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EXCLUSIVE WEB VIDEO

ANNOUNCEMENT

R. Nicholas Burns Appointed to HKS Faculty

August 19, 2008

The former U.S. diplomat will also join the Belfer Center's Board of Directors.

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August 15, 2008

Memo to the Next President: Intelligence & Counterterrorism

By Eric Rosenbach, Executive Director for Research, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

In this exclusive web video, Eric Rosenbach, Belfer Center Executive Director for Research and former professional staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, outlines the priorities on which the next president should focus in order to improve U.S. intelligence capabilities.

AP Photo

August 7, 2008

"The Crisis: A Tale of Two Monetary Policies"

Financial Times

By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University

Martin Feldstein compares and analyzes the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserves differing approaches at countering the current financial crisis.

AP Photo

August 12, 2008

"Musharraf's Long Goodbye"

The Guardian, Comment is Free...

By Hassan Abbas, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program/Project on India and the Subcontinent

"...Any attempt by Musharraf to dislodge the government by using his constitutional authority would trigger another election, the results of which would not be much different from the vote in February. It is time for Musharraf's friends in the west to press him to serve his country one last time, by avoiding confrontation with his country's democratic forces and calling it quits."

AP Photo

August 7, 2008

"How to Build a U.S. Recovery"

Financial Times

By Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor

Lawrence Summers comments on the ways in which current financial policy is developed and offers ways in which policy making should be altered. Instead of creating financial policies in a reactive and erratic manner, he states, policy makers need to be more proactive in the actions they take to protect our economy.

August 5, 2008

"Climate-Change Skeptics Revisited"

By John P. Holdren, Director and Faculty Chair, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program

STPP Director John P. Holdren's August 4, 2008, op-ed, "Convincing Climate Change Skeptics", which appeared in both the Boston Globe and International Herald Tribune, has generated much criticism. Professor Holdren has written this essay in response.

August 5, 2008

"Stephen M. Walt on the U.S., Iran, and the New Balance of Power in the Persian Gulf"

By Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program and Kayhan Barzegar, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program

Walt: “…..by maintaining a (new) balance you don’t get conflict breaking out and you tilt in favour whichever side seems to be falling behind. At the same time, you do try to discourage conflict whenever possible. You certainly don’t try to control the region yourselves and if the balance breaks down as it did in 1991 and you have to intervene you go in, you get out as quickly as possible. But you don’t try to organize these societies. You don’t try to tell them how to live. You don’t try to tell them how their governments should be organized and you don’t try to transform them at the point of a rifle barrel. This is not disengagement, but it is also not trying to control the region or dictate its political evolution.”

“…we are not going to have a stable long-term situation in the Persian Gulf until the United States and other countries in the region—including Iran—do come to some understanding about the various issues that concern them.  Achieving that goal will require genuine diplomacy…The United States will also have to recognize that Iran’s size, potential power, large population, and its geo-strategic location inevitably make it a major player in the security environment in the Persian Gulf, and ignoring that fact is unrealistic…”