Studying small states in international security affairs: a quantitative analysis

Todays’ international security architecture composed of international security treaties and international security norms has been established and formalized by negotiations. Owing to the great importance of international security negotiations for international security practices, this paper sheds light on negotiation activities. A study of 100 different international security negotiations shows that states vary considerably with respect to their negotiation activity. Some countries voice positions very often, while others remain completely silent. This is puzzling, as active negotiation participation is an expression of state sovereignty and a means to influence the shape of the international security architecture. The article distinguishes between capacity and incentives as driving forces of state activity in international security negotiations. The analysis reveals that, next to political and financial capacities, states that place high priority on military matters are more active, while smaller and poorer states are more likely to shelter under the security umbrella of larger counterparts.     

The EU's security and the sea: defining a maritime security strategy

Abstract

This article comprehensively discusses the maritime dimension of the European Union's (EU's) security, which encompasses military and civilian aspects, intergovernmental and community components as well as institutional and geopolitical elements. First, the article provides a narrative of the development of the maritime element in the EU's security policy since the adoption of the European Security Strategy in 2003. By depicting the interrelations between the sea and the EU's security, the article shows that the maritime dimension of EU security is generally well established, but often obscured by the complicated institutional structure of the Union. Thereafter, the article emphasises the need to define an effective EU Maritime Security Strategy, which would provide a strategic framework for the Union's security-related activities regarding the sea that encompass maritime power projection, as well as maritime security and safety. Accordingly the article provides some recommendations concerning the definition of such a strategy and for appropriate constituting elements: the maritime-related risks and threats, the maritime strategic objectives, the means to implement the strategy, and the theatres of EU maritime operations.     

Making sense of EU comprehensive security towards conceptual and analytical clarity

Abstract

European leaders frequently vaunt the European Union's distinctiveness in adopting and pursuing a comprehensive approach to security. The EU's profile as an international actor is designed to span across all dimensions of security. As a result, its security policy portfolio involves a large number of institutional actors and policies that need to be coordinated. The ambition of the EU to provide security in a comprehensive manner raises challenges at the politico–strategic level, at the level of operational and policy planning and in day-to-day implementation. So far, the field is lacking an inclusive analytical framework for the analysis of providing security through a distinctively comprehensive civil–military, economic and political organisation. This article seeks to close this gap by providing suggestions for how the wide range of issues related to comprehensive security could be structured, and by framing the matter theoretically and with reference to existing conceptual work and empirical research.     

The economic community of West African states,the defence of democracy in Sierra Leone and future prospects

The wave of democratization in the 1990s has brought considerable challenges and opportunities for post‐cold war Africa. One such challenge is the democratic intervention of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) under the aegis of the multilateral intervention force, ECOMOG, to restore a democratic government and constitutional order. The ECOWAS democratic intervention in the West African state of Sierra Leone can be located in a wider debate about international dimensions of democratization. In several respects, it also reflects the changing nature of international politics in the post‐cold war period particularly with regards to certain traditional norms of international society, namely non‐intervention and state sovereignty. The ECOWAS democratic efforts in Sierra Leone demonstrate that it is increasingly becoming acceptable for regional and international organisations to ‘defend’ democracy, albeit under the auspices of forcible as well as non‐forcible humanitarian intervention. However, these kinds of external intervention on behalf of democracy have in most cases led to its retrenchment. This article therefore critically assesses how the nature of domestic politics led to the suspension of democracy in Sierra Leone, the domestic and international implications of the ECOWAS defence of democracy there and the country's post‐conflict democratic prospects.     

Blurring the Dividing Line: The Convergence of Internal and External Security in Western Europe

Abstract

A distinctive feature of the security landscape in western Europe of the post-Cold War era is that the dividing line between internal and external security has become increasingly obsolete—mainly as a consequence of the growing importance of transnational as well as other challenges to security which defy the distinction between domestic and international security. This article examines this convergence of internal and external security agendas from the perspective of the coercive apparatus of western European countries, pointing to a militarisation and externalisation of policing, and an internalisation and ‘policisation’ of soldiering: while police forces are taking on military characteristics, and are extending their activities beyond the borders of the state, military forces are turning to internal security missions, and are adopting certain police features. Moreover, agencies which have traditionally been located at the interface between police and military forces, i.e. gendarmerie-type or paramilitary forces, are assuming an increasingly important role.     

