The Harvard Kennedy School serves as an institutional training ground for future servants of US empire and the US national security state, while providing broad support to US empire's global allies including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
In How Harvard Rules, John Trumpbour documents the central role Harvard as a whole played in the establishment of the Cold War academic-military-industrial complex and US imperialism post-WWII (How Harvard Rules, 51), highlighting the role of the Harvard Kennedy School under Dean Graham Allison (1977-1989) in particular (HHR, 68). Trumpbour recounts that Dean Allison ran an executive education program for Pentagon officials at Harvard Kennedy (HHR 68).
Indeed, Harvard Kennedy School of Government and its historical precursors have hosted some of the most infamous war criminals and architects of empire: Henry Kissinger, Samuel Huntington, Susan Rice (an HKS fellow), Madeleine Albright, James Baker, Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Larry Summers. HKS also currently hosts Ricardo Hausmann, founder and director of Harvard’s Growth Lab, the academic laboratory of the 2019 US-backed attempted coup in Venezuelan.
Harvard Kennedy School's support for the US military and US empire continues to this day. HKS states on its website: "Harvard Kennedy School, because of its mission to train public leaders and its depth of expertise in the study of defense and international security, has always had a particularly strong relationship with the U.S. Armed Forces. This relationship is mutually beneficial. The School has provided its expertise to branches of the US military, and it has given military personnel (active and veteran) access to Harvard’s education and training." The same webpage further notes that after the removal of ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) from Harvard Kennedy School in 1969, "under the leadership of Harvard President Drew Faust, the ROTC program was reinstated in 2011, and the Kennedy School’s relationship with the military continues to grow more robust each year."
In particular, Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs provides broad support to the US military and the objectives of US empire. The Belfer Center is co-directed by former US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter (a war hawk who has advocated for a US invasion of North Korea and US military build ups against Russia and Iran) and former Pentagon Chief of Staff Eric Rosenbach. Programs within HKS Belfer Center include the Center's "Intelligence Program," which boasts that it "acquaints students and Fellows with the intelligence community and its strengths and weaknesses for policy making," further noting that "Discussions with active and retired intelligence practitioners, scholars of intelligence history, law, and other disciplines, help students and Fellows prepare to best use the information available through intelligence agencies." Alongside HKS Belfer's Intelligence Program, is the Belfer Center's "Recanati-Kaplan Foundation Fellowship." The Belfer Center claims that, under the direction of Belfer Center co-directors Ashton Carter and Eric Rosenbach, the Recanati-Kaplan Foundation Fellowship "educates the next generation of thought leaders in national and international intelligence."
HKS Belfer Center supports the US military and US empire by hosting a wide range events, conferences, and initiatives, through which students are inculcated with the imperialist ideologies of the US military and the US national security apparatus. Recent Belfer Center events have included:
(See here for full list of past Belfer Center events, conferences, and initiatives.)
Additionally, HKS Belfer Center faculty regularly write pieces in the US media which parrot the talking points of the US national security state, imbuing US imperialist propaganda with the institutional legitimacy their positions at Harvard University can offer (see for example: here, here, and here).
Meanwhile, Harvard Kennedy School maintains a close relationship with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As Inside Higher Ed wrote in a 2017 review of Spy Schools by Daniel Golden:
[Harvard Kennedy School] currently allows the agency [the CIA] to send officers to the midcareer program at the Kennedy School of Government while continuing to act undercover, with the school’s knowledge. When the officers apply -- often with fudged credentials that are part of their CIA cover -- the university doesn’t know they’re CIA agents, but once they’re in, Golden writes, Harvard allows them to tell the university that they’re undercover. Their fellow students, however -- often high-profile or soon-to-be-high-profile actors in the world of international diplomacy -- are kept in the dark.
“Kenneth Moskow is one of a long line of CIA officers who have enrolled undercover at the Kennedy School, generally with Harvard’s knowledge and approval, gaining access to up-and-comers worldwide,” Golden writes. “For four decades the CIA and Harvard have concealed this practice, which raises larger questions about academic boundaries, the integrity of class discussions and student interactions, and whether an American university has a responsibility to accommodate U.S. intelligence.”
