Security Alliance Research Articles

Disentangling the security traffic jam in the Sahel: constitutive effects of contemporary interventionism

Abstract Despite years of ongoing interventions by multiple external and regional actors, the security situation in west Africa's Sahel region is dramatically deteriorating. In this introduction to the special section of the July 2020 issue of International Affairs, we zoom in on four major external international intervention actors (France, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations) in the Sahel region's escalating ‘security traffic jam’. We argue that the diversity of intervention actors makes the Sahel a paradigmatic case for exploring a set of often-overlooked constitutive intervention effects. By adding new temporal, relational and spatial dimensions to the notion of ‘constitutive effects’ as introduced by post-structuralists in the 1990s, we (re)launch constitutive effects as a conceptual framework for approaching the study of ongoing intervention engagements. From this perspective, and as further illustrated in this special section, intervention continuity and escalation cannot be explained simply with reference to frameworks of ‘success’ or ‘failure’, but require a broader conceptualization of effects, including how specific threat perceptions, rationales and problematizations get constituted and consolidated through and during ongoing intervention practice. Contributions to this special section each unpack a diverse set of constitutive effects including the contested performance of security actorness, the (un)making of security alliances and partnerships, logics of choices produced by ongoing intervention practices, as well as the constitution of conditions for continual international involvement.

The resilience of the US–Turkey alliance: divergent threat perceptions and worldviews

ABSTRACT Focusing on Turkey’s 68-year-old formal alliance with the US, this study asks why the alliance persists in spite of diverging perceptions of threat and worldviews. The first section of the article explains that the alliance has been transformed into a more than a threat-centric and transactional partnership over time. The second section focuses on the key issues of the US–Turkey alliance management between January 2009 and 2020 and points to a significant increase in the alliance security dilemma. The third section explores the AKP leadership’s divergent worldviews and rising contestations against the US. Overall, the study argues that both transactional and ‘order-centric’ arguments can be useful to explain the resilience of the US–Turkey alliance in the post-Cold War era.

Emerging Rebalancing Strategy of India in the Indian Ocean Region and the India–Korea Strategic Partnership

The Asia-Pacific region is going through a power shift. The American-led security structure, which for decades has maintained peace and security in the region, is under huge stress. Various political and economic factors are playing a role in hurting this security alliance system. Unprecedented Chinese naval expansion in the region is changing the “balance of power” there like never before. China is becoming more assertive far beyond its traditional geographical areas of activity, the Indian Ocean being one such area where it has increased its engagement in recent years. By using various political, economic, diplomatic and military tools, it has been increasing its influence many-fold, greatly altering the current balance of power. Concerned by this increasing power shift and the continually expanding role of outside powers in its neighborhood, India has launched its own engagement strategy for the region under a “Neighborhood First” policy. Through this strategy, India is striving to increase its role in the development of countries in the Indian Ocean region. Due to the fact that such a power shift is happening across the entire Asia-Pacific arena, keeping balance of power in one area is dependent and interconnected with similar efforts in other parts of the Asia-Pacific. Since South Korea is a major democracy in Northeast Asia, it has emerged as a natural ally of India and has joined hands to protect a law and rules-based regional governing order. So far we have seen India playing a very limited role in the internal power dynamics of Northeast Asia, yet a time is coming when India might be required to play a more active role in strengthening Korea’s hand. More robust strategic and defense policy coordination between India and Korea can go a long way in maintaining peace, prosperity and security in the region.

