As security threats have altered from regional instability caused by ‘rogue states’, to overarching security concerns which can come from non-state actors and state-actors alike, actors in the international arena have been urged to shift their attention towards the causes of these menaces; dysfunctional societies.
Radical Islam has come to play a very significant position within the international realm. It has taken terrorism, which was always a weapon of the weak, though usually with little perceived effect, and created what can be seen as a quite considerable challenge to globalisation and the international community.
This paper will highlight the significance of the AIDS pandemic in South Saharan Africa and assess the linkages between HIV/AIDS and poverty, both at a macro and micro level. It will argue that the dynamics of the epidemic are a cause as well as a symptom of poverty and underdevelopment in the region.
Although breaches to the torture ban could suggest the uselessness of international human rights law when national interests and politics are involved, it has an undeniable role in the development of legal condemnation against torture
Migrants have come to fill an essential role in the global economy, yet at the same time states are problematizing immigration as a challenge to its security, sovereignty, economy, and social fabric. States with high levels of outward migration celebrate their emigrants as new heroes for the profits they send to their home state.
A nuclear Iran will go one of two ways. It will either have no obvious effect, the weapon won’t be used for fear of repercussion yet conventional wars will continue; a stalemate. Or, the Middle East will face the prospect of a complete breakdown as either Iran is pre-empted, Israel feels cornered by the likely arms race or technology is leaked; the only recourse available will be war.
This essay argues that neo-colonialist discourses were present within the U.S. at the time of the Afghanistan War and served to demonise and essentialise Islamic culture in general, whilst removing from debate the historical political landscape of Afghanistan. Such historical accounts are essential to understand the roots of women’s insecurity in the nation, which persist to this day.
It appears there is a trade-off between the security of some and the liberty of others. This perception of a trade-off between security and liberty is particularly convincing when evidence from the on-going war on terror is used to illustrate the argument. It is possible to argue that any trade-off between liberty and security is short-term and illusory.
The Bush administration’s support for missile-defence was motivated by a desire to maintain freedom of action, and thus unipolar hegemony, vis-à-vis ostensibly un-deterrable rogue states. However, it is evident that BMD is strategically flawed, technically disputed and has the potential to destabilise existing arms dynamics.
The dominant Western rhetoric enforces the portrayal of Hamas as a static organisation, its violent and ‘fanatical’ behaviour rendering it as innately characteristic while contradictory evidence is marginalised as irrelevant. This myopic approach has failed to understand Hamas, and for peace ever to be achieved this paradigm must be broken.
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