Upstream engagement and downstream entanglements: The assumptions,opportunities, and threats of partnering

This article addresses Western recruitment and management of personnel from non-Western countries in armed forces as part of a strategy of state stabilisation, examining its risks and benefits. ‘SFA’ (Security Forces Assistance) to indigenous forces has long been practised by the West and seems to have returned in recent years in a new form with the creation of armies in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, while providing cheap, proxy substitutes for the West and offering opportunities for state-building, the policy creates its own problems and can have significant, negative consequences.     

美国网络安全战略管理体系分析

文章从美国政府颁布的政策文件、法律法规和各机构部门的职能三个方面,对美国网络安全战略管理体系进行了介绍和分析。     

国家安全中枢的构筑——对十八届三中全会决定“设立国家安全委员会”的解读

国家安全委员会具有“内外兼备”的基本职能,即：将维护国家安全与创新社会治理、创新有效预防和化解社会矛盾体制、健全公共安全体系等内政事务并列并举,在维护国内安全稳定方面也肩负重任。它较之现今的“国安领导小组”更为广泛和重要,是一个应对有别于国家日常工作之外的应急的危机管理机构,是应对可能的、突发的、潜在的对国家安全、利益构成威胁的前瞻性机构。     

Is strategic studies narrow? Critical security and the misunderstood scope of strategy

Critical security advocates commonly portray strategic studies as crippled by its narrow focus on Cold War-era military issues, as state-centric and as Western-centric. I argue that this conception of the scope of strategy is flawed and I offer a comprehensive rebuttal by working out the logic of the theories advanced by Carl von Clausewitz and Thomas Schelling. The proponents of critical security overlook the striking expansion of strategy during the Cold War, its longstanding inclusion of competing political actors not just states, as well as its capacity to put Western and non-Western actors in a common analytic frame. By breaking out of the conceptual jails in which strategy has been incarcerated, I seek to reconnect International Relations to strategic thought from which it has become increasingly estranged.     

The role and capabilities of major weapon systems transferred between 1950 and 2010: Empirical examinations of an arms transfer data set

Arms transfers provide exporters an avenue to provide security to other states while gaining economic benefits. Arms transfers provide importers an avenue to gain security without having to rely on alliances. Past research uses aggregate measures of the monetary or security value of major weapon system transfers without accounting for strategic differences in possible use in interstate and civil conflict. This article presents a data set on interstate transfers of major weapon systems between 1950 and 2010 building upon Stockholm Peach Research Institute’s Arms Trade Register with several improvements. First, it disaggregates land weapons and air weapons into categories reflecting their strategic capabilities. Second, model level characteristics (e.g. age, speed, and range) are drawn from Jane’s Defence sources. Additionally, the data set covers a larger range of time and states than previous data sets categorizing arms. To demonstrate the usefulness, this article first presents summary statistics of the data set and then replicates an earlier test to show that the effect of human rights and regime types on United States transfers differs across the categories of arms compared to alternative measures of arms transfers.     

Can security vetting be extended to include the detection of financial misconduct?

An analysis of the security vetting files of 19 employees within a South African national department who had been found guilty of financial misconduct in the last five years uncovered that the existing security vetting processes did not detect the financial misconduct of which these employees have been found guilty. This research sets out to establish whether security vetting can be extended to include the detection of financial misconduct within the department and, if so, how. Moreover, if security vetting can indeed be so extended, can it possibly enhance the management of fraud risk across all South African public sector departments? Qualitative interviews were conducted with 27 employees who are key to fraud risk management and security vetting within the researched department. During the interviews, the following five themes emerged: (1) the reasons why employees commit financial misconduct; (2) why it is not detected by the security vetting process; (3) the potential alignment of the security vetting process to facilitate the detection of financial misconduct; (4) the following through on security vetting findings; and (5) sharing these findings with the internal audit and risk management functions within state departments. These themes were probed and are reported on, establishing firstly that security vetting can indeed be extended to include the detection of financial misconduct within the researched department, and secondly that it can enhance the management of fraud risk across all South African public sector departments, given the specific mandate of the State Security Agency (SSA) and the national security vetting strategy.     

Civilian protection in Africa: How the protection of civilians is being militarized by African policymakers and diplomats

This article explores how the protection of civilians is being militarized by African policymakers and diplomats. I draw on practice approaches to analyze what social groups are doing when they claim to “protect civilians.” I show how innovative protection mechanisms can be seen as a function of officials and diplomats coping with the changing circumstances of increasingly militarized politics in Africa. Specifically, accountability mechanisms for unintended and intended civilian harm by African security operations have originated in connection with this development. I argue that these are results of anchoring practices, which means that everyday informal interactions in one context become linked to another context. I argue that these emerging accountability mechanisms represent a new combination of practices, with the potential of changing the routine activities and mutual learning between policymakers and diplomats.     

墨家思想对守护网络空间安全和平的启示

墨家思想就是中华传统文化和思想宝库中的重要代表,其倡导的"兼爱""非攻""备御""尚贤"等思想为后世所传承发展并借鉴利用。网络空间国际关系的协调和安全环境的治理,是当前国际上探索和研究的重点,我国应为其贡献中华民族的智慧,墨家思想的精髓可以为我们更好地认识网络空间发展规律、国际关系并维护好网络空间安全和平提供借鉴启示。     

纳米技术与国家安全

纳米技术的兴起为全世界带来了一场全新的科技变革。纳米技术在信息、化工、医药、农业、环保、航空航天等众多领域具有重要的应用价值和广阔的发展前景,被誉为21世纪的三大高新技术之一。然而,经过近五十余年的发展,纳米技术的"双刃剑"效应逐渐显现,纳米技术的滥用对国家安全可能产生的风险正在日益积聚,集中体现在人类健康与生态环境、国家经济安全、国防安全等领域。     

SECURITY GOVERNANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA

In the ten years since the establishment of South Africa's first inclusive democratic government, an ambitious, extensive and systematic process of reform has been carried out in the governance of security. The process is widely regarded as having been successful and a model for other processes of ‘security sector reform’ in the context of transitions from authoritarian forms of governance to democratic ones.

That this been achieved with hardly a shot fired in anger is a remarkable achievement and a credit to visionary political leadership as well as organisational capacity, in other words to effective security governance.

At the same time, progress has been uneven and sometimes fragmentary, policy intentions and commitments have not always been translated into practice, the end results have not been to everyone's liking, and transformation has engendered its own pathologies. Thus several challenges remain in improving security governance.

This article provides a broad overview of the roles played by the various actors in the governance of the security sector, including the executive, parliament and civil society. It examines the main policy frameworks and touches on organisational transformation, because it is impossible to deal with governance in isolation from these issues. Policy processes and the frameworks they give rise to—in particular—are critical for effective governance. This article deals with the defence, safety and security and intelligence fields. A comprehensive overview would need to include the governance of criminal justice and foreign policy. The article does not seek to make an overall evaluation of governance, but to identify achievements, shortfalls and challenges.