Rogue States Research Articles

Language Agents and Malevolent Design

Language agents are AI systems capable of understanding and responding to natural language, potentially facilitating the process of encoding human goals into AI systems. However, this paper argues that if language agents can achieve easy alignment, they also increase the risk of malevolent agents building harmful AI systems aligned with destructive intentions. The paper contends that if training AI becomes sufficiently easy or is perceived as such, it enables malicious actors, including rogue states, terrorists, and criminal organizations, to create powerful AI systems devoted to their nefarious aims. Given the strong incentives for such groups and the rapid progress in AI capabilities, this risk demands serious attention. In addition, the paper highlights considerations suggesting that the negative impacts of language agents may outweigh the positive ones, including the potential irreversibility of certain negative AI impacts. The overarching lesson is that various AI-related issues are intimately connected with each other, and we must recognize this interconnected nature when addressing those issues.

Beyond Orientalism: The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Strategic Preferences Regarding Nuclear Weapons

When studying the issue of nuclear weapons proliferation, Iran is often presented as a rogue state driven by a volatile Islamic belief system. Such accounts present Iran as perpetually seeking nuclear weapons due to its foreign and defense policy, which is conceived by irrational Muslim clerics. This article deconstructs such consistent Orientalist discourses across Western academia, think-tanks, lobbying, and governments concerning the rogue and irrational pursuit of nuclear weapons by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Departing from them, the article moves to peruse a range of views held by some prominent Iranian clerics about nuclear weapons and demonstrates the rationales that bring Iran’s clerics to socially construct external threats, dangers, and other strategic concerns from within the Islamic Republic. In doing so, a new framework for understanding Iran’s strategic preferences—unbridled by the limitations of Orientalist discourse, as well as the biases of secular and state-based realist thinking—is offered.

The Importance of Cybersecurity Governance Model in Operational Technology Environments

There is a common will to unify regulation in the Western world regarding overall security, including cybersecurity. European cyber security regulations aim to create a foundation and guidelines for international standards in various industries and the operation of critical infrastructure. Protected critical infrastructure is a common goal for Western allies. Allies of NATO and EU member states mainly support the anti-aggression policy in Europe. The unstable situation in the world forces states to find solutions that represent the thoughts of the allies. Defending common values is crucial when the purpose is to protect critical infrastructure and vital functions in societies. The research will demonstrate the industrial needs of IT/OT-related cybersecurity governance. The study analyzes EU-level cybersecurity requirements and how those requirements affect standardization regarding cybersecurity governance in the operational technology environment. There will be four primary governance levels: Political, Strategical, Operational and Tactical. Many criminal state-linked operators do not care about international agreements or contracts. Some rogue states have even taken to inciting violations of international agreements. We cannot trust the loose contracts between states anymore. The research will find the main challenges concerning the cybersecurity governance of the industrial organizations that use operational technology-related technology in their daily businesses. We have seen that Information and Operational Technology are based on something other than similar threats and risk basements. Operational Technology-related threats threaten the cyber-physical ecosystem where anomalies affect the physical world, so operational functions of equipment, devices, sensors, components, and production lines are interrupted. As a result, continuity management and supply chain management are compromised. The study's primary purpose is to describe the cybersecurity governance elements of the OT environment for enhancing situational awareness. Standardizing the cybersecurity level among industrial stakeholders requires EU member states to have a national cybersecurity strategy that follows main EU-level guidelines. Despite the EU member states' implementation level of the regulation, the EU-level cybersecurity requirements obligate companies to take steps to solve future cybersecurity challenges.

The effectiveness of the EU’s rule of law conditionality mechanism : Theoretical observations based on the case of Hungary

The effectiveness of post-accession conditionality within the EU has been of pivotal importance for the EU in past years. The European Union has plenty of tools for monitoring the compliance of EU Member States; however, when it comes to enforcement mechanisms, EU institutions perform poorly. Respect for the rule of law is especially crucial in this regard, as certain Member States (i.e. Poland and Hungary) have committed violations in this area. Hungary has been subject to several infringement procedures due to failure to comply with EU law, and the Article 7 procedure has even been activated against it. In 2020, the EU decided to connect rule-of-law violations to the EU budget disbursement by introducing the rule-of-law conditionality mechanism, which was launched against Hungary in 2022. This paper evaluates this conditionality mechanism through the example of Hungary and assesses whether it is more effective than the previous tools used to address rogue Member State behaviour and prevent continuous rule-of-law violations on a national level.

