South Asia

For more than two decades, I worked to strengthen military and diplomatic ties with China, alongside scores of other U.S. and allied officials, all of us sincere in our belief that China could be encouraged to join the principled, inclusive network that has served as the backbone of regional security since the end of World War II - and thus the Asian miracle. It is easy for me to imagine having used my time as Secretary of Defense to solidify those ties and bring China into closer partnership with the United States and the other participants in the network. 

Cronin-Furman said she came to the Belfer Center to be a part of a community that instigates change, one she feels is at the forefront of academic work in international relations and national security.

Farah Pandith, America’s first special representative to Muslim communities, joined the Belfer Center this fall as a Fisher Family Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project and as a senior fellow with the Middle East Initiative. Jairam Ramesh, a member of Parliament from Andhra Pradesh, India, and a leader in international climate negotiations, joined the Belfer Center this fall as a 2014 Fisher Family Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project.

Dara Kay Cohen is an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a core faculty member of the International Security Program at the Belfer Center. Her current research examines variations in the use of sexual violence during recent conflicts and draws from fieldwork in Sierra Leone, East Timor, and El Salvador, where she interviewed more than 200 ex-combatants and noncombatants. Here, she answers questions related to her research on the causes of wartime rape. She recently co-authored a policy report for the United States Institute of Peace titled "Wartime Sexual Violence: Misconceptions, Implications, and Ways Forward."

As a child, Aisha Ahmad remembers vividly the arms bazaars in Peshawar and the throngs of bearded mujahedeen commanders as they passed through her grandfather’s smoke laden offices in the Pakistani frontier province.Though she was born in the UK and grew up in Canada, her family retained strong ties with their native community and during her youth Ahmad regularly traveled to the unruly Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

"Belfer and Carr Center fellows and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) students have been busy since fall supporting the work of the Joint Staff 's Afghanistan-Pakistan Coordination Cell (PACC). The PACC, created by General Stanley McChrystal and directed by Brigadier General John Nicholson, plays a crucial role in supporting counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan."

Rory Stewart is the Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and  director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and a member of the Belfer Center Board of Directors. A former  officer in the British Army and deputy governate coordinator with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Stewart spent two years walking 6,000 miles across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal - a journey he describes in his critically acclaimed book  The Places in Between.

Quotes on Newsmakers Page

An intensive three-day conference hosted y the Belfer Center's Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution focused on the challenges and opportunities of state building in Afghanistan. Participants agreed that effective reconstruction of Afghanistan depends on strengthening security, reducing poppy production, decreasing the hold of narcoterrorists, improving regional commercial linkages, enhancing a sense of nationhood, and bolstering good governance.