South Asia

"Even as they acknowledged that potential dangers loom in Afghanistan over the next two years, experts at a Harvard conference pointed to some encouraging signs. One example: the number of schoolchildren has grown from 800,000 in 2001 to nearly nine million today....Speakers from Afghanistan and the West recognized that violence persists and problems such as endemic corruption still plague the country....But they took solace from the work of Afghans themselves in building a credible national military force that has increasingly taken on the brunt of combat duties"

The Belfer Center's Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Ashraf Hegazy, Joseph S. Nye, and Stephen Walt consider the U.S.'s shifting foreign policy in the Middle East.

Two Belfer Center International Global Affairs (IGA) fellows traveled to Pakistan in March for a week of research about the Pakistani military and its relationship with the civilian government.

"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."

Richard Clarke, former top terrorism advisor to President Bush and current Belfer Center Faculty Affiliate and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, told a JFK Jr. Forum audience on April 21 that the invasion of Iraq had played into al Qaeda's hands. It fulfilled bin Laden's prediction-that the US would invade and occupy an oil-producing Arabic country-and is using resources that should go toward the fight against terrorism. Iraq posed no threat to the US, Clarke told the overflow crowd.

The latest scholarly titles produced by members of the Belfer Center.