Harvard Kennedy School is also deeply enmeshed with the US weapons industry. Numerous employees and board members from major US weapons developers General Dynamics, General Electric, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, Elbit Systems, and Lockheed Martin have studied, served as faculty, and/or done research at Harvard Kennedy School (See links between HKS and each of these companies for details). As just one example, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School Meghan O'Sullivan currently serves on the board of MA-based weapons developer Raytheon. O'Sullivan is also deeply enmeshed within US war machine and national security state, sitting on the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, and having served as a "special assistant" to President George W. Bush (2004-07) where she was "Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan" (2006-07) in the midst of the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. In April 2021, Meghan O'Sullivan penned an article in the Washington Post entitled "It’s Wrong to Pull Troops Out of Afghanistan. But We Can Minimize the Damage.” As reported in the Harvard Crimson, O'Sullivan's author bio in this WaPo article highlighted her position as a faculty member of Harvard Kennedy (with the perceived "expertise" that HKS imbues) but failed to acknowledge her position on the Board of Raytheon, a company which had "a $145 million contract to train Afghan Air Force pilots and is a major supplier of weapons to the U.S. military." This omission sparked charges of "conflict of interest," given Raytheon's clear business stake in extending the US war on Afghanistan in order to maximize its weapons sales and profits. WaPo's glaring omission aside, O'Sullivan's simultaneous positions as faculty at Harvard Kennedy School and board member at Raytheon, along with her former positions atop the US war machine and national security state provide an emblematic illustration of the grotesque "revolving door" which exists between Harvard Kennedy School, the US war machine and security state (which feeds its people into elite institutions like HKS), and the US weapons industry (which seeks business from US war machine and national security state).
Alongside its support for US militarism and empire worldwide, Harvard Kennedy School also actively supports the agencies carrying out the US government's militarized crackdown against populations (predominantly Black and Brown) within the US itself. Government spending records show yearly tuition payments from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for Homeland Security personnel to attend special Harvard Kennedy School seminars on Homeland Security which occurred through HKS's Program on Crisis Leadership. Similarly, Harvard Kennedy School maintains multiple ties with the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), including:
Harvard Kennedy School also hosted former FBI director James Comey for a conversation with HKS Belfer Center's Co-Director (and former Pentagon Chief of Staff) Eric Rosenbach in 2020. The conversation was open to all Harvard students.
Harvard Kennedy School is home to the Wexner Foundation. Through its "Israel Fellowship," The Wexner Foundation awards ten scholarships annually to "outstanding public sector directors and leaders from Israel," funding these individuals to pursue a Master’s in Public Administration at Harvard Kennedy School. Past Wexner Fellows include more than 25 Israeli generals and other high-ranking Israeli military and police officials. Among them is the Israeli Defense Force’s current chief of general staff, Aviv Kochavi, who is directly responsible for Israel's latest aerial bombardment of Gaza in May 2021, and who is believed to be one of the 200 to 300 Israeli officials likely to be indicted by the International Criminal Court’s probe into alleged Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza in 2014. The Wexner Foundation also paid former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak — himself accused of war crimes in connection with Israel’s 2009 Operation Cast Lead which killed over 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza — $2.3 million for two studies, one of which he did not complete.
Alongside its extensive support for US empire, Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center has a long history of hosting Israeli generals, Israeli politicians, and other high ranking Israeli officials to give talks at HKS (See for example: here, here, here, and here). The Belfer Center also hosts crassly pro-Israel events for HKS students, such as: "The Abraham Accords - A conversation on the historic normalization of relations between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel," "A Discussion with Former Mossad Director Tamir Pardo," "The Future of Modern Warfare" (which Belfer described as "a lunch seminar with Yair Golan, former Deputy Chief of the General Staff for the Israel Defense Forces"), and "The Future of Israel's National Security." Ehud Barak (mentioned above) was himself a "Belfer fellow" at Harvard Kennedy School in 2016.
