Nuclear Disarmament: The Case Against
As US President Barack Obama outlined his ambitious vision of a world without nuclear weapons, this essay proposes to analyse whether nuclear disarmament is indeed a more serious policy option today than at the dawn of the atomic age in 1945 or at the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
Private Military & Security Companies and the Pursuit of Legitimacy
Junio Valerio Palomba provides an alternative insight on the nature of private military and security companies and their activities. Specifically, he demonstrates how recent changes in the organization and structure of the market for force – such as the disappearance of combat operations – can be interpreted and explained through the theoretical lens of legitimacy.
Public War, Private Soldiers
On September 16, 2007, the issue of private military firms exploded out of the dry confines of academic debate and into the public consciousness as bright, bloody pictures blanketed the newspapers and television networks that had long ignored the subject. Seventeen Iraqis had been violently killed and more than twenty others wounded while they went about their business in Nisour Square, in the heart of Baghdad’s once fashionable Mansour District.
Strategic Partnership or Contending Coalitions? An Analysis of EU-NATO Relations
Fundamental problems, both structural and political, continue to characterise the EU-NATO relationship as one of ‘contending coalitions’. Yet, recent shifts in the attitudes of major actors coupled with success in simultaneous operations suggest there is potential for a ‘strategic partnership’ to emerge.
Pursuing Peace with the Weapons of War: Ballistic Missile Defence and International Security
This paper will show that the implementation of ballistic missile defence systems is a threat to international peace and security. It will examine of the concept of ballistic missile defence, the cases for and against its implementation and the current realities that are of consideration and its role in international peace and security.
Ballistic Missile Defence and 21st Century Stability in International Relations
This essay determines the effect of National Missile Defence (NMD) is primarily destabilising. However this has to be put in the wider context of relations between the US, China and Russia – for the destabilising effect of NMD is very much characterised by how it is used and what kind of policy it is a part of.
What are the Challenges to Nuclear Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age?
This first introduces nuclear deterrence during the Cold War before considering nuclear proliferation and nuclear deterrence more broadly. It then examines state methods of responding to transnational terrorism, and finally explores further issues in contemporary international security challenging the centrality of deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age.
Terror in the Maghreb
Terrorism in the Islamic Maghreb (lit. “the West”) has been given relatively little attention in the post-9/11 era, in spite of a new journalistic and academic obsession with terrorism spanning nearly a decade. Terrorism in North Africa has been relegated to secondary importance, overshadowed by terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Occupied Territories. Terror in the Maghreb is nonetheless on the rise, and has been shown to have intimate links with violence in other regions of the Islamic world such as Iraq.
The Role Played by ‘spoilers’ in Peace Processes
Peace processes are very often lengthy and difficult, many cease-fires negotiated to end civil wars often result in a return to violence, sometimes worse than before. This essay will examine the role of those actors who ‘actively seek to hinder, delay, or undermine conflict settlement’ for a range of reasons and through a variety of methods.
Did the Creation of NATO Prevent the Establishment of Europe as a ‘third force’ Between East and West During the Cold War?
There was never sufficient political will for an independent European security identity to be pursued in the early years of the Cold War. European states actively put their trust in the United States to act as guarantor for the continent.
