Center for International Studies

Research affiliate Thomas Neff, a physicist known for his proposal aimed at “reducing the global stockpile of nuclear weapons and helping stabilize the former Soviet Union,” has died at age 80, reports Harrison Smith for the Washington Post. Credited with the “Megatons to Megawatts” agreement, “Dr. Neff spent years working in arms control, nuclear weapons proliferation and uranium markets, bridging the divide between experts who specialized in the kind of highly enriched uranium used for warheads and the far less enriched version used for electricity generation,” Smith writes.

Research affiliate Thomas Neff, a physicist whose work with nuclear weapon conversion led to an agreement “that reduced nuclear threats and produced one of the greatest peace dividends of all time,” has died at the age of 80, reports William J. Broad for The New York Times. Neff’s idea of converting Soviet nuclear weapons into electricity used to power American cities “turned some 20,000 Russian nuclear arms into electricity, lighting billions of American lightbulbs.” 

Steven Simon, a fellow with MIT’s Center for International Studies, and Jonathan Stevenson of the International Institute for Strategic Studies write for Politico about how the 2024 election could lead to political violence and civil breakdown. “Despite all that U.S. national security and law enforcement officials have learned since Jan. 6, the country is still not prepared for a far-right revolt,” write Simon and Stevenson.

Principal Research Scientist Eric Heginbotham writes for Newsweek that in simulations of a possible invasion of Taiwan, he and his colleagues found that “China would lose—so long as the United States continues to invest in maintaining deterrence and chooses to intervene directly and vigorously.” Heginbotham adds: “The United States should ensure that the political relationship with China remains positive in those areas that do not directly compromise America's position and — consistent with U.S. policy for half a century—that avoid promoting de jure independence for Taiwan.”

Principal research scientist Eric Heginbotham and his colleagues speak with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Tobin Harshaw about their study simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “The project developed a war game with hundreds of tokens that include forces from the US, China, Taiwan and Japan,” Heginbotham and his colleagues explain. “Air and naval operations were played on a 5-by-6 foot map that covers the Western Pacific. Ground operations were played on a separate map that covers Taiwan.”

Postdoctoral fellow Joshua A. Schwartz and University of Pennsylvania PhD candidate Sabrina B. Arias write for The Washington Post about their research exploring how American cities and towns are taking action to help reduce carbon emissions. “Major urban areas account for about 30 percent of the U.S. carbon footprint,” they write. “This means even relatively narrow efforts focused on those cities could still have a significant impact.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was “perhaps the most transformational politician in Japan’s post-World War II history,” reports David E. Sanger for The New York Times. “We didn’t know what we were going to get when Abe came to [our] office with this hard nationalist reputation,” recalls Prof. Richard Samuels, director of the Center for International Studies. “What we got was a pragmatic realistic who understood the limits of Japan’s power, and who knew it wasn’t going to be able to balance China’s rise on its own. So, he designed a new system.”

Prof. Richard Samuels speaks with Hill reporter Tobias Burns about the legacy of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe “sought to shift the center of gravity in Japanese political culture away from the pacifism that characterized most of the early to mid post-war period to a place that was, in his view, more normal,” explains Samuels.

Writing for The New York Times, Steven Simon, a fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies, and Jonathan Stevenson of the International Institute for Strategic Studies explore the Biden administration’s response to Russia’s nuclear threats. “The United States and NATO should be less deferential to Mr. Putin’s attempt to wield the threat of nuclear weapons,” they write, “not only for the sake of supporting Ukraine but also to ensure global geopolitical stability in the future.”

Research fellow Maham Javaid writes for The Boston Globe about the impact TikTok has played in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “TikTok is undoubtedly playing multiple roles in this war,” writes Javaid. “One of which is that the war and its accompanying acts of brutality are being documented and disseminated across the world.”

WBUR host Peter O’Dowd speaks with MIT senior research associate Jim Walsh about the recent meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegates. “I think both parties feel like they have to go through the motions, and both are, or at least the Ukrainians are, rightly skeptical,” says Walsh. “The way negotiations work is they work over a long period of time.”

Carol R. Saivetz, a senior advisor for MIT’s Security Studies Program, speaks with NBC Boston about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The claims that this was all about NATO expansion are really false,” says Saivetz. “I think it’s much more about Putin’s imperial ambitions and this whole idea that unless he can put back together the Soviet Union that somehow Russia is not a great power.”

Writing for The New York Times, Steven Simon of the MIT Center for International Studies and Jonathan Stevenson of the International Institute for Strategic Studies underscore the need for extensive analysis of the growing dangers to American democracy. “The overarching idea is, publicly and thoroughly, to probe just how bad things could get precisely to ensure that they never do,” they write, “and that America’s abject political decay is averted.”

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Joel Brenner, an instructor at MIT’s Center for International Studies and the former inspector general of the National Security Agency, argues that the fall of Kabul to the Taliban was a counterintelligence failure that should be examined. “The intelligence community needs to take a hard look at the scope and effectiveness of its counterintelligence operations,” writes Brenner. “Like most intelligence failures, this one was probably more the result of a lack of imagination than of operational difficulties.”

Senior research associate Jim Walsh speaks with Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd about national security following the attack on the U.S. Capitol last week.