Fellows' Research
During their year at the Weatherhead Center, WCFIA Fellows conduct research and produce a paper. As senior-level practitioners of international affairs—diplomats, military officers, journalists, representatives of NGOs, and others—they bring their professional experience to bear in designing and implementing a research project. For some, their studies result from many years of professional work in a particular area and on specific issues; for others, the research question they ask is something they have thought about for a long time. Many of these papers have been published in journals both here and in the Fellows' home countries. Still, other Fellows take the work that they began at the Center and produce books or dissertations in pursuit of PhDs. We are pleased to mention here just a few of the many studies that Fellows have produced since the Program's founding in 1958 and which have had a significant influence on both scholars and practitioners. For a complete list of Fellows' research papers and other publications, please contact Kathleen Molony, director, Fellows Program. Papers are also available http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/fellows/papers/index.htm.
- Climatic Change and World Affairs
Sir Crispin Tickell, a British diplomat, arrived at Harvard in the fall of 1975 with only a general idea of the topic he wished to pursue as a Fellow. By the time he left in the spring, he had produced a paper on climate change, one of the earliest on this important topic, and one that would subsequently influence generations of scholars and policymakers. In Climatic Change and World Affairs, first published by the Center for International Affairs in 1977 and revised in 1984, Tickell noted that, among the many causes of climate change, human beings bore some responsibility. He suggested, moreover, that the time had come to monitor the changes to the earth's climate, even though the climate had been changing for hundreds of thousands of years. He recognized that achieving coordination among countries in dealing with the deleterious effects of climate change, whether warming or cooling, would not be easy. Even so, he argued, it was necessary for countries to use their power and leverage to support an international system of agreements.
- The United Nations, Iran, and Iraq: How Peacemaking Changed
Cameron Hume had spent three years with the US Mission to the United Nations as a regional affairs expert for the Middle East. As a Fellow, he decided to write something based on his UN experience, and he produced a paper, and subsequently a book, on the Iran-Iraq War. In his 1994 book, The United Nations, Iran, and Iraq: How Peacemaking Changed (Indiana University Press), Hume examined how the UN Security Council changed over time, becoming by the late 1980s an effective body for settling regional disputes—in this case, the decades-long series of conflicts between Iran and Iraq. His is a carefully and well-documented account of how the Security Council evolved steadily from its very early days as a place where diplomats engaged in boisterous arguments to an early post-Cold War era characterized by a greater amount of agreement and, most importantly, diplomacy. Hume saw the Kuwait crisis as an important turning point, as it helped to transform and advance the UN's role in promoting collective security. The UN, in which he worked in the late 1980s and which he observed in the early 1990s, saw the evolution of a more “muscular” Security Council. Indeed, the new practice of collaboration that came about at the time, and which Hume observed and documented in the Security Council, was used to help end conflicts elsewhere, including Namibia, Central America, Cambodia, and the Persian Gulf.
- Limits of Persuasion: Germany and the Yugoslav Crisis, 1991–1992
In his 1997 book, Limits of Persuasion: Germany and the Yugoslav Crisis, 1991–1992 (Praeger), Michael Libal drew on his perspective as head of the Southeast European Department of the German Foreign Ministry in the four years immediately preceding his year as a Fellow (1995–1996). His study offers insights into the issues that German diplomacy faced, both at the time and which were also raised later by critics. Libal begins by providing a chronological and detailed account of the responses of the international community, in particular the European Community and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), to developments in Yugoslavia in 1991 and 1992. He argues that Germany's policies with respect to the crisis in Yugoslavia must be seen as responses to the crisis itself as it unfolded; the determination of the smaller nations to avoid becoming victims of Serb nationalism were at the heart of the conflicts. And yet, as Libal notes, Germany could not really contribute to the protection of the smaller Yugoslav republics against Serb aggression—certainly, not militarily, either directly or even indirectly through military burden sharing. The initiative was soon to be passed on to those Western states willing and able to commit troops to the region.
In her just completed doctoral thesis, “The EU's Collective Use of Force: Exploring the Factors Behind Its First Military Operations” (Uppsala Universitet), Katarina Engberg examines the interaction between political goals and resource allocation—between “ends and means”—in military operations conducted by the European Union. Engberg draws on her experiences working in Stockholm (Swedish Ministry of Defence and Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters) and in Brussels (as minister for defence affairs at the Swedish Representation to the European Union and the Swedish NATO Delegation), and also attributes her ideas for the study to her year as a Fellow in 1986–1987. She argues that focus on the EU, a collective actor, in the context of the multilateralism of intervention, offers an important opportunity to add to the literature on the use of force by collective-security providers. In seeking to answer the question, “Under what circumstances does the EU undertake military operations?” Engberg analyzes the dynamics in the EU's use of force. She finds that there are several circumstances under which the EU will undertake military operations and may include: when the consent of some influential local actors can be obtained; when interests are at stake; where military operations have previously been taken by individual European nations or by the EU; and when resources are aligned in terms of command and control arrangements. The implications for EU military operations are significant.