News + Media

Members of New York National Guard take calls on a hotline for pandemic

Analysis + Opinion

August 10, 2020

Pandemic politics: Covid-19 and grand strategy

As the world attempts to cope with and contain the COVID-19 pandemic, policy-makers and citizens alike are questioning the role of the state, its goals and the tools it uses. Lockdowns, overtaxed health care systems, mass unemployment, increasing mental health crises and supply chain disruptions plague the global system. Citizens wonder whether we will see a change in how states conduct themselves after the pandemic, both internationally and domestically.

Latvian flag with troops behind it

Analysis + Opinion

August 9, 2020

Beware of Latvians bearing gifts

Harvey SapolskyThe National Interest

There is no need for the United States to guard Europe against the Russians. The Europeans are rich, numerous, and fully capable of defending themselves. America must resist Latvians or Poles bearing gifts, argues Harvey Sapolsky.

The blast at the Port of Beirut from August 4 seen on a rendered satellite map. Authorities and aid workers are still searching for the dead and injured.Vampy1/Deposit Photos

In the News

August 7, 2020

Why the Beirut blast created a mushroom cloud

Erik OlsenPopular Science

Vipin Narang quoted: “We did not see anything remotely like that in Beirut,” says Vipin Narang.  The Beirut fireball’s vivid red color sets it apart from the aftereffects of an atom bomb, too. “It’s characteristic of NO compounds,” Narang says, which are by-products of ammonium nitrate explosions. 

A photo of a man looking at a destroyed Hiroshima

In the News

August 6, 2020

Hiroshima's legacy 75 years later

WBUR

WBUR's Here and New host Robin Young speaks with JIm Walsh about the first use of an atomic weapon and the state of nuclear weapons today.

Female military leader wearing Covid-19 protective mask

Analysis + Opinion

August 5, 2020

Pandemic politics: How the Future Strategy Forum amplifies the expertise of women

Sara Plana and Rachel TecottInternational Affairs Blog

In a new International Affairs blog published hereSara Plana and Rachel Tecott reflect on the work of the Future Strategy Forum (FSF). The FSF amplifies the voices of national security experts from under-represented backgrounds.

This July 28, 2017 photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency shows a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile being lauched at an undisclosed location in North Korea. STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY

In the News

August 4, 2020

New North Korea ICBM report suggests Pyongyang can hit US with nukes

David BrennanNewsweek

Vipin Narang heavily quoted: Narang said the UN report should be read as "further evidence that North Korea is consolidating its nuclear weapons force, improving and augmenting it to improve survivability, retaliatory power, and penetration.  In other words, North Korea is making the technological improvements we would expect any other nuclear weapons power to make," he explained. "And that's precisely what they want us to acknowledge."

President Harry Truman reading reports of dropping the first atomic bomb

Analysis + Opinion

August 3, 2020

Why President Truman insisted on unconditional surrender

Richard SamuelsThe New York Times

Every August, newspapers are dotted with stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accompanied by a well-picked-over — but never resolved — debate over whether atomic bombs were needed to end the Asia-Pacific war on American terms. What is left to learn 75 years (and with so much spilled ink) later?

In the News

August 2, 2020

Putin's virus disinformation campaign against Americans

Fox News

Jim Walsh joins Arthel Neville on 'America's News HQ' to discuss the implications of Putin's virus disinformation campaign aimed at Americans.

Researcher alone in library

Analysis + Opinion

July 30, 2020

Training the Covid-19 cohort: Adapting and preserving social science research

Fotini Christia, Chappell LawsonSSRC

Fotini Christia and Chappell Lawson address changes in research and impacts of the pandemic on fieldwork. They trace the shifts in research focus that it has produced and find opportunities in newly broadened methodologies, but warn of the dangers of neglecting non-Covid research and the traditional fieldwork that still remain essential to social science.

Erik Lin-Greenberg Head Shot

News@E40

July 27, 2020

Erik Lin-Greenberg joins MIT as assistant professor

Security Studies Program

The Center welcomes Erik Lin-Greenberg to MIT as assistant professor of political science and as the newest faculty member of the Security Studies Program. His research examines how emerging military technology affects conflict dynamics and the regulation and use of force.

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