Coronavirus

Juliette Kayyem argues that although the emergency social-safety provisions helped those most in need, the use of Title 42 was a brutal and unforgiving policy that essentially ended asylum in the United States.

Joseph S. Nye argues that history shows that globalization is largely driven by technological changes that reduce the importance of distance, and that will not change.

Joseph Nye writes: From an American perspective, it is just as dangerous to underestimate Chinese power as it is to overestimate it. While hysteria creates fear, discounting China's recent progress and future ambitions could lead the United States to squander its own long-term advantages.

Stephen Walt provides A realist POV on the war in Ukraine, competition with China, COVID, and more in the second part of an interview with Foreign Policy Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal.

Between October 2020 and May 2021, the Middle East Initiative conducted a series of nationally representative surveys to measure the economic, social, and public health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.1 Designed and supervised by Tarek Masoud, Faculty Director of the Middle East Initiative, and Yuree Noh, Research Fellow, the surveys collected responses from 8,500 residents of seven countries in the region—Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Our goal is to provide the data and insights needed to develop effective policy responses to current and future public health crises.

This report summarizes our findings on how COVID-19 has disrupted employment, mental health, food security, education, and childcare in the region during its first year. We also show that the consequences of the pandemic were felt most acutely by some of the region’s most vulnerable populations: the poor, women, youth, and children.

Stephen M. Walt describes a "gnawing fear that we are living through a series of disruptions that are overwhelming our collective ability to respond." What does this mean for public confidence in the entire political system, and is there any cause for optimism?

Syra Madad issued a statement on two Biden Administration biodefense plans: National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Planand the National Security Memorandum on Countering Biological Threats, Enhancing Pandemic Preparedness, and Achieving Global Health Security.

Stephen Walt argues that the true value of more diverse decision-making teams and more open political systems is not that they never make mistakes but rather that they make it more likely that policy blunders will be corrected once it is clear they are not working.

Ask yourself, what would you say to someone if they told you in just over two years, a virus too small to see with the naked eye but brutal enough to kill a population the size of Delaware would sweep through the nation?

As leaders in one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States, we would say: this would be a travesty of epic proportions.

Throughout this spring, Belfer Fellow Dr. Syra Madad developed and hosted a Women in STEM event series to highlight women leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The aim of the series was to recognize the many accomplishments and contributions by women in STEM fields while educating and empowering young women, providing valuable advice, and sharing pearls of wisdom. This six-event series featured guest speakers that included America's Top Young Scientist Gitanjali Rao, former White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, leading figure in the U.S. space program Lori Garver and Spacecraft Operations Engineer Nagin Cox, Tiktok-renowned epidemiologist Dr. Katrine Wallace, and many more.