‘Today we shall drink blood’: internal unrest in Nigeria

Despite some tentative internal peace agreements, Nigeria continues to face violence from multiple groups. This violence feeds upon itself, with segments of the population being mobilized both for self defense and for pressing their ideological and practical goals. These multiple sources of violence, which the Nigerian government appears unable to control to any significant degree, have a long term corrosive effect on the country's internal stability. There are few reasons to be sanguine as to any rapid changes to the level of overall violence or the relative number of armed groups, although their specific identities may shift. Nigeria represents a good case study of a country in which relatively low but persistent violence by a multiplicity of groups can have major impacts on internal security.     

Capacity and competence: full-spectrum counterinsurgency in the Horn of Africa

From 2006 to 2011, al Qaeda's East African proxy, al Shabaab, served as de facto ruling party of Somalia despite the efforts of the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government (TFG). During these five years, a violent struggle between al Shabaab and the Burundian and Ugandan Peacekeepers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) resulted in thousands of dead civilians, hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, and a strategic environment inhospitable to reconciliation, recovery, or development. Beginning in August 2011, AMISOM was able to break the deadlock and force al Shabaab from Mogadishu, then subsequently, Kismayo, and ultimately to consolidate and reorganize in the Somali hinterland. In order to continue the momentum, the African Union and other partner nations must support the newly recognized Somali Federal Government (SFG), neutralize al Shabaab, and provide good governance to its constituents. Al Shabaab's revenue streams must be shut down and their offensive capability must be degraded while the strategic environment is shaped to ensure that conditions conducive to a revival do not exist. Failure to do so will likely see Somalia continuing to produce Islamic extremists and pirates to menace international maritime traffic in the Western Indian Ocean, destabilize East Africa, and adversely impact millions.     

BOOK REVIEWS

This study examines how young people who have joined the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) on the two-year Military Skills Development System (MSDS) contract experience military service, and the effect this has on their ability to readapt to civilian life. The first part of the study examines the theoretical debates associated with military socialisation and reintegration into civilian life. Hereafter, the findings are presented in terms of the experiences of MSDS privates serving in the infantry, those that have left, and the perceptions of employment agencies in terms of the marketability of military skills. The conclusion is reached that MSDS members experience their two years in the SANDF as life-changing, that this affects their ability to reintegrate back into civilian society, and that the skills acquired during military training is of limited market value. The conclusion is reached that more needs to be done to assist these young military veterans to adapt to civilian life and to augment their military experience with more marketable skills to enable them to find gainful employment.     

Book review

This paper investigates the economic roots of separatist terrorism in Turkey. The political conventional wisdom is that poverty in highly Kurdish‐populated, south‐eastern Turkey is one of the most important causes of separatist terrorism and Turkish–Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Therefore, many economic policies have been implemented to improve the economic conditions in the south‐eastern part of the country. Using the Global Terrorism Database and Vector Autoregression (VAR) methodology, I find that there is no causal relationship between economic conditions in south‐eastern Turkey and separatist terrorism. Therefore policy‐makers should be cautious in using economic measures to prevent separatist terrorism in Turkey.     

U.S. Troops and Foreign Economic Growth

By way of an evolutionary game model we show that mediation in international conflicts might be harmful to the conflicting parties. In fact, under anarchy both parties can be better off than under an international regime if mediation reduces the parties’ reactive capacities (i.e. their abilites to respond to an aggression). This result is applied to issues currently discussed in the literature on international relations such as the role of the United Nations as a mediator of international conflicts.     

SOCIAL PREFERENCES FOR NATIONAL DEFENCE AND POLICE ENFORCEMENT IN WESTERN EUROPE

We study the determinants of social preferences for national defence and for police and law enforcement. For this task, we estimate a bivariate ordered probit model for a set of European countries (France, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden) in 2006. Determinants of spending decisions for defence and police are found to be linked but are of significantly different magnitudes. Besides, measures against terrorist threats are positively linked to police and defence spending increases, while the subjective perception of fiscal pressure has no influence. Finally, no significant differences are found between Northern and Southern Europe.