Selecting a Secure Cloud Provider—An Empirical Study and Multi Criteria Approach

Security has become one of the primary factors that cloud customers consider when they select a cloud provider for migrating their data and applications into the Cloud. To this end, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has provided the Consensus Assessment Questionnaire (CAIQ), which consists of a set of questions that providers should answer to document which security controls their cloud offerings support. In this paper, we adopted an empirical approach to investigate whether the CAIQ facilitates the comparison and ranking of the security offered by competitive cloud providers. We conducted an empirical study to investigate if comparing and ranking the security posture of a cloud provider based on CAIQ’s answers is feasible in practice. Since the study revealed that manually comparing and ranking cloud providers based on the CAIQ is too time-consuming, we designed an approach that semi-automates the selection of cloud providers based on CAIQ. The approach uses the providers’ answers to the CAIQ to assign a value to the different security capabilities of cloud providers. Tenants have to prioritize their security requirements. With that input, our approach uses an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to rank the providers’ security based on their capabilities and the tenants’ requirements. Our implementation shows that this approach is computationally feasible and once the providers’ answers to the CAIQ are assessed, they can be used for multiple CSP selections. To the best of our knowledge this is the first approach for cloud provider selection that provides a way to assess the security posture of a cloud provider in practice.

Multidomain security authentication for the Internet of things

SummaryWith the rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT) information technology, the IoT has become a key infrastructure for telemedicine, smart home, and intelligent transportation. One of the key technologies for these applications is information sharing and interoperation among multiple domains. However, the security and privacy issues of multidomain interaction face severe security challenges. Aiming at these problems, an certificateless multidomain authentication technology is proposed for IoT. Bilinear mapping and short signature technology are used to realize mutual authentication among entities in different domains, which protects secure data sharing and secure interoperability among domains. Certificateless multidomain authentication can avoid inherent security risks of key escrow in existing identity‐based authentication. And it also solves complex certificate management and network bottlenecks problems in traditional certificate‐based authentication. The proof and analysis show that the proposed scheme has good security and performance, it supports anonymous authentication among entities, and it is also suitable for large‐scale distributed network security alliance authentication mechanism.

Global Health Security Alliance (GloHSA).

Global Health Security Alliance (GloHSA).

South Korea’s Geoeconomic Response to the United States’ Geopolitical Approach

The United States “Indo-Pacific strategy” itself entails geopolitics. Since 2017, the Indo-Pacific has emerged as a major strategic region for America’s diplomacy and security. Against this backdrop, the Indo-Pacific strategy extends both the “Asia Rebalancing Strategy” and the “Asia-Pacific Security Alliance” regime to the Indian Ocean, while seeking to bring emerging countries, such as China and India, into the U.S.-led international order. Major East Asian countries are actively employing economic means to advance their geopolitical goal -- reshaping the regional order in their own favor. The U.S. has shown a confrontational and exclusionary attitude toward China in terms of politics, economy and security, while the ASEAN has sought to promote inclusiveness by publicly expressing opposition to the exclusion of China. The ASEAN highlighted economic cooperation with China, while the U.S. focused on military and security aspects. The Indo-Pacific strategy will not be able to succeed without the participation of the ASEAN that serves as a crucial geopolitical link between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Another important factor is that unlike former U.S. President Obama, who championed the Asia-Pacific rebalance, President Donald Trump does not show keen interest in the Indo-Pacific strategy. At the same time, President Moon Jae-in has been cautious about engaging in security issues that go beyond the Korean Peninsula or the Northeast Asia -- namely joining in any collective move to contain China. Currently, South Korea is grappling with the geopolitical challenges by expressing support for the ASEAN's geoeconomic approach. Instead of choosing whether to participate in the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, South Korea is seeking common ground between the strategy and its “New Southern Policy.” In other words, the New Southern Policy is a kind of buffer zone. South Korea is taking a geoeconomic response that focuses on developing the regional economy rather than adhering to the strategic and military role of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy.

