Reports & Papers

24 Items

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.

Tractors on Westminster bridge

AP/Matt Dunham

Paper - Institut für Sicherheitspolitik

The Global Order After COVID-19

| 2020

Despite the far-reaching effects of the current pandemic,  the essential nature of world politics will not be transformed. The territorial state will remain the basic building-block of international affairs, nationalism will remain a powerful political force, and the major powers will continue to compete for influence in myriad ways. Global institutions, transnational networks, and assorted non-state actors will still play important roles, of course, but the present crisis will not produce a dramatic and enduring increase in global governance or significantly higher levels of international cooperation. In short, the post-COVID-19 world will be less open, less free, less prosperous, and more competitive than the world many people expected to emerge only a few years ago.

A representative image of a digital "map"

Adobe Stock

Report

Reconceptualizing Cyber Power

| April 2020

Our intention is to provide the best possible understanding of cyber power capabilities to inform public debate. The Belfer approach proposes eight objectives that countries pursue using cyber means; provides a list of capabilities required to achieve those objectives that demonstrates the breadth of sources of cyber power; and compares countries based on their capability to achieve those objectives. Our work builds on existing cyber indices such as the Economist Intelligence Unit and Booz Allen Hamilton’s 2011 Cyber Power Ranking, by, for example, including a policy dimension and recognizing that cyber capabilities enhance military strength.

Nov. 23, 2016, a train returns from transporting ballast used in the construction of the Nairobi-Mombasa railway

AP Photo/Ben Curtis

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

African Regional Economic Integration

| Winter 2018

The power of Pan-Africanism as a guiding vision for the continent’s development is widely studied, mostly as an aspirational phenomenon. At worst, Pan-Africanism has often been seen as a poor imitation of American federalism or European integration. Both of these perceptions do not reflect the profound nature of the role that the ideology of Pan-Africanism played in shaping the continent’s economic transformation. 

Government's Role in Vulnerability Disclosure: Creating a Permanent and Accountable Vulnerability Equities Process

Discussion Paper - Cyber Security Project, Belfer Center

Government's Role in Vulnerability Disclosure: Creating a Permanent and Accountable Vulnerability Equities Process

| June 2016

"When government agencies discover or purchase zero day vulnerabilities, they confront a dilemma: should the government disclose such vulnerabilities, and thus allow them to be fixed, or should the government retain them for national security purposes?"

Taavi Rõivas, Prime Minister of Estonia

Bennett Craig, Belfer Center

Report

Photo Gallery: Estonia's Prime Minister, Taavi Rõivas, On "The 21st Century State"

Apr. 11, 2016

On March 21, The Future of Diplomacy Project jointly hosted a public seminar with the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project titled "A 21st Century State: Anything is Possible." As the speaker for the public event, Prime Minister of Estonia, TaaviRõivas, spoke at length on the role that digital technology has played in the global competitiveness of Estonia's economy and the robustness of his country's governance and public sector services. The Prime Minister spoke to a large audience comprising of Harvard Kennedy School students, national security fellows, and local Estonian start-up entrepreneurs.

ONGC Oil and Gas Processing Platform. Bombay High, South Field. Undersea pipelines carry oil and gas to Uran, near Mumbai, some 120 NM away.

Creative Commons

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

Oil & State Capitalism: Government-Firm Coopetition in China and India

| October 2015

This paper examines the domestic sources of the internationalization of national oil companies (NOCs) in China and India. It argues that—counter to notions of state-led internationalization—the going abroad of NOCs reflects a pattern of “coopetition,” i.e., the co-existence of cooperation and conflict between increasingly entrepreneurial NOCs and partially supportive and interventionist home governments.

Spools of carbon fiber, a material with both nuclear and non-nuclear uses.

Discussion Paper - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

Antiproliferation: Tackling Proliferation by Engaging the Private Sector

| November 2012


Illicit trade from the international marketplace plays a direct role in sustaining the nuclear and missile programs of several countries, including Iran, in defiance of UN sanctions. This paper sets out what measures the private sector should take in order to manage the legal, financial and reputational risks associated with involvement in proliferation-related trade, and makes recommendations to national authorities for how for how to help the private sector identify and prevent potential proliferation.