China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are deepening their security cooperation and, as a result, pose a growing challenge to the United States and its allies. These countries see the United States and ...its allies as a threat, have aggressive aims, and believe that the Western liberal order detracts from their stability and hinders their regional objectives. Although the depth of their relations is not as robust as that enjoyed by their Western rivals, their growing cooperation is a significant development in the global balance of power and has major implications for the West. US and allied planners must recognise that they cannot focus on only one adversary, such as China, and that a crisis in one part of the world is increasingly less likely to stay isolated, as each power may receive weapons, economic support and other assistance from others during a crisis.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The article analyses the renewed importance of bilateralism for the UK’s engagement with individual EU member states in relation to security and defence policy. By systematically scrutinising the ...bilateral agreements with 18 EU countries concluded between the EU membership referendum in 2016 and the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership in 2022, we argue that the United Kingdom currently finds itself in the process of transitioning from one policy regime (multilateralism) to another (bilateralism); we try to make sense of this strategy by looking at it through the lens of four key aspects stemming from regime theory, namely (1) triggering factors; (2) institutional design and adaptation; (3) path dependency; and (4) regime sustainability. The analysis shows how the sustainability of a purely bilateral regime, with its high degree of customisation and intrinsic reliance on specific reciprocity, is precarious, albeit while leaving open the possibility to incorporate a future multilateral component.
Full text
Available for:
FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The aim of this policy commentary is two-fold. First, to examine new historical research regarding the political, cultural, and social drivers informing the design and implementation of Mexico’s ‘war ...on drugs’ – a set of state policies centered on punitive and militarized responses towards the drug problem – during the first and second halves of the twentieth-century. Second, to analyze how the longer history of Mexico’s war on drugs can help us better understand this country’s enduring reliance on such punitive and militarized approaches despite the detrimental consequences these had and continue to have on citizens’ wellbeing and on the country’s democratic institutions.
Training other countries’ armed forces is a go-to foreign policy tool for the United States and other states. A growing literature explores the effects of military training, but researchers lack ...detailed data on training activities. To assess the origins and consequences of military training, as well as changing patterns over time, this project provides a new, global dataset of US foreign military training. This article describes the scope of the data along with the variables collected, coding procedures, and spatial and temporal patterns. We demonstrate the added value of the data in their much greater coverage of training activities, showing differences from both existing datasets and aggregate foreign military aid data. Reanalyzing prior research findings linking US foreign military training to the risk of coups d’état in recipient states, we find that this effect is limited to a single US program representing a small fraction of overall US training activities. The data show comprehensively how the United States attempts to influence partner military forces in a wide variety of ways and suggest new avenues of research.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Since its accession to the European Union, the United Kingdom has played an important role in the design and development of the European Union’s foreign, security and defence policy. While it is ...among the founding members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it is also one of the main contributors to European security and played an active part in developing the relationship between both organisations. With the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, questions concerning the implications of Brexit on European Union–North Atlantic Treaty Organization cooperation arise. As the transatlantic bridge between the two organisations, Britain also faces an uncertain position within the European security architecture. It therefore needs to redefine its relations with the European Union and its own position among other member states. Taking into account the development of national security interests and recent political events, this article develops three possible scenarios that may occur for the European Union–North Atlantic Treaty Organization relationship depending on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This preliminary study focuses on the change in the regional security order caused by the U.S.-China competition and its impact on South Korea-Japan relations. The ongoing U.S.-China relations has ...expanded beyond the discussion of cooperation and competition between existing and emerging powers, as well as the debate over the influence and resilience of the U.S.-led liberal international order. The significance of the U.S.-China competition in the security order in East Asia depends on whether China will accept the existing U.S.-led bilateral alliance system and take a status quo attitude. As a result, the U.S. allies, South Korea and Japan, need to respond sensitively to the changing nature of the security order. In this vein, this study explains the East Asian security order as elements of power structure, institutions, and actors. In addition, it explains the emergence of China as a new hegemonic power due to the U.S.-China competition, the hub-and-spokes system changes according to the U.S. rebalancing policy, and the emergence of Trumpism. Through this, the author argues two claims. First, the change in U.S.-China relations has led to different expectations between Seoul and Tokyo for cooperation with the U.S., which has hindered bilateral cooperation between them. Second, divergent views on China also hinder South Korea-Japan cooperation. Through the Senkaku dispute between Japan and China and the missile deployment dispute between South Korea and China, the two countries later showed different directions in their policy toward China. In the current competitive situation, restrictions on South Korea-Japan relations are inevitable. However, if the opportunity to promote security cooperation between South Korea and Japan is sought, it will be able to show the cooperation of middle power countries that can develop the security order to mitigate the intensity of U.S.-China competition.