Conflict Resolution through Democracy Promotion? The Role of the OSCE in Georgia

This article qualitatively and empirically analyses the OSCE's efforts to promote democracy after intra-state war in Georgia. This regional organization is rooted in a comprehensive approach to security that directly links security to democratic values. Therefore, the OSCE is a particularly appropriate subject for studying the issue of democracy promotion in the context of conflict-resolution processes. Georgia provides a difficult environment for such a goal. Given that its two secession conflicts are ‘frozen’, democracy can, especially in this context, be considered a well-suited means to indirectly contribute to conflict resolution. By contrasting the democratic development in Georgia with OSCE activities since 1992, this article will assess OSCE democracy promotion efforts. When these efforts are measured with regard to progress in peace and democratic quality, the effectiveness of external democracy promotion by the OSCE has to be called into question. However, the article argues that democratization is a long-term process in which internal factors play a decisive role. The OSCE, like other international organizations, can only reach its normative goals to the degree of the reform orientation and political will of the target state's government. The potential for impact is limited, but can be increased by commitment and context sensitivity.     

African security and global militarism

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue asks: what is the current place of militarism in relation to security where Africa is concerned? It aims to contribute to emerging debates interested in critical inquiry of the relation between militarism and security, and to explore its diverse articulations in African settings. We advance an international political sociological (IPS) approach to militarism in order to explore militarised security politics as a field of contested practices and logics. We discuss why this approach enables us to uncover the interconnected historical patterns and power relations in which practices and logics of security and militarism become linked and grounded in simultaneously local and transnational African settings.     

Cyber insecurity as a national threat: overreaction from Germany,France and the UK?

Abstract

This article analyses the development of the European Union (EU) as a global actor in the area of climate security. Building on this, it explicitly draws on constructivist concepts such as norm entrepreneurship and epistemic communities. To this end, it adopts the framework of epistemic communities, as developed by Peter Haas, in order to suggest that there is a group of EU officials, EU member states and think-tank activists, who drive the climate security agenda of the EU. Thus, it examines the precise actors involved in this EU epistemic community for climate security. This group promotes a reason for action at the global level, resulting in the attempt to diffuse this norm: climate change has consequences for international security; thus, it requires the development of appropriate policies and capabilities within the EU and globally. This article suggests that the epistemic community on climate security has been effective at diffusing this norm at both levels, albeit with differences.     

Analysis

At the end of the Cold War, the new-world order promised a liberal peace. Instead, there were new wars and failing states. Since 11 September 2001, these are now being scrutinised as potential threats to international security. In late 2001, Somalia emerged as a potential target of the Western military alliance in an expanded 'war on terror'. Military action in Somalia was not carried out and attention has refocused on rebuilding the state through diplomacy and development. For the past ten years, conventional approaches to diplomacy and development have been unable to restore the state and place the country on the road to liberal democracy. Renewed diplomatic and development efforts to resurrect the Somali state are likely to prove equally problematic if the existing processes of development in Somalia are ignored. These processes need to be assessed not as a failure of development, but as a response to, and reflection of, existing global development policies and processes. In this sense, it may be better to understand state collapse and statelessness not as a 'failure', but as something strived for.     

深海安全治理:问题缘起、国际合作与中国策略

深海区域是重要的全球公域,其丰富的资源储备和巨大的军事战略价值成为吸引世界各国深度参与深海开发的重要诱因。近年来,各国深海力量投送的不断加强,也在国际深海领域造成了如生态安全、军事安全、经济与资源安全以及人身安全等各种传统及非传统安全问题。国际深海安全问题的出现,会对深海开发的良性发展产生严重的影响。因此,重视和加强对国际深海安全问题的治理迫在眉睫。现阶段,国际社会在相关国际法和国际机制的基础上,已经初步形成了以国际海底管理局等国际组织和主权国家共同参与的总体治理架构。但是,现阶段的国际深海安全治理还存在着治理主体层次不够多元、军事等传统安全领域的治理相对乏力等亟须解决的问题。近年来,中国在和平利用国际深海资源方面,发展迅猛。进一步关注国际深海安全问题、有效参与国际深海安全治理,对于中国而言意义重大。在此背景下,中国可以在进一步有效感知深海安全问题、夯实参与国际深海安全治理的实力基础以及打造深海“人类命运共同体”等方面进一步着力。     

