South Asia

"The large number of signatories on the dissenting memo is truly historic, but what's equally significant is that these diplomats have now joined a long line of government dissidents during cases of mass atrocity. These 51 names, as yet unknown, undoubtedly will someday rank alongside Henry Morgenthau Jr., Archer Blood and Marshall Harris, 20th century U.S. government officials who took a stand against U.S. policy in response to mass killings abroad."

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.

"Though no U.S. commentators have stated that the U.S. government actively aided ISIS and other Jihadi groups, it is worthwhile stating — at least to my knowledge — that no Arab Jihadis have received American aid. Some confusion may have arisen from the fact that on the Afghan side it is a different story."

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.

This paper examines the strategic future of South Asia in the wake of the U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan through three key research questions: first, how does the U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan affect the regional security and economic interests of India, Pakistan, and China? Secondly, what kinds of responses to terror attacks by India, Pakistan, and China could further destabilize the region? Thirdly, what key steps can the United States take to prevent further instability in this context?

The ninth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will be held at the UN Headquarters in New York from April 27-May 22, 2015. This is the fourth such conference since the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995. Participating governments will discuss nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy with a view to arriving at consensus on a number of issues.

"China's increasingly assertive policies toward its immediate neighborhood shows that Beijing is hardly indifferent to geopolitics, and Russia's assertive defense of what it sees as vital interests in its 'near abroad' (e.g., Ukraine) suggests that somebody in Moscow didn't get the memo about the benign effects of globalization. And regional powers like India, Turkey, and Japan are taking traditional geopolitical concerns more seriously these days. Bottom line: If you thought great-power rivalry was a thing of the past, think again."

At 6:00 PM on October 3, 2013, George Perkovich, Vice President for Studies and
Director of the Nuclear Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, gave the 2013 Robert McNamara Lecture on War and Peace, titled "Preventing Nuclear War in South Asia: Unprecedented Challenges, Unprecedented Solutions."

"Researching Asian security issues has never been more topical," Yvonne Yew said in discussing her work at the Belfer Center. Despite Asia's economic growth, she said, "simmering tensions, territorial disputes, nuclear proliferation concerns, and military skirmishes serve to potentially undermine the region's peace and prosperity. As a former Singaporean diplomat and representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yew is in a unique position to view security issues spurred by the momentous and ongoing rise of Asia."

"Belfer Center Fellow Marisa Porges' career has already spanned the worlds of academia and policymaking, the government and the military. As an undergraduate at Harvard, Porges earned honors with a degree in geophysics and, during senior year, commanded her Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps unit. After graduation, she commissioned as a naval flight officer in the U.S. Navy and managed the weapons systems aboard EA-6B Prowlers, a carrier-based electronic warfare jet.... [now] as a doctoral candidate in the Department of War Studies at King's College London and a research fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program, she now combines scholarship and practice."