Monthly Archives: June 2010

“Making a nuclear bomb with highly enriched uranium basically involves slamming two pieces together at high speed. That’s really all there is to it.” – Matthew Bunn, co-principal investigator for the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom and a … Continue reading →

“In the current situation, the US cannot reduce the real value of its government debt significantly by indulging in a bout of inflation, because the average maturity on existing debt is very short – only about four years. And the … Continue reading →

“Confidence is a crucial part of a strategy. That’s why one has to look, not just at the steps that are being taken at an instant, but also at the steps that are being taken over time and . . … Continue reading →

“In inexplicably giving a Rolling Stone reporter access for several weeks to record the comments of the general and his inner circle, McChyrstal displayed horrific judgment; intentionally sought publicly to air personal disputes and dislikes relating to civilian authorities; directed … Continue reading →

“A more accurate, integrated analysis of why terror has persisted in the Middle East for decades should include an acknowledgment that this problem has also been paralleled by another chronic phenomenon since the 1980s: the regular movement of foreign armies … Continue reading →

“Denial is Ms. Stern’s plainspoken and very raw account of why, long before 9/11, she was driven to study terrorism and to put herself repeatedly into danger as she flew around the world, like some scholarly twin of the former … Continue reading →

“How indeed, I would ask, and apart from the question of a “reliable ally,” can (or should) the U.S. carry out a campaign to win “hearts and minds” in an alien country thousands of miles away on the other side … Continue reading →

“Thanks to strong, decisive and coordinated action, President Obama and the other G-20 leaders have achieved significant progress since the London meeting. . . . We still face enormous challenges. To maintain the momentum of the U.S. recovery, we need … Continue reading →

Kevin Ryan, the Belfer Center’s executive director for research, was interviewed by several media about the controversy involving comments in Rolling Stone by General Stanley McChrystal, a former Harvard Kennedy School National Security Fellow (1996-97). Ryan was interviewed on Boston … Continue reading →

“The time has not yet come to throw in the towel regarding the possible enactment in 2010 of meaningful economy-wide climate change policy (such as that found in the Waxman-Markey legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June, … Continue reading →