Sub-regional intervention and the privatisation of politics in Africa

Sub-regional peacekeeping interventions in Africa have met with limited success in terms of conflict resolution. Nevertheless, the international community increasingly supports sub-regional conflict management arrangements so that African states can address the troubles on their own continent. The failings of subregional efforts have been ascribed to various factors, including inadequate training, co-operation and resources, and insufficient diplomatic experience on the part of peacemakers. This article suggests another contributing factor, namely the ‘privatisation of politics’. This paradigm groups various processes that have been identified in recent literature in order to explain the divergence of state functioning in Sub-Saharan Africa¹ from the Western state model. These include the ‘political instrumentalisation of disorder’,² the ‘shadow state’³ and the ‘criminalisation of the state’.⁴ The contention made here is that these processes could also influence inter-state sub-regional security co-operation. Two case studies are used to illustrate this point: the interventions of the Southern African Development Community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of the Economic Community of West African States in Sierra Leone, including reference to the operation in Liberia.     

Geopolitical perceptions of the world today

Abstract

This article is based on the author's study of geopolitical perceptions of the power of nations made during the last decade.

He describes the thinking of scholars, especially Mackinder, Mahan, and Spykman, as they have related geopolitics to international affairs.

He cites the Soviet domination of Afghanistan as one of the primary current examples of a classical geopolitical objective of the USSR to obtain access to territory opening the way eventually to the Indian Ocean.

He points out that the Soviet Union, dominating much of the landmass of Eurasia, the Mackinder “Heartland,” has polarized world politics and military security alignments because of its totalitarian political system and its expansion into other crucial areas of the world.

For fifty years, the author explains, the United States has been forced to take defensive measures against totalitarian states, in recent times principally the USSR, to prevent their domination of the economic resources and peoples of the world.

The author proposes that the United States, destined geopol‐itically to be a sea power, must have sufficient military strength to develop and protect global maritime and trading links with other seafaring nations on the periphery of Eurasia and in the Southern Hemisphere. The U.S. forces would constitute a peacetime constabulary of the sea to insure the security and prosperity not only of Americans but of their friends and allies.     

Gunning for security governance in a resource-rich African state? Interrogating militarisation in a democratic Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This article examines the socio-historical factors that underpin the political sociology of militarism in Nigeria. In spite of subscribing to a democratic constitution and several regional mechanisms that advance democratic values, security governance in Nigeria has been marked by the increasing use of military force in responding to perceived threats posed by armed militias in the oil-rich Niger Delta. I argue that the securitisation of oil is fuels militarisation, facilitated by local, national and international actors. The turn to democratisation and changing conceptions of security have reinforced rather than reined in militarism, which results in a competitive and often violent politics between national, local and global security and military actors over access to and control of oil resources. These dynamics also result in dangerous socio-economic and political consequences for Niger Delta communities.     

The EU Battle Groups in Sweden and the Czech Republic: What National Defense Reforms Tell Us about European Rapid Reaction Capabilities

Abstract

This article fills an important empirical gap concerning a key building block of the EU's Headline Goal 2010, the EU Battlegroups. It asks whether the Battlegroup concept has been robust enough to drive significant changes in two smaller EU member state militaries. We find that it has, though with important qualifications, in the Swedish case, but much less in the Czech case. We stress the importance of linkages between the Battlegroup concept and the prevailing defense reform ideas in each state. We argue that Battlegroup deployment would lead to even greater transformation but that European leaders currently have not faced powerful incentives to deploy the kinds of precise assets the Battlegroups provide. The article also addresses both the fiscal priorities that hamper military readiness and delay deployments and the substantial and enduring gap between word and deed for which EU military efforts have become known.     

Reviving the Russian empire: the Crimean intervention through a neoclassical realist lens

Although many policy-makers and scholars maintain that international norms have altered the motivations underlying state behaviour, this article argues that states continue to pursue national self-interest, but in ways that remain understudied. While traditional realist assumptions explain a great deal of state behaviour, they have not been widely used to account for important alternative tools of state intervention, such as economic and normative strategies. Focusing on the case of Russia's 2014 intervention in Ukraine, this article offers insights into how, and under what circumstances, these tools are used to accomplish traditional state objectives. Guided by the tenets of neoclassical realism, the article argues that in the case of Russia, military force is no longer the sole, or even the primary, means used to accomplish traditional security goals. Such dynamics have significant theoretical and policy implications for contemporary international relations.     

