SRI and Harvard University / Black Sea Security

Partnership Between SRI and Harvard University
Nine O’Clock | June3, 2014

The official opening of the first edition of the training program with international participation “Security in the Black Sea region; common challenges, sustainable future” took place earlier this week, organized by the National Intelligence Academy “Mihai Viteazul” of the Romanian Intelligence Service SRI in partnership with Harvard University and with the participation of the National Intelligence University of the USA, according to evz.ro. The program is to continue the Harvard Black Sea Security platform, launched in 1997. Among those who participated at the program opening there were President Traian Basescu, PM Victor Ponta, Minister Delegate for higher education, scientific research and technological development Mihnea Costoiu, director of Romanian Intelligence Service George Cristian Maior as well as representatives of other central public institutions, representatives of diplomatic missions in Bucharest, representatives of the private environment and of national and international academic bodies.

Harvard University – Kennedy School of Government

The 12th Harvard Black Sea Security Program Regional Workshop will take place in Bucharest, Romania from June 1-7, 2014. The program is carried out under the high patronage of the Romanian Presidential Administration, and the auspices of the Romanian Intelligence Service, by the National Intelligence Academy “Mihai Viteazul” through its National Institute for Intelligence Studies, in partnership with the Harvard University and the collaboration of the US National Intelligence University (NIU).

The Bucharest conference will be the 12th annual gathering of alumni and regional experts affiliated with Harvard’s Black Sea Security Program. Prior workshops took place in Yalta, Ukraine (2002); Baku, Azerbaijan (2003); Batumi, Georgia (2004); Chisinau, Moldova (2005); Bucharest, Romania (2006); Kiev, Ukraine (2007); Yerevan, Armenia (2008), Moscow, Russia (2009), Sofia, Bulgaria (2010), Istanbul, Turkey (2011) and Bucharest, Romania (2013).

For more information please click here. or contact Sergei Konoplyov at sergei_konoplyov@harvard.edu

BACKGROUND

Each year, Executive Education at Harvard Kennedy School hosts international and domestic representatives for the Black Sea Security Program. This program brings together senior policymakers and academic experts in national security affairs in the United States with key leaders from the Black Sea region at Harvard, to gain a deeper understanding of issues affecting the region and to encourage problem-solving in areas of common interest.

The program is directed to those in senior policy-making positions in the Black Sea region who will be in office for the next ten to fifteen years and it seeks to engage those officials with a breadth of responsibility and a wider vision of their governments’ concerns. The program aims to enhance the understanding of these national security elites of the multiplicity of common interests and shared problems in the region. For similar reasons, the U.S. Department of Defense assigns U.S general officers to the session who have knowledge of the region’s strategic issues. Each program class includes about twenty to twenty-five senior national security officials from the region and eight to ten U.S. general officers who are regional specialists.

The curriculum of the program is targeted specifically at the concerns of senior military officers, civilian officials, and leading academic experts and writers on national security affairs in five core countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. In recognition of the new strategic and economic relationships that are developing in the region, the program also addresses salient strategic and economic security issues of the other regional powers: Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Slovenia, and Turkey. Senior officials from these nations are included in the program.

For more information, please visit http://harvard-bssp.org