‘What is in a Name?’: The Role of (Different) Identities in the Multiple Proxy Wars in Syria

Abstract

Post-uprisings Middle East politics is frequently described as a ‘regional cold war’ involving proxy warfare that emphasises the role of shared identities linking external and local actors. But does the ‘content’ of identities impact proxy war dynamics? This article considers the present ‘battle for Syria’, a local conflict that became a theatre for multiple proxy wars involving actors emphasising identities on various levels, most notably national, religious/ sect and ethnic. It suggests that identity content does matter, with global powers more reluctant than regional players to back groups identifying at sub-national level, while foreign non-state actors are enthusiastic backers of sub-national identity.     

Piracy,state capacity and root causes

By comparing the Somali experience of piracy with the emerging situation in the Gulf of Guinea, I show that increases in the enforcement aspects of state capacity in the Gulf of Guinea states are necessary but not sufficient tools to combat the emergence, growth, and institutionalisation of piracy. Such tools would require state-building measures that would minimise the incentives of individuals to join piracy organisations and they would have to effectively deal with youth unemployment, income inequality, and environmental degradation.     

Maritime security and capacity building in the Gulf of Guinea: On comprehensiveness,gaps, and security priorities

It is widely acknowledged that maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea is a highly complex phenomenon involving a variety of issues (legal deficiencies, inadequate military equipment, and challenges like corruption, political unrest and youth unemployment) as well as a multiplicity of external responders. To make sense of the impact that external actors have when they address this complex problem through various maritime capacity building endeavours, this article argues that there is a need to understand the attractiveness of capacity building vis-à-vis the widely acknowledged need for a comprehensive approach, as well as the difficulties of translating the potential for comprehensiveness into practice (as important aspects of the problem remain largely unaddressed). Further, it is argued that it is important to appreciate that even if these gaps – i.e. the aspects that maritime capacity building currently leaves unaddressed – represent a ‘failure’ to deliver a comprehensive response, they are at the same time illustrative of how the maritime capacity building activities of various external actors also ‘succeed’ in having an impact on this regional security landscape – for instance, by influencing how certain aspects of this multifaceted problem are prioritised, whilst others are only marginally addressed, if at all.     

Israeli self-defeating deterrence in the 1991 Gulf War

Israel's failure in deterring Iraq from launching missiles on its home front in the 1991 Gulf War demonstrates the failure of deterrence theory to capture the dynamic of deterrences in ‘complex systems’. In such conflictual systems the recipe for successful deterrence – rational actors, credible and clear deterrence threats, and a defender that has a reputation for realizing his threats – may fail to acheive the expected outcome. Moreover, the credibility of the deterrer may be the reason for the collapse of deterrence. Evidence from the post-Cold War era suggests high prospects for the recurring of complex deterrence systems and thus reinforces the importance of this case.     

Youth Between State and Rebel (Dis)Orders: Contesting Legitimacy from Below in Sub-Sahara Africa

Abstract

The Sahel has gained attention in international politics as one of the central theatres in the war on terrorism. International actors in this war seek alliances with states in the region, reinforcing the latter’s military strength and their legitimacy from outside. At the same time, increasingly-connected young populations question the legitimacy of their states, and contest that legitimacy from within and below. In the absence of states delivering any reasonable form of social contract, young people become torn between different governing orders and find themselves in a liminal space. In this article we present the cases of youth in Mali and Chad, who find themselves in a period of re-definition of their position in society and hence search for legitimate structures representation. In this search they may frame their belonging in terms of ethnicity, religion or political opposition – and increasingly also in adherence to global citizenship. New information flows and connectivity among young people in these regions, and between them and the diaspora, has given a new turn to their search for citizenship/belonging and rightful representation. However, whether their search will be successful in this geopolitical context is questionable.     

Armed Groups and the Politics of Legitimacy

This article serves as an introduction to a special section on the question of the legitimacy of non-state armed groups. Starting with a short discussion of the literature on armed groups as political actors, the authors emphasize the importance of the often-underestimated dimension of legitimacy. After having conceptualized legitimacy in more detail, the article addresses three key challenges armed groups usually face regarding the politics of legitimacy: first, they need to legitimize the use of violent means; second, for moral and material support, they depend on beliefs of legitimacy; and third, they need to simultaneously address various domestic and international audiences. Finally, the authors highlight a number of pending questions for further research on armed groups.     

Birth of a norm champion: how South Africa came to support the NPT’s indefinite extension

In 1995, South Africa was in a special position. It was: a new party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the first country to voluntarily renounce nuclear weapons, led by a charismatic leader, and seen as a champion of disarmament principles. Yet South Africa’s new leaders were also interested in affirming their position within the Non-Aligned Movement, which was adamantly opposed to the NPT’s indefinite extension. Why, then, did South Africa decide to support the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995? Existing scholarship has ascribed too much credit to pressure from the United States, overlooking domestic debates in South Africa and the bifurcation between professional diplomats and political elites. This article, building on new archival sources and in-depth oral-history interviews with major actors, demonstrates that South African diplomats opposed indefinite extension while South African policy elites allocated little attention to the topic until late in the game. The findings contribute to our understanding of South Africa’s norm entrepreneurship, as well as the politics of global nonproliferation.     

