Contemporary Security Policy Research Articles

Secret Intelligence and Economic Security: The Exploitation of a Critical Asset in an Increasingly Prominent Sphere

International economic issues have become a foremost government concern since the start of the global financial crisis, leaving economic security increasingly linked to more traditional concepts of national interest and politico-military security. This prioritization has been reflected in the recent requirements of the United Kingdom's intelligence and security actors. Yet, scholarly research has neglected the relationship between intelligence, international economics, and contemporary security policy. Taking current requirements as a catalyst, this article draws on contemporary British history to explore when intelligence can be used to protect economic security and when intelligence actors can best use economic measures to achieve broader politico-military goals. The use of secret intelligence in the economic sphere does, however, have certain limitations and it should therefore only be employed when necessary.

Can We Laugh Yet? Reading Post-9/11 Counterterrorism Policy as Magical Realism and Opening a Third-Space of Resistance

The War on Terror has demanded the acceptance of ridiculous propositions. But is it funny—can we laugh at such a destructive endeavour? Considering this, the paper reads the War on Terror as a text of magical realism—a literary genre which utilises juxtapositions between the fantastic supernatural and the modern rationalist paradigm. Thinking about the War on Terror as a magical realist text allows us to engage with the fantasy (and humour) of counter-radicalisation policies which require us to believe in ideological contagion and witchcraft-like possession, and the extension of ever-more technologically sophisticated risk-management algorithms which draw upon and necessitate a fear of a coming apocalypse to function. Similar clashes of paradigm are used within magical realist literature to contest the supposedly secure boundaries of rationalism, and to open a place that Homi Bhabha calls ‘third space’ through the creative potential of juxtaposition. In reading the War on Terror as a magical realist text, the paper argues that contemporary security policy narrates its own third space—one that can be extremely funny in the juxtapositions it employs. The War on Terror undermines itself by narrating a liminal space where its claims of security appear ridiculous. Drawing on the thought of Luce Irigaray, the paper argues that this space of laughter is not only useful for resisting the practices of the War on Terror, but also that a failure to laugh consolidates the War on Terror discourse and the joke it is playing on us by taking it seriously.

‘Let's Call the Whole Thing Off’? Security Culture as Strategic Culture

Scholars interested in contemporary security and defence policy, in Europe as elsewhere, often seek refuge in conceptual havens, and the articles in this special issue are no exceptions. One of those sheltering spots has been dubbed security culture, while another fashionable resting place carries the label, ‘strategic culture’. This article argues that attempts to draw a distinction between the two categories are superfluous, not to say meaningless, and that insofar as what we should call our concept, it really is a case of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. More important is the task of attempting to abstract policy significance from the complexity and definitional vagueness of the more ‘senior’ of the two concepts, namely strategic culture. This complexity and vagueness to the contrary notwithstanding, this article claims that strategic culture can be of some analytical use in highlighting the ways in which both context and character have played, and continue to play, a part in shaping states’ orientation toward security and defence policy.

Pandemics on the Radar Screen: Health Security, Infectious Disease and the Medicalisation of Insecurity

How is the rise of global health security transforming contemporary practices of security? To date the literature on global health security has sought to trace how the securitisation of global health is affecting the governance of diseases in the international system; yet no-one has analysed – conversely – how the practices of security also begin subtly to change when they become concerned with a growing number of contemporary health issues. This article identifies three such changes. First, health security debates endow our understandings of security and insecurity in contemporary world politics with an important medical dimension. Second, the rise of global health security enables a range of medical and public health experts to play a greater role in the formulation and analysis of contemporary security policy. Finally, health security debates have also encouraged attempts to secure populations through recourse to a growing array of pharmacological interventions and new medical countermeasures. Drawing upon a rich literature in medical sociology, these three transformations in the contemporary practice of security collectively constitute the ‘medicalisation of security’. This novel perspective on the rise of global health security also reveals new limitations inherent in the emerging health–security interface – limitations associated not so much with the processes of ‘securitisation’ already noted in the global health literature, but rather with wider social processes of ‘medicalisation’. Awareness of the additional limitations renders the threat of a future pandemic even more serious than is commonly thought.

Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?

A novel and important issue in contemporary security policy is the impact of natural disasters on terrorism. Natural disasters can strain a society and its government, creating vulnerabilities which terrorist groups might exploit. Using a structured methodology and detailed data on terrorism, disasters, and other relevant controls for 167 countries between 1970 and 2007, we find a strong positive impact of disaster-related deaths on subsequent terrorism incidence and fatalities. Furthermore, the effects differ by disaster type and GDP per capita. The results consistently are significant and robust across a multitude of disaster and terrorism measures for a diverse set of model specifications.

Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and Terrorism: Do Natural Disasters Incite Terror?

A novel and important issue in contemporary security policy is the impact of natural disasters on terrorism. Natural disasters can strain a society and its government, creating vulnerabilities which terrorist groups might exploit. Using a structured methodology and detailed data on terrorism, disasters, and other relevant controls for 167 countries between 1970 and 2007, the authors find a strong positive impact of disaster-related deaths on subsequent terrorism deaths and incidence. They find that, on average, an increase in deaths from natural disasters of 25,000 leads to an increase in the following year of approximately 33 percent in the number of deaths from terrorism, an increase of approximately 22 percent in the number of terrorist attacks, and an increase of approximately 16 percent in the number wounded in terrorist attacks, holding all other factors constant. Furthermore, the effects differ by disaster types and country characteristics. Results were consistently significant and robust across a multitude of disaster and terrorism measures for a diverse set of model specifications. The results have strong implications for both disaster and terrorism mitigation policy.

Russia's Armed Forces and the Arctic: All Quiet on the Northern Front?

In 2008, Russian leaders stated their intention to make the Arctic Russia's ‘primary resource base’. This, and the region's growing importance as an arena for marine transportation and resource extraction, has led observers to question the longterm stability of the northern part of the globe and predict a new military buildup on the Kola Peninsula. Based on a review of Russia's previous behaviour in the Arctic, recent strategies and doctrines, the pattern of civil-military relations, and trends in the development of Russia's military forces in the region, this article argues that the role of the region in contemporary Russian security policy and defence planning should not be exaggerated. This analysis concludes that the character of Russian Arctic policy will largely depend on relations with NATO and the policies adopted by other Arctic rim states. The region's growing economic significance, the existence of unresolved jurisdictional issues, and the ‘action-reaction’ dynamics in the military field may lead to a strengthening of the military dimension in Russia's Arctic policies, but this does not mean greater militarization of the region is inevitable or even likely. Tensions in the Barents Sea region and other parts of the Arctic are much lower today than in the days of the Cold War, and hard security concerns in the Arctic do not figure at the top of Russia's current security agenda. While Russia's Arctic policy in the past was governed by national security interests, it is now increasingly governed by national economic interests and the interests of companies closely associated with the Russian state.

Dereliction of Duty Redux?: Post-Iraq American Civil-Military Relations

The protracted war in Iraq has exacerbated existing tensions and dysfunctional elements inherent in American civil-military relations. Many in the national security community were worried that civil-military relations were far from satisfactory well before the war. 1 1 Richard H. Kohn, “Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations,” The National Interest, Spring 1994, pp. 3-17; A. J. Bacevich, “Civilian Control, A Useful Fiction?” Joint Force Quarterly, Autumn/Winter 1994/95, pp. 76-79; Don Snider and Miranda Carlton-Carew, U.S. Civil-Military Relations: In Crisis or Transition?, Washington, DC: CSIS, 1995; Thomas E. Ricks, “The Widening Gap Between the Military and Society,” The Atlantic Monthly, July 1997, pp. 66-78; Eliot A. Cohen, “Civil Military Relations,” Orbis, Spring 1997; Peter Feaver, “The Gap: Soldiers, Civilians and Their Mutual Misunderstanding,” National Interest, Fall 2000, pp. 29-37. For too long this dimension of “the American way of war” had been allowed to drift without resolution. The Iraq conflict could result in a further deterioration in this crucial component of strategic effectiveness due to mutual “scapegoating, blame-avoiding and willful institutional refusal to recognize and act on the sources of defeat.” 2 2 David Betz, “Redesigning Land Forces for Wars Amongst the People,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 28, No. 2, August 2007, p. 221. For an explicit example see Ricardo S. Sanchez, Speech before the Military Reports and Editors Association, 12 Oct. 2007, accessed at http://www.militaryreporters.org/sanchez_101207.html This essay explores the current precarious nature of civil-military relations in this country. It also explores the emergence of a “stab in the back” thesis among the military community, and various issues raised by the ongoing Long War. Based on this evaluation, the article concludes with some proposals to remedy or lessen the strains that exist today. These remedies seek to better define the compact and code of conduct that governs the overall relationship between the masters of policy and the dedicated servants we ask to carry out those policies.

The Return of Net Assessment

It has been almost two decades since the notion of ‘net assessment’ preoccupied strategic thought during the Cold War. It has not been revisited in a sustained manner since a flurry of articles and...

