Prospects for Closer GCC Military and Political Cooperation

Abstract

‘[Sovereignty] is possible only within the framework of multinational communities, of common institutions designed to provide common responses to common challenges. Security is no longer attainable in the traditional way. Neither the walled city nor the nation-state can provide protection against attack or threats of physical destruction… Increasingly the politics of nations revolve around the careful management of interdependence.’     

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.     

Success and Failure in Terrorist Investigations: Research and Lessons from Northern Ireland

Police investigations of terrorist incidents are rarely straightforward. This paper reports the findings of research that looked at low-level paramilitary attacks in Northern Ireland which have taken place during the ceasefire era. Of 500 incidents studied, 28 were followed by the arrest of suspects. The study examines what factors were important for linking later arrests with other features of the incident. These results are discussed in terms of the wider implications for the successful investigation of paramilitary offences and in terms of the specific implications for investigative policing within Northern Ireland.     

Security,autonomy and defense burdens: The effects of alliance membership in the 19th and 20th centuries

This paper investigates the effect of alliance membership on the defense burdens of major powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. We hypothesize that the reactions of states to alliance membership will be different in the pre‐nuclear and nuclear eras. Possession of nuclear weapons by allies makes the security provided by the alliance more akin to a collective good than is the case in the pre‐nuclear era. States join alliances for two reasons: security and autonomy. The effects of each of these concerns are identified. We include in our model such alliance‐level factors as the power equivalence of the allies and the number of states in the alliance. We also look at state‐level variables such as power position within the alliance. We conclude that the nuclear period generally operates as the free‐rider principle would posit, while models based on “complementarity of effort” are more applicable in the earlier period.