Contemporary Global Security Research Articles

Contribution of Copenhagen School to the Security Studies

Security Studies cover the security of referent objects, individuals, or states. Since the Second World War, the importance and depth of Security Studies have increased. In the post-cold war period, it was seen as a purely military field and was handled within the scope of the power policies of the states. In the post-Cold War period, it emerged as a multidimensional form. This research describes prominent approaches such as Realism, Liberalism, Peace, and Critical Security Studies and the most recent essential theories. The research underlines the three pillars of The Copenhagen School, which has contributed to the academic literature on securitization/desecuritization theory, regional security complex theory, and sectoral security approach in international security studies. In the securitization theory, any subject can be non-politicised, politicised, or elevated to a national security concern level. According to the Regional Security Complex pillar, standard points, security priorities, and security dynamics must coincide with establishing a region in the security realm. Lastly, the safety of human societies is affected by factors in five primary areas - military, political, economic, social, and environmental factors. The study concludes that the Copenhagen School occupies a significant position among security studies methodologies and offers a helpful framework for examining contemporary global security concerns.

A THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT AND ITS IMPACT ON CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL SECURITY

This study is concerned with analysing the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its impact on contemporary global security. Anchored on the theory of Offensive Realism in the explanation of the phenomenon under study, the qualitative descriptive-historical technique was adopted which relied on secondary sources of data and content analysis. Findings from the study revealed that the history of the Russia-Ukraine conflict dates back to the Kievan Rus from which both nations emerged, conquest, domination by Russia and Ukrainian independence pre and post-soviet Ukraine; a majority of foreign powers and international organizations such as the United Nations, European Union, condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, imposed economic sanctions, and provided overt and covert military and humanitarian support to Ukraine. It was further revealed that apart from increased refugees epidemic and IDPs, given the importance of Russia and Ukraine in gas, steel and grains supply in the world economy, the war has created a shortage of these important goods thereby heightening global inflation, economic recessing, protests and social upheavals, arms proliferation capable of raising insurrection and further insecurity across countries. The study recommended that parties to the conflict should seek political rather than military solutions to end the war quickly so that the sanctions which have been detrimental to the global economy and security would be eased

Defence Diplomacy Activities Engendering States’ Cooperation: Addressing Contemporary Global Security Threats in Africa

Scholars and practitioners in foreign policy deemed defence diplomacy (DD) as a contradiction or ambiguous because institutions claiming to apply it were in the realm of bearing arms for coercion. In the post-Cold War era, DD emerged as leading concept in importance as an instrument of States’ foreign defence and security policies. Globalization imperatives and the pragmatic view of State security through human security perspectives, brought in knowledge on evolution of inter-State’s security challenges. Moreover, States engagement in multilateral diplomacy were on the rise to address emerging cross-border security threats. The roles of defence and security institutions were evolved with emerging security threats particularly in the realm of human security. The paper examines DD activities engendering states’ cooperation, with a view to addressing contemporary global security threats in Africa. It adopted mixed research design employing purposive sampling techniques and strategist paradigm for primary data analyses. It revealed three key DD activities engendering cooperation in African states including: foreign defence and security policy outreach, defence and security cooperation in education and training, and defence and security partnerships cooperation. It concludes that application of DD activities engenders African states cooperation in promotion of peace and security. Finally, the paper recommends that, the African States’ policymakers, particularly in sub-regional security mechanism, should leverage defence diplomacy to promote cooperation between their defence and security institutions.

Sustainable Security: Revolution or Utopia?