As of 2022, Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center is hosting former Israel military general and war criminal Amos Yadlin as a Senior Fellow at the Belfer's Middle East Initiative. In the Spring 2022 semester, HKS allowed Yadlin to lead a weekly study group for HKS students entitled “Israeli National Security in a Shifting Middle East: Historical and Strategic Perspectives for an Uncertain Future.” Harvard University students wrote open letter demanding HKS "sever all association with Amos Yadlin and immediately suspend his study group," in which students explained:
Yadlin presided over the committee that approved the IDF’s ethical code and is a leading architect of Israel’s illegal policy of “targeted killing.” He has dismissed as “immoral” the international legal principle of civilian immunity whereby the safety of non-combatants must be prioritized over that of combatants, glossing Israeli soldiers as “citizen[s] in uniform” whose safety may justify “collateral damage” to “persons in the vicinity of a terrorist.” Defending Israel’s assassination policy that has extrajudicially killed hundreds of Palestinians since 2000, he wrote that the “the laws and ethics of conventional war did not apply” vis-á-vis Palestinians under occupation.
Harvard students staged weekly protests against Yadlin at Harvard Kennedy School in Spring 2022, disrupting the study group and forcing HKS to move its location repeatedly.
Harvard Kennedy School also plays host to the Harvard Kennedy School Israel Caucus. HKS Israel Caucus coordinates "heavily subsidized" trips to Israel for 50 HKS students. According to HKS Israel Caucus's website, students who attend these trips "meet the leading decision makers and influencers in Israeli politics, regional security and intelligence, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, [and] the next big Tech companies." HKS Israel Caucus also regularly hosts events which celebrate "Israel's culture and history." Like the trips to Israel they coordinate, these HKS Israel Caucus events serve to whitewash Israel's colonial subjugation of Palestinians and systematic theft of Palestinian land and resources.
In 2017, Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center announced the launch of "The Project on Saudi and Gulf Cooperation Council Security," which Belfer stated was "made possible through a gift from HRH Prince Turki bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia." Through this project, the Harvard Kennedy School and the Belfer Center have hosted numerous events at HKS which have promoted Saudi Arabia as a liberalizing and positive force for security and stability in the region, whitewashing the reality that Saudi Arabia is a literal monarchy which, according to Amnesty International, regularly harasses, tortures, and executes women's rights activists, journalist, activists, relatives of activists, and members of the country's Shia minority, all while spearheading the barbaric Saudi-led (and US-backed) campaign of airstrikes and blockade against Yemen, which has precipitated conditions of mass starvation and an epidemic of Cholera amongst the Yemeni people.
The Belfer Center's Project on Saudi and Gulf Cooperation Council Security further normalizes and whitewashes Saudi Arabia's crimes through its "HKS Student Delegation to Saudi Arabia." This delegation brings 11 Harvard Kennedy School students on two-week trips to Saudi Arabia, where students "exchange research, engage in cultural dialogue, and witness the changes going on in the Kingdom first hand." Not unlike the student trips to Israel coordinated by Harvard Kennedy School's Israel Caucus, HKS's trips to Saudi Arabia present students with a crassly propagandized impression of Saudi Arabia, shoring up support for the "Kingdom" amongst the future leaders of the US security state which Harvard Kennedy School seeks to nurture.
HKS must praise its benefactors – the leaders of US empire and corporate America – and it does so by lavishing them with awards. HKS’s Belfer Center, for example, has a program called “Technology and Public Purpose” (TPP), which gives awards to companies and “critical” scholars that serve the “public good.” In May 2021, this award was presented by Ashton Carter, Obama’s “Defense Secretary,” and Gideon Lichfield (former editor of MIT’s propaganda magazine, MIT Technology Review, whose main role is to cheer for neoliberalism and promote the gadgets and agendas of MIT and Harvard). A representative of the ACLU also participated in this award bestowed by Carter. Unsurprisingly, the runners-up for the award included corporate giants Microsoft and IBM Research.
In 2020, the same Belfer award was given to Google’s “ethical” employees, who received praise from servant of the US war machine, Ashton Carter. Carter described the purpose of the award as follows:
“When I left the Defense Department,” Carter said, “I asked myself what the most important thing was that I could do. I decided the issue of our time was bending the arc of technological change in the direction of overall public good. Technology brings lots of wonderful things, but there is inevitably a dark side as well. What we need to do is get the good without the bad.” That, he said, is what the [Befler’s] TAPP Project is working to do.
That is, after helping to run the operations that bomb, kill, and extract profits from millions of people worldwide, servants of US empire like Carter to a place like HKS to “do good” – which means doing propaganda for their cronies and propping up the “softer” projects of US imperialism.