The Rise of Xi Jinping and China’s New Era: Implications for the United States and Taiwan

Xi Jinping’s rise to power has heralded a new foreign policy that is more assertive and uncompromising toward China’s neighbors, the United States, and the rest of the world. This change presents challenges for the United States and Taiwan in particular which must be addressed with a sense of urgency due to Xi Jinping’s ambitious objectives and his firm grip on the levers of power which increase the likelihood that the Communist Party and government of China will seek to achieve them without delay. This paper reviews changes to Chinese foreign policy in the Xi Jinping era and argues how the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) over time has increased the threat to Taiwan, with concurrent risks for the United States. Taiwan and the US can address the challenge presented by China by strengthening their relationship to adapt to the new era under Xi Jinping’s leadership. According to CIA (2018), China’s economy now stands at approximately US$12 trillion, second only to the United States (CIA [2018]. World fact book). Unlike in 1978, China’s economy today is dependent on access to globally sourced raw materials, and access to overseas consumer markets for its industrial and consumer goods. This dependency on overseas markets has increased China’s global presence and interests, driving the need to protect them. The Chinese Government’s now ample resources have been allocated to both hard and soft power means toward this purpose. The PLA has greatly benefitted from economic development and the expansion of the Chinese economy, transforming from a backward institution focused on private-sector moneymaking into the sharpest tool of China’s power and influence. Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China’s foreign policy and strategy have undergone a dramatic shift away from Deng Xiaoping’s focus on increasing domestic productivity and avoiding potentially costly overseas entanglements. The confluence of accumulated national wealth, diplomatic, economic, and military power, and the will to use those levers of power, has dramatic implications for the United States and China’s neighbors. A more assertive China, confident in its wealth, power, and international status, is increasingly unafraid of overt competition with its neighbors and the United States, unwilling to back down or compromise in the face of disputes. This dynamic has resulted in a new paradigm in the Indo-Pacific region that is unlike previous challenges of the past 40 years. The shift in China’s foreign policy and the PLA’s modernization threaten to challenge the credibility of US security assurances and alliances in the region, making the cultivation and strengthening of the US–Taiwan relationship, and the network of US bilateral alliances in the region an urgent imperative.

Ireland's Neutrality Policy and Japan's Alliance Policy

This paper offers a comparative analysis of Ireland's neutrality policy and Japan's alliance policy. These policies have been adopted as the basic stance of diplomacy for each country for years. In both cases, these longstanding policies have an important bearing on today's circumstances. This paper considers two issues, first, why did Ireland and Japan each take a different direction for their basic stance of diplomacy, one for neutrality and the other for alliance with the United States, while the situations of Ireland in 1939 and those of Japan in 1951 had some commonalities? Second, why did the paths of each stance of diplomacy since their inception take different directions in Ireland and Japan? While Ireland's neutrality policy has undergone a considerable remodelling since the end of the Second World War, Japan has continued to strengthen its security alliance with the United States. In examining these two issues by way of comparative analysis, I use the same frame of reference, focusing on three dimensions, namely, security, national identity and relations with key countries. These three factors are valid in answering the above-mentioned research questions, illuminating both differences and commonalities between the two countries.

