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We All Fall Down: The Dismantling of the Warsaw Pact and the End of the Cold War in Eastern Europe

The non-Soviet members of the Warsaw Pact contributed to the end of the Cold War along with the superpowers. These Eastern European states recognized that their relationship with the Soviet Union would impede their success in the post–Cold War world, so they ended the Pact.




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A “Nuclear Umbrella” for Ukraine? Precedents and Possibilities for Postwar European Security

Europe after the Russo-Ukrainian War must develop a new security structure to defend against any Russian aggression. The safest option is a non-offensive, confidence-building defense. This option includes proposals such as the “spider in the web” strategy and the “porcupine” strategy to provide for European security in a region threatened by Russian expansion—without relying on the threat of nuclear war.




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The 50th Anniversary of GPS: New Avenues for Cooperating with Europe's Galileo

This paper delves into the evolution and future prospects of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), with a particular focus on the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS) and Europe's Galileo. As GPS celebrates its 50th anniversary, it is a timely moment to assess its historical trajectory, current status, and future directions, especially considering the emergence of new competitors like China's BeiDou. Based on interviews with two GNSS experts from the European Commission, this study aims to analyze the potential for cooperation between GPS and Galileo, exploring avenues for collaboration and mutual learning.




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Polls Show Record Low Number of Russians Willing to Permanently Move Abroad

The share of Russians who would like to leave Russia for permanent residence in another country has reached a record low, according to the results of a national poll conducted by Russia’s Levada Center on March 21-27, 2024.  Of the countries Russians were eager to relocate to, the U.S. topped the list (11%), followed by Germany (8%) and Italy and Turkey (6% each). China ranked 10-11 along with Canada.That seven out of the top 11 countries Russians would like to relocate to are members of the collective West, with 46% interested in moving to these countries, also shows the limits of the Kremlin’s efforts to instill anti-Western sentiments in the Russian public.




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Negotiating with North Korea: Key Lessons Learned from Negotiators' Genesis Period

Only a small handful of people in the world have sat at the negotiating table with the North Koreans and extensively interacted with them. Yet, this knowledge is fragmented and has not been collected or analyzed in a systematic manner. This report captures the findings from in-depth, one-on-one interviews with former senior negotiators from the United States and South Korea, who gained unique knowledge about North Korean negotiating behavior by dealing directly with their high-level North Korean counterparts. 

These negotiators collectively represent a body of negotiation experience and expertise starting from the early 1990s to late 2019, when North Korea ceased all negotiations with the United States. During that time, the conditions for productive negotiation changed dramatically – indeed, the conditions for the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework negotiations were much more favorable than during the Six-Party Talks of the mid-2000s or the Season of Summits during 2018-2019. For the “Negotiating with North Korea: Key Lessons Learned from Negotiators’ Genesis Period” project, a spotlight was placed on former senior negotiators’ early-stage experience preparing for and engaging in negotiations with the North Koreans. In doing so, tacit knowledge was captured to serve as a resource for future negotiators to inform and accelerate their own genesis period.




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Appeasement Is Underrated

Stephen Walt argues that rejecting diplomacy by citing Neville Chamberlain's deal with the Nazis is a willfully ignorant use of history.




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The Protest to Parliament Pipeline

In the lead up to the October 2021 federal elections, the streets of Baghdad were lined with posters of female candidates. Some were familiar faces with clear political baggage and history, like Sara Iyad Allawi, the daughter of Iraq’s former prime minister. Others were former members of parliament from entrenched political parties. What drew the most excitement from observers, however, were the campaigns of civil activists who had participated in the October protest movement. Locally known as the “Tishreen Movement”, the October protest movement was the largest sustained protest movement in post-2003 Iraq’s history, which took place between October 2019 and February 2020 and involved the participation of hundreds of thousands across multiple cities. The protest movement succeeded in pushing for a new electoral law and in holding early elections, though the elections were only six months ahead of the traditional schedule by the time they were organized. These women represented a new type of female candidate, one without ties to the entrenched elite and who represented. Iraq’s youthful society. Their participation, like the protest movement itself, heralded to many a new era of Iraqi politics, one where younger women were confident enough to run for office and who relied on grassroots campaigning and social media.




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Mapping a Path Forward for Arctic Cooperation with Russia: A Biodiversity Case Study

For most of this century, the Arctic has been a place of peaceful cooperation in science and environmental protection, an approach built on a foundation of multiple agreements reached in the twentieth century. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the geopolitical reverberations of the war have disrupted or outright halted most collaboration between Western and Russian scientists and conservationists.




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Current and Future Arctic Cooperation: Where to Next?

Viktoria Waldenfels MPA 2025 reflects on promising ways forward for Arctic cooperation.

