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| 1 |
ID:
136447
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the mid-1990s, unprecedented interventions by private companies specializing in the delivery of military muscle and know-how began altering the dynamics of local conflicts. Since then, private military and security companies have transformed the dynamics of local security delivery around the world, most prominently in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the process, the private military industry has generated plenty of profit and attention, both alarmist and analytical. Two totems of research into the burgeoning industry and its implications are Corporate Warriors by P.W. Singer and The Market for Force by Deborah Avant. Nearly a decade after their publication, these books remain among the most in-depth and sustained treatments of the industry. This essay looks back at the arguments presented in each book and their influence on subsequent research on military privatization.
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| 2 |
ID:
136659
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| Summary/Abstract |
President Barack Obama has detailed his strategy to degrade, defeat and ultimately destroy the Islamic State (IS) (the IS is also referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS]) currently considered the most threatening of the various terrorist groups operating primarily in the Middle East. Fundamental to the success of the strategy is military action aimed at degrading the combat capabilities of the fighting elements of the IS. However, based on previous experience, it is obvious even to the casual observer that military action alone will not bring success in ‘destroying’ the IS as an entity. In fact, going by a number of reports, it seems certain that, unlike other such groups,1 the IS has already gained the trappings of an established state—control of territory, an administrative machinery, tax collection facilities, welfare activities undertaken by a central authority, education systems and an effective if brutal police force. Such an entrenched entity cannot be defeated and made irrelevant by military actions alone.
The group poses a clear threat to all countries in the Middle East, Europe, the US and America’s allies elsewhere. It has been able to gain strength by leveraging the civil war in Syria and exploiting the sectarian divide still very visible in Iraq. The IS has established itself through the use of a potent combination of insurgent, terrorist and conventional military tactics and the vicious use of violence to seize control of large swathes of territory in both Syria and Iraq, as well as weapons and natural resources.
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| 3 |
ID:
134842
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| Summary/Abstract |
In a brief, nationally televised announcement on August 7th regarding the Islamic State, which invaded the multicultural, northern Nineveh Province of Iraq this summer, President Obama observed that “these terrorists have been especially barbaric towards religious minorities, including Christian and Yazidis.”
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| 4 |
ID:
134276
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article proposes that Turkey's foreign policy towards Iraq changed radically after 2007, in response to external challenges and domestic developments. The article analyses how Turkey's role in Iraq has changed on two different levels: firstly, in terms of increased activism and diplomatic engagement, and secondly, in terms of its increased economic involvement, using trade and foreign direct investment as foreign policy tools. These two different modes of engagement have transformed Turkey into a visible player in Iraq.
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| 5 |
ID:
136821
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| Summary/Abstract |
Iraq today produces about a million barrels of oil more than it did in the immediate aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2003. In October 2012, the IEA predicted that Iraq’s production could double by 2020. Yet, in spite of the impressive recovery and vast potential of the Iraqi oil sector, its further development is constrained by insecurity, bureaucratic bottlenecks, infrastructure deficiencies, unresolved legal issues, and political disputes with the KRG.
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| 6 |
ID:
134479
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article assesses the effect that leveraging civilian defense force militias has on the dynamics of violence in civil war. We argue that the delegation of security and combat roles to local civilians shifts the primary targets of insurgent violence toward civilians, in an attempt to deter future defections, and re-establish control over the local population. This argument is assessed through an analysis of the Sunni Awakening and ancillary Sons of Iraq paramilitary program. The results suggest that at least in the Al-Anbar province of Iraq, the utilization of the civilian population in counterinsurgent roles had significant implications for the targets of insurgent violence.
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| 7 |
ID:
136817
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| Summary/Abstract |
The strong motivated ISIS is a indirectly, the creation of International Community. Had the international community taken early step and forced al-Assad to step down by supporting his democratic opponents, this monster would not have been there. Policies persuaded by the powers like Russia, China and America perpetuated the autocratic rulers al Assad in Syria and this made the entry and position of ISIS strong.
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| 8 |
ID:
136857
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| Summary/Abstract |
Jabhat-al-Nusra is successfully undermining the creation of a moderate Sunni ground force in Syria, which is critical for defeating the Islamic States. Columb Strack analyses data showing how the group has made gains towards establishing its own caliphate.
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| 9 |
ID:
134275
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Governmental support for nonstate actors designated as terrorist organizations is not only a policy that carries significant international and domestic costs; it further poses a theoretical challenge to structural realist thinking about alliance politics in international relations. By debating, firstly, the utility of terrorism as a means to influence systemic power distribution, and, secondly, the functional equality of nonstate actors, this article considers under what conditions state sponsored terrorism occurs despite the expected security loss. Drawing on the example of Iraq between 1979 and 1991, the assumption that the interplay of external security challenges—as well as domestic dissent as an intervening, unit-level factor—affects governmental alignments with terrorist groups will be reviewed in the cases of the Iranian Mujahedin al-Khalq Organization, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and armed Palestinian factions. The article concludes by addressing whether state sponsorship of terrorism is inevitably linked to policy failure or whether it could be seen as a good investment to balance external and internal security challenges successfully.
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| 10 |
ID:
135190
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After 13 years of war, the loss of many thousands of lives, and the expenditure of trillions of dollars, what has the United States learned? The answer depends on not only who is asking but when. The story of the Iraq war would have different endings, and morals, if told in 2003, 2006, 2011, or 2014, and it will continue to evolve. As for Afghanistan, the narrative there has also shifted over time, and the ending also remains in doubt. Neither disaster has been unmitigated. But few would argue that Washington’s approach to either has been a success worth emulating. So the most important question today is what can be learned from the failures.
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| 11 |
ID:
134686
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This article examines the impact of water on the relationships between Turkey and its downstream riparian states, Syria and Iraq. This article defines water resources in international standards and examines the historical relationships between the three states, which have been complicated by the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP). Examining the history of Turco-Iraqi and Turco-Syrian relations, this article shows that GAP, though a point of contention, has not been the principal factor governing the relations between the three countries.
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| 12 |
ID:
134274
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This article discusses the visit of James Richards, President Eisenhower's special emissary to the Middle East, to Iraq in April 1957 following the pronouncement of the Eisenhower Doctrine. An analysis of the Richards Mission encompasses a range of specific issues, including the relationship in Iraq between the US and UK and American assessments of the stability of the Iraqi government. Moreover, this article examines the American strategy for navigating the rising tide of Arab nationalist sentiment in Iraq after the Suez War. This article explores the ways in which US policy-makers privileged the notions of ‘stability’ and ‘order’ in Iraqi political affairs and reflects on the critical dilemmas and contradictions underlying American policy towards Iraq and the Middle East after the 1956 Suez War.
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| 13 |
ID:
135372
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Private security companies have recently been the subject of increased attention not only because of their large-scale involvement in US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also due to the employment of privately contracted armed guards to protect ships, crews and cargoes at sea – particularly in the Gulf of Aden. Most of these operations, however, have taken place in a legal grey area, with few agreed standards to regulate the work of private security providers. Dirk Siebels explores the ongoing efforts by governments, international organisations and the industry to address this legal vacuum and establish effective guidelines.
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| 14 |
ID:
134731
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| Summary/Abstract |
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11 2001 had a grave impact on the way the conflict dynamics in world politics have been shaped, structured and interpreted since then. The invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), the US drone programs launched during the first decade of the 00’s in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia and the more recent interventions in Libya (2011), and Mali (2013) have all at some point been related to the concern of combatting international terrorism. To fight or prevent international terrorism still appears as a top-priority for the great powers of the West and questions about the role of religion in explaining the motivations and occurrences of terrorist acts still remain topical.
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| 15 |
ID:
134685
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| Summary/Abstract |
In early June 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and a constellation of Sunni Arab tribes and former Ba‘thists captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Much of the Iraqi Armed Forces disintegrated, and the rest fled southward from the Sunni rebel advance.1 As most of the majority–Sunni Arab areas of the country quickly fell to the insurgents, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government scrambled to fortify Baghdad’s defenses. Peshmerga (Kurdish fighters) of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), meanwhile, took the opportunity to advance farther south and take control of virtually all the territories disputed between Erbil and Baghdad, including Kirkuk, which has some four percent of the world’s proven oil reserves around it. As authorities in Baghdad struggled to mount a response to the breathtaking developments, ISIS declared the establishment of a new Islamic caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq, and the KRG announced their intention to hold a referendum for Kurdish independence.2 More than ever before, the dissolution of Iraq suddenly appeared both likely and imminent.
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| 16 |
ID:
135413
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| Summary/Abstract |
press their subjects too hard to adopt Islam at this stage would have risked insurrection. The Muslim ... Iraq’s religious minorities will survive, and if so, how they can be protected. There is another, deeper ... question, however. How did Iraq come to have so much religious diversity in the first place, and what does
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| 17 |
ID:
135240
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| Summary/Abstract |
“There is no simple or quick solution to rid the Middle East of ISIS because it is a manifestation of the breakdown of state institutions and the spread of sectarian fires in the region.”
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| 18 |
ID:
136200
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| Summary/Abstract |
The dramatic victories in summer 2014 of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) over rival groups fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad — and over the government of Iraq and Kurdish forces — culminated in the declaration of a caliphate, or the Islamic State. The international community became alarmed, and the lightning ISIS advance in Iraq was blunted in mid-August by U.S. air power. Air strikes were ramped up in September and October in both Iraq and Syria by the United States and an ad hoc coalition of Middle Eastern and European states
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| 19 |
ID:
136802
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| Summary/Abstract |
The crisis which is engulfing a large swath of territories in Iraq and Syria has become a matter of global concern. The phenomenon called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has created waves across different parts of the globe. Beyond its epicentre, that is, West Asia, its tentacles have reached South Asia, and India is no exception to it. India has recently witnessed a few ISIS-related activities and such influence of this Sunni militant group has drawn the attention of the security establishments in the country.
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| 20 |
ID:
135869
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| Summary/Abstract |
The fall of Mosul in June of 2014 was followed in July by the establishment of a self-proclaimed Caliphate by the Islamic State of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Since then, the Islamic State has continued to expand its operations, persistently pushing into Sunni-dominated parts of Iraq and Syria, nearly defeating the Kurds of Iraq, and moving against the Kurds of Syria, in Kobani, as well as army units of the Syrian state. By doing so, it has maintained an astonishingly high tempo of operations and has shown itself capable, agile and resilient. It has also proved itself to be adept at utilizing social media outlets, and in pursuing brutal tactics against civilians and prisoners that have been aimed at shocking adversaries—potential or actual—and observers both in the region and beyond. The rise of the Islamic State poses a challenge not only to the security of Iraq and Syria, but to the state system of the Middle East. Western powers have been drawn into a conflict in a limited fashion—through air strikes and advising ground forces; the UK, while engaging slightly later than other countries against the Islamic State, has followed this pattern, though targeting Islamic State forces solely in Iraq. This article considers the nature and scale of the threat posed by the Islamic State, and assesses three possible areas of further policy engagement that they UK may, or may have to, follow.
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