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Current Strategy Lead for Deterrence and Missile Defense Programs at Boeing Defense Rizwan Ladha was a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center in 2016-17. Ladha was also featured at a 2017 HKS Belfer Center event entitled "In the Shadow of the Umbrella: U.S. Extended Deterrence and Nuclear Proliferation in East Asia, 1961–1979."
Donn Yates who works on Domestic and International Business Development in Boeing's T-7A Redhawk Program was a National Security Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2015-16. Yates also spent 23 years in the US Air Force. Yates trajectory from the US military to Harvard Kennedy School to Boeing is emblematic of the "revolving door" that exists between elite institutions of knowledge production like Harvard Kennedy, the US war machine and national security state (which feeds its people into these elite institutions), and the US weapons industry (which seeks business from US war machine and national security state).
The Founding Director of and current Professor of Politics at Brandeis's Crown Center for Middle East Studies Shai Feldman is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
Goldman Visiting Senior Fellow at Brandeis's Crown Center for Middle East Studies Chuck Freilich is also currently a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Freilich is also "a former deputy national security adviser in Israel."
Founding Senior Fellow at Brandeis's Crown Center for Middle East Studies Abdel Monem Said Aly was previously a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
Crown Family Director and Professor of the Practice of Politics at Brandeis's Crown Center for Middle East Studies Gary Samore previously served as the "executive director for research" at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
Associate Director of Brandeis's Crown Center for Middle East Studies Kristina Cherniahivsky previously managed the International Security Program at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
Senior Fellow Lecturer in Politics at Brandeis's Crown Center for Middle East Studies Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch was previously a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
In 2019, the Consulate General of Israel to New England and the Harvard Kennedy School Israel Caucus teamed up to host a screening of "Rabin in His Own Words,” a documentary about the life of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Yitzhak Rabin played a central role in the 1948 Nakba, through which Zionist militias violently expelled 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and land in order to open up space for Jewish settlement and to ensure the "demographic character" (ie more Jewish people and less Palestinian people) of the soon to be formed Zionist state. As reported in the Electronic Intifada:
He personally signed off on Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion’s order to expel some 70,000 Palestinians from the cities of Lydda and nearby Ramle in what is now central Israel. Rabin issued a written order to the Yiftach Brigade, a Zionist militia: “The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly, without regard to age.” As Rabin’s thugs worked to carry out that order, Palestinian civilians took refuge in Lydda’s Dahmash mosque, where Zionists massacred some 120 people.
Electronic Intifada further recounts Yitzhak Rabin's central role in the brutality of Israel's response to the first Palestinian Intifada:
[I]n December 1987 an unarmed popular uprising broke out in the West Bank and Gaza against Israel’s brutal military occupation. As defense minister and effective military dictator over millions of Palestinians, Rabin embraced his task of crushing the intifada. He publicly ordered Israel’s army to use “force, might and beatings” – as well as live ammunition that took the lives of young Palestinians almost daily for years. This video from Al Jazeera includes one of the most notorious scenes from the first intifada, broadcast all over the world at the time ... It shows Israeli soldiers methodically beating two Palestinian youths using rocks, trying to break their bones. The two boys, both 17, were cousins Wael and Osama Jawdeh.
Harvard Kennedy School's Israel Caucus and the Consulate General of Israel to New England co-sponsored similar events in each of the following two years, on the 25th and 26th anniversaries of Rabin's Death.
Department of Homeland Security spending records also show regular tuition grants for DHS personnel to attend Harvard Kennedy School seminars on Homeland Security through Harvard Kennedy's "Program on Crisis Leadership," such as the "General and Flag Officer Homeland Security Executive Seminar".
Bob (David K.) Edmonds who is a Senior Executive at weapons developer Elbit Systems of America completed an executive education program at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Elbit Systems Vice President and General Manager in Sustainment & Support Solutions Christopher Hickey completed a Harvard Kennedy School certificate program in National and International Security (2001).
Cecilia ("Ceci") Chan, co-founder of "Storyfile," serves as a trustee and a member of the Leadership Council of Facing History and Ourselves. Chan also serves on the Dean's Council of Harvard Kennedy School, where Chan funds HKS programs and research. Chan also sponsored a 2021 panel hosted by HKS.
