News + Media

	News Release November 7, 2005 MIT Security Studies research scientist wins MacArthur Grant Cindy Williams, Principal Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program, has received a two-year, $150,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She will undertake a major project on national security strategy and resource planning, entitled “Improving the Nation’s Security Decisions.”
	Audit November 1, 2005 Why intelligence isn't to blame for 9/11 Joshua Rovner, MIT It did not take long for blame for the September 11 attacks to cascade onto the intelligence community. But it is not deserved, and the reasons for that are important.
	Audit November 1, 2005 The hidden cost of homeland defense Benjamin Friedman Conventional wisdom says that none of us are safe from terrorism. The truth is that almost all of us are. The conventional belief is that in response to terrorism, the federal government has spent massive sums on homeland security. The fact is that the increased federal spending on homeland security since September 11 pales in comparison to increases in the U.S. defense budget. But homeland security has costs beyond spending, costs that conventional thinking rarely considers.
	News Release October 13, 2005 Outspoken Iranian human rights activist joins MIT Center for International Studies as a visiting scholar Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a leading advocate of human rights and democracy in Iran, has joined CIS as a visiting scholar. This is the first visit to the United States for Ms. Haghighatjoo, who resigned from Iran’s Parliament in February 2004 following a crackdown on reformers.
	News Release September 12, 2005 Innovative MIT program shines a spotlight on international education Since 1994, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies has developed of one the most successful and wide-ranging international education programs in the country, particularly among universities focusing on science and technology.
	Audit September 1, 2005 Who needs the UN? Gary G. Troeller, MIT There has long been a feeling in the corridors of power in Washington that the United Nations is irredeemably flawed and condemned to ineffectiveness. It is viewed as an irritating constraint on U.S. power, or worse—expensive, wasteful, slow to act, and irrelevant.
	Audit September 1, 2005 The mirage of a united Europe Robert Vickers, MIT To most Americans, the prospect of a united Europe has long been viewed not only as a favorable development, but even as an increasingly inevitable one. Our common political, religious and cultural heritage, democratic governments, market economies, and Cold War experiences have all contributed to the perception of Europe as a friend and natural ally of the United States, occasional differences not withstanding.
	Audit September 1, 2005 Iran: rogue state? Ali Mostashari, MIT Iran is now an important focal point for U.S. foreign policy. Yet many have argued that the United States lacks a coherent foreign policy on Iran, amounting to no more than an enormous list of “evils”: namely, that Iran exports its radical Islamist revolution, supports Hezbollah and Hamas and actively opposes the Middle East peace process, is building nuclear and biological weapons capacity, was involved in the bombings of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires and the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia, provides Al-Qaeda with safe passage and refuge, helps insurgents in Iraq, assassinates its own dissidents and oppresses its people, and so on.
	Audit July 1, 2005 All weapons of mass destruction are not equal Allison Macfarlane, MIT In the United States, weapons of mass destruction have become the bête noir of the 21st century. They are now the justification for pre-emptive war, for an expansion of the cold war nuclear arsenal, and for the spending of billions of dollars on offensive and defensive measures. Since significant portions of U.S. foreign and domestic policy are based on this categorization, it is high time to reflect on whether these weapons pose such a lethal threat.
	Audit July 1, 2005 The Iraq War: do civilian casualties matter? Les Roberts, MIT A disturbing thing happened to me in Afghanistan last May while working on a project to install wells in villages. After a delightful month of working in a rural province, filled with welcoming leaders and offers of tea at every house, the mood suddenly changed. A young man walked up to my 42-year-old female American colleague and bashed her in the face. As we collected our interviewers and headed back to the vehicles, children from the village pelted us with stones. This violence against anything foreign played out in hundreds of locations across Afghanistan that day.