In the News | 2023

In the News

May 23, 2023

Q&A: How studying Portuguese helps to look at life through a different lens

Lisa HicklerMIT News

Aeronautics and astronautics major Theo St. Francis describes his studies of Portuguese and travels to Brazil with the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives' Global Teaching Labs.

A digital rendering of the Green Mosque in Balkh, Afghanistan, a 16th Century building.

In the News

May 19, 2023

Architectural heritage like you haven’t seen it before

Peter DizikesMIT News

MIT’s “Ways of Seeing” project, directed by Fotini Christia, a professor, is a historic preservation effort recording architecture through digital imaging, Extended Reality techniques, and hand-drawn architectural renderings.

Clockwise from top left: Nicholas Ackert, Nilma Dominque, Caitlyn Doyle, Margery Resnick, Teresa Neff, and Emily Goodling

In the News

May 18, 2023

Six MIT SHASS educators receive 2023 Levitan Teaching Awards

School of Humanities, Arts, and Social SciencesMIT News

Nicholas Ackert, a PhD candidate in the MIT Security Studies Program, received a James A and Ruth Levitan Teaching Award for 2023, along with five others. The awards honor outstanding success in teaching undergraduate and graduate students.

Carol Saivetz sitting in the GBH studio

In the News

May 15, 2023

Video: Ukraine pledges to take back Russian-occupied territories, but experts argue success is unlikely

GBH News

Carol Saivetz, Senior Advisor at the MIT Security Studies Program, appeared on GBH News to discuss the coming Ukrainian counteroffensive.

MIT student working in a lab

In the News

May 12, 2023

New MIT-Denmark collaboration to expand opportunities for global impact

MISTIMIT News

A grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation will allow more MIT interns to connect with innovators in Denmark.

Mai Hassan and Sally Kornbluth

In the News

May 9, 2023

Podcast: Bureaucracies, dictatorships, and the power of Africa’s people

MIT News

President Sally Kornbluth talks with Associate Professor Mai Hassan about public administration in Africa and how people mobilize against repressive regimes.

American flag hanging

In the News

May 8, 2023

Radio: 'Grand Delusion' with Steven Simon on Monday's Access Utah

Tom WilliamsUtah Public Radio

CIS Wilhelm Fellow Steven Simon joined Tom Williams on Utah Public Radio to discuss his new book Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East.

Richard Samuels and Evan Lieberman

In the News

May 5, 2023

A transformative era ends at the Center for International Studies

MIT News

“Dick Samuels built the CIS into a vibrant incubator of ideas, an engine of scholarly output and policy relevance, and a place where fierce debates could occur while friendships were forged. This is the institution that Evan Lieberman, one of the department’s most creative and entrepreneurial members, will soon take in exciting new directions,” says David Singer, head of the Department of Political Science and Raphael Dorman-Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science.

Having just disembarked a train, people walk with their luggage across the tracks in Lviv.

In the News

May 2, 2023

In a time of war, a new effort to help

Peter DizikesMIT News

MIT-Ukraine program leaders describe the work they are undertaking as they shape a novel project to help a country in crisis.

Chinese nuclear missiles

In the News

April 26, 2023

China pushes largest-ever expansion of nuclear arsenal

AFPFrance 24

Quoted: "The changes that are taking place or under way are very significant" and "will turn China from a state that has a nuclear retaliatory capability to one that is the world's third major nuclear power", Eric Heginbotham, Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Center for International Studies, told AFP.

In the News

April 21, 2023

Just like yesterday? New critiques of the nuclear revolution

Paul C AveryTexas National Security Review

Quoted: "This conceptualization largely includes Barry Posen’s discussion of inadvertent escalation resulting from conventional operations that unintentionally degrade the survivability of an opponent’s nuclear arsenal."

101st Airborne Division helos during Operation Iraqi Freedom

In the News

April 20, 2023

A scathing critique of US Middle East policy, from Carter to Biden

Andrew ExumThe Washington Post

Steven Simon's merciless new history of American engagement in the Middle East from Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden spares few: In the estimation of the author, no American policymakers, across Republican or Democratic administrations, have much to be proud of.

In the News

April 19, 2023

America’s imposition on incompatible Middle East realities

John SawersFinancial Times

John Sawers reviews CIS Wilhelm Fellow Steven Simon's newly published book Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East, writing that it is "a brilliantly written critique of 45 years of US foreign policy in the Mideast".

In the News

April 18, 2023

The forty-year war: How America lost the Middle East

Lisa AndersonForeign Affairs

Steven Simon's new book Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East offers "a comprehensive, even magisterial review of US policy in the Middle East over the past half century."

A UN Security Council meeting, New York City, March 2022

In the News

April 18, 2023

The myth of multipolarity

Stephen G Brooks and William C WohlforthForeign Affairs

Quoted: "Consider the capabilities that give the United States what the political scientist Barry Posen has called 'command of the commons'—that is, control over the air, the open sea, and space. Command of the commons is what makes the United States a true global military power."

Arrest of Jack Teixeira

In the News

April 13, 2023

Arrest in leaked classified documents investigation shocks neighbors in Dighton

Michael Yoshida, Caroline Goggin, and Keke Vencill7 News WHDH Boston

Quoted: Speaking with 7NEWS, security expert Barry Posen said the leak was “a really colossal screw up on somebody’s part.”

In the News

April 12, 2023

New book explores last 4 decades of US involvement, failures in Middle East

ABC News

ABC News' Linsey Davis spoke with Robert E Wilhelm Fellow Steven Simon about his new book "Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East."

