Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria

Since the July 2009 Boko Haram terrorist outburst in Nigeria, there have been increasing questions on the phenomenon in the country. There has not been any substantial analysis on the emergence of the Boko Haram group and its terrorist activities in Nigeria as the out-rage continues. This study is advanced to explain the phenomenon of Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria. It employs the levels of analysis framework popular in the field of international relations to explain the terrorism at three major levels: individual, state and international. The study relies on dependable news reports, which include interviews with key actors relevant to the subject matter, and finds that Boko Haram terrorism has its roots in the ideology and motivations of its founder and members, the failures and deficiencies of the Nigerian state, and the modern trend of religious terrorism in the international system.     

Deferred verification: verifiable declarations of fissile-material stocks for disarmament purposes

ABSTRACT

Nuclear disarmament is often seen as eventually requiring access to nuclear warheads or to the warhead-dismantlement process to verify that a state has not hidden weapons or weapon-materials despite promising to disarm. This article suggests this view is misplaced, and that what is needed is a verification mechanism able to provide reliable assurances of the absence of fissile materials available for use in weapons after a state has disarmed. Such a mechanism will need an initial declaration of the amount of fissile materials held by a state for all purposes, military and civilian. In a state with a nuclear arsenal awaiting elimination, this declaration would have to include materials that may not be available for verification because they are in nuclear weapons or are in other classified or proliferation-sensitive forms. This article describes a verification arrangement that does not require access to materials in weapons and in sensitive forms while still allowing checks on the overall accuracy of the declaration. Verification of the completeness and correctness of the declaration is deferred to the time when the weapons-relevant material enters the disposition process, at which point it no longer has any sensitive attributes. By removing the focus on monitoring warheads and dismantlement, this new approach could provide a more manageable path to nuclear disarmament.     

The Power of the NPT: International Norms and Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament

ABSTRACT

There is a lingering disagreement among scholars on how the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) affects nonproliferation and disarmament outcomes. Drawing on constructivist scholarship on international norms, this article examines the extent of the NPT's effect in the case of Ukraine's nuclear disarmament. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Ukraine found itself host to the world's third largest nuclear arsenal. Despite Ukraine's initial commitment to become a non-nuclear state, it proceeded along a difficult path toward NPT accession. Most controversial and directly at odds with the NPT was Ukraine's claim to ownership of its nuclear inheritance as a successor state of the Soviet Union. This article argues that, while much domestic discourse about the fate of these nuclear weapons was embedded in the negotiation of Ukraine's new identity as a sovereign state vis-à-vis Russia and the West, the NPT played an important, structural role by outlining a separate normative space for nuclear weapons and providing the grammar of denuclearization with which Ukraine's decision makers had to grapple.     

MIDDLE EAST NONPROLIFERATION

The Middle East is a crucial region for the global nonproliferation regime. In 2010, the state parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons proposed a conference on a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone. The nuclear weapon-free zone model, on which this idea builds, has achieved important results in other regions, but faces especially stark challenges in the Middle East. However, the attempt to apply the boldly imaginative zone approach to the Middle East holds promise for building a more inclusive dialogue on nonproliferation and regional security.     

NONPROLIFERATION POLICY CROSSROADS:

On October 1, 2008, Congress enacted a proposal that originated with President George W. Bush in 2005 to approve an unprecedented nuclear trade pact with India by removing a central pillar of US nonproliferation policy. Despite the numerous political challenges confronting the Bush administration, the initiative won strong bipartisan support, including votes from Democratic Senators Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. The four-year struggle to pass the controversial US-India nuclear trade agreement offers an exceptionally valuable case study. It demonstrates a classic tradeoff between the pursuit of broad multilateral goals such as nuclear nonproliferation and advancement of a specific bilateral relationship. It reveals enduring fault lines in executive branch relations with Congress. It vividly portrays challenges confronting proponents of a strong nonproliferation regime. This article is based on an analysis of the negotiating record and congressional deliberations, including interviews with key participants. It assesses the lessons learned and focuses on three principal questions: how did the agreement seek to advance US national security interests?; what were the essential elements of the prolonged state-of-the-art lobbying campaign to win approval from skeptics in Congress?; and what are the agreement's actual benefits—and costs—to future US nonproliferation efforts?     

