Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - Latest Publications

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01/09/12--10:37: Charisma We Can Believe in (chan 1643198)

"Charisma tells us something about a candidate, but it tells us even more about ourselves, the mood of our country, and the types of change we desire. Hard economic times make it difficult to maintain charisma. Obama faces the continuing challenges of unemployment and a recalcitrant Republican opposition, and Sarkozy must contend with similar problems. When they are campaigning, however, their rhetoric will be freed from the need to compromise. This year's elections will be the true test of their charisma."




01/09/12--12:08: Nuclear Weapons 2011: Momentum Slows, Reality Returns (chan 1643198)

In the Doomsday Clock issue of the Bulletin, the author takes a look at five events that unfolded in 2011 and that seem certain to cast a powerful shadow in months and years to come. No new breakthroughs occurred, the author writes, adding that 2012 could be a much more difficult year.




01/09/12--13:46: America Abroad (chan 1643198)

January 9, 2012


Roger Cohen, columnist for The New York Times and recent Fisher Family Fellow, discusses his views about American power on the global stage in an op-ed published on January 9th, 2012.




01/10/12--07:07: Nuclear Scientists as Assassination Targets (chan 1643198)

Since 2007, international media have reported the violent deaths of four scientists and engineers connected with Iran’s nuclear program and an attempt on the life of a fifth. The news reports on such killings are murky, incomplete, and, in some instances, likely inaccurate...




01/10/12--13:08: Teamwork Gave U.S. Clear Harbor View (chan 1643198)

The vision was for the world's navies, ports and shippers to collaborate to protect shipping, harbors and cities from attack. But developing such a "concept of operations" was considered a challenge so large, it would take 18 months. That's right — 18 months just to create a plan. Meanwhile, U.S. ports and those of its allies would remain vulnerable. And U.S. warships and commercial vessels entering foreign harbors would remain blind to hidden perils, even though information about a dangerous ship, cargo or crew might well exist in another agency's or company’s database.




01/11/12--06:55: Call for Submissions (chan 1643198)

January 11, 2012


The new Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy is currently accepting submissions for its inaugural issue, to be published in spring 2012.





01/11/12--07:05: As It Pivots Toward Asia, America Brings an Undefined Era to a Close (chan 1643198)

On the strategic front, Indonesia is not, and will not be, a part of any attempt to contain China, writes Anindya Bakrie. At the same time, he says, Indonesia cannot have its options constrained in dealing with the United States, Japan, India or any other country: "This is true not only of Indonesia but of Asean in general. No country in Asean wants to be forced by either the United States or China to choose between the two. Indonesia, as Southeast Asia’s pivotal country, must continue to pursue a free and independent foreign policy that welcomes extra-regional powers without becoming a part of any exclusive agenda they might have."






01/11/12--19:44: Collaborate or Perish! Reaching Across Boundaries in a Networked World (chan 1643198)

In Collaborate or Perish!, former NYC Police Commissioner and LAPD Chief William Bratton joins forces with senior Harvard researcher Zachary Tumin to lay out a field-tested, streetwise playbook for collaborating across the boundaries of our networked world. Where everyone is connected, Bratton and Tumin argue, collaboration is the game-changer. Technology helps — but people make it happen.




01/12/12--07:12: The 20 Percent Solution (chan 1643198)

On Monday, Jan. 9, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran had begun producing 20 percent enriched uranium at Fordow, a fuel enrichment plant buried deep underground near the holy city of Qom. On the surface, there is little new here: Since February 2010, Iran has been producing 20 percent enriched uranium at Natanz, another once-secret site located about 3 ½ hours from Tehran.

Iran disclosed neither the Natanz nor the Fordow site to the IAEA until forced to do so, in 2002 and 2009, respectively, when outside observers discovered and publicized them. Fordow is smaller than Natanz in scale, but better protected from prying satellites and, potentially, a bombing campaign. Worryingly, the plant appears designed to focus on producing higher enrichments.

What has raised the world's suspicions is that Iran continues to produce 20 percent enriched uranium despite the fact that this exceeds its civilian needs and, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged in September, does not make economic sense.

There are serious concerns over the proliferation aspects of Iran's enrichment activities. Increasing stockpiles of enriched uranium, together with studies related to an advanced nuclear weapon design, are building blocks for attaining a virtual nuclear weapon capability. (A state has a virtual nuclear arsenal if it possesses weapons-usable nuclear material and the knowledge and experience needed to design, manufacture, assemble, and deploy nuclear weapons.) So Iran's recent announcement that it plans to increase production of 20 percent enriched uranium is alarming.

Over the last few days, Iran has begun operating two enrichment cascades at Fordow. Furthermore, Iran is completing installation of two additional cascades, with their planned operation already announced. Once the four cascades at Fordow, in addition to the two Natanz ones, are operating, Iran will be able to produce 15 kg of 20 percent enriched UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) per month. This process uses as feed 3.5 percent enriched uranium, which is produced currently at a rate of 140 to 150 kg UF6 per month at Natanz.