This study group, led by Arctic Initiative Senior Fellow Margaret Williams, is evaluating the costs and benefits of renewing cooperation with Russia on science and conservation issues.




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America Should Aim for Competitive Coexistence with China

Joseph Nye writes that Washington's strategy towards Beijing should be to avoid either a hot or cold war, co-operate when possible and marshal its assets to shape China's external behaviour. This can be done through deterrence and a strengthening of both alliances and international institutions.




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Don't 'Jeopardize Free Speech That Is Fundamental' to Harvard, Says Prof

In this Q&A, Joseph S. Nye talks about his advice for the interim and future president of Harvard in the wake of Claudine Gay's resignation, which countries should be highest on our radar to prevent the threat of nuclear war, what role the U.S. should play in the Russia-Ukraine war, the significance of U.S. alliances in the Middle East, and more.




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The Historical Puzzle of US Economic Performance under Democrats vs. Republicans

We have heard much about the puzzle that US economic performance under President Joe Biden has been much stronger than voters perceive it to be.  But the current episode is just one instance of a bigger historical puzzle:  the US economy has since World War II consistently done better under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents.  This fact is even less widely known, including among Democratic voters, than the truth about Biden’s term.  Indeed, some poll results suggest that more Americans believe the reverse, that Republican presidents are better stewards of the economy than Democrats.




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Politics and Prosperity: Examining Economic Development in Africa

On April 9, the study group met for the third time to examine economic development in Africa. The group explored connections between politics and economic growth trajectories across the continent, and analyzed the role of political instability and policy decisions in fostering development. Discussions covered the impact of factors like commodity markets, foreign aid, trade deals, and regional integration initiatives on development indicators. The study group counted with the presence of external expert guest H.E. Patrick Achi, former Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire. Prime Minister Achi shared about his experience at the highest level of government and presented the story of Côte d’Ivoire’s post-independence development as a microcosm of the broader challenges and opportunities facing African nations.




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Europe’s Carbon Border Tax Advances the Fight Against Climate Change

At first glance, the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism may look like a potential source of international discord. But a closer look suggests that the EU’s strict carbon-pricing regime may be the best chance the world has to achieve the Paris climate agreement’s ambitious emissions-reduction goals.




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Not So Innocent: Clerics, Monarchs, and the Ethnoreligious Cleansing of Western Europe

Ethnic cleansing is not only a modern phenomenon. The medieval Catholic Church saw non-Christians as a threat and facilitated the ethnoreligious cleansing of Muslim and Jewish communities across Western Europe. Three conditions made this possible: The rising power of the papacy as a supranational religious authority; its dehumanization of non-Christians; and competition among Catholic Western European monarchs that left them vulnerable to papal-clerical demands to eradicate non-Christians. These findings revise our understanding twentieth- and twenty-first-century ethnic cleansing in places like Cambodia, Iraq, Myanmar, the Soviet Union, and Syria.




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Africa Beyond the Headlines: A Kaleidoscopic Exploration of Contemporary African Politics and International Cooperation

Dr. Gloria Ayee led a study group over the course of five sessions during the Spring of 2024, exploring the current pivotal moment on the African continent. Participants of the study group were invited to reflect on the role that international cooperation must play in supporting inclusive, sustainable development in Africa, as well as to move beyond outdated perspectives and learn about Africa’s profound transformation through trade, investments in clean energy and health, and youth empowerment initiatives.




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Beyond the Headlines: A Kaleidoscopic Exploration of Contemporary African Politics and International Cooperation

Dr. Gloria Ayee led a study group over the course of five sessions during the Spring of 2024, exploring the current pivotal moment on the African continent. Reflecting back, Dr. Ayee highlights the key takeaways from the study group.




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Building a Durable Peace in Ukraine

In June, Ukraine’s most powerful backers met at the G7 summit before attending Ukraine’s peace conference in Switzerland, which hosted representatives from nearly eighty countries. For one week, they met to discuss Volodymyr Zelensky’s ten-point peace plan, announced a plan to fund Ukraine using frozen Russian assets, and introduced a U.S.-Ukraine bilateral security agreement. As the United States and its allies are working to put Ukraine in the best position possible for eventual ceasefire negotiations, what should their top priority be?




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US-China Cooperation Remains Possible

Joseph S. Nye advocates for identifying areas for cooperation between the United States and China such as climate change and public health.




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When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Adversary Perceptions of Nuclear No-First-Use Pledges

Would the world be safer if the United States pledged to never use nuclear weapons first? Supporters say a credible pledge would strengthen crisis stability, decrease hostility, and bolster nonproliferation and arms control. But reactions to no-first-use pledges by the Soviet Union, China, and India suggest that adversaries perceive pledges as credible only when the political relationship between a state and its adversary is already relatively benign, or when the state’s military has no ability to engage in nuclear first use against the adversary. 




