Ministry of Fear: The 1947 National Security Act in Historical and Institutional Context

The Bush administration's plan for a new Department of Homeland Security is often described as the most comprehensive effort at institutional reform since the 1947 National Security Act (NSA). Unfortunately, many of the references to the NSA are misleading. This study surveys the debates that culminated in the passage of the NSA, then traces the evolution of the key agencies created by the NSA from 1947 to 1991. The author considers why so little institutional reform took place during the period between the end of the Cold War and the attacks of September 11, 2001, and then offers some points of reference for the evolving debate about post-9/11 reform of the national security bureaucracy. He concludes that the president and Congress risk weakening, rather than strengthening, U.S. national security if they create a Department of Homeland Security but leave in place an institutional infrastructure that was designed for a different time and a different set of problems.     

Collective Security and Non-State Actors in Eurasia

International security cooperation usually takes one of two forms. A classical collective security organization is designed to promote international security through regulating the behavior of its member states. A defensive security organization is designed to protect a group of states from threats emanating from a challenging state or group of states. Both forms of security cooperation bind states to act in concert with respect to threats presented by other states. The emergence of non-state actors such as terrorist or extremist organizations challenges traditional forms of collective security. Threats from political extremism, terrorism, and outlaw organizations have grown in visibility during the past decade in the countries of Eurasia. The terrorist attacks of September 11 and the ensuing global war on terrorism have given added impetus to the Eurasian inter-state cooperation in confronting non-traditional threats and challenges from non-state actors. Bearing in mind the theory of collective security, this article analyzes threats posed by non-state actors with respect to Eurasian collective security organizations including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures, and the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization. The article concludes that the effectiveness of these organizations at achieving stated objectives depends upon their capacity to adopt new criteria of effectiveness.     

The United Nations and Terrorism: Rethinking Legal Tensions Between National Security, Human Rights, and Civil Liberties

As the international community responds to the September 11 attacks and the general war on terrorism, member states in the United Nations (UN) must continue to address the balance between the rights of the individual and the security of the state. This study highlights the various roles that the UN plays in combating transnational terrorism through norm setting, codification of human rights law, as well as the drafting and effective implementation of 12 key multilateral agreements aimed at counter-terrorism. In these ways, the UN provides direction and guidance for implementing human rights rules and the ways in which they should be enforced. Even so, national governments must make these rules work. In a system of sovereign states, the role of the UN organization in checking or reversing these human rights abuses remains severely limited and largely dependent upon the political will of the member states. As a consequence, part of the price paid for protecting national security against threats posed by terrorism may well be the curtailment of some human rights and civil liberties within the liberal democratic state.     

美国选举安全问题:以2016年和2020年总统大选为例

2016年美国总统大选暴露了长期存在于该国选举体系中的风险,"选举安全"迅速成为当代美国国家安全与国土安全领域的重要议题。美国选举安全涉及网络安全、社会安全、政治安全与军事安全,体现出"复合安全问题"的特质。美国联邦与各州政府试图从降低关键基础设施风险、重建选民信任、减少部门壁垒以及填补机制缺失四个层面入手,系统性化解存在于选举系统的各类安全威胁。2020年美国大选期间,原有选举安全风险得到一定程度的缓解,但美国国家安全体制及文化与其选举安全体系的运行逻辑之间仍存在多层矛盾,特别是美国选举体系的产业市场与创新之间的矛盾、国家安全与"言论自由"之间的矛盾、"全政府"与"地方权"之间的矛盾、"网络自由"与"网络主权"之间的矛盾。这些矛盾会长期存在,将使利益攸关方不断发生龃龉,阻碍相关政策深入推进,最终导致美国在选举安全治理上将一直面临难以克服的困境。     

Passports, Mobility, and Security: How smart can the border be?

After September 11, 2001, a great deal of public and policy attention has been devoted to border security, passports, and the global mobility regime. This article examines the context of the global regulation of movement of individuals and the evolution of the passport in particular. It then examines the current American border security architecture. The creation of the Homeland Security Department reflects a sea-change in the view of the border, and these new policies are evaluated in regard to three cases: the U.S./Canada border, the document/examination policies at the American borders, and the European Schengen mobility regime.     

