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Romney's Reckless China Rhetoric Risks New Cold War
Rachel Esplin Odell argues for a wiser and more conservative strategy that resists the temptation to exaggerate the challenge posed by China.
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History Warns Us to Avoid a W-shaped Recession
“Those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it.” And the rest of us are condemned to repeat George Santayana.
Will the Coronavirus Recession of 2020 be V-shaped? Or U-shaped? If we fail to heed the lessons of history it is likely to be W-shaped, with incipient recovery followed by successive relapses into sickness and recession.
As has been widely noted, we would have been better prepared to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic in the first place if everyone had paid more attention to the past history of epidemics. Be that as it may, the world is now deep into the pandemic and its economic consequences, the most severe such events since the interwar period, 1918-1939. As decision-makers in every country contemplate their next steps, they would do well to ponder the precedents of that interwar period.
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An Abysmal Failure of Leadership
During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.
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What Allies Want: Reconsidering Loyalty, Reliability, and Alliance Interdependence
Is indiscriminate loyalty what allies want? The First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954–55) case suggests that allies do not desire U.S. loyalty in all situations. Instead, they want the United States to be a reliable ally, posing no risk of abandonment or entrapment.
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Foreign policy experts call for end to hate crimes against Asian American community
Recent hate crimes and violent assaults against people of Asian descent should sound an alarm for America. Within the past couple of weeks alone, ac acid attack against a woman in Brooklyn caused her to suffer severe burns, and a man in Texas has been charged with attempted murder after attacking an Asian American family. Such stories have become disturbingly frequent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the FBI has warned that this trend may continue.
We, the undersigned, are alarmed by the severity of such hate crimes and race-based harassment against people of Asian descent in the United States - assaults that endanger the safety, well-being, dignity and livelihoods of all those targeted.
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There's No Such Thing as Good Liberal Hegemony
Stephen Walt argues that as democracies falter, it's worth considering whether the United States made the right call in attempting to create a liberal world order.
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In a Global Emergency, Women are Showing How to Lead
Zoe Marks argues that to the extent that female heads of state are performing better than men against the coronavirus crisis, it's likely because women are expected to be — and have learned to be — more democratic leaders, more collaborative and more compassionate communicators.
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John Park on the Key Player in North Korea's Leadership Succession
Uncertainty of Kim Jong-un's health has many wondering what the future holds for North Korea.
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So Do Morals Matter in U.S. Foreign Policy? I Asked the Expert.
In his new book, Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump, Joseph S. Nye developed a scorecard to determine how U.S. presidents since 1945 factored questions of ethics and morality into their foreign policy. In an interview, Henry Farrell asked him a few questions to get to the heart of his findings.
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Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset In Disguise
The world is on the cusp of a geopolitical reset. The global pandemic could well undermine international institutions, reinforce nationalism and spur de-globalization. But far-sighted leadership could also rekindle cooperation, glimmers of which appeared in the G-20’s offer of debt relief for some of the world’s poorest countries, a joint plea from more than 200 former national leaders for a more coordinated pandemic response and an unprecedented multinational pact to arrest the crash in oil markets.
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Romney's Reckless China Rhetoric Risks New Cold War
Rachel Esplin Odell argues for a wiser and more conservative strategy that resists the temptation to exaggerate the challenge posed by China.
re
History Warns Us to Avoid a W-shaped Recession
“Those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it.” And the rest of us are condemned to repeat George Santayana.
Will the Coronavirus Recession of 2020 be V-shaped? Or U-shaped? If we fail to heed the lessons of history it is likely to be W-shaped, with incipient recovery followed by successive relapses into sickness and recession.
As has been widely noted, we would have been better prepared to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic in the first place if everyone had paid more attention to the past history of epidemics. Be that as it may, the world is now deep into the pandemic and its economic consequences, the most severe such events since the interwar period, 1918-1939. As decision-makers in every country contemplate their next steps, they would do well to ponder the precedents of that interwar period.
re
China Pioneers a National Digital Currency. Can the U.S. Catch Up?
While much of the world is consumed by the COVID-19 crisis, the Chinese government is quietly unleashing a financial innovation that will reshape its economy and improve its strategic standing for decades to come. In April, China’s central bank introduced the “digital yuan” in a pilot program across four cities, becoming the world’s first major economy to issue a national digital currency.
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We May Be Dramatically Overestimating China’s Capabilities
The outbreak in Wuhan of the novel coronavirus shows how ragged and disorderly the Chinese police state was in the initial weeks of the pandemic. Beijing’s response was to suppress and manipulate information, at home and abroad. Trump administration officials have painted this as a Chinese plot against the West, but it looks more like a frantic effort by a one-party state to survive a domestic crisis.
