Between vigilantism and ethnocultural preservation: An investigation into the legitimacy of the non-state policing activities of the Ombatse group among the Eggon people of Nassarawa State,Nigeria

Postmodern contradictions in postcolonial Nigeria have led to the fetishisation of alternative local security measures often labelled as vigilante activities. The profiling of these groups as ethnic militia often undermines their essential bid to provide security while delimiting security needs to the physical. The fallouts of such profiling are frictions between federal security agents and ethnic-based security groups, often resulting in violence, as exemplified by the 7 May 2013 incident between the Nigerian federal security agents and the Ombatse. This study focuses on the emergence and activities of the Ombatse as an alternative security apparatus of the Eggon. It presents three years of field research which entailed the use of ethnography, key informant interviews and observation. The findings reveal that the Ombatse emerged to assert historical legitimacy for both the physical and spiritual securitisation of the Eggon through a return to the ancestral ways of social engineering. The study considers the security challenges in Nigeria, and also situates the Eggon historical context within political, religious, sociocultural and economic intersections of securitisation. It concludes that the Ombatse situates its legitimacy within the Eggon past and retains its relevance through the holistic focus of providing both physical and spiritual security.     

Why Culture Matters: Revisiting the Sino-Indian Border War of 1962

This article examines the nuclear command and control (C²) system implemented in Pakistan since 1998, and discusses its potential consequences for the risk of inadvertent or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons. I argue that troubled civil-military relations and Pakistan's doctrine of ‘asymmetric escalation’ account for the creation of a command and control system with different characteristics during peacetime and military crises. Although the key characteristics of Pakistan's nuclear C² system allow relatively safe nuclear operations during peacetime, operational deployment of nuclear weapons during military standoffs is likely to include only rudimentary protections against inadvertent or unauthorised nuclear release. The implication of this study is that any shift from peacetime to wartime command and control procedures is likely to further destabilise Indo-Pakistani relations during the early stages of a diplomatic or military standoff, and introduce a non-trivial risk of accidental escalation to the nuclear level.     

Horizontal Inequalities and Sons of the Soil Conflict in China

Why are large population movements conflict-prone in some regions while they remain peacefully integrated elsewhere? I argue that clashes between ethnically distinct indigenous populations and migrants – i.e. ‘Sons of the Soil (SoS) conflict’ – erupt when there are large socio-economic and political horizontal inequalities between ‘dominant migrants’ and locals. A comparative case study of two Chinese minority regions based on ethnographic fieldwork and population data provides a vivid illustration of the mechanisms linking migration to SoS conflict. With fewer HIs between migrants and locals, Inner Mongolia avoided many of the violent clashes that were commonplace in Qinghai, a province fraught with disparities.     

Military Expenditure,Endogeneity and Economic Growth

Abstract

While not always a concern for the general economic growth literature, the debate over the effects of military spending on growth continues to develop, with no consensus, but a deepening understanding of the limitations of previous work. One important issue that has not been adequately dealt with is the endogeneity of military spending in the growth equation, mainly because of the difficulty of finding any variables that would make adequate instruments. This paper considers this issue, using an endogenous growth model estimated on a large sample of 109 non-high-income countries for the period 1998–2012. The empirical analysis is framed within an instrumental variable setting that exploits the increase in military spending that occurs when unrest in a country escalates to turmoil. The estimation results show that endogeneity arising from reverse causality is a crucial issue, with the instrumental variable estimates providing a larger significant negative effect of military spending on growth than OLS would. This result is found to be robust to different sources of heterogeneity and different time periods.     

Justice empowered or justice hampered: The International Criminal Court in Darfur

It came as a surprise to many international observers when, on 31 March 2005, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1593, which referred the situation in Darfur to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Some celebrated this event as initiating a new era in which international criminal justice would prevail, but they might have done well to consider the objections immediately raised by the representatives of the Sudanese government, which was not a party to the ICC, a point that created a series of impediments to the implementation of the resolution. For all that the ICC has been charged with investigating crimes against humanity in Darfur, its investigators are being prevented from seeking the evidence on the ground essential to any successful prosecution. The Sudanese government has so far maintained its obstructive position, arguing that it is capable of handling such cases within its own sovereign jurisdiction. The imperative of excluding the ICC from Darfur has contributed to Khartoum's objections to the deployment of a UN force to replace the African Union mission there. In sum: the challenges faced by the ICC in Darfur demonstrate that international criminal justice does not operate in a political vacuum.     

THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE MAKING OF THE FRENCH HYDROGEN BOMB

Based on the first-person account of coauthor Pierre Billaud, a prominent French participant, this article describes for the first time in such detail the history of the development of the French hydrogen bomb in the 1960s and the organization of military nuclear research in France. The authors illustrate the extent to which French defense and governmental authorities did not support research on thermonuclear weapons until 1966. Billaud, a project insider, relates the historical episodes that led to France's successful 1968 thermonuclear test, including the names of the individuals involved and how a timely tip from a foreign source hastened the success of the first H-bomb test.     

Becoming a disarmament champion: the Austrian crusade against nuclear weapons

ABSTRACT

The making of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has put Austria and its involvement in nuclear disarmament in the spotlight. This study highlights several factors that led Austria to become a prominent voice in nuclear-disarmament debates. First, its involvement dovetails with the emphasis on humanitarian disarmament it has promoted since the 1990s. Second, a strong antinuclear identity pervades Austrian society. This “nuclear allergy” combines antimilitarism inherited from the Cold War and, more broadly, an aversion to nuclear power, including for energy purposes. These two considerations form the background to the increased activism of the Austrian Foreign Ministry on nuclear disarmament in international fora. But, equally, Austria’s crusade for the TPNW can be attributed to the engagement of a small team of diplomats implementing personal as well as national preferences in favor of disarmament.     

The fateful phoenix: the revival of Al-Qa’ida in Iraq

Although the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is seen as a novel manifestation of Islamic extremism, it is in fact the latest, albeit perhaps the most effective, of a long line of revivalist movements in the Islamic and the Arab worlds. Its motivations – hisba and jihad – differ little from its predecessors and its ambitions – to create a state organised in accordance with the precepts of the Islamic caliphate – reflect a long-standing Islamic ambition. It differs, of course, in terms of the sophistication of its political and military strategies, which mirror the contemporary complexities of the world in which it operates, but its objectives recall long-standing Islamic ideals, even if articulated in radically brutal and extremist ways. More importantly, perhaps, ISIS or Da’ish, to give it its Arabic sobriquet, reflects the enormous degree of resentment inside the Middle East at the ways in which Western powers have intervened in regional affairs over recent years, particularly their support for regimes and economic systems there that have betrayed, in the popular imaginary, the essential principles of social justice that lie at the root of Islamic vision of ideal social order. Indeed, in many respects, its analysis of the world in which it operates and of the objectives it seeks differ little in essence from those any other resistance and rejectionist movement, whether religious or sectarian. More specifically, it has been the sectarian conflict that resulted from the reversal of political order in Iraq as a result of the 2003 American-led invasion that has driven the success of the movement in capturing widespread Sunni support. Whether it can manage the complexities of the administration of a state remains open to question.     

Collective security and strategic instability in the digital domain

Cyberspace experiences worrying trends that could have a negative impact on the international strategic landscape. The lack or erosion of norms and risky practices and behaviors could lead to greater uncertainty and thus greater instability. Set against a context of renewed competition between great powers, these developments are also tied to the strategic structure of cyberspace. This forum is devoted to discussing factors leading to stability or and instability.