New Security Challenges and the Need for New Forms of EU Cooperation: The Solidarity Declaration against Terrorism and the Open Method of Coordination

Abstract

The new transnational security threats, such as terrorism, challenge traditional methods of European Union cooperation. In the era of threats to inter-state peace the Union engendered security through ‘passive’ integration in the form of the abolition of European borders. Today the EU is increasingly given the responsibility for creating security and safety, both externally and internally, by the means of ‘active’ security instruments such as the European Security and Defence Policy and the Solidarity Declaration of 2004. The challenge is that these policies and principles require a vision beyond that of a free market, common threat perceptions and effective coordination of the crisis management capacity of EU member states. This article argues that the practical needs following this qualitative step, such as the strategic engagement of new security actors and levels of EU governance on a long term basis, are very similar to the ones that the Open Method of Coordination has attempted to resolve in EU cooperation in the field of welfare policies. It suggests that this method should be used also to strengthen the Union security policy and crisis management capacity.     

The Security Council and Counterterrorism: Global and Regional Approaches to an Elusive Public Good

ABSTRACT

This paper explores contemporary counterterrorism efforts as an instrument for attaining peace as a ‘global public good’. It notes the lack of an agreed definition of terrorism, the distinction between freedom-fighting and terrorism, and the issue of ‘excessive use of force’ by the state. It assessed the extent to which US counter-terrorism policy has influenced policy in the UN Security Council, and the shortcomings in Council policy that require redress. The paper concludes that counterterrorism will be successful only when a ‘global law enforcement’ approach prevails over the national security-driven ‘war-on-terror’ and when genuine efforts are undertaken to address the root causes of terrorism, including the forward basing of US forces in the Arab world.     

American Perspectives on the Transatlantic Security Agenda

This article explores US perspectives on the new transatlantic security agenda in the context of the evolution of strategic culture. The war on terrorism and the Iraq War of 2003 serve as focal points to examine sources of divergence and convergence between US and European security policies. The article explores key questions including: Have we seen the collapse of a shared, transatlantic security culture since September 11? How have US leaders manipulated strategic cultures to achieve security objectives in the new era? Why has the Bush administration willingly engaged (and even encouraged) the intra-European divide? How significant to the United States is the shift in “old” and “new” European perspectives on the war on terrorism? The article concludes with an assessment of the implications of recent events for the future of transatlantic security ties.     

Managing Soft Security Threats: Current Progress and Future Prospects

This concluding essay explores the development of the concept of security since the end of the Cold War, in a world characterized by failing states, and the rise of non-state actors. It revisits the competing paradigms of ‘The End of History’ and ‘The Clash of Civilisations’ within globalization trends as a whole, and security in particular. Post September 11, 2001, the boundaries between hard and soft security have been blurred as the relationship between terrorism and illegal trade have become apparent.

The paper highlights three challenging processes of particular relevance for soft security: the still growing gap between rich and poor; the technological revolution; and the changing role of and attitudes to military force. Environmental, economic and population pressures elsewhere fuel the soft security threats in Europe, and the problems cannot be solved by improved policing or border mechanisms alone. Rather, the solution lies in treating them at a global level.     

Political terrorism in South‐East Asia

This article will provide an overview of one specific non‐military threat that is beginning to assume greater prominence on south‐east Asia's broadened security agenda: political terrorism.¹ Although by no means new to the south‐east Asian environment, for much of the twentieth century its importance was sidelined and, in a sense ‘contained’, by the more pressing concern over US‐Soviet nuclear rivalry. With the end of the Cold War, however, the ‘bottle has been uncorked’ on a variety of lower‐level threats, with issues such as terrorism now taking on greater prominence and relevance in their own right as significant regional and national security concerns.²     

Immigration and National Security

The greatest threat to U.S. homeland security comes from illegals who enter the country through its porous borders in order to attack. The tide of illegal immigration must be stemmed in order to secure the United States against terrorism. It is all too easy for illegal immigrants to slip in beneath the radar, eschewing the legalization process and never being detected and deported. And as long as the benefits of illegally immigrating outweigh the costs, the influx will continue. Legal immigration itself needs reform, too; particularly the visa-waiver program and the rules governing dual citizenship, which pose further security challenges. Federal government officials must overcome their fear of alienating ethnic voters and American business, enhance border security, and reform the nation's immigration policies.     

