Middle East & North Africa

12 Items

U.S. President Donald Trump Speaks During a Press Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 28, 2019.

Associated Press

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Trump’s Comments on Otto Warmbier are a Reminder He Doesn’t Prioritize Human Rights

| Feb. 28, 2019

The Trump administration has never shown much interest in human rights. Last year, it pulled the United States out of the U.N. Human Rights Council. In 2017, within months of President Trump’s inauguration, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said diplomats should not let human rights values become “obstacles” to achieving national goals. Trump has spoken favorably about some of the world’s most vicious dictators.

Analysis & Opinions - European Leadership Network

On the Road to Nowhere? New Proposals on the Middle East WMD-Free Zone May Backfire

| May 11, 2015

"One of the dramas playing out this month in New York at the 2015 Review Conference for parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) concerns the future of discussions on establishing the weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East..."

News - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

Fresh Ideas for the Future: Symposium on the NPT Nuclear Disarmament, Non-proliferation, and Energy

Apr. 30, 2015

On April 28, the Project on Managing the Atom joined the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, The Netherlands government, and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) in convening nuclear nonproliferation experts from around the world at the United Nations to participate in a Symposium on the 2015 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

In this photo taken Feb. 9, 2014, clouds loom over Sinopec oil refinery in Qingdao in China's Shandong province.

AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Is There an Oil Weapon? Security Implications of Changes in the Structure of the International Oil Market

    Authors:
  • Llewelyn Hughes
  • Austin Long
| Winter 2014/15

States have long worried that their dependence on oil gives producers a means of coercion. The oil market, however, is far larger and more integrated than it used to be. The potential for coercion differs across a series of distinct market segments. In this varied market, the United States remains the dominant force.

Analysis & Opinions - The Wall Street Journal

Shale Gas Is America's Geopolitical Trump Card

| June 8, 2014

"For some time, many people at home and abroad have bought into the myth of American decline. Increasing dependence on energy imports was often cited as evidence. The shale revolution changes that dependence and demonstrates the combination of entrepreneurship, property rights and capital markets that are this country's underlying strength."

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

Belfer Center Spring 2014 Newsletter

| Spring 2014

The Spring 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 deepening engagement with China and increasing collaboration with Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance around critical issues related to China. We announce former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a new Belfer Center senior fellow who will lead efforts to explore possibilities and impacts of a new strategic China-U.S. relationship. Read about this and much more.

Cyclers drive past a branch of Sinopec in Haikou city, south Chinas Hainan province, December 1, 2012.

AP File Photo/ Chen Kang

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

How Oil Influences U.S. National Security

| Fall 2013

U.S. scholars and policymakers commonly worry that a lack of "energy security" hurts U.S. national security, yet few have analyzed the links between states' energy requirements and the probability of military conflict. An investigation of these links identifies threats to U.S. national security flowing from other countries' consumption of oil, rather than just U.S. consumption. Furthermore, while many of the security threats associated with Persian Gulf oil have decreased, new oil-driven dangers are emerging in Northeast Asia.