Purpose: This article lays the foundations for the Sustainable Security Paradigm (SSP), which features national security as a holistic and synergistic complex-adaptive system that can integrate various domains of international, social, and individual activity in a long-term, sustainable fashion. The novel paradigm informs the original Sustainable Security Culture Development Cycle (SSCDC) that provides a model of transformation for organizations that wish to act sustainably in the security realm. Design/Methodology/Approach: The theoretical framework is centered around three pillars, the scientific study of the socio-ecological systems of the Anthropocene, a holistic understanding of security, and the realization of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. During research, the study adopted the pragmatic, critical world view with the grounded theory approach and employed mixed methods of research. Case studies of the global security consequences of the COVID epidemic, the paradoxes of the 2020 Polish National Security Strategy, and the military impact on environment, provided a cross-cultural and cross-contextual proof of data. Findings: Contemporary global security paradigm is unsustainable and unjust. Both in security studies theory and security policy at various levels, a shift is imperative. We need to move from a narrow understanding of security (in national security/defense terms) and replace it with a holistic and synergistic system. We also need a re-orientation of philosophical approaches, knowledge systems, principles, values, management practices, behaviors, and governance arrangements to ones that build sustainability in an increasingly interconnected, turbulent, and unpredictable world. Practical implications: The above allowed to create an operational SSCDC, designed to facilitate the transformation of security and defense organizations into institutions that continually create an environment of sustainable security and just development for all. Originality/Value: This is the first article that systemizes a comprehensive SSP, accompanied with an original and operational SSCDC.

Mass Media and the Terror of Terrorism in Global Security Analysis

Contemporary global security realities have identified the pervasive mass media terror continuum in the form of display of graphic images and somewhat persuasive impacts of the mass media as used by terror organizations across the world. This work is therefore an explorative analytical narrative of the impacts of the mass media in the promotion and consolidation of terrorist ideologies and rationalization of terrorist activities. Generally, the work has made an objective modest attempt to review the nature and dynamics of global mass media and relationship between some of the fallouts of the impacts of the mass media in the spread and sustainability of global extremist and terrorist ideologies. This narrative is derivable from different international scholars and national governments based on sustained empirical researches in different countries of the world. Consequently, this work adopted extensively the historical and explorative approach that relied on secondary sources comprising books, journals and reports that were logically arranged and evaluated through content analysis in tandem with social science research enterprise. The work, therefore, established glaring intrinsic and extrinsic correlation between the impacts of the mass media and terrorism in the world and ultimately offered useful recommendations accordingly to stem this scourge.

Toward an Urban Security Research Agenda in IR

Abstract Theorizing about the manner in which urban dimensions influence global security and vice versa is still in an embryonic stage. The central argument of this article holds that scholars in the fields of international relations (IR) and security studies largely remain blind to contemporary urban dimensions of global transboundary security issues, and have not yet adequately assessed its dynamics or political implications. In order to stimulate and structure further research, this article sets out to situate issues pertaining to urban security within a wider IR theoretical context. I suggest that the contemporary global security environment can be conceptualized in terms of a global–urban security nexus. This nexus points, on the one hand, to a changing spatial dynamic of security where urban places and practices become increasingly imperative and, on the other hand, to a rescaling of state power where urban actors are becoming increasingly empowered. I suggest that the global–urban security nexus as a point of analytical departure is equally relevant to the more traditional, narrow understanding of security as it is to the broadened security agenda, and it captures contemporary spatial security dynamics as well as changing security governance, in terms of both involved actors and practices. I finally draw out an urban security research agenda for IR that puts focus on global and transboundary security problems and their urban facets, and offers a novel way forward for studying global security dynamics in terms of its urban spaces, agents, and practices.