Clausewitz and the politics of war: A contemporary theory

ABSTRACT

This paper re-examines the theoretical underpinnings of Strategic Studies, proposing a novel theory and a new framework for analysing war’s fundamental relationship with politics in line with the Clausewitzian tradition. Throughout modern history, Clausewitz’s concept of politics has been misconstrued as referring only to policy whereas in fact, for him, ‘politics’ was a much broader concept, including domestic power struggles. The political logic of war is defined here as the convergence of the interrelating factors of power struggles and policy objectives within a given polity that restrains and enables these political forces. The analysis of the Clausewitzian political logic of war is conducted through the sociological ‘liquid modern’ lens. It is argued that with power increasingly shifting from centralised state-oriented political leadership towards market forces, non-state actors and other political bodies, the effectiveness of war has been reduced. This is evident in the fragmentation of Western political systems and, as a result, suboptimal strategy and the domination of domestic power struggles in political decision-making concerning war.     

The “yellow rain” controversy: Lessons for arms control compliance

Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam recently announced that they are launching nuclear energy programs, and Malaysia and the Philippines soon may follow suit. As a result, by 2020, at least three states in Southeast Asia could possess latent nuclear capabilities—the option to pursue military applications of dual-use nuclear technology. Analysis of the nuclear programs, domestic proliferation pressures, and the external threat environment in Southeast Asia leads the authors to conclude that the nuclear intentions of states in that region are entirely peaceful and the probability of future nuclear breakout there is low. However, this finding does not justify complacency. In the long term, the benign outlook for regional security may change, and in the near term weak regulatory regimes present serious challenges to nuclear safety and create opportunities that non-state actors may exploit. To minimize these risks, the authors recommend creating a “proliferation firewall” around the region, which would combine strong global support for Southeast Asian nuclear energy programs with innovative regional multilateral nuclear arrangements.     

Self-Defense Militias,Death Squads,and State Outsourcing of Violence in India and Turkey

What explains the variation in states’ nonstate partners in civil warfare? States often use nonstate actors to do what their regular military forces cannot do well – navigate the local population. Some of their nonstate partners are ordinary civilians, while others are battle-hardened fighters with a rebellious or criminal past. The choice of proxy carries serious implications for the patterns and effects of violence during civil war, human rights, and international security. This article is the first to disaggregate the nonstate counterinsurgents and offer an explanation for why and how states use each type. It brings together the politics of collaboration with the politics of exploitation. The article shows that the state’s use of nonstate proxies is shaped by the supply of willing collaborators, the state’s ability to exercise control over them, and the trade-offs underlying the use of the different types of nonstate actors. The empirical evidence used to support this argument comes from a novel, comparative study of Turkey’s counterinsurgency campaign against Kurdish separatists and India’s counterinsurgency against Kashmiri separatists. The original data were collected through fieldwork in the disputed territories of each country.     

Disrupt and restraint: The evolution of cyber conflict and the implications for collective security

In the last decade, cyber conflict has become a main feature of international politics and a growing concern for strategic stability and collective security. Unfortunately, cyber conflict suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity about its impact on collective security and a lack of consensus among international actors on how to interpret it. This article proposes to understand cyber conflict as an evolving process driven by two factors: the way in which digital space is configured and the way in which tactical, organizational, strategic, and doctrinal characteristics related to cyber have been included in the field of national and international security. Both tend to encourage offensive behavior but also demonstrate features pointing to restraint.     

论拓展公安边防部队廉政文化建设的载体

拓展公安边防部队廉政文化建设的载体，运用政治学、新制度经济学、统计学、计量学和木桶理论等相关理论和分析方法，对拓展公安边防部队廉政文化建设的载体进行深入剖析，内容主要围绕创建、创办、宣传、教育四个方面进行，并提出相应的对策。     

Preventing conflict upstream: impunity and illicit governance across Colombia’s borders

This article explores how transnational borderlands matter for conflict prevention and, in particular, so-called upstream engagement, which aims to reduce threats to global stability and security that arise from the world’s increasing interconnectedness. Accounting for transnational borderlands in vulnerable regions is crucial for conflict prevention as pursued by the defence and security sector because borderlands are catalysts of the negative side of global interconnectedness: they are business hubs for transnational organised crime, sites of retreat for conflict actors, and safe havens for terrorists. The border areas’ proneness to impunity and the ability of violent non-state actors to govern these spaces illicitly contribute to the emergence of these characteristics. I therefore argue that upstream conflict prevention needs to do two things to address these risks: first, to overcome a national security approach centred on the borderline and instead acknowledge transnational security dynamics in borderlands on both sides of the border; second, to overcome the state-centred governance lens to also consider governance exerted by non-state actors. The article draws on empirical data from a six-year study including over a year of fieldwork in and on Colombia’s borderlands.     