Does affective empathy capacity condition individual variation in support for military escalation? Evidence from a survey vignette

Does individual variation in affective empathetic capacity systemically condition a person's willingness to support pre-emptive military action? In this note, I theorize that individuals who are more prone to feeling affective empathy are less likely to support conflict escalation. To evidence this theory, I conduct a survey asking individuals about their willingness to support a military attack against a non-specific rogue state that is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. The results demonstrate that the probability of an individual supporting such a strike is strongly conditioned on their affective empathetic capacity. This finding holds regardless of model specification and controlling for rational beliefs about material outcomes. Affective empathy may, therefore, have a powerful palliating effect upon the processes that contribute to conflict escalation.

Cyberwarfare against Critical Infrastructures: Russia and Iran in the Gray Zone

The holistic nature of security in a hyper-connected world has increased the relevance of cyber environment. One of the most relevant threats identified are the attacks against energy infrastructures. This article presents a comparative study of the actions launched by Russia and Iran in the cyber environment against energy supply. Both States are specialized in asymmetric strategies and tactics in which cyber has a core role. The research analyzes the main actions against energy supply infrastructures, studying the pursued objectives and identifying their potential political results. The document is structured by a first theoretical approach to the use asymmetric gray zone and hybrid strategies, focusing on the use of cyber by Rogue States. From this approach, the analysis reflects the political visions of Russia and Iran, linking it with the Russian actions in Ukraine, as well as the Iranian cyber offensives against western targets. Conclusions reflects about the effectiveness of these strategies to the general strategy of both States.

Regulatory Choices at the Advent of Gig Warfare

Abstract Regulation of military ai may take place in three ways. First, existing rules and principles in ihl is already or could be extended via reinterpretation to apply to military ai; second, new ai regulation may appear via “add-ons” to existing rules, finally, regulation of military ai may appear as a completely new framework, either through new state behavior that results in customary international law or through a new legal act or treaty. By introducing this typology, one may identify possible manners of regulation that are presently under-researched and/or ignored, for example how Rules of Engagement (roe) may be a way to control the use of military ai. Expanding on existing scholarship, the articles discusses how military ai may operate under different forms of military command and control systems, how regulation of military ai is not only a question of “means” but also “methods” of warfare and how the doctrine of supervisory responsibility may go beyond the doctrine of command responsibility. In the case that fully-automated Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (laws) are available and considered for use, it is suggested that their use should be prohibited in densely populated areas following the same logic as incendiary weapons. Further, one could introduce certain export restrictions on fully-automated laws to prevent proliferation to non-state actors and rogue states.

Financial market information flows when counteracting rogue states: The indirect effects of targeted sanction packages

This study investigates how financial sanctions packages targeting Russia influenced traditional information flow dynamics with other international financial markets and products. While providing empirical evidence regarding the use of payment systems and finance as weapons of war, it is crucial to understand if the market's response to international sanctions diminished as expectations shifted over time. Results, supported by robustness testing procedures, indicate important dynamic information flows relating to specific sanctions after the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war. In particular, those sanctions relating to the exclusion of Russia from the SWIFT payment system and those targeting banks and private wealth resulted in significant contagion effects sourced from all Russian markets examined. Such influence, however, is found to moderate and dilute as investors reconstruct their expectations and valuations. While targeted sanctions appear to impose intended market isolation, it is also associated with significant contagion effects. Although such secondary effects dissipate, they should be seen as important when implementing further targeted sanction packages.

Contending American Visions of North Korea: The Mission Civilisatrice versus Realpolitik

This article aims to situate US–DPRK relations in a broader historical and theoretical context, that is, part of the violent encounters between the West and the ‘Rest’ in modern times, to examine discursive causes of their animosity and devise preliminary solutions to usher in peace and reconciliation in the Korean Peninsula. Drawing on a postcolonial reading of the liberal internationalist project and the global nuclear order, as well as a reflexive realist critique of US foreign policy toward the rogue states, this research explores how two competing geopolitical discourses, the mission civilisatrice and realpolitik, have constructed the epistemological problématique of Washington’s approach to Pyongyang and contributed to internal tensions in it over time. After analyzing the historical trajectory of America’s contrasting understandings of the Korean question, I seek to offer their implications on the dramatic change in the bilateral relations in the Trump era. By interrogating Trump’s realist turn in grand strategy and its unexpected influence on the two Cold War enemies’ mini-détente in 2018–2020, this article asks how a genuine dialogue between the liberal, ‘civilized’ center and the illiberal, ‘barbarian’ periphery can be materialized in an alternative normative setting. In particular, I argue that Trump’s new realist trial posed a critical question on how to depart from old ontological assumptions that frame the dominant liberal internationalist/neoconservative approaches toward a more dialogical and equal negotiation and compromise. A peaceful resolution of the North Korean dilemma is inherently related to a larger reflexivist project that promotes a thorough interrogation of the self-righteous US identity and a great transformation of America’s imperialist monologue toward the Third World in general. Des visions américaines concurrentes de la Corée du Nord : Mission civilisatrice vs Realpolitik

