Asia & the Pacific

On April 6, 2022,  the Belfer Center's Future of Diplomacy Project and Indo-Pacific Security Project as well as the Center for Public Leadership hosted a hybrid seminar with Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, former National Security Advisor of India and former Foreign Secretary in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, and Ambassador Richard Verma, former U.S. Ambassador to India and Belfer Center Senior Fellow, on India’s foreign policy and U.S.-India relations in a changing world order. The discussion explored why India abstained from recent U.N. votes deploring Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, what that means for U.S.-India relations, both bilateral and through the Quad, and how the war in Ukraine will affect geopolitics in Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific. Gopal Nadadur, MPA/ID candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School moderated this conversation.

The U.S. is grappling with increasingly challenging transnational technology, policy, and security issues, which are complicated further by the economic and supply chain relationships with China. As the Biden administration and Congress look at developing policy solutions that will both reduce dependence on China and strengthen the United States’ resilience, it is important that these policies form a larger, holistic strategy that articulates the national security narrative clearly. 

Joseph Nye argues hat the major threat to U.S. power comes from its internal divisions. These are serious liabilities but they were not created by the invasion of Ukraine.

Joseph Nye argues that prudence results from the fear of creating unintended consequences in unpredictable systems and can develop into a norm of nonuse or limited use of certain weapons or a norm of limiting targets. Something like this happened with nuclear weapons when the superpowers came close to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. The Limited Test Ban Treaty followed a year later.

Joseph Nye writes that although the United States has long commanded the technological cutting edge, China is mounting a credible challenge in key areas. But, ultimately, the balance of power will be decided not by technological development but by diplomacy and strategic choices, both at home and abroad.

The United States president, Joe Biden, has made restoring alliances and partnerships a central feature of his foreign-policy agenda. As he arrives in Europe for the first overseas trip of his presidency, the time is ripe for the transatlantic relationship to advance an agenda of democratic resilience.

Strengthening policy co-ordination on Russia and China will be central to this agenda—although transatlantic partners are not expected to be in lockstep with him on every issue. Instead of lamenting where our approaches toward Moscow and Beijing may diverge, however, the US and its European partners should take advantage of renewed diplomatic engagement to make progress on defending democratic values at home and abroad.

The Future of Diplomacy Project hosted a conversation with Julie Bishop, Fisher Family Fellow and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia, about China and Australia’s relationship, the increasing geopolitical role of the Quad, and how U.S. foreign policy should respond to China's rise on May 19, 2021. Research Director, Torrey Taussig moderated this discussion.

In a conversation with Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, we will explore how she employed cultural diplomacy while serving as U.S. Ambassador to Japan (2013-2017), our key ally in Asia. Ambassador (ret.) Nicholas Burns, Harvard Kennedy School professor and Faculty Chair of the Future of Diplomacy Project, welcomed and introduced Ambassador Kennedy. He and Carla Dirlikov Canales, 2021 Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow, co-moderated the discussion. Dr. Joe Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus at Harvard and who introduced the world to the concept of "soft power" in the late 1980s, was also be part of the discussion.

Former President Bill Clinton gave the inaugural Stephen W. Bosworth Memorial Lecture in Diplomacy in honor of the late, much admired U.S. ambassador on Wednesday. He recalled some of his major foreign policy triumphs and challenges with Russia, China, and North Korea in a conversation with Professor Nicholas Burns. 

Former President Bill Clinton reflected on the foreign policy challenges of his presidency at the inaugural Stephen W. Bosworth Memorial Lecture in Diplomacy, hosted Wednesday by the Harvard Kennedy School.