This means that Iran's entire uranium-enrichment program is now being devoted to producing 20 percent enriched uranium. At current production rates, Iran can expect to have a stock of 20 percent enriched uranium of around 250 kg UF6 by the end of 2012, as well as more than 4 tons of 3.5 percent enriched UF6. (These estimates are based on the use of IR-1 centrifuges, which are now also operating at Fordow.) Iran will not likely be able to commission a large number of more advanced and powerful centrifuges before 2013. But if that happens, it will be an altogether different scenario.

If Iran decides to produce weapons-grade uranium from 20 percent enriched uranium, it has already technically undertaken 90 percent of the enrichment effort required. What remains to be done is the feeding of 20 percent uranium through existing additional cascades to achieve weapons-grade enrichment (more than 90 percent uranium). This step is much faster than the earlier ones. Growing the stockpile of 3.5 percent and 20 percent enriched uranium, as Iran is now doing, provides the basic material needed to produce four to five nuclear weapons. With IR-1 centrifuges, it would take half a year to go from 3.5 percent enriched uranium to weapons-grade material for the first nuclear device. More advanced centrifuges would cut the time required in half. If, however, IR-1s are using 20 percent enriched uranium as a feed, 250 kg UF6 with that level of enrichment can be turned to weapons-grade material in a month's time. This does not automatically mean Iran will be able to build a nuclear weapon in one month -- building an atomic bomb is a complex endeavor that requires precision engineering capabilities that Iran may lack -- but it does mean that the country would be able to "break out" of its international obligations very quickly should it decide to do so.

How can Iran convince the international community that its nuclear program will follow a peaceful track?

There are a few ways to go about it. One way would be to suspend the production of enriched uranium and convert the existing 3.5 percent and 20 percent enriched uranium stocks, with the assistance of the international community, to fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, as well as for another modern research reactor that could be provided to Iran. This approach would be good for Iran, as it would give the country a sustainable production of radioisotopes for industrial and medical uses in the shortest time.

Iran would also have to address the world's concerns about the military dimensions of its nuclear program, concerns laid out in the IAEA's most recent monitoring report. So far, Iran's leaders have failed to do so, despite being signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With sanctions beginning to bite, tensions growing in the Persian Gulf, and international patience running out, there's no time like the present.




01/12/12--07:53: Haiti's Lifeline Runway (chan 1643198)

"The military's strength is in logistics, not humanitarian decision-making, a lesson that we seem to discover again and again. In the future, the United States should defer to the host nation, its neighbors, or the United Nations and give them the responsibility of establishing a priority list for flights. We shouldn't take on the ethical dilemma of deciding who comes in first."




01/13/12--10:18: Russia in Review (chan 1643198)

A digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism   for the week of January 6 - 13, 2012




01/13/12--12:03: Ideas for a Better Internet Summit 2012 (chan 1643198)

Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and TEDxSF are pleased to invite you to a special event and reception on the Stanford campus on January 17, 2012, featuring a series of talks and a panel from thinkers and innovators working to improve the future of the Internet as we know it.

Register for the seminar and/or Vote for Ideas here>

Use #betterinternet to join in the real time social media discussion.




01/14/12--10:50: Iran Scientist Assassinations Serve No End (chan 1643198)

"Ahmadi-Roshan was likely as expendable to the Iranians as he was to whoever plotted his death. That suggests why Iran seems so incapable of protecting its allegedly high-value scientists. He was, in the end, of no consequence to the real issues at play. His murder should be condemned because it is brutal and gets us no closer to a meaningful resolution of Iran's nuclear ambitions."




01/16/12--07:55: The defensive nature of China's "underground great wall" (chan 1643198)

January 16, 2012


A study by Georgetown University's Phillip Karber claims that a vast network of tunnels in China, often called the "underground great wall," could hide up to 3,000 nuclear weapons. Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Hui Zhang argues that the study leaps to unwarranted conclusions based on simplistic reasoning and questionable extrapolation from decades-old estimates of Chinese weapon levels. New information on fissile materials inventories and other authoritative data indicate that China has a nuclear arsenal of a few hundred weapons and that the underground great wall is meant to protect this small deterrent from a first strike.

 




01/17/12--10:47: Why China Is Weak on Soft Power (chan 1643198)

"The 2008 Olympics were a success, but shortly afterwards, China's domestic crackdown in Tibet and Xianjiang, and on human rights activists, undercut its soft power gains. The Shanghai Expo was also a great success, but was followed by the jailing of the Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and the artist Ai Weiwei."




01/17/12--13:16: Not Another War, Please! (chan 1643198)

"Apart from the question, never asked and never answered, as to why Iran cannot have nuclear weapons while India and Pakistan can, there is the lassitude that has set in over the successive wars in Afghanistan — which has lasted much too long — and Iraq — which has been essentially fruitless. A new war is certainly to be avoided, if possible."




01/19/12--08:11: Rich America, Poor America (chan 1643198)

There are “two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws…THE RICH AND THE POOR.”