Gaddafi's Chemical Weapons: Chronicles of the Chadian-Libyan Conflict

The civil war in Chad has become one of the most protracted conflicts on the African continent. Its gradual internationalization led to the participation of three foreign military contingents in an internal armed confrontation Libya has taken an active military part in the civil war in Chad since 1972. There were several indications in certain studies about the use of chemical weapons by the Libyan troops. In the realities of the 1980s, these allegations could be true, or they could be an element of some information campaign against Libya. The purpose of this article is to verify the reports of the use of chemical weapons in Chad. Sources, methods. The sources for the study were the UN documents, declassified CIA materials and media reports. Cross-analysis of the documents, as well as the historical reconstruction of background events were carried out. Discussion of the results and conclusions. The analysis of the sources showed that, to date, no material evidence of the use of chemical weapons by Libyan troops in Chad has been found. There were no testimonies of direct witnesses and victims. No investigations have been carried out. Two sources of dissemination of information about the use of chemical weapons in northern Chad have been identified. The first one is the representatives of one of the participants in the civil war, Hissene Habré, who held the post of president in N'Djamena and fought against the Libyan troops. Representatives of H. Habré made such statements in December 1986. They cannot be considered reliable. In this way, one of the parties to the civil war wanted to show that Chad was the victim of the aggression with the use of weapons prohibited by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. However, it was established that in 1986 Libya did not possess chemical weapons. The second source is the CIA reports retransmitted to the public space in September 1987 about the alleged deliveries of chemical weapons to Libya from Iran. The reliability of these reports is doubtful. The «Iranian trace» has also not been proven. In 1987, during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), chemical weapons were used against Iran, but the military-chemical potential of Iran itself has not been established. However, such an accusation organically fit into the policy of containment of «rogue states» pursued by the administration of US President Ronald Reagan. In this article, cross-analysis methods have been tested. They have shown their effectiveness in retrospective investigations.

Conceptions of a rogue state in a comparative perspective: the United States and European Union vis-à-vis North Korea

ABSTRACT This article seeks to understand how the conception of North Korea as a rogue state influenced the relations of Washington and Brussels with this eastern Asian country between 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) and the outbreak of the pandemic crisis (2020). This is done by drawing on the analytical framework offered by Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle that allows one to compare the US and EU strategic narratives vis-à-vis North Korea. Besides adding a novel comparative perspective to the available studies focused on rogue states, this work concludes that although the US and the EU utilised sanctions to coerce North Korea, they exhibited different conceptions of rogueness. While the US’ system narrative characterised North Korea as a rogue, the EU’s characterisation focused on its violations of international law. Yet, the two actors’ identity and issue narratives highlighted their role and responsibility to bring the country back to the path of denuclearisation.

Expanding and protecting human rights from space

The area of surveillance of human activities from above is fraught with concerns and controversy. Such surveillance is clearly being used in ways that invade human lives and often put those lives in danger. At the same time, there is an argument for more oversight, and the need to support more surveillance, in a controlled and monitored way, to expose and render access to sites of criminal activity, and particularly those of the most egregious crimes—slavery, genocide, environmental destruction, and the operation of ‘rebel’ military gangs or national militaries run by rogue states. If nature can be harried, harmed, and turned against human existence, it is also true that humans have now brought increasingly powerful diagnostic techniques to bear so that oceans, land, forests, fields, plains—all ecosystems—can be monitored for health as well as the scars of exploitation—including that of the human within the monitored ecosystem. The field of human rights now stretches far beyond humans to all life and nature—since useful and meaningful human rights can’t truly exist in a physical and natural world that is hostile to homo sapiens. Earth observation can be, and often is, a force for good.

Post-9/11 US thinking and approaches to nuclear deterrence: the Bush Doctrine and the role of nuclear weapons in US deterrence strategy

Charting a course through US administrations from the late 1990s to the present day, this article considers the George W. Bush administration’s thinking on nuclear deterrence in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11: What was distinctive about the Bush administration’s thinking and approach to nuclear deterrence? To what extent, and to what effect have the Bush administration’s approaches proved enduring? The article considers the prima facie contradictory nature of the administration’s deterrence objectives against the backdrop of a shifting security environment, characterised by the proliferation of WMDs to ‘rogue states’ and non-state actors, nuclear multipolarity, disruptive emerging technologies, and long-held US commitments to its global allies and partners—ensuring the centrality of nuclear weapons in US national security policy, despite sustained efforts to reduce this reliance.