A New Barometer for the Evolution of Multilateral Counterterrorism: Introduction to the Materials,Methods, and Results of the UN Security Council and Terrorism Dataset (UNSC-TDS)

There is a general tendency among analysts to treat the activity of the United Nations Security Council as a barometer for measuring the evolution of global security issues. However, despite the Council's central role in multilateral counterterrorism since 9/11, there exists no comprehensive and coherent empirical measurement of its activity on terrorism. This research gap has resulted in contradictory assessments concerning the beginning, the regularity, and the consistency of the Council's activity on terrorism. In an effort to introduce more academic rigor to terrorism studies, researchers need to systematically address this deficit. This article makes a fundamental contribution by introducing a new dataset, the UN Security Council and Terrorism Dataset. It outlines the problems of previously available data and specifies the materials and methods used for the creation of the dataset. It continues by presenting key results from this unprecedented data collection effort and illustrates general trends in the Council's activity on terrorism. Based on this extensive empirical research, it finds that the UN Security Council's activity on terrorism has evolved more regularly and consistently since 1946 than previously thought. This conclusion indicates new directions for future research.     

Opportunities and Limits of EU-China Security Cooperation

In its European Security Strategy, the European Union defined the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a strategic partner and envisaged comprehensive cooperation with it, including in the security sector. China and the EU often use the same terms, but the connotation of these terms differs due to fundamentally different security concerns. This article critically assesses the possibilities, prospects and difficulties from a European point of view of pursuing Sino-European cooperation in security matters. It concludes that given basic differences in perception, cooperation is likely to be successful in such fields as environmental disasters and pandemics, but will remain limited in such areas as non-proliferation, the fight against terrorism and energy security.     

Evidence of Russia's Bush Doctrine in the CIS1

Abstract

The article discusses the emergence of a Russian version of the Bush doctrine in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Russian officials’ conceptual stretching of the strategic culture embodied in the National Security Concept (NSC) and the Military Doctrine (MD) from 2000 onwards. While these documents seem to cherish multilateralism and United Nations (UN) primacy in questions of global and regional security, terrorist attacks on Russia proper have engendered a more assertive approach to regional security issues in the Caucasus and Central Asia and brought Russian officials to consider unilateral pre-emptive strikes against terrorist bases. In the case of the Caucasus, Russia has been striking against terrorist bases on Georgian territory and contributed to constructing a failed state, whereas in the Central Asian case, Russia has sought to revitalise the defunct CIS security framework and pledge assistance to ‘allies’ in the fight against terrorism. The article argues that the war against terrorism has given Russia a new footing in the CIS. The issue of security is more salient, as is the reliance on military force to facilitate it.     

美国生物防御政策与国家安全

生物防御政策是美国政府旨在应对生物威胁、降低生物风险以及为生物事故事先准备、响应及恢复的行动纲要。自21世纪初以来,美国历届总统皆格外注重生物防御政策的制定和完善,从小布什到特朗普,一共颁布了六部相关法案,发布了七份国家战略报告,签发了五项行政命令,通过拨付巨额经费,设置若干专门机构,整合各种资源,加强国际合作等方式,不断提升生物防御和生物安全在国家安全战略中的地位,旨在为美国构筑一道双向度、立体化、全谱系的"生物安全屏障"。究其原因,主要是为了应对恐怖组织不断寻求生物武器给美国带来的威胁,敌对国家不断掌握和研制生物武器产生的持续性压力以及国际社会的相关立法约束乏力。美国生物防御政策对全球生物安全具有双重影响:一方面,通过与其他国家、相关国际组织展开交流与对话,为其提供生物安全援助等方式推动该领域的国际合作;另一方面,自身庞大的生物防御项目、巨额的经费投入、本国安全利益"唯上"的思维又使全球生物安全形势面临恶化的风险。     

