South Asia

When the Academy Award-winning producer of An Inconvenient Truth,Lawrence Bender, wanted to create a new nuclear proliferation film, he turned to leading experts at the Belfer Center.

The Summer 2010 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 issue highlights the Belfer Center's involvement with the Nuclear Security Summit, which was organized by Center alumni Gary Samore and Laura Holgate.

In this Q&A, we asked Belfer Center alumni Gary Samore and Laura Holgate to comment on the planning and successes of the Nuclear Security Summit, which they were responsible for organizing. The Summit that brought 46 global leaders to Washington, D.C. in April was a major step by President Obama to "ensure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon." Samore, coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, proliferation, and terrorism, and Holgate, senior director for weapons of mass destruction terrorism and threat reduction, are alumni of the Belfer Center's International Security Program.

Among the articles featured in the Winter 2009/10 Issue of the Belfer Center journal International Securityare "Same As It Ever Was: Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation, and the Cold War," by Francis J. Gavin, Posturing for Peace? Pakistan's Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability," and Understanding Support for Islamist Militancy in Pakistan."  International Security is America's leading journal of security affairs.

The Arab involvement in Afghanistan was the result of two main factors: the entrepreneurship of the Palestinian preacher Abdallah Azzam, and the rise of a "soft pan-Islamism" promoted since the mid-1970s by non-violent international Islamic organizations such as the Muslim World League.

This policy memo is based on Thomas Hegghammer's ISP brownbag seminar presentation.

Instead of special envoys and summits, the U.S. should adopt a "quiet diplomacy" approach that offers incentives to India and Pakistan for making tangible, if small, progress on the ground in Kashmir. The U.S. should offer to help fund sustained local policy initiatives in both Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir aimed at improving governance and encouraging economic exchange and the movement of people across the Line of Control. An initiative focused on local government and civil society lacks the drama of shuttle diplomacy and grand bargains, but can actually improve the daily lives of Kashmiris while giving them more say over their own governance.

In recent years, India's military, diplomatic and economic energies have expanded far beyond Nehru's Non-Aligned position. But what does that mean for India, its region, and the United States?

International Security is America's leading journal of security affairs. It provides sophisticated analyses of contemporary security issues and discusses their conceptual and historical foundations. The journal is edited at the Belfer Center and published quarterly by the MIT Press. Questions may be directed to: IS@harvard.edu

Dr. Ashton B. Carter testifies before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

The latest publications released by Belfer Center faculty and fellows.