Reports & Papers

27 Items

A man celebrates holding a Ukrainian flag over his head.

AP Photo/Yevhenii Zavhorodnii

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

Strengthening Ukrainian Resiliency in the Medium to Long Term

| May 2023

Given the potential for a long war this paper offers an assessment of key economic and political factors which will help define Ukraine’s capacity to effectively resist Russian aggression, occupation, and ultimately strengthen affected sectors of society. It offers corresponding recommendations for policymakers in Washington and Europe. 

Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci

AP/Alex Brandon

Paper - Centre for International Governance Innovation

US Intelligence, the Coronavirus and the Age of Globalized Challenges

| Aug. 24, 2020

This essay makes three arguments. First, the US government will need to establish a coronavirus commission, similar to the 9/11 commission, to determine why, since April 2020, the United States has suffered more coronavirus fatalities than any other country in the world. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic represents a watershed for what will be a major national security theme this century: biological threats, both from naturally occurring pathogens and from synthesized biology. Third, intelligence about globalized challenges, such as pandemics, needs to be dramatically reconceptualized, stripping away outmoded levels of secrecy.

Fans react as they watch the “Greatest Royal Rumble” event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday, April 27, 2018. A previous WWE event held in 2014 was for men only, but Friday night’s event included both women and children in attendance. AP Photo/Amr Nabil

AP Photo/Amr Nabil

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

Profile of a Prince: Promise and Peril in Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030

| April 2019

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.

Report

Rewriting the Arab Social Contract

| May 16, 2016

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.

Report - Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center

The Crisis of the Arab State

August 11, 2015

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.

Computer room from the Grand People’s Study House, August 2013.

Jieun Baek

Paper

Hack and Frack North Korea

| April 2015

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.

Report - Norwegian Institute for International Affairs

Obstacles to a Resolution of the Syrian Conflict

| November 2013

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.

Egyptians celebrate the news of the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, who handed control of the country to the military, in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, Egypt.

AP Images

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

The Long Hot Arab Summer

March 2013

"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."

A young Timorese girl walks through a refugee camp crowded with people still too afraid to go home due to the ongoing communal violence

Ed Wray - AP Images

Report - United States Institute of Peace

Wartime Sexual Violence: Misconceptions, Implications, and Ways Forward

| February 2013

Wartime rape is neither ubiquitous nor inevitable. The level of sexual violence differs significantly across countries, conflicts, and particularly armed groups. Some armed groups can and do prohibit sexual violence. Such variation suggests that policy interventions should also be focused on armed groups, and that commanders in effective control of their troops are legally liable for patterns of sexual violence they fail or refuse to prevent.