Science & Technology

Last week, Special Envoy of Senegal's Head of State, Aminata Touré hosted a seminar at Harvard University. She addressed several questions regarding US-African relations.

Ask almost any U.S. Navy officer about mine warfare and the reply most likely will center on efforts to recapitalize the service’s surface and airborne mine countermeasures capabilities. It would be unusual to receive a response that has anything to do with the actual use of maritime mines by the United States or friendly nations.

The Navy’s response has been to dedicate additional resources and intellectual firepower to countermine warfare in an effort to preserve its freedom of maneuver. However, the service has overlooked the other half of the lesson: mines are a cheap and disruptive weapon in naval warfare.

In this installment of “Conversations in Diplomacy," the Future of Diplomacy Project's Faculty Director Nicholas Burns is joined by Sir John Sawers, the former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, for a conversation on tackling global security challenges in the digital age and the changing nature of intelligence agencies.

"Africa's higher education crisis is partly rooted in the colonial separation between research and teaching....Under this common scenario, much of the knowledge that is transmitted to society through university graduates is outdated. And up-to-date knowledge created in research institutes is bottled up because of the lack of connection with young people."

As the candidates are solidified by their respective parties, leaked emails call to question the involvement of outside parties in opening access to the public on private correspondence. Senior Fellow for The Future of Diplomacy Project, David Ignatius, digs into the validity of such claims and the breakdown of security.

Senior Fellow of the Future of Diplomacy Project, David Ignatius examines the Navy’s energy diet that began seven years ago with an edict from newly appointed Secretary Ray Mabus, who issued five goals for radically changing how the Navy bought and consumed fuel.

The tensions unsettling the Saudi royal family became clear in September, when Joseph Westphal, the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh, flew to Jiddah to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, nominally the heir to the throne. But when he arrived, he was told that the deputy crown prince, a brash 30-year-old named Mohammed bin Salman, wanted to see him urgently. Senior Fellow, David Ignatius, discusses Mohammed bin Salman opportunity to transform Saudi Arabia.

"Values Conscious design may not be able to prevent the kind of deliberate fraud perpetrated by Volkswagen, but it could well have revealed Volkswagen's design choices as dubious, to say the least."