Temporal trends in US counterterrorism sting operations, 1989–2014

How has the US government’s use of counterterrorism sting operations changed over the past quarter-century? Have major terrorist attacks led to more frequent sting operations and/or more frequent entrapment – and if so, have such changes been temporary or long-lasting? Have different types of terrorism provoked different reactions? This study answers these questions using a database of US terrorism prosecutions occurring between 1989 and 2014, each coded for 20 indicators of entrapment. We analyse temporal trends, and in particular, compare the government’s responses to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terror attacks. Results indicate that after the Oklahoma City bombing, the number of sting operations against right-wing extremists doubled, while the average number of entrapment indicators dropped. This suggests that authorities in the 1990s responded to the growing threat of right-wing terrorism appropriately: conducting more investigations while avoiding entrapment. After 9/11, sting operations against suspected jihadi terrorists rapidly increased, but in this case, they featured high numbers of entrapment indicators through the end of the study period, suggesting widespread and persistent entrapment. Reasons for this difference, and for the government’s failure to reduce entrapment in response to widespread criticism over the past decade, are analysed.     

The phenomenon of conservative terrorism

In his studies of loyalist terrorism in Northern Ireland, Steve Bruce introduces the concept of ‘pro‐state’ terrorism, whereby terrorists carry out attacks in order to eliminate threats which they believe should have been eliminated by the state's security forces. This article argues that whilst the actions of loyalist terrorists may have a pro‐state element, they can more properly be seen in the wider context of conservative terrorism.     

China, Nuclear Security and Terrorism: Implications for the United States

This article outlines Chinese strategic nuclear forces and the Chinese philosophical approach to nuclear security. It then focuses on the domestic conditions in China which could precipitate vulnerabilities to its nuclear forces. From information about internal security conditions in China, specific internal threats to Chinese nuclear security will be derived. Based on these threats, several outsider and insider scenarios will be outlined involving a variety of terrorist or terrorist related behaviors. These notional scenarios will include everything from overrun or attack, to diversion, to cyber terrorism, to sabotage. The article will then cover what these scenarios and the possible Chinese reaction to them may mean for the security, military and diplomatic strategies of the United States.     

Security Governance and Networks: New Theoretical Perspectives in Transatlantic Security

The end of the Cold War has not only witnessed the rise of new transnational threats such as terrorism, crime, proliferation and civil war; it has also seen the growing role of non-state actors in the provision of security in Europe and North America. Two concepts in particular have been used to describe these transformations: security governance and networks. However, the differences and potential theoretical utility of these two concepts for the study of contemporary security have so far been under-examined. This article seeks to address this gap. It proposes that security governance can help to explain the transformation of Cold War security structures, whereas network analysis is particularly useful for understanding the relations and interactions between public and private actors in the making and implementation of national and international security policies.     

Security Versus Liberty in the Context of Counterterrorism: An Experimental Approach

A critical question in counterterrorism studies concerns the extent to which governments adequately balance the continual provision of individual rights and freedoms with the appropriate level of national security when faced with a terrorist attack. We experimentally assess this tradeoff utilizing a 2 × 2 × 2 between-groups factorial design, manipulating (a) the extent of terror-related threats, (b) the level of invasiveness of subsequent counterterrorism policies, as well as (c) the terror context: transnational and domestic. The results provide evidence that the public is more willing to accept greater reductions in civil liberties under a greater threat of terrorism only when the perceived effectiveness of those policies to prevent future acts of terrorism is high. Furthermore, we find these results to be specific to the context of a transnational terror threat. This suggests that the public will be unwilling to accept reductions in civil liberties when the source of the attack is domestic, regardless of the level of threat or how effective subsequent policies may be in preventing future attacks.