Linda Hudson who spent 13 years as a corporate officer and company president at General Dynamics is currently teaching a class on "leadership decision-making" at the Harvard Kennedy School. Jeff A. Davis who currently serves as the Head of Communications of General Dynamics was a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School in 2008. Other General Dynamics employees and former employees with ties to HKS include Robert Hallagan and Nikos Mourkogiannis.
Former General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems employees with links to Harvard Kennedy School Include: Matt Connor (Certificate of Completion of "Cybersecurity: The Intersection of Policy and Technology Program" at the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education, 2019), John Soberly (Executive Certificate in Science and Technology Public Policy, 2016), and Tim Sample (graduate of the HKS National and International Strategic Management). (In 2014, General Dynamics merged General Dynamics Advanced Information Technology with GD's C4 Systems division to form General Dynamics Mission Systems.)
In 2020, General Electric nominated Asthon Carton, co-director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, to GE's Board of Directors. Additionally, former General Counsel and Secretary of General Electric Ben Heineman is currently a Senior Fellow at HKS Belfer Center.
Harvard Kennedy School Professor of International Affairs and Faculty Chair of HKS Belfer Center's International Security Programs Stephen M. Walt, Harvard Kennedy School Professor of Public Policy at Tarek Masoud, and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Meghan O'Sullivan are each also faculty members of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
HKS must praise its benefactors – the leaders of US empire and corporate America – and it does so by lavishing them with awards. HKS’s Belfer Center, for example, has a program called “Technology and Public Purpose” (TPP), which gives awards to companies and “critical” scholars that serve the “public good.” In May 2021, this award was presented by Ashton Carter, Obama’s “Defense Secretary,” and Gideon Lichfield (former editor of MIT’s propaganda magazine, MIT Technology Review, whose main role is to cheer for neoliberalism and promote the gadgets and agendas of MIT and Harvard). A representative of the ACLU also participated in this award bestowed by Carter. Unsurprisingly, the runners-up for the award included corporate giants Microsoft and IBM Research.
In 2020, the same Belfer award was given to Google’s “ethical” employees who received praise from servant of the US war machine, Ashton Carter. Carter described the purpose of the award as follows:</p>
“When I left the Defense Department,” Carter said, “I asked myself what the most important thing was that I could do. I decided the issue of our time was bending the arc of technological change in the direction of overall public good. Technology brings lots of wonderful things, but there is inevitably a dark side as well. What we need to do is get the good without the bad.” That, he said, is what the [Befler’s] TAPP Project is working to do.
That is, after helping to run the operations that bomb, kill, and extract profits from millions of people worldwide, servants of US empire like Carter to a place like HKS to “do good” – which means doing propaganda for their cronies and propping up the “softer” projects of US imperialism.
Investor and art collector Scott Black and his wife Isabelle Black fund the Harvard Kennedy School's Black Family Fellowship, which provides tuition assistance to 25 Harvard Kennedy School students annually. Harvard Kennedy School also maintains a faculty position entitled the "Isabelle and Scott Black Research Professor of Political Economy." (See also: here and here) Scott Black serves on the Board of Friends of the IDF New England Region, and also serves on the Executive Board of Friends of the IDF international (of which FOIDF New England is a regional branch).
Harvard Kennedy School maintains multiple ties with the FBI, including:
Harvard Kennedy School also hosted former FBI director James Comey for a conversation with Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center's Co-Director (and former US Pentagon Chief of Staff) Eric Rosenbach in 2020. The conversation was open to all Harvard students.
Harvard Kennedy School pairs its MPP students with Summer Internships at the Broad Institute, and several Harvard Kennedy MPP graduates have accepted positions at the Broad Institute. Broad Institute President and Founding Director Eric Lander is an alumnus of Harvard Kennedy School.
Harvard Kennedy School alumni Christopher Williams and Drew Wannamaker currently work at Raytheon - Collins Aerospace.
MIT Sloan School of Management and Harvard Kennedy School offer a dual degree program, through which students at either institution can receive both an MBA from MIT Sloan and a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) or Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from Harvard Kennedy over three years of study. There are also faculty who hold concurrent positions at both MIT Sloan and HKS (see for example here).