The Politics of State Mergers in the Qaddafi’s Foreign Policy: Utopia, Pan-Arabism, and Survival Strategy

Qaddafi’s unpredictable foreign policy always attracted attention from academics and politicians. However, very few works were devoted to examine an important part of the Libyan leader’s diplomacy: The staunch and fervent Arab nationalism directed to promote the creation of state unions with neighboring (and sometimes even far) countries in the perspective of pan-Arabism. Adventurism, limitless ambitions, and irrational projects also hid a pragmatic approach that had its roots in the quest for regional balance of power in the Arab world and the constant search to limit or break the isolation that surrounded Libya, considered a pariah and a rogue state.

Exploring the Russian Perspective on the War in Ukraine: Demography's Power and Ukraine's Uniqueness

Western officials and media have portrayed Russia as a rogue state that seeks to undermine the fundamental foundations of the Western lifestyle, which are based on democratic and liberal principles, especially more since the invasion of the remaining Ukrainian territories began on 24 February 2022. According to this perspective, Russia allegedly launched its strike to prevent Ukraine from joining the club of liberal nations. This move would have been a clear message to any other post-Soviet countries, further strengthening Russian control over them. It would be unfair to completely dismiss this argument, yet, justifying the simplification of the procedure and the continuation of conflict on these reasons goes much beyond presenting the facts. A thorough examination of the many issues involved is necessary to comprehend the Russian motivations for the ongoing war. This calls for an in-depth analysis of the Crimean Question, focusing on how Russia uses demographics in its foreign strategy. In addition, within the broader context of The Russian World (Russkiy Mir) Vision, it is crucial to understand the relevance of Russia’s unique perspective on Ukraine. The objective of this study is to provide an analytical framework concentrating on these apparently most visible factors for Russia’s willingness to raise tensions in Eastern Europe further and invade the remaining territory under the sovereignty of Ukraine.

The (il)legality of the Iraq War of 2003: An Analytical Review of the Causes and Justifications for the US-led invasion

This study aims to establish whether the 2003 Iraq war was waged within the confines of United Nations (UN) Charter rules. To achieve this, the study analyses the circumstances under which armed force in international relations (IR) may be used within the provisions of the UN Charter. In the wake of the contentious US-led war in Iraq, critics opine that the UN thresholds for waging war were not met by the US and its allies. The US argued that the war was justified given the unprecedented security challenges occasioned mainly by 9/11. Crucially, post 9/11, US re-ordering of international security fed on the narrative that preventative strikes against states that it suspected to be potential havens for terrorist activities (the so-called rogue states) was within the broader UN Charter parameters of self-defence. Using the UN Security Council Resolutions (SCRs) on Iraq and the UN Charter rules on warfare as a framework of analysis, this study navigates the causal factors and justifications for and against the Iraq war. The study concludes that although the US faced security challenges and arguably had fathomable reasons, the invasion of Iraq was conducted without UN authorisation, and hence in defiance of the UN Charter rules.

Противоракетная оборона США: от защиты национальной территории к обороне НАТО

The 1972 ABM Treaty between the USSR and the USA allowed for the deployment of a limited strategic missile defense system, but established a strict ban on the deployment of anti-missile systems outside their national territory. The agreement was the first turn in the U.S. policy in this area, determining the direction and content of missile defense development programs for many years to come. Once every ten years, the United States revised its policy, for instance, R. Reagan’s intention in 1983 to build a large-scale space-based missile defense system was seen as an attempt to move away from the concept of mutual nuclear deterrence, enshrined in the ABM Treaty. However, only after its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002, the United States set a course for the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe, as stated, to protect the region from nuclear missile threats from “rogue states”. At the present stage, the growing degradation of relations between Russia and Western countries, especially against the backdrop of hostilities in Ukraine, has led NATO states to put forward new approaches to the integration of missile defense and air defense systems, providing for the functional interface of information management systems and strike components for the successful interception of different classes of targets. The experience of providing Ukraine with integrated defense and its functioning on the basis of modern Western air defense systems will allow the U.S. / NATO to evaluate the effectiveness of the chosen approach and apply the knowledge gained to improve Europe’s “anti-missile umbrella”. The article proposes the author’s periodization of American policy in the field of missile defense, as well as considers each of the identified stages with special emphasis on the last one, which is directly related to the current political situation.

