Argentina and the Bomb

Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al Qaeda, by John Mueller. Oxford University Press, 2009. 336 pages, $27.95.

Les armes nucléaires: Mythes et réalités [Nuclear Weapons: Myths and Realities], by Georges Le Guelte. Actes Sud, 2009. 390 pages, [euro]25.     

PART II: CONTINUING TO QUESTION THE RELIABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Responding to Derrin Culp's critique, the author argues that distinguished nuclear theorists may be wrong because groups of experts have been wrong in the past, that city attacks are central to nuclear deterrence theory because killing civilians en masse is what nuclear weapons do best, and that understanding how effective city attacks would be in war is crucial to understanding how well they would work as threats. Moreover, while it is undeniable that nuclear deterrence works some of the time, this simply is not good enough. Because any failure of nuclear deterrence could end in catastrophic nuclear war, nuclear deterrence must be perfect or almost perfect. This is a very difficult standard to reach.     

Perspectives on 2011

The dramatic events of the Arab Spring have changed the political landscape in Africa and showed up both the need for and the shortcomings of the African Union. The author looks at the impact of the past year on security issues across Africa.     

Pool it,share it,or lose it: an economical view on pooling and sharing of European military capabilities

In a general and economical view, this article analyzes methods and mechanisms for the pooling and sharing of military forces and weapons inside the European Union (EU) in times of scarcity. Pooling and sharing could improve the EU military capabilities significantly if differences in location factors were taken into account and all states would focus on their respective strengths. More competition and less concentration are the keys to ensuring guaranteed access to military assets. Pooling and sharing are likely to be successful only if large states enhance their emphasis on collective defense by mutual aid and self-help, and reduce particularistic and parochial interests of local gain. The realm of personnel has the most potential for improvement but any change is likely to generate policy implications.     

Country survey XII: South Africa

This article examines the relationship between defence expenditure and economic performance in South Africa, both prior to and after that country's first fully democratic election in 1994. Prior to 1994 defence expenditure decisions were largely dominated by non‐economic factors; since then defence spending has declined in reaction to, inter alia, the need to address a number of socio‐economic inequities.

After 1975 in particular, military industrialisation in South Africa placed a disproportionately high burden on the country's industrial resources and natural economic and technical capabilities. However, although this suggests that the opportunity cost of domestic arms production has been fairly high, the country's poor economic and development performance since the mid‐1970s is a function of underlying structural deficiencies and institutional constraints rather than the consequence of inordinately high defence spending levels.     

美国在非洲维和的经验教训及其启示

开展维和行动是实现联合国宗旨和维护世界安全与稳定的重要手段。作为联合国安理会五大常任理事国之一,美国是联合国完成维和任务不可或缺的,甚至具有决定性作用的国家。冷战时期美国的非洲维和行动在争吵和小心翼翼中进行,冷战后美国的非洲维和战略经历了积极主动向有选择地介入转变的过程,当前美国的非洲维和行动则是在崇尚自主的前提下推广美国特色的维和,以期最大限度地彰显美国实力、维护美国核心利益。审视美国非洲维和战略的演变,汲取足够的经验教训,有利于更好地根据世情和国情定位中国未来的维和战略。     

Why Boko Haram should be on the European Union list of designated terror groups

In the course of the last few years, the Islamic sect Boko Haram has become of great interest to academics, researchers and analysts. At the same time, experts, especially at the European Union (EU) level, have been reluctant to include Boko Haram in the EU list of terrorist organisations, despite the fact that this group has clearly demonstrated its transformation into a terrorist organisation. Security challenges and threats are, by definition, subject to change, and it is the task of security institutions to create policies to address these challenges and threats. Terrorism cannot be addressed in isolation, and policymakers are confronted at all levels with the difficult task of making sense of this evolution. By assessing the current security situation in Nigeria, this commentary tries to ascertain the potential repercussions to regional stability from the Boko Haram phenomenon. Insurgencies have often been initiated from and supported by neighbouring countries and have expanded conflicts across borders. Countering Boko Haram will require various institutions to conduct similar and concurrent counter-insurgent and counter-terrorist operations. At the global level, such co-ordination has often proven difficult. The EU has to keep the pace in this case.     

From control to parasitism

This article sets out to investigate the current paradoxical roles of border control agencies in order to contribute to the theoretical debate on border porosity and related security issues in West Africa. The colonial demarcation of African borders accounts for their porous nature initially, as borderland populations challenged the unjust scission of their cultural, economic, geographical and geopolitical spaces. However, new forms of porosity also evolved over time, masterminded by new actors. Drawing on the Ghana–Togo border case, and through interviews, observation and documentary analysis, this article argues that border control agencies are partly responsible for the current border porosity and attendant security problems as their jurisdiction has shifted to a multi-layered border parasitism. The article is not, however, an attack on border law enforcement agencies; rather it attempts to explore their roles in shielding the region, already exposed to terrorism and piracy, from further security threats.     

Understanding the ‘failure’ of the Séléka rebellion

This paper examines the downfall of the Séléka rebellion, which staged a coup in the Central African Republic in March 2013. The coup plunged the country into violence and chaos, and there has been an uneasy quest for peace ever since. This article explains why the leader of the rebellion lost control over his troops and was finally pushed by regional actors to leave power. The article concludes that the Séléka rebellion was already fragile and, together with the poor leadership demonstrated by the coalition leader, the rebellion was unable to hold on to power.