Boston Consulting Group is consistently one of the top employers of Harvard Kennedy School graduates. Indeed, Harvard Kennedy School highlighted Boston Consulting Group explicitly in its 2014 "Employment Overview" report, which noted, "Strategy consulting continued to be a draw for graduates, with McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group hiring 28 graduates for positions in seven countries."
Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant and Tactical Operations Commander John Rota was one of three participants in Harvard Kennedy School's Bradford Fellowship Program in 2021-2022. HKS's Bradford Fellowship Program claims to provide "high-performing managers the opportunity of a lifetime to attend the mid-career Masters in Public Administration (MPA) program at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government," where Fellowship recipients "receive a scholarship for full-tuition at the Kennedy School, and paid salary while attending the program, including the summer pre-program." John Rota has worked at the Massachusetts State Police for over 33 years.
According to their website, The Harvard Kennedy School's Healthcare Policy Program "is directed by Professor Amitabh Chandra, Ethel Zimmerman Wiener Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Henry and Allison McCance Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School" and "is anchored by faculty and clinical affiliates from Harvard Kennedy School, Medical School, School of Public Health, Business School, the Department of Economics, as well as the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital."
Then Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center Charles Freilich was a special guest at the Jewish National Fund's 2015 National Conference.
From fiscal years 2007-2020, Combined Jewish Philanthropies funneled $129,178 from its donors to Harvard Kennedy School.
Co-Chair of the Harvard Kennedy School Fund Executive Council Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine served as a Board Member of CJP from 2019-2020.
Founder of the Anti-Defamation League's "Center for Technology and Society" Brittan Heller currently works as a "Technology and Human Rights Fellow" at the Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights.
In 2019, the Harvard Kennedy School hosted ADL Senior Vice President for National Affairs George Selim as part of an HKS panel titled "How We Win: Beating Extremism Abroad and in the US."
Co-Chair of the Harvard Kennedy School Fund Executive Council Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine is featured on the ADL's website, with a profile that describes Acuña-Sunshine as "a proud supporter of ADL," and further notes that "In 2018, she received The ADL Woman of Valor Award for her work on behalf of ADL in the New England region."
In the wake of the police murder of George Floyd and the nationwide uprisings that followed, Harvard Kennedy School saw it fit to host former Boston Police Superintendent Lisa Holmes for a virtual speaking engagement entitled "Reimagining Community Safety." While coopting language from Black and Brown activists calling for a reimagining of what community safety would look like without the police, Harvard Kennedy School's event with Holmes regurgitated the tired and disproven claims that police violence and police racism can be solved by training police better and hiring more Black and Brown people into police forces.
Consistent with Harvard Kennedy School's past support for policing, Harvard Kennedy School's event with Holmes constituted a crass attempt to redirect popular desire for the defunding and abolition of police departments into reformist solutions which would maintain (if not strengthen) policing as an institution in the United States. Harvard Kennedy School's choice to throw its institutional support behind the institution of policing in the summer of 2020, a moment when people were rising up against the police on an unprecedented scale in the US, is characteristic of Harvard Kennedy's broader role as an ideological legitimizer of the interests of US security state.
Lockheed Martin Vice President for Corporate Business Development Leo Mackay is a Kennedy School alumni (MPP '91). At the Kennedy School, Mackay was a Fellow in the HKS Belfer Center International Security Program (1991-92). Mackay stated in 2008, "Going to the Kennedy School of Government changed my life." Indeed, following his stint at the Kennedy School Mackay was invited to work as the "military assistant" to then US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Ashton Carter, who would soon go on to become co-director of the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center. Following this stint at the U.S. Pentagon, Mackay landed in the US weapons industry at Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed Martin Vice President Marcel Lettre is a Harvard Kennedy School alumni (MPP, 1998-2000). Prior joining Lockheed Martin in 2017, Lettre spent eight years in the US Department of Defense (DoD). To date, the US DoD has awarded Lockheed Martin contacts worth a combined $542.56 billion for the provision of products and services to the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and other branches of the US military.
(Retired) USGeneral Joseph F. Dunford is currently a member of two Lockheed Martin Board of Director Committees. Dunford is also currently a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Dunford was previously a US military leader, serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Commander of all US and NATO Forces in Afghanistan. Dunford also serves on the board of the Atlantic Council, itself a NATO and US cutout which crassly promotes the interests of US empire.