HYBRID GENESIS OF INFORMATION OPERATIONS IN CYBERSPACE

Contemporary global security environment could be labeled as complex, dynamic, multidimensional and ‘’beyond limits’’ of conventional understanding of Warfare. Diversity of threat forms and its interactions and non-conventionality contribute that most of the actual security crises and conflicts are marked as Hybrid security endangering, or Hybrid Warfare. Globalised tehnology introduce new ‘’battlefild’’ in global digital arena. Massive application of information and communication technology has brought about new risks and threats represented by physical and software related dangers to critical information infrastructure and cyberspace that are of relevance to the nation and its security. In same hand, wolnurability and inportance of Cyber space tends to provoke necessity for ultimate resilaince copabilities against ataks and informational warfare. Hybrid form and asimetrical nature of endangerment of Cyber space which is crutial for national defence copabilites, rised analiticial approach to the political, security and organizational forms as well as clasification of threats in cyber space which were elaborated in this paper. Authors’ contribute to the understunding of threats in Cyber secyrity arena, trough analyses of China PLA approach to the subject. In addition, unique contribution is given with analyses of Cyber-Information Warfare during 1999 NATO aggression to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Cops in Foreign Lands: Italy’s Role in International Policing

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the role of Italy in international policing, focusing on the reasons, specific features, multifaceted character and value of its contribution. The argument is made that participation in such operations has become a distinctive character of Italy’s international projection and ideally suits its security culture and foreign policy objectives. Italy’s role is positively appraised because it responds to the international community’s demands for a more robust, specialized and highly trained police force that is needed to meet the complex challenges of the contemporary global security environment.

Comprehensive Approach to the Asymmetric Endangerment of National Critical Infrastructure

Contemporary global security moment are characterized by great interaction of national and supra-national security structure, the interdependence of national, regional and multilateral forms of higher security integration. However, the role of the state as a single security entity in international relations remains a crucial and indispensable role in the broadest observation security organization. Also, in the contemporary global security paradigm, actualization of asymmetric forms of endangering state security should not be overlooked. The arising question is: How much individual country, especially those in transition process, could comprehensively respond to the current form of asymmetric national security threats to critical infrastructure? Moreover, South East Europe (SEE), or even closer, Western Balkan region, is the part of European continent that we can, by historically overlook, analyzing as the cradle and arena of complex, escalating conflicts. All of them are concluded by the mediation of third part, usually through the negotiation and bargaining of the “big players” on the world’s stage. In this region, the nation’s looking for their own national paradigms, which are often in correlation with the interests of global powers. The beginning of the twenty-first century reflects a significant aspiration of all countries in this part of Europe for development of partnership and allied relations toward of contemporary security risks and threats. Acknowledging the declarations and growing bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the field of security and defense, yet, the questions arises as: Whether states of Southeast Europe identify same security risks and threats? Do they have a unanimous opinion of the potential ways of the vulnerability of critical national infrastructure? Do they share the perception that the security of Southeast Europe are equally nationally as well as common regional issue? The complexity and multifaceted of named questions leads to necessity of a comprehensive approach to the analysis of forms of potential endangering elements of national critical infrastructure which are crucial for security. In addition, particular attention should be paid to unconventional, asymmetric forms of national security jeopardizing and their potential endangering effects on elements of national critical infrastructure. In this paper authors offer the possible overlook of the cross analysis of asymmetrical endangering of national critical infrastructure of Western Balkan countries, as part of SEE. In paper authors use comparative analysis of contemporary approach to the concept of asymmetric security threats, through the prism of particular states perception of endangering forms regarding their national critical infrastructure.

“Playing the away game”: AFRICOM in the Sahara-Sahel

This article presents evidence to revise hypotheses of how biopolitical strategies are deployed in contemporary global security regimes, and with what effects. It is based on research into the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM). Elaborating on two concepts that Michel Foucault hypothesized in his Security, Territory, Population lectures –the “people” and the “milieu” –I argue that AFRICOM's strategy is informed by biopolitical rationalities, but that this does not necessarily situate African populations as either part of a population to secure or as a threat to that population. Instead, I suggest that (unlike in the urban and national contexts that Foucault analyzed) biopolitical security strategies at the global scale are characterized by varying degrees of distance between the way(s) of life they aim to defend and what Foucault termed the “field of intervention” or “milieu” that they target. This hypothesis, and its elaboration through the case of AFRICOM, contributes to efforts to historicize and spatialize accounts of contemporary biopolitics. Specifically, it suggests that we can better understand the production of very uneven geographies of security and insecurity by attending to the relationships between the ways of life being secured and the (potentially distant) material contexts situated as relevant “fields of intervention”.

