Naval Blockade and the Russia–Ukraine Conflict

Netherlands International Law Review - The Russia–Ukraine conflict is also being fought in the maritime dimension. Regarding methods of warfare, of particular note has been the possible...     

Pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in the spatial model with valence: existence and characterization

Public Choice - Pure-strategy Nash equilibria almost never exist in spatial majority voting games when the number of positional dimensions is at least two, as the majority core is typically empty...     

Petro-Piracy: Oil and Troubled Waters

West Africa piracy is the most profitable in the world. Well-organized gangs steal refined oil in contrast to Somali pirates who hold crews and ships for ransom. Like piracy elsewhere, the origins and potential solutions to West African piracy are found ashore—largely in Nigeria. This article argues that oil states in the developing world are shielded from the domestic and international pressures that can bring down their non-oil neighbors. The current international system which makes international recognition, not internal legitimacy or functionality, the key to state authority works to their benefit. It encourages those parts which are valuable to industrialized powers—and to the domestic elites who facilitate and benefit from international legitimization—to function well enough for resource extraction to continue. The security of the state generally matters less than the security of key enclaves— including ships and offshore platforms—which support elite interests.     

A Formula for Disaster: The Department of Homeland Security's Virtual Ontology

This paper focuses on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to theorise the spatialities of post-9/11 security knowledge and practice in the US. It analyses the organisational discourses that animate homeland security work, such as preparedness, vulnerability, the new threat environment, risk analysis and capabilities-based planning, and considers the implications of these practices for contemporary geographies of security. It is argued that DHS operates through a virtual ontology of threat, whereby potential, future threats are addressed as present possibilities that emerge in the spaces of everyday life. The sources of American freedoms and insecurities, the everyday, emerging circulations of goods and people, present DHS with a terrain of shifting threats from which both emergencies and preparedness may materialise. Disaster looming, the potential suspension of everyday life forms the basis for security practice as the emergency becomes a fact of life itself. The spatialities of this environment of imminent threat are considered and it is argued that the everyday emergency operates topologically as a continuous process of spatialisation.