Lockheed Martin Board of Directors member Jeh Johnson has lectured at Harvard Kennedy School. Johnson is the former US Secretary of Homeland Security.
Former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine is listed as one of six "external reviewers" "whose comments substantially improved" a 43-page research paper published by the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center in December 2021. The research paper was entitled "The Great Tech Rivalry: China vs the U.S.," consistent with both Lockheed Martin and Harvard Kennedy's broader roles as mouthpieces of the propagandistic discourse of US empire, which is currently focused on escalating a new cold war with China.
Lettre, Mackay, Johnson, and Dunford's respective career trajectories are emblematic of the "revolving door" which exists between elite institutions of knowledge production like Harvard Kennedy, the US war machine and national security state (which feeds its people into these elite institutions), and the US weapons industry (which seeks business from US war machine and national security state). Meanwhile Harvard Kennedy School's appeal to Norman Augustine, former CEO of America's largest defense contractor, for "external review" of their "scholarship" speaks to Harvard Kennedy School's self-conception as an elite academic bulwark which provides legitimacy to the hegemonic aspirations of US empire and the violent and destructive business aspirations of the US weapons industry.
McKinsey & Company is consistently one of the top employers of Harvard Kennedy School graduates. Harvard Kennedy highlighted McKinsey explicitly in their 2014 "Employment Overview" report, noting: "Strategy consulting continued to be a draw for graduates, with McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group hiring 28 graduates for positions in seven countries."
The Berkman Klein Center (BKC) for Internet & Society is closely affiliated with the Harvard Kennedy School. Numerous HKS faculty and graduate students are listed as part of BKS's "community" on the BKS website, including the Co-Director of HKS's Belfer Center( and former US Secretary of Defense) Ashton Carter. BKC shares the Harvard Kennedy School's commitment to US empire (see entries on BKC and HKS, respectively).
Chuck Freilich, faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfast Center, advocated on behalf of AIPAC in a 2015 op-ed entitled "AIPAC Had No Choice." In the op-ed, Freilich described AIPAC as "a magnificent creation of the American Jewish community and other supporters of Israel, and has become a vital component of the US-Israel relationship in its own right."
Former Coordinator of Government Affairs at the JCRC of Greater Boston Amy Dain is on the Board of Advisors of Harvard Kennedy School's Rappaport Institute.
The Executive Director of Harvard Kennedy School 's Future of Diplomacy Project Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook was a featured speaker at a 2021 AJC event on the "perks and pitfalls of virtual diplomacy." Harvard Kennedy School Professor Nicholos Burns was featured at AJC's 2019 Global Forum. Multiple Harvard Kennedy School students and alumni have worked and interned at the American Jewish Committee (AJC) (see also: here).
In 2017, the MIT Center for International Studies in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs jointly launched "The Project on Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft," made possible by two grants totaling $3.7 million from the right-wing Charles Koch Foundation. The 2017 announcement from HKS and MIT described the new project as "a collaborative program to mentor the next generation of foreign policy scholars," further noting that the project aimed to "provide pre- or postdoctoral fellowships to young scholars from a variety of disciplines working in the broad area of strategy and statecraft, with particular emphasis on the US and its role in the world."
Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School are both closely affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center (BKC) for Internet & Society (housed within Harvard University), with numerous HKS and HLS faculty and students interfacing with one another through their respective affiliations within BKC.
The Harvard Kennedy School Israel Caucus has been a sponsor of The Israel Summit.
Senior Program Manager at L3Harris Matt Kennedy was a "National Security Fellow" at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center (2014-15).
Director of Government Compliance and Business Systems Compliance at L3Harris Ron Youngs completed a certificate program with Harvard Kennedy School in 2009.
Business Development Principal at L3Harris Eddie Myers is an alumni of Harvard Kennedy School, where Myers obtained an MPA ('19) and completed HKS's Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the Information Age certificate program.
Senior Director and Site Executive at L3Harris Ken Harrison was a National Security Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School (2003-04).
