Presentations & Speeches

Former President of Colombia and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Juan Manuel Santos sat down with Professor Nicholas Burns (Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, Harvard Kennedy School) to discuss peacekeeping efforts at a Harvard Kennedy School Forum Event.

Jens Stoltenberg,NATO Secretary General, discussed the future of the NATO alliance during this speech, given at the Harvard Kennedy School on September 23, 2016. He described the alliance as a responsive organization, capable of adapting to changes in the international security landscape but committed to the continuity of its founding values. In particular, he emphasized the necessity of maintaining a policy of absolute solidarity among member states, especially  in light of the exacerbating civil war in Syria and Russia’s aggressive stance toward countries to the East of NATO member state borders.

The risks posed by the proliferation of cyber weapons are gaining wide recognition among security planners. Yet the general reaction of scholars of international relations has been to neglect the cyber peril owing to its technical novelties and intricacies. This attitude amounts to either one or both of two claims: the problem is not of sufficient scale to warrant close inspection, or it is not comprehensible to a non-technical observer. This seminar challenged both assertions.

Transcript of policy address on Oct. 12, 2011, by Zhang Yesui, China's Ambassador to the United States, at Harvard Kennedy School to an overflow audience at an event hosted by the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and moderated by R. Nicholas Burns, director of the Future of Diplomacy Project in the Belfer Center.

"Three years ago, police raided a flat in West London and arrested one of the world's top jihadi internet operatives. Under the name Irhabi007 — terrorist 007 — he had posted videos of beheadings and other attacks on the official sites for the George Washington University and the state of Arkansas. He had given many jihadi networks around the world online lessons in hacking, propaganda, and weaponry. And Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — had recruited him to spread knowhow, footage of terrorist attacks, and inspirational messages from Osama bin Laden himself.

But perhaps the most remarkable thing about him was that at the time of his arrest, he was a twenty-three year old IT student who had done all this alone from his bedroom...."

As part of International Relations Week at Harvard, Calestous Juma, director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Globalization Project, delivered the keynote address on Tuesday, Oct. 23, at the Center for Government and International Studies.