Towards an Explicative Understanding of Strategic Culture: The Cases of Australia and Canada

Strategic culture remains a highly contested but potentially vital concept in the analysis of security policy. This paper contributes to the strategic culture debate by using the cases of Australia and Canada to assess the utility of strategic culture as an explanatory tool. Much of the debate over strategic culture hinges on the proper relationship between the ideational and material variables in analyzing a country's security policy, and the attendant difficulties of distinguishing between strategic culture and strategic behaviour. We argue that if strategic culture is defined in an inclusive way to include ideational factors, material factors, and strategic behaviour, one will develop a richer understanding of a country's strategic situation. Using this approach, this paper undertakes a long-range historical survey of strategic culture in these two countries. We show that in both countries, strategic culture remains relatively stable for extended periods of time, usually changing only when patterns of global power shift, and provides a better explanation for contemporary security policy in both countries than perspectives that focus on purely material or ideational factors.

Flexible Force Structure: A Flexibility Oriented Force Design and Development Process for Israel

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. The theory is the essence of the author's unpublished PhD Thesis, ‘Recovery from Technological and Military Doctrinal- Surprise on the Battlefield by Applied Flexibility and Adaptability’, Bar-Ilan University, 2005. 2. Azriel Lorber, Misguided Weapons: Technological Failure and Surprise on the Battlefield, Washington, DC, 2002, pp. 37–46. 3. Ido Hecht, The ‘Operational Breakthrough’ in German Military Thought 1870–1945, Tel Aviv, 1999, pp. 120–121 (Hebrew). 4. Williamson Murray, Strategic Bombing: The British, American and German Experiences, in Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett (eds.), Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, Cambridge, 1996, p. 125. 5. Dani Asher, ‘From “Directive 41” to “Tachrir 41”, from Egyptian Doctrine—to War’, Ma'arachot, No. 332 (1993), p. 49. 6. Efraim Kam, Surprise Attack: The Victim's Perspective, Cambridge, MA, 1988; Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, Princeton, NJ, 1976; Richards, J. Heuer, Jr., ‘Cognitive Factors in Deception and Counter-Deception’, in Donald C. Daniel and Katherine L. Herbig (eds.), Strategic Military Deception, New York, 1982, pp. 31–69. 7. John Ferris and Michael Handel, ‘Clausewitz, Intelligence, Uncertainty and the Art of Command and Military Operations’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 10, No. 1 (January 1995), pp. 48–50. 8. Richard K. Betts, Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures are Inevitable, Brookings General Series, reprint 343, Washington, DC, 1978, p. 61. 9. Shimon Naveh, ‘The Cult of the Offensive Preemption and Future Challenges for Israeli Operational Thought’, in Efraim Karsh (ed.), Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security, London, 1996, 168–187. 10. Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine between the Wars, New Jersey, 1997, p. 86. 11. Edward Luttwak, Strategy: the Logic of War and Peace, Tel Aviv, 2002, pp. 61–62 (Hebrew). 12. Robert M. Citino, The Path to Blitzkrieg: Doctrine and Training in the German Army, 1920–1939, Boulder, Colorado, 1999, p. 231. 13. David M. Glantz (ed.). The Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front: 22 June–August 1941, London, 1993, p. 340. 14. R.H.S. Stolfi, Hitler's Panzers East: World War II Reinterpreted, Norman, OK, 1991, p. 158. 15. Stephen Bungay, Alamein, Tel Aviv, 2005, p. 4 (Hebrew); Michael I. Handel, ‘Technological Surprise in War’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 2. No. 1 (1987), p. 4. 16. B.H. Liddell Hart (ed.), The Rommel Papers, London, 1953, pp. 31–33. 17. Alfred Price, Battle Over the Reich, London, 1973, p. 70; Cajus Bekker, The Luftwaffe War Diaries, New York, 1964, p. 493. 18. Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, London, 1996, p. 238. 19. R.M. Ogorkiewicz, Armoured Forces: A History of Armoured Forces and their Vehicles, London, 1960, pp. 216–217. 20. Avi Kober, ‘Has Battlefield Decision Become Obsolete? The Commitment to the Achievement of Battlefield Decision Revisited’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 22. No. 2. (2001), pp. 149–152. 21. Michael Handel, Clausewitz in the Age of Technology, Tel Aviv, 1988, p. 65 (Hebrew). 22. Ya'akov Zigdon, ‘Force Building in L.I.C’, in Haggai Golan and Shaul Shay (eds.), Low Intensity Conflict, Tel Aviv, 2004, p. 307. 23. Ltc. Ido, ‘Attack Helicopters in Iraq: Failure and Success’, Ma'arachot, No. 395 (2004), pp. 12–21. 24. Edward Luttwak and Dan Horowitz, The Israeli Army, London, 1975, p. 370. 25. Giora Segal, ‘The Art of Tactical Fighting: Command in the Battlefield Chaos’, Ma'arachot, Vol. 398 (2005), pp. 8–21. 26. Ibid., p. 14. Segal claims that the employment of the Mission Oriented Command method by the IDF is a myth more than a reality, because it is not officially the doctrinal command method. 27. Agranat Commission Report, Jerusalem, 1975, pp. 528–530, 1348–1349. 28. Luttwak and Horowitz, The Israeli Army, p. xii. 29. Ibid., p. XII. 30. Naveh, ‘The Cult of the Offensive’, pp. 168–187. 31. Ibid., p. 169. 32. Moshe Yaalon, Ma'arachot, No. 396 (2004), pp. 12–21 (Hebrew). 33. Shmuel (Samo) Nir, ‘The Nature of L.I.C’, in Haggai Golan and Shaul Shay (eds.), Low Intensity Conflict, Tel Aviv, 2004, pp. 24–25 (Hebrew). 34. Tomer Naveh, ‘How to Overcome Raphah Tunnels?’, Ma'arachot, No. 399 (2005), pp. 8–15. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMeir FinkelMeir Finkel, a Colonel in the Israel Defence Forces, has a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology and a Ph.D. in Politics.

