Africa

Dr. Ian Bremmer, expert in political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group, gave a seminar sponsored by the the Future of Diplomacy Project on Thursday, November 9 at the Harvard Kennedy School, titled “Managing Risk in an Unstable World."

"Despite being on different sides of the Syrian civil war, Putin has managed to bring Riyadh into its diplomatic orbit through cooperation on oil policy, given how both Saudi-led OPEC states and Russia need substantially higher prices for government budgets to break even."

Jens Stoltenberg,NATO Secretary General, discussed the future of the NATO alliance during this speech, given at the Harvard Kennedy School on September 23, 2016. He described the alliance as a responsive organization, capable of adapting to changes in the international security landscape but committed to the continuity of its founding values. In particular, he emphasized the necessity of maintaining a policy of absolute solidarity among member states, especially  in light of the exacerbating civil war in Syria and Russia’s aggressive stance toward countries to the East of NATO member state borders.

Robert Springborg, a preeminent senior scholar of the Middle East has joined the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) community this semester as Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Initiative at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Audio recordings from MEI's Spring 2015 Study Group Rethinking the Arab State: the Collapse of Legitimacy in Arab Politics, with Professor Michael C. Hudson.

During the Spring 2015 semester, Prof. Hudson hosted a distinguished group of scholars to re-examine the foundational concepts of legitimacy, the state, civil society, religion, and regional stability in the wake of the Arab Uprisings.

Former Prime Minister of Denmark and former Secretary-General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, delivered an address titled “America and Europe: Quo Vadis?” in March for the Future of Diplomacy Project's annual Europe Week. Prime Minister Rsamussen led a discussion with students, fellows, and faculty on the need for a stronger transatlantic alliance and American leadership to build a “global alliance of liberal democracies” in the 21st century. Prime Minister Rasmussen examined topical issues ranging from unrest in regional hotspots in the Middle East and Ukraine, to threats to liberal democracy, to challenges to U.S. supremacy.

As Africa's position in the world continues to grow and evolve in 2014, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative continues its tradition of asking its experts and colleagues to identify what they consider to be the key issues for Africa in the coming year.

"Biotechnology offers Africa a wider range of economic opportunities than the Green Revolution did. It is already being used to improve food production and establish or revive cotton production. Its economic impact is therefore likely to go well beyond the farm sector to include industrial development."

"...[T]he biggest challenge the United States faces today is not a looming great-power rival; it is the triple whammy of accumulated debt, eroding infrastructure and a sluggish economy. The only way to have the world's most capable military forces both now and into the future is to have the world's most advanced economy, and that means having better schools, the best universities, a scientific establishment that is second to none, and a national infrastructure that enhances productivity and dazzles those who visit from abroad. These things all cost money, of course, but they would do far more to safeguard our long-term security than spending a lot of blood and treasure determining who should run Afghanistan, Kosovo, South Sudan, Libya, Yemen or any number of other strategic backwaters."