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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with a payload a of Starlink satellites for a high-speed low earth orbit internet constellation, lifts off from launch complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sunday, July 17, 2022.

AP Photo/John Raoux

Analysis & Opinions - International Security Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Starlink and the Russia-Ukraine War: A Case of Commercial Technology and Public Purpose?

| Mar. 09, 2023

The commercial space technology Starlink grabbed headlines in the wake of the Russian-Ukraine war. Just two days into the conflict, Elon Musk, CEO and founder of SpaceX, the company that operates Starlink, agreed to supply Ukraine with the technology to ensure they had reliable internet connectivity and communication. Starlink has since been touted as critical in the war effort, but it has not come without hazards.

Air-to-air with a Tupolev Tu-160

Ministry of Defence/Vadim Savitsky via Wikimedia Commons

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

Things Get Ugly if Russia Pulls the Nuclear Trigger in Ukraine

| Feb. 25, 2023

Not long ago, one of my students asked: “So, if my phone tells me the Russians have used nuclear weapons in Ukraine, should I do anything different here?” In other words: should I head for the hills?

My answer is “no.” The U.S. and Russian governments know full well that lobbing nuclear weapons at each other would be suicidal—each has enough powerful, survivable nuclear weapons to obliterate the other as a functioning society. No one is going to march down that road on purpose.

But it’s a nervous “no,” because the key lesson of the crises of the last several decades is that there is a fog of crisis, just as there is a fog of war, and things can happen that no leader originally intended. And in this case, thinking about how the United States might respond to Russian nuclear use makes clear just how rapidly things could get very dicey.

Ukrainian soldiers walk by the graves of fellow soldiers lined with Ukrainian flags and flower wreaths.

AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

The War in Ukraine at One Year: Belfer Center Perspectives

Feb. 24, 2023

Marking one year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Belfer Center this week hosted Ukraine’s Foreign Minister for a discussion of the war and its significance for Ukraine and the world. In this special feature, we include video from Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s conversation with the Center’s Eric Rosenbach and Paula Dobriansky. We also include a report card on the war from Graham Allison and Kate Davidson, a policy brief from the Sexual Violence in Conflict project, interviews that highlight perspectives from the people of Ukraine and Russia, and new insights and perspectives from a range of experts on how the war is impacting global order as well as regions and people around the globe.

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Natasha Yefimova-Trilling – On the War and Its Impact in Russia

| Feb. 24, 2023

Belfer Communications Fellow Ada Ezeokoli interviewed Yefimova-Trilling on her perspectives regarding the Russian-Ukraine conflict one year on, and her thoughts on the year to come.

Ukrainian servicemen of the 3rd Separate Tank Iron Brigde take part in an exercise in the Kharkiv area, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023, the day before the one year mark since the war began

AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

What the Ukraine War Has Revealed About the Indispensability of Multilateral Governance

| Feb. 23, 2023

The war itself has exposed the current limitations of the United Nations system, especially when facing mighty Security Council member-states with intractable political grievances.