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An Abysmal Failure of Leadership
During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.
re
The Value of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration
Growing concern around climate change has ignited recent interest in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies and generated a series of studies on its global market potential.
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Urban Waste to Energy Recovery Assessment Simulations for Developing Countries
In this paper, a quantitative Waste to Energy Recovery Assessment (WERA) framework is used to stochastically analyze the feasibility of waste-to-energy systems in selected cities in Asia.
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Greener Stimulus? Economic Recovery and Climate Policy
In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff and Professor Joseph Aldy explore the role of climate-change and broader environmental policy in the U.S. federal government’s emergency economic stimulus funding package.
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Confronting COVID-19: A Conversation with Columbia University Professor Scott Barrett
Columbia University Professor Scott Barrett assessed the massive global efforts underway to address COVID-19 and the potential impacts of the pandemic on our lives in the future in a special episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.
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Columbia University Professor Scott Barrett Compares Global Responses to COVID-19 and Climate Change in Special Edition of "Environmental Insights"
Columbia University Professor Scott Barrett assessed the massive global efforts underway to address COVID-19 and the potential impacts of the pandemic on our lives in the future in a special episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program,” a podcast produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Listen to the interview here.
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What Economics Can Say about an Effective Response to the Coronavirus
In a recent podcast interview, Robert Stavins and Scott Barrett discussed lessons from historic pandemics, how economists can help with policymaking surrounding the coronavirus, and what the “post-pandemic economic equilibrium” might look like. Resources Magazine has published an abridged version of their conversation.
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Policy and Action on Plastic in the Arctic Ocean: October 2019 Workshop Summary & Recommendations
The Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative and the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute co-hosted a workshop with the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Arctic Council at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government entitled, Policy and Action on Plastic in the Arctic Ocean. The event convened global thought leaders, diverse stakeholders, and subject matter experts to begin developing a framework for tackling Arctic marine plastic pollution as one of the focus areas for the Icelandic Chairmanship.
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Organizational Responses to COVID-19 and Climate Change: A Conversation with Rebecca Henderson
Rebecca Henderson, the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, shared her perspectives on how large organizations are changing in response to the coronavirus pandemic and climate change in the newest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.”
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Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson Outlines Ways Organizations are Changing in Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic and Climate Change in New Edition of "Environmental Insights"
Rebecca Henderson, the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, shared her perspectives on how large organizations are changing in response to the coronavirus pandemic and climate change in the newest episode of "Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program," a podcast produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Listen to the interview here. Listen to the interview here.
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Action on Plastic: On Track with the Regional Action Plan for the Arctic
In October 2019, the Belfer Center's Arctic Initiative and the Wilson Center's Polar Institute co-hosted a workshop on Policy and Action on Plastic in the Arctic Ocean with the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Arctic Council. The Arctic Council asked Magnús Jóhannesson, the Council's designated Special Coordinator on Plastics Pollution and Marine Litter, and Gunn-Britt Retter, Head of Arctic and Environmental Unit at the Saami Council — who both participated in the workshop — to comment on some of the points that the report raises.
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The Value of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration
Growing concern around climate change has ignited recent interest in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies and generated a series of studies on its global market potential.
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Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country
This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.
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Breaking Down the Huawei v. Pentagon Dispute
If nothing else, the long-running Huawei situation shows the importance of considering the supply chain when it comes to cybersecurity. Huawei being the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker basically banned by the federal government. Bruce Schneier joins Host Tom Temin on Federal Drive.
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Inside China's controversial mission to reinvent the internet
On a cool day late last September, half a dozen Chinese engineers walked into a conference room in the heart of Geneva's UN district with a radical idea. They had one hour to persuade delegates from more than 40 countries of their vision: an alternative form of the internet, to replace the technological architecture that has underpinned the web for half a century.
Whereas today's internet is owned by everyone and no one, they were in the process of building something very different - a new infrastructure that could put power back in the hands of nation states, instead of individuals.
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How Digital Service Teams are Responding to Covid-19
David Eaves writes that the most significant lesson coming out of the COVID-19 crisis is the importance of having a digital strategy and a technological infrastructure in place at both the national and local levels.
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An Interview with Bruce Schneier, Renowned Security Technologist
Bruce Schneier discusses current security technology concerns with The Politic's Eric Wallach.
