Russia

This article, an exercise of applied history, has two aims: first, to understand the history of Soviet disinformation, and second, to make sense of Western efforts to counter it during the Cold War. Doing so provides policy-relevant conclusions from history about countering disinformation produced by Russia and other authoritarian regimes today.

Emily Whalen reviews Anatomies of Revolution by George Lawson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

The Trump administration has begun to put a price tag on its growing arms race with Russia and China, and the early numbers indicate that restoring nuclear weapons to a central role in American military strategy will cost tens of billions of dollars over the next decade.

Stephen Walt details how Europe is suddenly facing serious questions about its future role in world politics—and even in the trans-Atlantic relationship.

In the unintuitive world of nuclear weapons strategy, it’s often difficult to identify which decisions can serve to decrease the risk of a devastating nuclear conflict and which might instead increase it. Such complexity stems from the very foundation of the field: Nuclear weapons are widely seen as bombs built never to be used. Historically, granular—even seemingly mundane—decisions about force structure, research efforts, or communicated strategy have confounded planners, sometimes causing the opposite of the intended effect.

How can the public and private sectors finance economic growth in the Arctic that serves the people and ecosystems of the Arctic? How does society ensure that these investments build social-ecological resilience in a region that is transforming before our eyes? Join this five-week study group to explore these questions and learn from Arctic experts and finance professionals about how to finance sustainable development in communities impacted by a changing climate. Led by Arctic Initiative Senior Fellow Joel Clement, an Arctic policy leader and former federal climate-change whistleblower, and Graham Sinclair, a subject matter expert on sustainable investment and an Environmental, Social, and Governance architect with decades of experience working with development financing institutions.

The Study Group will consist of five weekly sessions: Tuesdays from 6pm – 7:30pm, February 4 – March 10, 2020, in Belfer-400 (Land Lecture Hall). For more information or to sign-up, please contact brittany_janis@hks.harvard.edu. Space is limited; please register by February 4.

Joseph Nye's new book rates the efforts of presidents from FDR to Trump.

Joseph Nye writes that the institutional costs of using a wrecking ball approach may reduce American power in the long run.

Putin is rumored to prefer focusing on foreign policy, where the Kremlin has proved itself to be a skilled player, while finding structural problems at home too boring to focus on. However, unless these are solved, he or his successor will continue to confront the reality that Russia remains too far behind the United States and China economically and demographically to be a true peer to these countries in the changing global order.

William James reviews Comparative Grand Strategy: A Framework and Cases edited by Thierry Balzacq,  Peter Dombrowski, and Simon Reich (Oxford University Press, 2019).