News + Media

	News Release September 4, 2012 Journalist from India joins CIS Priyanka Borpujari, an independent journalist based in Mumbai, India, has been selected as the 2012-13 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow. Borpujari is the eighth recipient of the annual fellowship, which gives a woman journalist working in print, broadcast or online media the opportunity to build skills while focusing exclusively on human rights journalism and social justice issues.
	Audit September 1, 2012 Nobody’s century: the American prospect in post-imperial times Ambassador Chas W. Freeman (USFS, Ret.) We are entering a novel period in our history–one in which the United States will be both fiscally constrained and also unable to call the shots in many places around the globe. Let me try to set the stage for your discussions by raising some difficult questions for you to ponder.
	Analysis + Opinion August 23, 2012 Much ado about the Sansha Garrison M. Taylor Fravel and Dennis J. BlaskoThe Diplomat Don’t believe the hype: Beijing’s Sansha military garrison is more of an administrative move than an arms buildup in the South China Sea.
	News@E40 July 17, 2012 Urban resilience: cities coping with violence Ordinary people show remarkable capacities for coping with and resisting violent actors in some of the world's most dangerous cities, a new study from the Center shows. "Urban Resilience in Situations of Chronic Violence," a two-year undertaking led by former MIT professor Diane Davis and Center executive director John Tirman, examined eight cities to answer questions about what adaptive strategies communities adopt in response to criminal and other forms of persistent violence. The study uncovers new insights into conditions of "positive" resilience, in which communities forge and utilize social relationships within their neighborhoods and negotiate productive relations with city and state officials, police, business leaders, and the like. Not all cities achieve this outcome, however. MIT graduate students and researchers from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva spent several weeks doing field research in Johannesburg, Kigali, Managua, Medellín, Mexico City, Nairobi, and São Paolo, with remote research on Karachi, under a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The 132-page main report was written by Diane Davis, now professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and a CIS Research Affiliate. Davis and Tirman presented findings to USAID and an audience of policy professionals at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in July. The study will be discussed in several more forums, emphasizing its utility to practitioners—governments, NGOs, multilateral agencies, and others.
	Analysis + Opinion July 12, 2012 Burmese days Christian CarylNew York Review of Books In January, Min Ko Naing, one of Burma’s leading dissidents, walked out of prison.
	Audit June 28, 2012 Improving Iran-US relations Abbas Maleki, CIS Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow Abbas Maleki was in residence at CIS as a Robert E. WIlhelm Fellow. He is assistant professor of political science at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, director of the International Institute for Caspian Studies, and senior associate of the Belfer Center's International Security Program. He was Iran's deputy foreign minister from 1988–1997.
	In the News June 5, 2012 GOP whining on military spending cuts Benjamin FriedmanCato Institute Cato daily podcast featuring Benjamin Friedman.
	News@E40 May 23, 2012 'Becoming Enemies' emerges from US-Iran project The first book from the Center's US-Iran project was published in May—Becoming Enemies: US-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988. Published by Rowman & Littlefield, the book is the work of five coauthors who are the key players in the project: James Blight and Janet Lang (University of Waterloo), Malcolm Byrne (National Security Archive), Hussein Banai (Occidental College), and the Center's John Tirman. Bruce Riedel, who advised President Clinton on U.S.-Iran issues, contributed a foreword. The project is designed to bring together policy makers from the US, Iran, and elsewhere to explore in detail, often for the first time as a group, the key events in a difficult relationship. The project asks if there were missed opportunities to improve the relationship, and why. Later works will examine the period of reform and the 2001-2009 period. It is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Arca Foundation, and an MIT alumnae family.
	In the News May 1, 2012 What might an India-Pakistan war look like? By Christopher Clary Toward the end of his presidency, Bill Clinton argued that Kashmir, the territory disputed by India and Pakistan, was 'the most dangerous place in the world.'1 Clinton's second term saw India and Pakistan undergo reciprocal tests of nuclear weapons in 1998, followed in 1999 by the Kargil war, the first conflict between nuclear weapons states since the Ussuri River clashes between the Soviet Union and China in 1969.
	précis May 1, 2012 précis Interview: Vipin Narang Vipin Narang, assistant professor of political science and faculty member of the Security Studies Program, discusses with précis his courses on proliferation, South Asian security, and empirical models in IR. He also chats about current research and Iran's nuclear program.