Coercive diplomacy and the Donbas: Explaining Russian strategy in Eastern Ukraine

What were Russia’s objectives in Eastern Ukraine, and why was it seemingly unable to achieve a successful or decisive outcome? In contrast to Russia’s seizure of Crimea, the uprising in Eastern Ukraine was marked by disorganization and chaos. Using proxy and surrogate actors, along with military exercises and the injection of Russian troops, Russia sought to institutionalize a political entity inside Ukraine to influence its domestic politics. In this article, I analyze the mechanisms by which Russia attempted to implement, and later salvage, its strategy. The article contributes to clearer theoretical and practical understanding of limited force in coercive diplomacy, signaling, and a more rigorous treatment of the role and uses of proxy actors.     

NUCLEAR REDUCTIONS AND MIDDLE EAST STABILITY

The United States faces a series of strategic and policy conundrums as it attempts to promote strategic stability in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East. This article examines the relationship between a reduced US nuclear arsenal and strategic stability in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. It argues that a series of interrelated political and military factors play a much more significant role in regional security and stability than the US strategic arsenal, which has never, with a few extraordinary exceptions, played a direct role in maintaining regional security. The United States has constructed a system of regional stability based on conventional deterrence and defense that has seen it forward base forces at various installations in the region in combination with efforts to arm, train, and equip host-nation militaries. Nuclear weapons have never played a prominent role in this regional system. Evidence presented in this article suggests that there is no compelling reason for the United States to abandon and/or modify the defensive system of conventional deterrence and defense by adding nuclear-backed guarantees to the mix.     

The symbolic politics of ballistic missile defense: seeking the perfect defense in an imperfect world

Ballistic missile defense (BMD) politics present an interesting evolution in how the USA, especially Congress, has come to think about BMD both as operational reality and as a symbolic policy. The argument here is that BMD's operational reality is increasingly overshadowed by its symbolic aspects. Such a status arose from rapidly changing international and domestic politics. The end result is a situation in which BMD policy in a sense floats above the question of its actual combat effectiveness. Its primary mission in part is sustaining US capacity to remain a global power and support its allies.     

The rhetoric and practice of the international responsibility to prevent mass atrocities: Reflections on South Africa’s peacebuilding role in South Sudan (2005–2013)

While global consensus on the meaning and application of the responsibility to protect (R2P) principle remains tenuous, there is little contention among major actors that the development of the norm should prioritise the prevention of mass atrocities. In particular, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) – which have a role to play that is vital to the future development of R2P as a global norm but which continue to express reservations about the intent and application of the doctrine – have been strong advocates of the preventive aspects of the principle. This rhetorical consensus, however, belies the conceptual and practical challenges that are associated with the prevention of mass atrocities. In this paper, the example of South Africa’s post-conflict reconstruction and development (PCRD) interventions in South Sudan from 2005 to 2013 is used to reflect on the role of external actors in supporting conflict-affected states to implement the preventive aspects of R2P. It is argued that while South Africa, like other BRICS countries, has used the rhetoric that atrocity prevention should be at the core of R2P to legitimise its opposition to military intervention for humanitarian purposes, it has struggled to back this rhetoric with coherent strategies and concrete actions to prevent mass atrocity crimes within its sphere of influence. The gap between rhetoric and practice in the preventive aspects of R2P is not unique to South Africa, but highlights fundamental difficulties inherent to global efforts to prevent mass atrocities.     

军用电池储能系统应用前景分析与展望

随着能源供应日益紧张以及新能源技术的发展,其中的核心技术——储能技术面临着巨大的发展机遇。在军事领域,电池储能系统也受到了广泛关注。文章简要介绍了电池储能系统的发展现状,阐述了电池储能系统在军事领域中的具体应用,分析了目前我国军用电池储能系统存在的主要问题,最后对军用储能系统的发展趋势和应用前景进行了分析。     

Risk Analysis

Abstract

The changes that have taken place in world politics over the last five years have led to a reassessment of the type, size and shape of potential conflicts. As witnessed during the Gulf War, such changes pose new challenges to allied forces and emphasise in particular the crucial role of air supertortty. Pbil Tittler argues the need for fully integrated air power defence systems to provide upto-date technology, flexibility and mission eflectiveness, plus affordability, to ensure sucess in any future operations.     

Hans Morgenthau and the Lasting Implications of World War I

ABSTRACT

World War I was an epochal event that permanently redefined international politics. Yet, there is no consensus about what kind of international system it erected. This article argues that since 1918 to the present day, there is a unique revolutionary/revisionist system in existence. To confirm the argument, this article will revisit the mid-twentieth century writings of political realism's founding father Hans J. Morgenthau. His political thought is premised on the co-constitutive relation between ethics and politics, which characterized international politics throughout the Westphalian era and which was irreversibly lost in the tragedy of World War I. By sketching some of Morgenthau’s main arguments on the political and ethical transformations brought about by total war and total politics, the article argues that World War I generated a revolutionary system indifferent to political and non-political spheres, where insulated ethical systems clash in a kind of “global civil war”.