Financial Market Information Flows When Counteracting Rogue States: The Indirect Effects of Targeted Sanction Packages

Financial Market Information Flows When Counteracting Rogue States: The Indirect Effects of Targeted Sanction Packages

Aggravation of China-US Competition on the Problem of the World Order: Chinese Scientists Views Evolution

The article is devoted to Chinese scholars’ views on the nature, history and dynamics of the modern international order. The authors analyze international order definitions given by various representatives of China’s international relations theory. The evolution of the Chinese approach to the international order and the system of global governance, from the 1950s’ isolationism till the modern global collective goods creation is traced here. International order justness and rational nature are considered as its basic principles and norms. The authors underline the impact of the rise of China, China’s foreign policy mercantilism on the formation of Beijing’s views on the contemporary international order. The current stage of formulating the concept of international order, which began in 2012, is characterized by such features as an interest in the creation of multilateral institutions and the nature of complex state power parameters. Special attention is paid to the international order tectonic changes, associated with the beginning of large-scale conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Western sanctions, as well as the position of China. The authors note that systemic contradictions do not allow China and the United States to achieve their bilateral relations’ full normalization. China assumes an extremely negative attitude towards the U.S. of controlled chaos concept, one of the strongest features of which is sharp geopolitical pressure on Russia. By violating the principle of inviolability of property during the imposition of unilateral sanctions, Western countries send negative signals, to many nations, including China, which till the very recent times shared the basic principles of the liberal international order. The growing number of rogue states that are not subject to international law deepens the civilizational gap between the West and the rest of the world.

Taking Back Control: The Role of the EU

Taking Back Control:The Role of the EU1 John O'Hagan (bio) It was noted by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929) that there are some issues whose influence permeates national boundaries and give rise to problems which individual states, or even limited coalitions of states, are no longer able to influence, let alone control (see Habermas, 2012). Habermas was writing shortly after the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. Since then, of course, we have had the climate crisis issue, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. The only way according to this view to exercise control of problems that do not recognise national boundaries is to pool decision-making with other sovereign2 countries, thereby protecting the interest of the citizens of the participating states. The corollary of this is that withdrawing participation in any such coalition of states is in fact ceding control of the problems, thereby worsening the well-being of the individuals of that member state. This paper has three objectives. First, to review the case in principle for binding international agreements to protect the interests of nation states and their citizens. Second, to address the critical issue of for which areas of activity should decision-making be shared and binding. On this there is considerable and understandable differences of opinion as the EU progresses further into the twenty-first century. Third, to discuss how decision-making might best operate in relation to such international agreements, again a subject of varying and legitimately differing views. In pursuit of these objectives, the paper is, for cohesiveness, divided into nine subsections. 1. The case for pooled decision-making at national and international levels Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) never used the term 'spill-over effect' used by economists, but in fact this is what he was implicitly referring to in his writings over two centuries ago. He held that the state, given these implicit spill-over effects, is not an impediment to freedom but is how freedom is [End Page 378] secured. State action that is a hindrance to freedom can, when properly directed, support and maintain freedom if the state action is aimed at hindering actions which themselves would hinder the freedom of others. He argued further that Given a subject's action that would limit the freedom of another subject, the state may hinder the first subject to defend the second by 'hindering a hindrance to freedom'. Such state coercion is compatible with the maximal freedom demanded in the principle of right because it does not reduce freedom but instead provides the necessary background conditions needed to secure freedom. (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, online) It has been clear for a long time that by co-operating individuals enhance not diminish their freedom of action and hence control of their destiny. Let us take one of the simplest examples of all: a stop sign or traffic light on our roads. As individuals we cannot drive as we wish, regulation free, without endangering the lives of others, and vice versa. As such we pool decision-making to avoid what economists call 'spill-over effects', namely the consequences for the individual of other people's actions and likewise the consequences of the individual's actions for other people. In these circumstances we do not cede individual freedom of action, as Kant states, because without this pooling of decision-making, we would not be able in the first place to risk driving on the roads, and hence the counterfactual to not pooling decision-making is in fact an almost total loss of individual freedom compared to what results from such sharing of common rules. And so it is with nations too.3 Our standard of living would plummet if we could not trade with other nations and import, for example, vital materials such as medical equipment, gas/oil, food, and steel, among countless examples. We cannot stop the wind blowing harmful particles or radioactive waste across the Irish sea; we cannot counteract the fact that rogue states, criminals, illegal immigrants, and terrorists do not respect national boundaries and hence that their activity is international in nature; we cannot prevent the adverse consequences of the...