The Problem of Weak Nuclear States

Governments are increasingly recognizing the problem posed by internally weak nuclear-capable states. The problem, however, is under-theorized. This article brings together literature on sovereignty and international order, the nonproliferation regime, and weak states, and introduces new concepts to provide a more structured understanding of this problem. Insight comes from focusing attention on the function and governance of two nuclear estates (termed the production and operational estates), and on their resilience to decay and disorder occurring within the state and society. Drawing on empirical observation, the authors suggest a typology of weakness in nuclear states, involving state fragmentation typified by the former Soviet Union, the “hard weak state” typified by North Korea, and the internally conflicted state typified by Pakistan. Although these types give rise to distinctive difficulties, their alleviation depends heavily on the maintenance of internal authority within the state and estates, the presence or absence of cooperative relations, and the international regulatory framework's vitality.     

Country survey V: Poland and its arms industry

This study — which is a country survey — deals with basic problems of the functioning of the Polish arms industry in the conditions of systemic transformation, that has taken place in Poland since 1989. It also reflects new political and military conditions and changes in the economic system, commonly called marketization. The study is focused on reasons for the bad economic state of the enterprises engaged in military production, which include a drastic drop in demand on home and foreign markets. The study discusses the main direction of activities that are planned to reshape and adjust military production to the new, changed conditions covering such problems as ownership and organization changes as well as prospects for conversion.     

Better is the Neighbor?

Abstract

This study applies the Sequential Panel Selection Method (SPSM), to investigate the convergence properties of the military expenditure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the period of 1990–2015. Compared to the traditional methods, SPSM considers fundamentally general spatial homogeneous and heterogeneous relationships with countries and examines the evolution of military expenditure. We find that four-fifths of NATO member countries have been convergent with the UK, but no country’s military expenditure is convergent with the US. This means that there is no significant linkage effect in the US for NATO military expenditure. While they are allies of the US, the majority of NATO member countries’ military expenditures are consistent with UK military expenditure. The main reasons are due to the geographical space layout and the international relationship convergence. The results indicate that more than four-fifths of NATO member countries have been coordinated with convergence theory and spillover effect.     

PEACEKEEPERS AS PERPETRATORS OF ABUSE

I am afraid there is clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place. This is a shameful thing for the United Nations to have to say, and I am absolutely outraged by it.

—Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General

Despite promulgating a comprehensive set of guidelines to deter UN personnel from committing acts of sexual misconduct, allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse have become widespread within United Nations peacekeeping missions. The policy of zero-tolerance for peacekeeper misconduct has not been matched by strong disciplinary measures, and crimes are often ignored and rarely punished: absentee fathers, rapists and murderers simply disappear back in their home countries. In countries where women and children rarely have the same economic resources, political rights and authority or control over their environment—or their bodies—they easily become prey for those in perceived positions of power and authority. By failing to hold those responsible to account, the UN may in fact be fuelling even greater discrimination and violence against women and children. In order to ensure those who are mandated to protect to do not become perpetrators of abuse, the UN must take a stronger stand against those who commit acts of sexual misconduct, and must ensure that victims see that their abuser is brought to justice and that reparation is offered. A recent report submitted by the Secretary-General's Special Envoy on Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse makes a comprehensive set of recommendations to prevent, detect, and respond to these allegations. The aim of this essay is to highlight some of the main points of the Special Envoy's report, and to examine the practical challenges the UN and troop/police contributing countries will face when attempting to implement these recommendations.     

A Muslim by any other name

Abstract

A crisis is emerging in the Nile Basin, where some 300 million people in Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi rely on the Nile directly or indirectly. Egypt and Sudan wish to preserve a regime based on treaties drawn up during the colonial era that allocated the vast majority of the Nile's water to them. Countries upstream are determined to challenge this. In 1999 the countries using the river formed the Nile Basin Initiative to try to resolve these differences. More than a decade of negotiations failed to break the impasse. In May Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda decided to wait no longer and signed a new treaty, without the consent of Egypt and Sudan. The signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries one year to join the pact. For Egypt, which relies on the Nile for 95 per cent of its water, this is a question of life or death. Egypt has, in the past, indicated it will go to war if its share of the Nile is reduced. Talks continue, but the impasse is driving the region towards a crisis to which there is no easy resolution.