Asia & the Pacific

"Given the budgetary constraints under which spacefaring nations like the United States and India operate, cooperation is a valuable means to furthering our understanding of Earth's ecosystem."

"George W. Bush's presidency really was that bad — and the fact that Obama has largely followed the same course is less a measure of Bush's wisdom than a reminder of the depth of the hole he dug his country into, as well as the institutionalized groupthink that dominates the U.S. foreign-policy establishment."

The Summer 2010 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center's involvement with the Nuclear Security Summit, which was organized by Center alumni Gary Samore and Laura Holgate.

"...[W]e should resist the temptation to react to the fear of terrorism by turning inwards, reducing ties to foreign countries, and denying more students entry. Reducing the number of foreign student Visas would be counterproductive. The US tried it after September 11th, but has now reversed its approach, realising the harm it is doing. To do the same would be to be cowed into becoming a more closed society. We must remain open, outward-looking and vibrant. It is precisely many of these foreign students who will help their countries to reduce terrorism over the long run."

"...Climate change will put stress on weak governments in poor countries and may lead to an increase in the number of failed states and become an indirect source of international conflict. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon argued in 2007 that the Darfur conflict 'began as an ecological crisis, arising in part from climate change.'

Such direct and indirect effects from human activity, while not malevolent in intention like terrorism, argue for a broadening of our concept of security and the adoption of new policies...."

"Muller argues that ethnonationalism is the wave of the future and will result in more and more independent states, but this is not likely. One of the most destabilizing ideas throughout human history has been that every separately defined cultural unit should have its own state. Endless disruption and political introversion would follow an attempt to realize such a goal. Woodrow Wilson gave an impetus to further state creation when he argued for "national self-determination" as a means of preventing more nationalist conflict, which he believed was a cause of World War I...."

"...the oil-supply problem has become worse and energy security more complex."

"Globalization has the effect of incapacitating states as autonomous units."