Reports & Papers

While some in government have sounded alarm bells over the prospect over a cyber Pearl Harbor or 9/11, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor Joseph S. Nye and Belfer Center research fellow Alexander Klimburg reject this claim—at least in the near-term. In their Harvard Kennedy School IDEASpHERE discussion, both Nye and Klimburg pointed to the myriad of obstacles that would-be cyber attackers would have to surmount to carry out such an attack, but cautioned that cyber threats do exist and that they are growing daily.

In a Harvard Kennedy School IDEASpHERE session titled "Challenges to US Global Leadership," Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, David Gergen, David Ignatius, and Meghan O’Sullivan discussed challenges as well as opportunities facing the United States. Burns moderated the session.

Challenges include the rise of China and the future of the U.S.-China relationship, the crises taking place around the world, and the reputation of the U.S. worldwide. An unexpected opportunity is the increase in available energy sources in the United States.

The last seven decades without war among the great powers – what historians describe as “the long peace” – is a remarkable achievement. “This is a rare and unusual fact if you look at the last few thousand years of history,” said Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center and moderator of the IDEASpHERE panel “Winning the Peace.” “Furthermore, it is no accident. Wise choices by statesmen have contributed to ‘the long peace,’ which has allowed many generations to live their lives.”

In the lead-up to the nuclear security summit, Advancing Nuclear Security: Evaluating Progress and Setting New Goals outlines what was accomplished in a four-year effort launched in 2009 to secure nuclear material around the globe—and what remains to be done. The effort made significant progress, but some weapons-usable nuclear materials still remain “dangerously vulnerable." The authors highlight the continuing danger of nuclear and radiological terrorism and call for urgent action.

China’s approach to strengthening the security of its nuclear weapons, materials, and facilities plays an important role in facilitating strong global action on nuclear security. This report provides a better understanding of Chinese perceptions of the threat of nuclear terrorism and attitudes toward the nuclear security challenge; describes the current status of nuclear security practices in China and of planned improvements in rules and organization, management, and technologies; and recommends steps for further improvements.

In a presentation entitled “The World At Night: Rethinking America’s Military Strategy,” Admiral Eric Olson (Ret.) set out a panoply of foreign policy challenges that will challenge US strategic thinking about security policy in the future.

This article analyzes female suicide bombings in Russia in order to prove that suicide terrorism in the largest of the post-Soviet states is an organizational rather than trauma-driven phenomenon.While female suicide bombers have so far used conventional explosives in their attacks, one can imagine how much havoc a suicide terrorist or terrorists could wreak if they got their hands on radioactive materials to make a dirty bomb, or penetrated a nuclear facility to sabotage it.

The 2011 “U.S. - Russia Joint Threat Assessment” offered both specific conclusions about the nature of the threat and general observations about how it might be addressed. This report builds on that foundation and analyzes the existing framework for action, cites gaps and deficiencies, and makes specific recommendations for improvement.

The United States and India have a strong and shared interest in preventing extremist groups from using Afghanistan as a base from which to launch terror attacks. If our two countries work together to foster stability in Afghanistan without provoking a counterproductive Pakistani response, we can further our Strategic Partnership and advance peace and security in South Asia.

This paper analyzes the contribution that best practices can make to the field of nuclear security by doing the following:

• Defining what is meant by best practice
• Specifying a methodology for deriving it
• Understanding the resulting characteristics of the method
• Comparing its pros and cons to other methods contributing to security, such as guidelines and regulations