I argue that favorable access to sovereign credit provides governments with greater autonomy to invest in security by allowing political incumbents to relax fixed-budget constraints. Borrowing ...permits leaders to delay and minimize the macroeconomic and redistributive costs associated with domestic sources of finance. Consequently, leaders of creditworthy states face fewer political costs when increasing military expenditure in response to growing demand or maintaining military expenditure when government revenues fall. A cross-sectional time-series analysis supports two observable implications of the argument. First, creditworthiness is positively associated with military spending with an effect on par with regime type. Second, creditworthiness conditions the effect of external threats on military expenditure, suggesting that poor credit terms constrain the provision of security.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates once again that hybrid threats are increasingly challenging European countries. Although there is international cooperation on the conceptual level, individual ...countries are responsible for the actual implementation of counter hybrid measures. This article compares the approaches of Finland, Germany and the Netherlands to counter hybrid threats, while taking into consideration their strategic culture. It shows that the countries differ in their approach to counter hybrid threats in terms of their organisation of security and the scope of measures taken to deter adversaries. These differences are mainly rooted in historical, institutional and political processes. The countries are rather similar in detecting hybrid threats and responding to hybrid attacks, which can be explained by the nature of hybrid threats. Consequently, strategic culture is a context that shapes but not ultimately determines how Finland, Germany and the Netherlands counter hybrid threats. The results of this article suggest that our current understanding of strategic culture is insufficient to describe and explain an actor’s security policy in the contemporary security environment. It is recommended that the concept of strategic culture should be revised and has to be examined more broadly by including national security issues and a broad spectrum of instruments of power.
The year 2017 has been a remarkable one for European security and defence. The work began with the EU Global Strategy (EUGS), presented by High Representative and Vice President (HRVP) Federica ...Mogherini in June 2016, a mere 48 hours after the UK vote to leave the European Union (EU HRVP, 2016a). At that time, all talk was about a potential disintegrative domino effect across the Union (Lichfield, 2016). Against the current, right when the Union was living through its deepest existential crisis, the HRVP pushed ahead with the EUGS. Only a few months later, the Council welcomed an ambitious Security and Defence Implementation Plan, which aimed to translate the security and defence dimension of the EUGS into reality (EU HRVP, 2016b). To do so, a new Level of Ambition and 13 tasks were identified in November 2016, endorsed politically by the European Council a month later (European Council, 2016). The year 2017 was entirely devoted to the implementation of these tasks, leading to significant activism in European security and defence. Talk about a ‘European Security and Defence Union ’ and a ‘Europe of Defence’ became louder as the months went by (Lazarou, 2016), culminating in declarations of a ‘new EU’ as the year came to an end (EEAS, 2017). All this took place while the Union began grappling with Brexit and lived through a succession of key national elections in Austria, the Netherlands, France and Germany, in which the spectre of eurosceptic populism loomed large. While the Union kept struggling politically, with precious little progress made on internal policy areas of European integration such as the eurozone or the EU asylum system,security and defence, traditionally the ugly duckling of European integration, began blossoming. In what follows, this essay discusses the why, the what and the what next for this remarkable year in European security and defence. Why, as some put it, has the EU’s ‘sleeping beauty’ (Selmayr, 2017) awakened? What concretely does a European Security and Defence Union mean? And what hurdles must be overcome to ensure that 2017 will not be remembered as another false dawn for European security and defence?
This important book addresses the major issues facing the North American continent: security, economic integration, border management, corruption, and illegal migration.
For more than half a century, the United States has led the world in developing major technologies that drive the modern economy and underpin its prosperity. In America, Inc., Linda Weiss attributes ...the U.S. capacity for transformative innovation to the strength of its national security state, a complex of agencies, programs, and hybrid arrangements that has developed around the institution of permanent defense preparedness and the pursuit of technological supremacy. She examines how that complex emerged and how it has evolved in response to changing geopolitical threats and domestic political constraints, from the Cold War period to the post-9/11 era.
Weiss focuses on state-funded venture capital funds, new forms of technology procurement by defense and security-related agencies, and innovation in robotics, nanotechnology, and renewable energy since the 1980s. Weiss argues that the national security state has been the crucible for breakthrough innovations, a catalyst for entrepreneurship and the formation of new firms, and a collaborative network coordinator for private-sector initiatives. Her book appraises persistent myths about the military-commercial relationship at the core of the National Security State. Weiss also discusses the implications for understanding U.S. capitalism, the American state, and the future of American primacy as financialized corporations curtail investment in manufacturing and innovation.