01/19/12--11:09: Belfer Center Ranked #1 University-Affiliated Think Tank in World (chan 1643198)

The Belfer Center has been ranked No. 1 university-affiliated think tank in the world in the 2011 Global Go To Think Tank Index. The Index, coordinated by the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, is the culmination of an eight-month process involving more than 1500 scholars, journalists, experts in numerous research categories, and organizations from around the globe.




01/19/12--11:17: Stopping the Clock (chan 1643198)

"...[W]hen the smart scientists decided to add global warming and biological harms to the clock's matrix in 2007, their previous laser focus on nuclear Armageddon lost its impact. Their explanation of why things have gotten one minute worse is a laundry list that includes nuclear proliferation, Iran, Japan's nuclear disaster and its effects on nuclear power investments, carbon emissions, and virulent strains of viruses that can be used for lethal purposes."




01/20/12--06:36: What to do about Iran (chan 1643198)

In this op-ed piece, Professor Nicholas Burns stresses the importance of keeping negotiations and diplomacy, rather than the threat of force, at the forefront of U.S. strategy in dealing with Iran.




01/20/12--10:49: Belfer Center Perspectives On Iran (chan 1643198)

As debate over Iran's nuclear program intensifies, Belfer Center experts on Iran have been interviewed and quoted in numerous media reports. Here are recent published perspectives.




01/23/12--06:38: Willfully Stupid on Turkey (chan 1643198)

"Perry surely knows some of this and would have corrected his statements if he had wanted to. And not a single candidate seems terribly willing to defend Turkey. Perry’s assertions were left to linger, a broad-brush stroke of stereotypes and Islam-bashing that filled the air with inaccuracies."




01/23/12--07:24: The key to recovery: Boosting business confidence (chan 1643198)

"In today’s economic environment, optimism is associated with a rise in both interest rates and stock prices as the expectation is for more profits and demand for funds," writes Lawrence Summers.




01/23/12--09:11: Romney Is the Technocrat Candidate, but He's Politically Clueless (chan 1643198)

It looks as if 2012 could be the Year of the Technocrats. The fashion didn’t really start in Athens or Rome, though it was the formation of new governments there last year that made “technocracy” a buzzword. What Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti have in common is not just that they aren’t regular party leaders with governing majorities. The real point is that they’re experts. They’ve spent their careers in lofty academic ivory towers, or in elite bureaucratic institutions like central banks or supra-national commissions, not down and dirty in the bear pit of democratic politics.




01/23/12--09:27: What You (Really) Need to Know (chan 1643198)

A PARADOX of American higher education is this: The expectations of leading universities do much to define what secondary schools teach, and much to establish a template for what it means to be an educated man or woman. College campuses are seen as the source for the newest thinking and for the generation of new ideas, as society’s cutting edge.




01/23/12--12:27: Reinventing Europe (chan 1643198)

"When Jean Monnet proposed the first integrative steps for Europe to take, he was thinking of creating a powerful economic instrumentality that would contend on equal terms with the then superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.  Now, if Europe and America pursue the closer economic union that Angela Merkel envisions,  Europe can think of a new united West which can deal on equal terms with a rising but disunited East." 




01/24/12--10:29: Roads and Rail in Nigeria Could Be at the Centre of Job Creation (chan 1643198)

"...[N]ew jobs can be directly created in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure projects. However, such job creation is unlikely to happen unless there are deliberate policy guidelines. This is mainly because construction projects tend to focus primarily on immediate cost-effectiveness and less on indirect benefits such as youth employment."




01/25/12--12:05: To Stay Ahead of China, Stay Engaged in Asia (chan 1643198)

"China narrowed the gap in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and will likely overtake the United States as the world's largest economy sometime between 2015 and 2040. What matters for national power, however, is not gross wealth, but net wealth—the wealth left over after people are clothed and fed. China's 1.3 billion people produce a large volume of output, but they also consume most of it immediately, leaving little left over for national purposes."




01/26/12--06:11: The DREAM Act Struggles On, Nameless But Alive (chan 1643198)

"Could the corporate appeal of the H-1B visa program be coupled with the idealism of the DREAM Act for an entirely different way of looking at immigration reform? The White House is content to leave the exact statutory proposal nameless as a nod to a potential compromise that may be more limited than the DREAM Act, but a step in the right direction."




01/26/12--17:36: Attacking Iran: Lessons from the Iran-Iraq War (chan 1643198)

This policy brief seeks to contribute to and inform the debate concerning a possible attack by the United States and/or Israel on Iranian nuclear and military facilities. The presumed aim of such an attack would be to weaken the Islamic Republic, particularly by hindering its ability to build a nuclear weapon. However, the history of the Iraqi invasion of Iran in September 1980 calls into question the contention that an attack will weaken the regime in Tehran. This policy brief examines Iran's reactions to the Iraqi invasion in order to shed light on Iran's possible reactions to a U.S. or Israeli attack.