Jun 21, 2024

Dr. Gloria Ayee led a study group over the course of five sessions during the Spring of 2024, exploring the current pivotal moment on the African continent. Reflecting back, Dr. Ayee highlights the key takeaways from the study group.

Jul 16, 2024

In June, Ukraine’s most powerful backers met at the G7 summit before attending Ukraine’s peace conference in Switzerland, which hosted representatives from nearly eighty countries. For one week, they met to discuss Volodymyr Zelensky’s ten-point peace plan, announced a plan to fund Ukraine using frozen Russian assets, and introduced a U.S.-Ukraine bilateral security agreement. As the United States and its allies are working to put Ukraine in the best position possible for eventual ceasefire negotiations, what should their top priority be?

Mar 13, 2024

David Kearn argues that even in the absence of restrictive resource and budgetary constraints, a focus on identifying and achieving concrete objectives that will position the United States and its allies to effectively deter aggression in critical regional flashpoints should be the priority given the stressed nature of the defense industrial base and the nuclear enterprise.

Mar 14, 2024

David Kearn argues that the idea that the first use of nuclear weapons since 1945 would be by the United States in the defense of Taiwan against a conventional Chinese invasion would have significant, negative, and long-lasting, diplomatic ramifications. It is difficult to fathom the myriad potential consequences, but U.S. nuclear weapon use would almost certainly shatter the non-proliferation regime as a functioning entity, incentivize states (including China) to acquire or improve their existing nuclear arsenal, and damage America's standing globally.

Apr 1, 2024

Report by Trevor Findlay about recent politics surrounding the Iranian Nuclear Program.

Apr 17, 2024

Mariana Budjeryn presents "Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and Its Impact on the Global Nuclear Order" at the DOE/NNSA Administrator's Strategy Forum

Apr 18, 2024

Assaf Zoran argues that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities may have the opposite result of prompting an escalation in Iran’s nuclear developments, a pattern previously observed in response to kinetic actions attributed to Israel.

Apr 23, 2024

Assaf Zoran examines the dynamics of Iran's shift from operating in the shadows or behind partners and proxies to directly attacking Israel and Pakistan.

May 24, 2024

Mohammad Tabaar writes that former Iranian President Raisi will be remembered for putting the country on the right path after a series of presidents who challenged the supreme leader's vision. He will be memorialized for positioning Iran as a nuclear threshold state and establishing it as a rising power—and for doing so not despite external pressure, but because of it.

Jun 4, 2024

Would the world be safer if the United States pledged to never use nuclear weapons first? Supporters say a credible pledge would strengthen crisis stability, decrease hostility, and bolster nonproliferation and arms control. But reactions to no-first-use pledges by the Soviet Union, China, and India suggest that adversaries perceive pledges as credible only when the political relationship between a state and its adversary is already relatively benign, or when the state’s military has no ability to engage in nuclear first use against the adversary. 

May 14, 2024

Stephen Walt explores possible scenarios if Iran acquires a nuclear capability.

May 21, 2024

Nicole Grajewski describes former Iranian President Raisi’s hardline stance and his willingness to deepen ties with Russia as assets. Collaboration with a like-minded authoritarian with a bent for confronting the West proved particularly valuable after Russia invaded Ukraine.

May 24, 2024

We must avoid the successor to the grand reapers of the past century: World War I and World War II. We must avoid World War III. We should reflect on this during this Memorial Day.

Jun 4, 2024

Joseph Nye Russia's war on Ukraine is still raging, and no one knows when or how it will end. Nonetheless, the past two years have borne out several predictions concerning what does and does not work in twenty-first-century conflicts involving major powers.

Jun 4, 2024

Stephen Walt argues that those who fetishize credibility typically assume all that is needed is sufficient resolve. This overlooks the other key ingredient— competence.

Jun 7, 2024

This short article introduces our Special Issue on 'Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making'. The authors begin by stepping back and briefly commenting on the current military AI landscape. They then turn to the hitherto largely neglected prospect of AI-driven systems influencing state-level decision making on the resort to force.

Jun 10, 2024

Two and a half decades [after 9/11], Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, is sounding similar alarms. His discussions within the Biden administration are private, but his testimony to Congress and other public statements could not be more explicit. Testifying in December to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Wray said, “When I sat here last year, I walked through how we were already in a heightened threat environment.” Yet after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, “we’ve seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole nother level,” he added. In speaking about those threats, Wray has repeatedly drawn attention to security gaps at the United States’ southern border, where thousands of people each week enter the country undetected.

Jun 12, 2024

Joseph Nye argues that even as the hard power of weapons and armies resurges on the global stage, the cultivation and use of soft power will still hold currency in the twenty-first century.

Jun 20, 2024

Matthew Bunn argues that governments need help from scientists and engineers both in understanding the dangers that nuclear weapons continue to pose and in finding paths to reduce them.

Jun 20, 2024

Stephen Walt argues that Americans who are deeply worried about China's rise should reflect on what Beijing has done well and what Washington has done poorly.

Jul 16, 2024

Mohammad Tabaar's analysis posits that yet even if Khamenei gives Pezeshkian a relatively long leash, his government is unlikely to negotiate another ambitious nuclear agreement. It will, instead, look to ink a deal that could freeze or incrementally scale back Iran's nuclear advances, including by reducing the quality and quantity of the uranium Iran enriches, in exchange for sanctions relief. Such a transactional deal would have multiple advantages for Pezeshkian. Given Khamenei's support, Iran's conservatives would be less likely to sabotage that deal than they were the 2015 agreement. And it would be easy for Tehran to ramp up its program if the United States withdraws again, as occurred under President Donald Trump in 2018.