思想·制度·工具——美国国家安全体系的一种分析框架

各国国家安全体系建设的相关经验,可以为总体国家安全观指导下的中国国家安全体系建设提供参考和借鉴。国家安全体系一般都有一些必不可少的基本构成要素,但由于各国历史文化、内外环境和发展需求等方面的差异,这些要素的演变历程、具体内容和实际作用可能大不相同。作为超级大国,美国拥有最为庞大、完备且富于自身特色的国家安全体系。这个体系主要由指导思想、法律制度和保障工具三类要素构成。其指导思想是维护全球性主导地位,并带有绝对安全倾向;决策机制既遵循一套完整的跨部门分级流程,也涉及各种非正式决策模式;法律制度与监管机制系统完备;保障工具与手段多样有力,包括超强的军事能力与联盟体系、强大的经济实力与情报体系以及广泛的社会基础。然而,作为一个在冷战中形成的"安全化国家",美国的安全目标与手段、资源之间存在持续张力;空前庞大的国家安全体系也会受到内外条件的制约,经常陷入能力捉襟见肘、行为进退失据的境地;尽管在国际体系中拥有显著的"权力优势",美国同样面临发展利益与安全利益之间的矛盾。     

The evolution of power,threat, and security: Past and potential developments

This paper describes the development of the international military situation over the past three decades and explores the potential for its transformation under different assumptions regarding economic conditions and the character of international relations. Using newly derived indices in the conventional military area, an assessment is made of the shifting tides in the power, threat and security situation that has confronted twenty‐five important states in the international system during the recent past. The past is then contrasted with some possible alternative developments. These developments are assayed using a global simulation model, GLOBUS, developed at the Science Center Berlin.     

Security and informality in Libya: militarisation without military?

ABSTRACT

The article interrogates the analytical purchase of the concept of militarism in the case of Libya, and its relationship to securitisation. While Libya is often associated with widely securitised threats to the international order, its military institutions have been viewed with suspicion and ambivalence across different phases of Libyan history, making of Libya an uneasy fit for standard categorisations of militarism. This prompts the question of whether and under what circumstances militarism can occur without and even against the military. Drawing on a historical-sociological analysis, the article shifts the focus to micropolitical dynamics and extra-institutional agency with a view to unpacking the complex entanglement of formal and informal armed actors in Libya’s hybrid security governance. The concepts of informalisation of militarism and militarisation of informality are used as analytical lenses to reconstruct the partial, failed, contested and hijacked attempts to build ‘modern’ military institutions in Libya. I suggest that the repertoire of militarism is not so much an end in itself, but a resource mobilised by local and international actors in a contentious field of state-building practices.     

Russian Orthodox Church and Nuclear Command and Control: A Hypothesis

Abstract

The Russian Orthodox Church plays an immense role in current Russian national security policy. The intertwining of the church and the strategic community is nowhere more visible than in the nuclear-weapons complex, where the priesthood has penetrated all levels of command, been involved in operational activities, and positioned itself as a provider of meanings for, and guardian of, the state’s nuclear potential. The first work to highlight the phenomenon of the Russian church-nuclear nexus, this article focuses on the ecclesiastical impact on Russian nuclear command and control. The findings suggest that it is not inconceivable that the Russian military clergy—like the Soviet political officers and contrary to chaplains worldwide—might become future participants in decision making on matters of national security, and that de facto there might be two parallel chains of command authority emerging in Russia, with potential tensions between them. The article outlines the causes of this overlooked singularity and its implications for the theory and practice of international security.     

The British Nuclear Experience: The Role of Beliefs,Culture, and Status (Part Two)

Part One of this article, which appeared in the last edition of Diplomacy and Statecraft, argued that the origins and early development of British nuclear weapons was largely driven by the particular ideas and beliefs of a relatively small political, scientific, and military elite. It is also argued that these beliefs, which developed into a “deterrence state of mind” amongst the elite, derived in part from a traditional strategic culture that emphasised the importance of producing the most sophisticated weapons of the day to protect Britain's diplomatic and security interests in a largely anarchic international system. Part Two argues that these ideational factors, based on a “realist” perspective of international security held by Britain's political-military leadership, have remained of crucial importance through to the present day.