Newsletters

On December 3, 2015, then Secretary of Defense Ash Carter made an announcement that would transform the U.S. military: all combat jobs in every branch of the military would be open to women. At a Harvard Kennedy School event this fall, Carter talked about his historic decision.

Morgan Kaplan, a research fellow with the Belfer Center’s International Security Program, researches the international politics of rebellion with a focus on how insurgent groups use international diplomacy to solicit third-party support.

As a student-athlete at Boston College, Amanda Rothschild was twice named to the Division I Hockey East Academic All-Star Team. Although a back injury halted her goaltending career junior year, Rothschild says that the sport significantly influenced her academic career.

Contribution and consequence. That’s how Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter described the “magic” of Harvard Kennedy School’s spirit of public service during a JFK Jr. Forum here in December. Carter, a former Kennedy School professor and Belfer Center director, joined Graham Allison and a forum full of students, faculty, and service members for a homecoming conversation on topics ranging from ISIS and the South China Sea to cyber threats and innovation at the Department of Defense.

If the first job of government is to protect the homeland, then the work of intelligence officers can be likened to the world’s most sophisticated alarm system. Such a system depends on game-changing technology, such as cyber sleuthing. But true effectiveness requires men and women who can turn data into intelligence by applying advanced skills in analysis, language, policy savvy, security studies, and—increasingly—history.

It is an undeniable fact that the Middle East is undergoing one of the worst periods of crisis in recent history. Civil war, regime collapse, mass emigration, and terrorism are but a few of the numerous problems facing the region. Moreover, the United States’ alliance with Israel has experienced its most turbulent period since the Suez Crisis of 1956 due to profound policy disagreements on the Iran nuclear agreement. Despite this strain, both American and Israeli officials emphasize that the need for close secu­rity cooperation between the two nations is more important than ever.

“I know Vladimir Putin well,” General Colin Powell said during a recent appearance at Harvard University. “He’s KGB through and through.” Powell, a former secretary of state, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and national security advisor, was on campus on October 30 to participate in Harvard’s American Secretaries of State Project."

James N. Miller, former under secretary of defense for policy, has joined the Belfer Center as a senior fellow. At the Center, Miller is leading a project on preventing war among the great powers. His objective is to develop recommendations to deal with changing dynamics of crisis management and escalation control that may arise from the deployment of increasingly advanced military capabilities, including in space and cyberspace.

As a young man in the small city of Ogden, Utah, Brandon Parker found himself increasingly interested in the U.S. Air Force, a service where his step-father had made his career. Recruited by the Air Force Academy to play basketball, Parker didn't initially want to become a pilot. But after his initial flight-screening program, he called his mother out of excitement to let her know that he had found exactly what he was meant to do. Until recently, Lieutenant Colonel Parker commanded a nuclear bomber unit based in North Dakota. This year, Parker a research fellow with the Center's International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, is conducting research on nuclear nonproliferation.

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 Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and published quarterly by the MIT Press.