A turning point for Japan's self‐defense forces

The next Japanese government can continue to articulate a progressive vision for its Self‐Defense Forces, remind the Japanese people of the strategic impact of their expanded roles and missions, and potentially provide a turning point in developing a contemporary Japanese security policy.

Containing missile proliferation: strategic technology, security regimes, and international cooperation in arms control

The proliferation of ballistic missiles that can deliver weapons of mass destruction halfway across the world is a matter of growing urgency and concern, as is the fate of agreements limiting the development of such deadly weapons. The Bush administration's scrapping of the ABM Treaty and pursuit of a huge National Missile Defense initiative are dramatic evidence of this concern. Yet there remains much uncertainty about the viability of missile defense. If defenses fall short, strong security regimes will be necessary to contain missile proliferation. Since 1987, more than thirty states have agreed to restrict their transfer of missiles and related technologies under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). During the MTCR's first decade, several regional powers were thwarted from advancing their missile ambitions. Subsequently, however, states such as North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Israel have tested medium-range missiles and others have expanded their missile arsenals. Dinshaw Mistry critically examines the successes and limitations of the MTCR, and suggests five practical ways to strengthen the regime. The author's exhaustive research offers new and detailed insights on the technology and politics of missile programs in Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Israel, Egypt, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries. Mistry also shows how international cooperation, security regimes, and U.S. foreign policies of engagement and containment with these states can halt their missile programs. Mistry's book is the first comprehensive study of the MTCR and of international efforts to contain missile proliferation. Policymakers, scholars, and the general reader will find this book a valuable contribution to the subjects of arms control, ballistic missile proliferation, multilateral cooperation, and international security regimes. Dinshaw Mistry is assistant professor and director of Asian studies at the University of Cincinnati. He has written extensively on technology and politics, regional security, and international cooperation in The New York Times, Security Studies, Contemporary Security Policy, Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, and other publications.

The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State

Dans cet article, l'A s'interesse a l'ideologie de genre concernant la securite de l'Etat. En se basant sur les ecrits de Thomas Hobbes a propos de l'autorite, l'A revient sur le concept patriarcal de protection de la femme et de l'enfant, les subordonnant ainsi a des citoyens de seconde zone. L'A met en relation le comportement masulin traditionnel avec l'engouement pour les conflits armes internationaux, et les appels et mouvements feministes pour la paix, en s'intorrgeant sur l'avenir de la democratie aux Etats-Unis depuis les evenements du 11 septembre 2001

Thinking about new security paradigms

(2003). Thinking about new security paradigms. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 209-225.

Introduction: Security in the information technology age

(2003). Introduction: Security in the information technology age. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 1-12.

Terrorism in Singapore: Threat and Implications

(2002). Terrorism in Singapore: Threat and Implications. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 1-18.

Human Security: The Individual in the Security Question - The Case of Bosnia

(2002). Human Security: The Individual in the Security Question - The Case of Bosnia. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 145-191.

Fear of Alternative Outcomes: Nato and European Security Co-operation

(2002). Fear of Alternative Outcomes: Nato and European Security Co-operation. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 106-120.

Risks of Nuclear Terror: Vulnerabilities to Theft and Sabotage at Nuclear Weapons Facilities

(2002). Risks of Nuclear Terror: Vulnerabilities to Theft and Sabotage at Nuclear Weapons Facilities. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 19-60.