Asia & the Pacific

The Right Honourable Douglas Alexander offered his views on European security in a discussion moderated by FDP Executive Director Cathryn Cluver.

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.

As visitors step through the doors of the Kennedy Memorial Library for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, they will find on display Picasso's 1963 Rape of the Sabine Women - on loan from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. The connection between Picasso's painting and what is widely accepted as the most dangerous moment in human history was brought to light for many by Malcolm Wiener, a member of the Belfer Center’s International Council and the person for whom Harvard Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy was named.

Osama bin Laden gave them the perfect opening. Just before President Bush welcomed Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to the White House for last week's summit, a Pakistani newspaper quoted the Al Qaeda leader claiming to have "chemical and nuclear weapons" and "the right to use them."

The question is suddenly urgent: Could the inconceivable happen? President Bush has previously warned the world that Osama bin Laden is seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction. Now, bin Laden himself claims to have chemical and nuclear weapons -- and "the right to use them." We cannot know for certain whether he is bluffing, but Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge has confirmed that documents detailing how to make nuclear weapons have been found in an al Qaeda safe house in Kabul. And we can certainly expect that as the noose tightens aroundthe terrorist''s neck, he and his associates will become increasingly desperate.

President Bush has warned the world that Osama bin Laden is ''seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction.'' To meet this threat, the United States and Russia should take the lead in establishing an Alliance Against Megaterrorism. What should have been a crowning achievement of this week's summit was sadly a missed opportunity.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 27 -- President George W. Bush''s call to arms was resounding and resolute. He rightly warned that war against bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and their Taliban hosts will be "unlike any other we have ever seen." As the Pentagon now prepares to strike a first blow in this long campaign, Americans must become realistic --super-realistic --about the fact that we face "a thinking enemy," in Secretary Colin Powell''s phrase.

Despite a decade of effort, the risks of loose nukes are larger today than they were when these efforts began. U.S. programs have had positive results, but declines in Russia's economy and in the government's ability to control anything--from money to nuclear materials--has had larger negative consequences. The good news is that Russians are ready to engage in more joint efforts to secure Russia's nuclear materials.