International Security & Defense

The COVID-19 pandemic has cast into stark relief a harsh reality that health and biosecurity experts have been worrying about for many years: our extreme vulnerability to naturally occurring pandemics and man-made bioweapons.

The resurgence of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the next evolution of violent extremist ideology will undoubtedly flow from this region. Regional and global actors have protracted the conflict and stymied the peace process. This paper is not an exposé on the plight of Syrian refugees nor is a plea to rebuild Syria. Instead, this paper discusses the national security threat components of weaponized populations and mobile safe havens used by violent extremist organizations and offers policy recommendations to support a long-term strategy to reduce violence in the region, contain these new threats, and set conditions for reconciliation and peace.

Stephen Walt writes that arguments against U.S. offshore balancing misunderstand history. The strategy that worked against the Soviet Union can work against China.

The Covid-19 pandemic is prompting reconsideration of issues that were thought to be settled. One is the wisdom of China as a hub in vital supply chains, a reality driven by cost considerations and the belief that integrating China into the global economy would moderate Beijing’s behavior. Unfortunately, China hasn’t moderated. Beijing has been an unreliable supplier that pressures trading partners.

As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson informed the nation on Monday evening of dramatic new restrictions to stem the spread of coronavirus, Brexit was the last thing on most Britons’ minds. For most citizens and businesses, little has changed in their daily lives since the U.K. left the European Union (EU) on January 31. Although the British government no longer participates in EU decision making institutions, the country remains bound by its rules and enjoys the benefits of membership during a transition period lasting until December 31.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) is predicated on a single organizing principle: America’s military pre-eminence is rapidly eroding. This is not a new concept. For years, experts have warned that the economic and technological advancements of U.S. adversaries, coupled with the 2008 financial crisis and America’s focus on peripheral conflicts, have caused a decline in America’s military dominance. 

In this context, the advances of near-peer competitors such as China and Russia have created plausible “theories of victory” in potential conflicts across Eastern Europe and East Asia. Competitors’ unaddressed improvements in strategic innovation, economic investment, and dual-use technology increases the risk of conflict and strains the U.S. alliance system. It is urgent that the United States reestablish and maintain credible deterrents against these near-peer competitors. After decades of focusing on post-Cold War ‘shaping’ operations, the American military needs to reinvigorate for full spectrum great power competition.

This report is intended as a blueprint on how to begin that process from graduate students at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Contained inside are 12 memorandums. Each provides a high-level overview and specific recommendations on a key issue of American defense policy. 

As the novel coronavirus continues spreading, the whole world is preparing for the onslaught in similar ways—social distancing, working from home, panic buying at grocery stores. But people in different countries are also weathering this crisis in different ways, finding, for example, different products to hoard, different ways to pass the time, different people to blame and even different things to worry about.

As part of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship’s (PETR) event series, Nicholas Burns, Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, moderated a conversation on the crisis in the transatlantic relationship with Ambassador Victoria Nuland, Senior Fellow on the Future of Diplomacy Project and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Ambassador Philippe Etienne, Ambassador of France to the United States and diplomatic adviser to the President of the French Republic. 

China and the United States hold opposing beliefs about whether nuclear war can be avoided in a potential crisis or armed conflict. Taken together, these opposing beliefs increase the risk of nuclear escalation and can lead to greater crisis instability.

For many, like me, who worked on policy toward Afghanistan for years, recent leaks about an impending agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban bring mixed emotions. It is impossible to separate any deal from President Donald Trump’s persistent declarations that he wants to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan now. Such assertions weakened the hand of America’s negotiators and inevitably color any agreement – whatever its merits – with “America First” and the sense that the U.S. is cutting and running.  Nevertheless, if a deal materializes, it could represent the best opportunity in years to secure American interests and downsize U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan.