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| 1 |
ID:
135339
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| Summary/Abstract |
Anarchy was coming to Africa, Robert Kaplan warned in 1994, and a surge in conflict initially seemed to confirm that prediction. With less fanfare, however, after the year 2000, conflict in Africa declined, probably to the lowest levels ever. Recent fighting in Libya, Mali, South Sudan and elsewhere has prompted a new wave of ‘Africa falling apart’ concerns. This article reviews the history and data of conflict in Africa, from pre-colonial times to the present. Historical comparison and quantitative analysis based on the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and Major Episodes of Political Violence (MEPV) datasets on the 1961–2013 period show that Africa has experienced a remarkable decline in warfare, whether measured in number of conflicts or fatalities. Warfare is a relatively low risk to the lives of most Africans. The years 2010–2013 saw an increase of 35 per cent in African battle deaths over 2005–2010, but they still are 87 per cent lower than the 1990–1999 average. Changes in external support and intervention, and the spread of global norms regarding armed conflict, have been most decisive in reducing the levels of warfare in the continent. Consequently, there is no Africa exception to the systemic shift towards lower levels of armed conflict.
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| 2 |
ID:
135336
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This article aims to explore the connection between the new 2013 Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation and Christian messianism in contemporary Russian intellectual thought. The ‘conservative turn’ in Russian politics is associated with the return to the cultural and political ideologeme of Katechon, which is proposed by several right-wing intellectuals as the basis for the Russia's new state ideology and foreign and security policy. The theological concept of Katechon (from the Greek ό Κατέχων, ‘the withholding’) that protects the world from the advent of the Antichrist originates in the Byzantine Empire. In Russian tradition, this concept is presented in the well-known doctrine of Moscow as the Third Rome, dating back to the 16th century. The term ‘Katechon’ in contemporary Russian political discourse is relatively new and can be traced to the post-Soviet reception of Carl Schmitt's political theology. The concept of Russia as Katechon is directly connected to the national security and defence policy, because it is used as the ideological ground for the new wave of militarization and anti-Western sentiment, as well as for Russia's actions during the Ukrainian crisis. This analysis puts the internal political and cultural debate on Russia's role in international affairs and its relations with the West into historical perspective and demonstrates the right-wing intellectual circles’ influence on the Kremlin's new domestic and foreign policy
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| 3 |
ID:
135340
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The United States and its allies entered Afghanistan with nearly unlimited war aims, but with the intention of only using limited force. This strategic error undermined the intervention and made success difficult or impossible. Through an examination of Clausewitzian thought about popular war, limited war and the culminating point of victory, this article shows the enduring value of Clausewitzian concepts in contemporary conflicts against non-state actors. These concepts are tested in three cases – the involvement of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France in Afghanistan – to examine the relationship between their war aims, resource commitments, and war outcome. Of the three, France deployed relatively the most forces to Afghanistan, but the allied engagement remained insufficient to overcome the insurgency. Lacking sufficient mass, the limited forces were insufficient to establish the strategic superiority necessary to achieve nearly unlimited goals. This was compounded by a failure to concentrate against the insurgents crossing the border from Pakistan. In the absence of a clear political determination to reconcile means and ends, the culminating point of victory passed in 2006. It is not the intention here to recommend that contemporary military deployments follow Clausewitzian ideas to the letter; that is not what Clausewitz intended. It is clear, however, that NATO allies in Afghanistan failed to be stronger than the enemy where it was necessary, even when the insurgent groups were diffuse and only loosely unified.
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| 4 |
ID:
135337
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| Summary/Abstract |
Alexander Dugin, the well-known public philosopher, entered Russia's intellectual and political life in the 1990s, with strongly anti-American and often anti-Western statements. Dugin's philosophy, especially in its early version, was of great use for foreign analysts with its emphasis on the irreconcilable conflict between the Eurasian civilization – with Russia in its centre – and the Atlanticist civilization led by the United States. While the image of Atlanticism and Americanism as despiritualizing forces ready for global predominance emerged in Dugin's work early on, it was later supplemented by another image, stressing Atlanticism as a desire to play God, to change the nature and the man himself. Consequently, Atlanticism and Americanism cannot live in peace until the Eurasian civilization is destroyed completely. While geopolitical Duginism of the 1990s had few direct translations into actual Russian foreign policy, it had an indirect relationship to Putin's posture in Crimea and Ukraine, and on the economically centred Eurasian Union. The importance of Duginism in the minds of segments of the American and British leadership is due, rather, not so much to the danger of an aggressive Russia, but to the waning of Washington's influence in Europe. Duginism is less a manifestation of Kremlin policy, than an ideological construction mostly belonging in the past. Instead, pragmatic nationalists are the most influential people in the present-day Russian elite.
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| 5 |
ID:
135341
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Policy and research on European cyber-security remains formative compared to leaders in the field like China and the United States. This article evaluates the European Union (EU) as a cyber-security actor, asking fundamental questions concerning the EU's combination of prominence and obscurity, especially its limitations and prospects. Who and what is going to dominate the European response to cyber-security in the future? These questions are examined within the larger framework of liberal intergovernmentalism. The EU also is compared to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a point of reference to further understand the limitations and challenges ahead for the EU. Two major factors limit the EU as a cyber-security actor: its intergovernmental character, and the lack of collective vision on cyber-security with the EU and between member states. To play an important role in shaping cyberspace and cyber-security, the EU cannot treat the internet as simply a communication tool or trading platform. Cooperation and capacity-building measures are needed to allow EU member states to surpass mere coordination of their respective national cyber-security strategies. To succeed as a cyber-power, the EU should adapt new and different forms of cyber-power, from the compulsory through the institutional, to the structural and productive. Otherwise, coordination of national strategies for cyber-security of EU member states is the most the EU as an actor can aim for.
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| 6 |
ID:
135338
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Russian interventions in South Ossetia and Crimea indicate a major shift in Moscow's policy towards the former Soviet republics. This article compares the two interventions in terms of military performance, basis of legitimacy, and motivational goals. This confirms the formation of a new and more assertive Russian policy in the region. Although there were significant differences between the two interventions, improved Russian military capabilities reveal the Kremlin's plans to project power in the near abroad. The Russian leadership used similar legal justifications for the two interventions, based on the Kosovo precedent, opening the possibility of further military action in the former Soviet space. Notwithstanding the legal excuse, Moscow mainly intervened in Georgia and Ukraine to prevent further NATO enlargement eastwards, regain geopolitical influence regionally, and respond to perceptions of insecurity and a sense of humiliation. With the possible exception of the Baltic States, the rest of the former Soviet republics could, sooner or later, fall under Russia's sway. It is a challenge that the West can choose to confront either with tougher sanctions and more involvement in the region, or by initiating a new process of socializing Russia into the international community, with security assurances and economic incentives in return for acknowledgement of Russia's role as a great power
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| 7 |
ID:
135335
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This article attempts to reflect on arms control and disarmament as a civilizational practice. The provocation for this undertaking can be traced back to the growing popularity of civilization discourses. The article highlights the paradoxical tension within these discourses with, on the one hand, their proclamations of inter-civilizational conflicts based on failure to regulate and prohibit the proliferation of weapons and, on the other hand, the teleological drive towards building a universal civilization of modernity. It critiques these discourses with the help of critical security studies and postcolonial insights into the problematique of civilization that seeks to universalize that which stabilizes and asserts the military superiority of the West while marginalizing the efforts of ‘the Rest’ demanding equality and justice in practices of arms control and disarmament. The article then uses representative historical narratives to demonstrate the historical continuity between practices of discrimination and exclusion that persist from the late 19th century to the present with regard to weapons regulation and prohibition. Contemporary efforts to acknowledge and addresses the entrenched biases in the practices of arms control and disarmament are discussed to explicate their possibilities and limitations. The purpose is to bring centre-stage the human suffering experienced by the West and the Rest in practices of arms control and disarmament. It is only by confronting the multitudinous affects through a post-civilization approach that the reiterated bravado of civilization can be questioned and an empathetic and sincere approach towards addressing the problem of weapons regulation and prohibition can be cultivated.
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