The need for security and defence cooperation is a significant driver bringing together many nation‑state groupings. Today, the renewal and strengthening of this cooperation is a pressing concern for ...all such alliances around the world. This cooperation is rooted in the history that initially highlighted its potential, but it also encompasses contemporary relationships formed under the influence of enormous challenges and pressures. Finally it draws on the past successes and failures of the group in question. The aim of this study is to trace the beginnings of the security‑related cooperation of the Visegrad countries and locate the point of coordination of their respective security policies. My methodology is based on an analysis and synthesis of key source materials, making use of different types of analytical approaches. In order to identify the factors that connected the V4 states, I have applied a comparative method. My conclusion highlights important areas of security‑related cooperation ranging from the coordination of energy policies to military and defence matters and social protection including the fight against extremism, radicalism and hybrid threats.
Multiple documents from the White House, Congress, and from within the Department of Defense describe the imperative to work with allies and partners toward long-term advancement of the U.S. and ...partners' interests. These same documents also often stress the importance of the cyberspace as a warfighting domain and a U.S. and international interest. However, there is no clear strategy or methodology today that explicitly links the building of partner capacity within the cyber domain. This paper serves as a primer for discussion on how to bridge cyber operations and partner capacity by proposing a concept of Cyber Engagement Teams (CETs). CETs would seeks to expand on current Foreign Internal Defense (FID), Security Force Assistance (SFA) or other cooperation and engagement apparatuses. Taking advantage of similar successes and lessons learned over the many decades by those units engaging in FID, SFA, and other security cooperation mechanisms, the U.S. has an opportunity establish a cadre of functional cyber experts to complement the traditional and existing engagement models. These forward deployed CETs would work with and train U.S. allies in areas of network operations, cyber security, and even offensive cyber operations while at the same time providing a viable mechanism to hold the adversary's target networks and systems at risk. By working with indigenous forces, CETs would situate U.S. and friendly forces and capabilities in a better position to counter Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) threats, to hold adversary command and control (C2) networks at risk by working "by, with, and through" friendly nations, and would develop lasting relationships. CETs are a logical tool to contend with cyber adversaries through friendly engagement, collective security, and partnering.
The U.S. Government recently adapted U.S. policy, code, and joint doctrine to provide greater authorities to the Department of Defense to conduct Security Cooperation (SC). U.S. policy and law now ...requires increased transparency into the effects of these activities towards the achievement of U.S. national security objectives. In response to these changes, U.S. Special Operations Command should implement changes in education and training to improve the capacity of Special Operations Forces (SOF) to assess and plan for SC activities and to monitor and evaluate the results of these activities. SOF can enable greater fidelity through learning to develop objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). SOF can then link SMART objectives to planned "Theory of Change"-driven operational approaches and systematic assessment, monitoring, and evaluation methods to learn and adjust current and future SC activities to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of internal processes and activities, measure progress along SC lines of effort under execution, and better account for the return on investment reaped from their Security Cooperation lines of effort.
This study aims to explain why countries maintain security cooperation with a partner even though they are in the middle of severe tensions. This is experienced by the Republic of Korea (ROK), which ...preferred to maintain its security cooperation with Japan under the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). This research utilizes the concept of abandonment fears to explain South Korea's behavior in reversing its self-declared withdrawal from GSOMIA in 2019. By conducting a deductive-qualitative research approach, this research shows that South Korea was in a position of abandonment fears—fears of being ignored by Japan—magnified by the uncertainty of US commitment. For now, South Korea considers Japan as the most likely partner choice in the region. Thus, Seoul decided to maintain the partnership with Japan within the GSOMIA framework and compromise its grievances with the latter.
PDF