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China and America Are Failing the Pandemic Test
All national leaders must put their countr's interests first, but the important question is how broadly or narrowly they define those interests. Both China and the US are responding to COVID-19 with an inclination toward short-term, zero-sum approaches, and too little attention to international institutions and cooperation.
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Joseph S. Nye: U.S. and China Need a More Cooperative Security Stance
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Breaking Down the Huawei v. Pentagon Dispute
If nothing else, the long-running Huawei situation shows the importance of considering the supply chain when it comes to cybersecurity. Huawei being the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker basically banned by the federal government. Bruce Schneier joins Host Tom Temin on Federal Drive.
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An Interview with Bruce Schneier, Renowned Security Technologist
Bruce Schneier discusses current security technology concerns with The Politic's Eric Wallach.
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Spies Are Fighting a Shadow War Against the Coronavirus
Calder Walton describes four ways how intelligence services are certain to contribute to defeating COVID-19 and why pandemic intelligence will become a central part of future U.S. national security.
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There's No Such Thing as Good Liberal Hegemony
Stephen Walt argues that as democracies falter, it's worth considering whether the United States made the right call in attempting to create a liberal world order.
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So Do Morals Matter in U.S. Foreign Policy? I Asked the Expert.
In his new book, Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump, Joseph S. Nye developed a scorecard to determine how U.S. presidents since 1945 factored questions of ethics and morality into their foreign policy. In an interview, Henry Farrell asked him a few questions to get to the heart of his findings.
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To Pressure Iran, Pompeo Turns to the Deal Trump Renounced
The secretary of state is preparing an argument that the U.S. remains a participant in the Obama-era nuclear deal, with the goal of extending an arms embargo or destroying the accord.
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Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset In Disguise
The world is on the cusp of a geopolitical reset. The global pandemic could well undermine international institutions, reinforce nationalism and spur de-globalization. But far-sighted leadership could also rekindle cooperation, glimmers of which appeared in the G-20’s offer of debt relief for some of the world’s poorest countries, a joint plea from more than 200 former national leaders for a more coordinated pandemic response and an unprecedented multinational pact to arrest the crash in oil markets.
re
Romney's Reckless China Rhetoric Risks New Cold War
Rachel Esplin Odell argues for a wiser and more conservative strategy that resists the temptation to exaggerate the challenge posed by China.
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Breaking the Ice: How France and the UK Could Reshape a Credible European Defense and Renew the Transatlantic Partnership
History is replete with irony, but rarely more poignantly than in the summer of 2016 when, on 23 June, the UK voted to leave the European Union and the next day, 24 June, the EU published its Global Strategy document asserting its ambition of “strategic autonomy.” Whither Franco-British defense cooperation in such chaotic circumstances? This paper attempts to provide the outline of an answer to that question.
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Oil Markets Provide a Glimpse of the Post-Pandemic Future
Henry Kissinger warns that many existing domestic and international institutions that have helped govern the past decades will not survive the Covid-19 crisis. He is surely correct.
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There's No Such Thing as Good Liberal Hegemony
Stephen Walt argues that as democracies falter, it's worth considering whether the United States made the right call in attempting to create a liberal world order.
re
So Do Morals Matter in U.S. Foreign Policy? I Asked the Expert.
In his new book, Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump, Joseph S. Nye developed a scorecard to determine how U.S. presidents since 1945 factored questions of ethics and morality into their foreign policy. In an interview, Henry Farrell asked him a few questions to get to the heart of his findings.
re
To Pressure Iran, Pompeo Turns to the Deal Trump Renounced
The secretary of state is preparing an argument that the U.S. remains a participant in the Obama-era nuclear deal, with the goal of extending an arms embargo or destroying the accord.
re
Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset In Disguise
The world is on the cusp of a geopolitical reset. The global pandemic could well undermine international institutions, reinforce nationalism and spur de-globalization. But far-sighted leadership could also rekindle cooperation, glimmers of which appeared in the G-20’s offer of debt relief for some of the world’s poorest countries, a joint plea from more than 200 former national leaders for a more coordinated pandemic response and an unprecedented multinational pact to arrest the crash in oil markets.
re
Romney's Reckless China Rhetoric Risks New Cold War
Rachel Esplin Odell argues for a wiser and more conservative strategy that resists the temptation to exaggerate the challenge posed by China.
re
COVID’s Broader Impacts: Risks and Recommendations
While the world’s health and economy are the clearest victims of COVID-19, the pandemic has impacted nearly every aspect of society – from national security to international relationships. We asked several of our experts to share their thoughts on risks and/or recommendations that policymakers and the public should consider in the coming weeks and months.
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An Abysmal Failure of Leadership
During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.