Asia & the Pacific

"Belfer Center Newsmakers" highlights members of the Belfer Center community who have been featured recently in the news.

The Summer 2014 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 edition highlights the Belfer Center’s longtime efforts to improve nuclear security and the Center's critical role in the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit to prevent nuclear terrorism. This issue also features a timeline and analysis of significant events in Ukraine during the past 20 years. We also note a bright spot in U.S.-Russian relations – a statement by the Elbe Group of retired Russian and U.S. generals cautioning the two governments not to let Ukraine and Crimea interrupt the joint efforts of the two countries to protect “our shared strategic interests.”

And much more...

Of the many issues and crises that confront heads of state and government, how did you determine priorities when you were Prime Minister?

The core challenge for any Head of Government is to balance the relative priorities between domestic policy and foreign policy. This in turn will be shaped by pre-election commitments. In my own case as Prime Minister, that meant determining the right priorities concerning the Global Financial Crisis as well as more classical foreign policy challenges within our region. The number one international policy challenge for my Government was dealing with the worst global financial economic crisis since the Great Depression. It obviously was not anticipated before an election but it had to take priority over everything else for the simple reason that in the absence of an effectively functioning financial system and robust economy, all other priorities of the Government would have been significantly undermined.

The Summer 2013 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 edition highlights the Belfer Center’s expanding work on complex cybersecurity issues and Middle East challenges, offers reflections on the role of the U.S. in Iraq, and spotlights work being done by the Center and its affiliates on environment and energy issues.

International Security is America’s leading journal of security affairs. It provides sophisticated analyses of contemporary security issues and discusses their conceptual and historical foundations. The journal is edited at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and published quarterly by the MIT Press.

News briefs related to activities of Belfer Center faculty, fellows, and staff.

An intensive three-day conference hosted y the Belfer Center's Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution focused on the challenges and opportunities of state building in Afghanistan. Participants agreed that effective reconstruction of Afghanistan depends on strengthening security, reducing poppy production, decreasing the hold of narcoterrorists, improving regional commercial linkages, enhancing a sense of nationhood, and bolstering good governance.