Eva Heinstein who is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mandel Institute (March 2020-present), worked as Manager of Strategic Engagement at the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership (June 2016-March 2020), where Heinstein "managed partnerships with the Center’s board, alumni, and community organizations." Heinstein's Linkedin profile also indicates that she is or was a member of the Harvard Kennedy School Women's Network as well as a Fellow at the HKS Center for Public Leadership. Heinstein also received her MPA from Harvard Kennedy.
Northeast Homeland Security Regional Advisory Council meeting minutes from February 2022 list "Edward Chao: Analyst, Harvard Kennedy School," as a NERAC "Council Member".
Manager of Software Development at Northrop Grumman Curtis Jones was a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School (2011). Prior to his studies at Harvard Kennedy and his employment at Northrop Grumman, Jones spent 22 years in the US Air Force.
Former Northrop Grumman Director for Strategy and Global Relations John Johns is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy's National and International Security Program. Johns also spent "seven years as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Maintenance establishing policy for, and leading oversight of the Department’s annual $80B weapon system maintenance program and deployed twice in support of security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Jones' and Johns' respective career trajectories are emblematic of the "revolving door" which exists between elite institutions of knowledge production like Harvard Kennedy, the US war machine and national security state (which feeds its people into these elite institutions), and the US weapons industry (which seeks business from US war machine and national security state).
Mark H. Moore who is a full-time faculty member at Harvard Kennedy's Social Innovation and Change Initiative has produced multiple reports and other written pieces for the Police Executive Research Forum, in which Moore has lauded the value of policing to society. These include:
Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School Meghan O'Sullivan currently serves on the board of the weapons company Raytheon Technologies. O'Sullivan is also deeply enmeshed within US war machine and national security state, sitting on the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, and having served as "special assistant" to President George W. Bush (2004-07) where she was "Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan" (2006-07) in the midst of the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. In April 2021, Meghan O'Sullivan penned an article in the Washington Post entitled "It’s Wrong to Pull Troops Out of Afghanistan. But We Can Minimize the Damage.” As reported in the Harvard Crimson, O'Sullivan's author bio in this WaPo article highlighted her position as a faculty member of Harvard Kennedy (with the perceived "expertise" that HKS imbues) but failed to acknowledge her position on the Board of Raytheon, a company which had "a $145 million contract to train Afghan Air Force pilots and is a major supplier of weapons to the U.S. military." This omission sparked charges of "conflict of interest," given Raytheon's clear business stake in extending the US war on Afghanistan in order to maximize their weapons sales and profits.
Lindsey Borg currently works as a Public Relations and Public Affairs leader at Raytheon. Borg was a National Defense Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School (2007-08) where he focused on "Strategic Communication" and "International Security." During his time at at Harvard Kennedy, Borg published a paper "examin[ing] the DoD’s development of strategic communication, concentrating specifically on the implications, opportunities, and threats associated with the public information environment," in which Borg argued that "national decision makers must create a synergistic approach that emphasizes the country’s soft power capabilities while drawing on complementary efforts of its hard power if necessary." Prior to his time at HKS and Raytheon, Borg held numerous positions within the U.S. Air Force (1990-2011), the U.S. Department of Defense (2009-10), and NATO (1998-2001).
O'Sullivan and Borg's respective career trajectories are emblematic of the "revolving door" which exists between elite institutions of knowledge production like Harvard Kennedy, the US war machine and national security state (which feeds its people into these elite institutions), and the US weapons industry (which seeks business from US war machine and national security state).
Additionally, Scott Smider who is the Associate Director of Program Management at Raytheon Technologies at the company's site in Andover, Massachusetts, is an alumnus of Harvard Kennedy School (MPP '09).
Harvard Kennedy School and the US Air force have created multiple fellowships aimed at recruiting US Air Force service members to pursue degrees at HKS (see: here and here). The Air Force's CSAF Scholars Master Fellowship, for example, aims to "prepare mid-career, experienced professionals to return to the Air Force ready to assume significant leadership positions in an increasingly complex environment." In 2016, Harvard Kennedy School Dean Doug Elmendorf welcomed Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James to Harvard Kennedy School, in a speech in which Elmendorf highlighted his satisfaction that the ROTC program, including Air Force ROTC, which had been reinstated at Harvard (ROTC had been removed from campus following mass faculty protests in 1969).