Jul 25, 2024

Stephen Walt argues that if Trump and Vance win in November, it will do enormous long-term damage to America's global position.

Jul 28, 2024

The Africa in Focus series is a forum for the intellectual and critical analysis of processes and policies from the continent and its engagement with the international community. Through thoughtful and dynamic programming, Africa in Focus brings greater African perspectives into broader policy conversations at HKS.

Mar 12, 2024

Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine illuminated the long profound shadow of nuclear weapons over international security. Russia's nuclear threats have rightfully garnered significant attention because of the unfathomable lethality of nuclear weapons. However, the use of such weapons in Ukraine is only one way—albeit the gravest— that Russia could challenge the global nuclear order. Russia's influence extends deep into the very fabric of this order—a system to which it is inextricably bound by Moscow's position in cornerstone institutions such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). From withdrawing from key treaties to stymieing resolutions critical of misconduct, Moscow has demonstrated its ability to challenge the legitimacy, relevance, and interpretations of numerous standards and principles espoused by the West.

Mar 18, 2024

Harvard Kennedy School hosted Jahi Wise, Senior Adviser to the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to discuss the design and implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a historic investment in American clean energy technology finance.

Mar 26, 2024

India aims to become a leading producer of green hydrogen by the next decade as part of its broader industrial and decarbonization strategies. This brief provides an overview of India's current hydrogen strategy, as well as the challenges - land and water scarcity, infrastructure gaps, and financing gaps - that must be addressed in order for India to achieve its ambitious goals.

Apr 1, 2024

Harvard Kennedy School hosted Sarah Ladislaw, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Climate and Energy of the U.S. National Security Council, for an Energy Policy Seminar on the U.S. approach to energy and climate issues in its foreign policy.

Apr 3, 2024

Great progress on nuclear fusion has been made, but commercialization of the technology before 2050 is unlikely, said John Holdren during a United States Energy Association press briefing. 

Apr 8, 2024

Behavioral economist Hunt Allcott, Professor of Global Environmental Policy at the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University, questioned the impact of new and used electric vehicle (EV) subsidies in the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.”

Apr 26, 2024

Concerns over resource adequacy during periods of peak demand or supply crises are rising with increasing deployment of renewable energy. Conleigh Byers says mandatory forward market contracts could help.

May 6, 2024

International relations expert Meghan O'Sullivan, the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, expressed her hopes for achieving successful international climate policy solutions in the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.”

May 8, 2024

Electric vehicles (EVs) can challenge or support electricity systems depending on how they are charged. Controlled charging that combines technical solutions with heterogenous EV user behaviors can reduce peak demand to avoid grid constraints and support the integration of renewable energy.

May 29, 2024

The energy transition is driving demand for critical minerals and metals, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earth elements. Sodium-based batteries could provide a more secure, affordable alternative to lithium-ion batteries and highly concentrated lithium supply chains.

Jun 6, 2024

Emily Grubert, Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy and of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, discussed the dangers of an unplanned transition from a fossil-based energy system to a zero-carbon energy system during a talk at Harvard Kennedy School.

Jun 12, 2024

Deploying renewable energy sources is the most promising approach to decarbonizing the power sector in China. However, the intermittency and non-dispatchable nature of wind and solar power pose significant challenges to grid stability, particularly when these sources reach high penetration rates. This study applies a unit commitment model to investigate the economic and environmental performance of load shaving strategies across different scenarios.

Jun 26, 2024

Air-source heat pump adoption will increase heating costs for approximately half of all Massachusetts households due to high electricity prices, according to a new town-level spatial analysis by researchers at Harvard University. Concerns around increased energy bills could challenge Massachusetts’ ability to achieve its ambitions for decarbonization of buildings across the state.

Jun 26, 2024

The first-ever town-level spatial analysis of the effect of heat pump adoption on residential heating bills finds that air-source heat pump adoption will increase heating costs for approximately half of all Massachusetts households due to high electricity prices, challenging the state’s ability to achieve its recently announced ambitions for heat pump adoption.

Jul 8, 2024

Green, grey, blue, turquoise, pink, yellow, orange – Nicola De Blasio provides a guide to the color codes used to classify hydrogen produced from different sources.

Jul 11, 2024

Efforts to measure and mitigate the impact of methane emissions was the topic of discussion last Monday (June 10, 2024) at a panel convened as part of Climate Action Week in the Northwest Building, sponsored by Harvard’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and moderated by Harvard Environmental Economics Program and Harvard Project Director Robert Stavins.

Aug 5, 2024

This original primer, conducted as research for The Africa Futures Project, is an initial exploration into the evolving roles and increasing influence of “middle powers” in Africa. It covers a diverse array of existing and aspiring middle powers, presenting key points for each nation under four distinct analytical lenses.

Genworth Breaks Down the Basics of Long Term Care

The �Design Smart, Live Beautifully� Home Tour coincides with the launch of the 2014 model of Blu�s award-winning�Breezehouse, which is�packed with luxurious features and an even more spacious floor plan

Matt Snow

Settlement Overview Video. If you lived at Huronia, Rideau, or Southwestern Regional Centres, you may be eligible to make a claim.

Singer Austin Mahone teams up with The Allstate Foundation to encourage smart teen driving through its #GetThereSafe program.

Redefining the American Auto Industry. - The Growing Impact of International Automakers on the U.S. Economy.

Benchmarking the Accounting & Finance Function: 2014

Barclaycard Arrival Plus now with EMV

National Dog Bite Prevention Week is May 18-24. Any dog can bite, regardless of breed. Be a responsible pet owner.

Entrepreneurs: How do you fulfill your dream?