African Indigenous Institutions and Contemporary Global Security

This is an examination of secondary sources to interrogate the role of African indigenous institutions in contemporary global security concerns. The paper advances the argument that contrary to col...

On some contemporary global security risks and challenges

<i>As the new millennium starts to unfold, we see before us an area of security that has been radically reshaped since the end of the cold war and the end of the bipolar division of the world. Still more and more deepening globalisation brings not only a lot of positives, but also a lot of negatives appearing mainly in the form of new asymmetric security threats or risks, so we understand that a real effort will now be required to reappraise the 21st century. Simultaneously, it is clear that, if we want to stabilize security environment, we must look beyond our traditional military philosophy and deal very seriously with new global security risks and challenges.</i>

Humanitarian Crises and the International Politics of Selectivity

How has the international community responded to humanitarian crises after the end of the Cold War? While optimistic ideational perspectives on global governance stress the importance of humanitarian norms and argue that humanitarian crises have been increasingly addressed, more skeptical realist accounts point to material interests and maintain that these responses have remained highly selective. In empirical terms, however, we know very little about the actual extent of selectivity since, so far, the international community’s reaction to humanitarian crises has not been systematically examined. This article addresses this gap by empirically examining the extent and the nature of the selectivity of humanitarian crises. To do so, the most severe humanitarian crises in the post-Cold War era are identified and examined for whether and how the international community responded. This study considers different modes of crisis response (ranging from inaction to military intervention) and different actors (including states, international institutions, and nonstate actors), yielding a more precise picture of the alleged “selectivity gap” and a number of theoretical implications for contemporary global security governance.

The New Great Game: Military, Police and Strategic Intelligence for Global Security

ABSTRACT Intelligence and counter terrorism are key elements of the contemporary global security environment. Profound changes in the nature of states fuelled by globalization, information technology, and the influence of non‐state actors are changing the structure and dynamics of intelligence. A range of global threats and conditions influence the contemporary global security and intelligence stage. These include global insurgency and terrorism (as seen in the Salafist jihadi struggle with the West), the rise of global business and civil society, global political movements, transnational organized crime, the rise of global cities, networked diasporas, global disease, and the prospect of planet‐wide climate change. Yet, while all players in this new ‘Great Game’ recognize that intelligence is essential to situational understanding, few have the institutional structure, experience, and understanding of the various types of intelligence necessary to negotiate the current and emerging security environment. This article will review the threats and conditions influencing global security environment, and discuss the roles of military, police, and strategic intelligence in understanding this environment.

The US and the Use of Force: Double-edged Hegemony and the Management of Global Emergencies

Absent a clear case of an armed attack, the UN Charter severely restricts the ability of individual states to react to what they perceive as their national security risks, relegating such a task to the collective decision-making of the Security Council. Contemporary global security risks pose serious challenges to this regime. Stopping terrorist groups and rogue regimes from obtaining weapons of mass destruction or ending incidents of mass atrocities against civilian populations often require swift and resolute collective responses. Not all those who can respond to such threats are willing to do so, and the collective response of the Security Council frequently proves ineffective. As the stronger military power, the US has both the ability and the motivation to provide the public good of global security unilaterally, while other countries rely on international law to explain their inaction. The so-called 'Bush Doctrine', which asserts an authority to act unilaterally and pre-emptively, can thus be understood as an earnest effort to respond to these security challenges. But this doctrine upsets the existing UN regime, and in turn creates other risks to global stability. This essay seeks to lay out the prevailing global security risks as a collective action problem. It assesses the tensions that exist between existing legal constraints on the use of unilateral force and the proposals for their modification, and evaluates the ramifications of such proposals.