Technology is playing its part in globalization and the drone technology is such a technology with a usage ever increasing in a vast range of disciplines such as agriculture, health and military. ...Drones can provide real-time data on farms that enable farmers to make informed decisions regarding farm inputs usage. Also, they can be used to aerially deliver medical supplies like blood, vaccines, drugs, and laboratory test samples during health emergencies to remote areas in developing countries. Military drones also help in security and surveillance on the enemies’ movements which then helps select for target killings. Though beneficial, drones can cause injuries and damages to people and properties if the user is not trained and if there is a component failure during flight. Drones could also be hijacked by an extremist and divert the payload for their self-interest. In this paper, the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis of the current developments of agricultural, medical, and military drones are presented.
The purpose of the article is to reveal the legal regulation of ensuring national security in the conditions of martial law (threats, cooperation and directions for improvement). It has been ...established that ensuring national security of Ukraine includes a complex of national and international measures. It has been emphasized that financing is one of the important problems in the system of ensuring national security. The financial security of a state as a component of its national security is the basis of the economic development of the country, which ensures sovereignty and integrity of the country, as well as a decent standard of living of its citizens. The financial security of a state as a component of its national security is the basis of the economic development of the country, which ensures sovereignty and integrity of the country, as well as a decent standard of living of its citizens. Another problem of ensuring national security in wartime conditions consists in preventing and combating corruption. Corruption destroys development of the military-industrial complex, prevents introduction of innovative means of protection for military personnel, it disturbs development and testing of new weapons, new technologies, and hampers provision of military personnel with the necessary equipment, protection and weapons. It was concluded that only cooperation can solve the urgent strategic tasks of ensuring national security in difficult world conditions and new globalization challenges.
International relations scholar Allison Stanger shows how contractors became an integral part of American foreign policy, often in scandalous ways-but also maintains that contractors aren't the ...problem; the absence of good government is. Outsourcing done right is, in fact, indispensable to America's interests in the information age.
Stanger makes three arguments.
•The outsourcing of U.S. government activities is far greater than most people realize, has been very poorly managed, and has inadvertently militarized American foreign policy;•Despite this mismanagement, public-private partnerships are here to stay, so we had better learn to do them right;•With improved transparency and accountability, these partnerships can significantly extend the reach and effectiveness of U.S. efforts abroad.
The growing use of private contractors predates the Bush Administration, and while his era saw the practice rise to unprecedented levels, Stanger argues that it is both impossible and undesirable to turn back the clock and simply re-absorb all outsourced functions back into government. Through explorations of the evolution of military outsourcing, the privatization of diplomacy, our dysfunctional homeland security apparatus, and the slow death of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Stanger shows that the requisite public-sector expertise to implement foreign policy no longer exists. The successful activities of charities and NGOs, coupled with the growing participation of multinational corporations in development efforts, make a new approach essential. Provocative and far-reaching,One Nation Under Contractpresents a bold vision of what that new approach must be.
Strategic Intelligence Management introduces both academic researchers and law enforcement professionals to contemporary issues of national security and information management and analysis. This ...contributed volume draws on state- of-the-art expertise from academics and law enforcement practitioners across the globe. The chapter authors provide background, analysis, and insight on specific topics and case studies. Strategic Intelligent Management explores the technological and social aspects of managing information for contemporary national security imperatives. Academic researchers and graduate students in computer science, information studies, social science, law, terrorism studies, and politics, as well as professionals in the police, law enforcement, security agencies, and government policy organizations will welcome this authoritative and wide- ranging discussion of emerging threats. * Hot topics like cyber terrorism, Big Data, and Somali pirates, addressed in terms the layperson can understand, with solid research grounding * Fills a gap in existing literature on intelligence, technology, and national security
Research Summary
This study investigates the influence of foreign takeover protection triggered by investment‐related national security screening laws and regulations on firm innovation efficiency. ...Drawing on agency theory, we argue that an increase in foreign takeover protection can lead to a reduction in innovation efficiency—the amount of innovation output relative to innovation input—by encouraging managerial entrenchment that can result in ineffective allocation and use of R&D resources. Such effects are weaker in the presence of monitoring from external governance actors—dedicated institutional investors and financial analysts. Using the enactment of the Foreign Investment and National Security Act in the United States as our empirical context, we find support for our arguments.
Managerial Summary
Many countries have enacted investment‐related national security screening laws and regulations to protect domestic high‐tech firms from foreign acquisitions. Although the goal of these laws and regulations is to retain the country's leadership position in global innovation, it may unintendedly lead to a reduction in firm innovation efficiency—the effectiveness in transforming innovation input to output—by encouraging managerial entrenchment that can give rise to ineffective allocation and use of R&D resources. Such effect is weaker when other external governance actors, such as dedicated institutional investors and financial analysts, impose stronger monitoring on managers. Our arguments are supported by empirical analyses in the context of the enactment of the Foreign Investment and National Security Act in the United States.
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