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Biden's Foreign-Policy Problem Is Incompetence

Stephen Walt argues that those who fetishize credibility typically assume all that is needed is sufficient resolve. This overlooks the other key ingredient— competence.




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Morality Is the Enemy of Peace

Stephen Walt argues that once governments use moral arguments to justify their positions in international disputes, cutting a deal becomes much harder, even when it would be in everyone's interest.




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Africa In Focus Speaker Series

Africa in Focus, run by the Africa Futures Project, aims to create a forum for intellectual and critical analysis of processes and policies from the continent and its engagement with the international community. Through thoughtful and dynamic programming, Africa in Focus seeks to bring more African perspectives into broader policy conversations at HKS.

 




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A War Without a Name: The Iran-Israel Relationship in Historical Perspective

The defining tension in Middle Eastern politics today—and the most combustible pile of tinder—is between the State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The antagonism between the two countries has existed for more than forty years. It has played out across the region for more than twenty years within the context of the Middle East’s wider tumult. It has not been restricted to diplomacy, either, but has played out through various means: covert, proxy, political and psychological warfare. Observers of this conflict have as a result tended to describe this state of affairs with obscure terms: “cold” war, “shadow” war, or other words that allude to the existence of an active and geopolitically consequential antagonism but imply an ambiguity that plain old “war” never could.




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Former Residents of Huronia, Rideau, and Southwestern Regional Centres Could Receive Compensation from Class Action Settlements - Settlement Overview Video

Settlement Overview Video. If you lived at Huronia, Rideau, or Southwestern Regional Centres, you may be eligible to make a claim.




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State Farm� Teams Up with Canine Expert Victoria Stilwell to Take a Bite Out of Dog Attacks - Video OneTitle

National Dog Bite Prevention Week is May 18-24. Any dog can bite, regardless of breed. Be a responsible pet owner.








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Smart is Evolving: Efficient High-rise Changes Corporate Landscape with 'Urban Genius' Concept - Video OneTitle

Virtual tour of 350 Fifth, a new 20-story office building in one of the top-ranked U.S. cities for sustainable buildings. Pt. 1 Pittsburgh-Gateway to the World & 350 Fifth Urban Genius.







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What happens when planning and preparation pay off at a time when you need it the most? - John Peden - #NMClientStory

John Peden - #NMClientStory




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November Marks National Pet Cancer Awareness Month - Associates at VPI share their stories in honor of National Pet Cancer Awareness Month. [...]

Associates at VPI share their stories in honor of National Pet Cancer Awareness Month. Find out how you can help #CurePetCancer, visit www.CurePetCancer.com




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EU Must Focus on Getting Better Results From its Spending, say EU Auditors - European Court of Auditors

European Court of Auditors




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PNC Christmas Price Index Up A Tame One Percent In 2014; Is This The Year True Loves Make The Splurge? - Presenting The Great Carol Comeback.

Presenting The Great Carol Comeback.






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Northwestern Mutual Encourages Early Planning for Families of Dependents with Special Needs - AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH � RUTHANN DRISCOLL

This #AutismAwarenessMonth we encourage families with special needs to take steps now to plan for their loved ones� futures. Our Director of Advanced Planning, Ruthann Driscoll, discusses the importance of planning to secure long-term security and quality of life for your family. Learn more: http://u.nm.com/1AQBAsN





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C�r�monie de remise du Prix Happy City : AG2R LA MONDIALE, Nexity, Sodexo et SUEZ environnement r�compensent les meilleures initiatives en faveur du bien-�tre citoyen - Interview Jean Jou

Interview Jean Jouzel, Pr�sident du jury




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61% of Mobile Workers Trust Their Employer to Keep Personal Information Private on Their Mobile Devices - What can employers see on smartphones

Smartphones hold increasing amounts of sensitive personal data, so every device is now a mixed-use device. As a result, businesses must protect employee privacy as fiercely as corporate security.





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Plan for What "will" Happen, not What "might" Happen - Alien Invasion Might Happen

Alien Invasion Might Happen




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THE ONCE AND FUTURE JEWEL OF THE JERSEY SHORE: HISTORIC, MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR REDEVELOPMENT TO RESHAPE, RECLAIM, AND REVIVE ASBURY PARK WATERFRONT - The Asbury Park Waterfront

The Asbury Park Waterfront






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New Goody Clean Radiance Brushes Equipped With Copper Bristles for Radiant Hair - Goody Clean Radiance 101

Watch how the copper bristles in Goody Clean Radiance brushes work to reduce buildup in hair.