatives of the internal and external opposition, the Syrian regime, the regional states as well as the wider international community, the authors hope to generate a more comprehensive understanding of the Syrian conflict, and to begin to identify areas of potential common ground. Obstacles to a Resolution of the Syrian Conflict compares the actors' varying interpretations of the origins of the conflict, their biggest concerns for the future are, as well as their thoughts on the possibilities for a solution.

"The so-called Arab Spring has ushered in a great deal of hope that a number of Arab states might begin to develop and engender more socially responsive, economically prosperous and politically progressive indigenous conditions," writes Nawaf Obaid.

"Unfortunately, in the nine Arab nations I analyze here -Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Jordan and Iraq - this does not seem to be the case. Indeed, one might say that some or all of these nations are far worse off than they were before their social upheavals."