The Department of the Treasure with the Washington Monument in the background

In the News

April 6, 2023

Paying the defense bill: Financing American and Chinese geostrategic competition

Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Samuel GerstleTexas National Security Review

Quoted: As Barry Posen writes, “Restraint would contribute to the U.S. economy by saving significant amounts of money, which could be reallocated to restoring the fiscal health of the country, whether that is a short-term or long-term problem.”

President José Maria Neves of Cape Verde

In the News

April 5, 2023

José Maria Neves, president of Cape Verde, tours MIT

Peter DizikesMIT News

The visit featured a public seminar on African governance, as well as meetings with faculty, students, and staff.

In the News

March 30, 2023

India-China border tensions and US strategy in the Indo-Pacific

Center for a New American Security (CNAS)

M Taylor Fravel, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the MIT Security Studies Program, participated in an expert panel discussion on India-China border tensions and US strategy in the Indo-Pacific. 

Student teams working together

In the News

March 29, 2023

Boosting passenger experience and increasing connectivity at the Hong Kong International Airport

Danna LorchMIT News

Recently, a cohort of 36 students from MIT and universities across Hong Kong came together for the MIT Entrepreneurship and Maker Skills Integrator (MEMSI), an intense two-week startup boot camp hosted at the MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node. MEMSI is a collaboration among the MIT Innovation Initiative, the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship, the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, and Project Manus.

In the News

March 13, 2023

If Russia goes nuclear, how does the West respond?

Eurasianet

Quoted: Stephen Van Evera voiced fear about the potential for nuclear escalation in Ukraine, saying the “balance of resolve” there is tilting against the United States. 

A destroyed building in Ukraine

In the News

March 6, 2023

Assessing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after a year of war

Peter DizikesMIT News

MIT event examines effects of the war on domestic politics and daily life in both Ukraine and Russia.

Putin

In the News

February 21, 2023

Russia suspends participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the US

Here & NowWBUR

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday that his country would suspend participation in the New START treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement with the US. Here & Now discusses what this means with Massachusetts Institute of Technology security analyst Jim Walsh.

In the News

February 18, 2023

What's behind the Chinese spy balloon

Isaac ChotinerThe New Yorker

President Xi Jinping has modernized and expanded his military, but the balloon incident may indicate the challenges he faces in consolidating its power. An interview with MIT Security Studies Program Director M Taylor Fravel.

Mao Ning, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, fielding questions about the stray balloon that traversed the United States, at a news conference in Beijing on Monday. Credit...Mark R Cristino/EPA, via Shutterstock

In the News

February 6, 2023

China’s balloon dispute aims attention at Xi’s leadership

David PiersonThe New York Times

Quoted: "M. Taylor Fravel, the director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on China’s military, said he thought that China’s leadership would not have authorized the balloon’s flight to the United States had it been aware of its journey, given Mr. Blinken’s visit."

Headshot of Kelly Greenhill

In the News

February 5, 2023

An interview with Kelly Greenhill

Daniel Blake-MartinE-International Relations

Kelly M Greenhill, Senior Research Scholar and Director of the Seminar XXI Program, is interviewed by E-International Relations. 

In the News

February 3, 2023

What our response to the Chinese balloon saga shows about the changing landscape of surveillance

Peter O'DowdWBUR

Senior Research Associate Jim Walsh joins Here & Now host Peter O'Dowd to discuss the suspected Chinese spy balloon. 

In the News

February 2, 2023

KIS offers diverse learning experiences through MISTI workshop

Park Jun-heeThe Korea Herald

Korea International School hosted the Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Science and Technology Initiatives in January for the first time in three years to offer new learning experiences to students.

rescuers search for survivors at an apartment block hit by Russian rockets during a massive missile attack on Dnipro

In the News

January 23, 2023

Why Putin’s attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure could backfire

Peter RutlandResponsible Statecraft

Quoted: MIT Professor Barry Posen describes the bombing campaign as “well executed” and “cunningly effective,” serving to divert Ukraine’s resources away from preparing offensive operations.

Burning forest in Brazil

In the News

January 19, 2023

Q&A: Gabriela Sá Pessoa talks hope and crisis in Lula’s Brazil

Covering Climate NowColumbia Journalism Review

Covering Climate Now talked with Gabriela Sá Pessoa about ongoing, alarming deforestation in the Amazon rain forest, journalistic accountability during the recently concluded administration of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and stories to follow now that former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has taken power. 

NATO warships

In the News

January 10, 2023

The NATO-EU joint declaration is a defeat for Americans

Justin LoganCato Institute

Quoted: "And it is a pretty big transfer payment: a very conservative estimate from MIT’s Barry Posen put the figure on the order of $70–80 billion per year, even retaining the U.S. nuclear umbrella and intelligence assistance."

In the News

January 9, 2023

Turns out ‘rethink’ was a threat not a promise in US-Saudi spat

Daniel LarisonResponsible Statecraft

Quoted: As [Barry] Posen explained it in his book, Restraint, “Secure in the knowledge that the United States will serve as the military lender of last resort, they invest in policies that redound to the political disadvantage if the United States, which can ultimately precipitate real military costs.”

In the News

January 5, 2023

New MIT internships expand research opportunities in Africa

Kristen WilcoxMIT News

Quoted: “These internships are an opportunity to better merge the research ecosystem of MIT with academia-based research systems in Africa,” says Evan Lieberman, the Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa and faculty director for MISTI.