Three Scenarios for Asia's Changing Regional Order

Three Scenarios for Asia's Changing Regional Order Renato Cruz De Castro (bio) Prior to Donald Trump's presidential inauguration on January 20, 2017, several East Asian leaders were concerned about the fate of the Obama administration's rebalancing strategy toward the Asia-Pacific in particular and U.S. foreign policy in the region more generally. They suspected already that President Trump would ignore the region, given that one of his first official decisions was to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Neither was their apprehension assuaged by a subgroup of White House national security officials who tried to soften or rectify the president's statements on a range of issues from the South China Sea to the notorious activities of extremist groups in Southeast Asia.1 The public airing of discord within the administration also generated confusion and doubt about the credibility of U.S. foreign policy commitments in Asia. Trump's decision to withdraw from the TPP, his quirky temperament, his lack of strategy for the Indo-Pacific region, and his personal concern regarding Islamic militancy in the Middle East made analysts and Asian statesmen doubt whether he would heed former president Barack Obama's advice that "engaging in the Asia-Pacific is critical to America's future prosperity and security."2 Along with China's growing economic and strategic clout and increasing tensions in several regional flashpoints, all these factors made many pessimistic about the future of U.S. foreign policy in East Asia and the durability of the regional security order. Andrew Yeo's recent work Asia's Regional Architecture: Alliances and Institutions in the Pacific Century offers a fresh and reassuring outlook on the future of Asia's security order and U.S. foreign policy in the region. In the book, Yeo argues that Asia's regional institutions are more powerful and resilient than the whims of the United States' current, eccentric president. He observes that political leaders' choices and actions [End Page 139] are framed within a larger temporal and historical context, making it difficult for new and inexperienced decision-makers to reverse existing ideas and institutions that were created to articulate states' core interests and values. He maintains that Asia's security architecture reflects greater stability and continuity; thus, it can withstand and even outlive the Trump administration's inconsistent signals regarding long-term U.S. intentions and policy toward the region. Using historical institutionalism as a theoretical framework, the book examines the evolution of Asia's regional security order. Yeo explores the beginnings and development of U.S. bilateral security alliances as well as the modes of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) toward fostering multilateralism in Asia. He observes that while this system of bilateral alliances remains an important means of ensuring national security and regional stability, regional institutional structures are also being used by several states to organize and address emerging security and economic challenges. He assumes that bilateralism and multilateralism are complementary rather than contradictory. This raises two questions: how do bilateral and multilateral institutions interact, and how are old and new institutions layered and integrated? Yeo traces how the emergence of the postwar bilateral alliance system in the 1950s and the formation of ASEAN in the late 1960s led to the creation of the complex patchwork of overlapping bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral institutions that currently constitute Asia's security architecture. However, despite the region's new multilateralism and the proliferation of several patchworks of regional institutions, Cold War relics such as the U.S. system of bilateral alliances and ASEAN remain at the core of this architecture. The book then examines how the Trump administration's actions and China's foreign policy goals can affect the regional order. Yeo notes that despite Trump's erratic statements on U.S. policy toward Asia, the actions of the United States appear to encourage some degree of stability and continuity in the regional architecture. Interestingly, he maintains that China does not actually want to overhaul this regional security architecture. Instead, it wants greater influence in the region and simply seeks to fill the void that the United States and its allies have left. Yeo is skeptical...

Research on SDP Software Defined Perimeter Initiating Host Protocol Configuration Algorithm

With the popularity of digital and cloud services, the demand for network security products and solutions is increasing day by day. At the same time, the network security problems are becoming more and more serious. The network security architecture and platform are far from meeting the challenges brought by the current situation. As a new generation network security solution concept, the Software Definition Perimeter was first proposed by the Cloud Security Alliance in 2013. The whole central idea is to build a virtual enterprise boundary in the mobile + cloud era through software. The use of identity-based access control is to cope with the problem of coarse control and poor validity caused by boundary fuzziness, so as to achieve the purpose of protecting data security. This paper mainly changes the infrastructure of the Software Defined Perimeter SDP, and adds the message queue, which mainly stores the control information in the message queue to solve the peak congestion and network congestion problem.

Alliances Adrift: Is This the End of America's Asian Alliances?

Alliances Adrift: Is This the End of America's Asian Alliances?

Federating Cloud Systems for Collaborative Construction and Engineering

The construction industry has undergone a transformation in the use of data to drive its processes and outcomes, especially with the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM). In particular, project collaboration in the construction industry can involve multiple stakeholders (architects, engineers, consultants) that exchange data at different project stages. Therefore, the use of Cloud computing in construction projects has continued to increase, primarily due to the ease of access, availability and scalability in data storage and analysis available through such platforms. Federation of cloud systems can provide greater flexibility in choosing a Cloud provider, enabling different members of the construction project to select a provider based on their cost to benefit requirements. When multiple construction disciplines collaborate online, the risk associated with project failure increases as the capability of a provider to deliver on the project cannot be assessed apriori. In such uncontrolled industrial environments, “trust” can be an efficacious mechanism for more informed decision making adaptive to the evolving nature of such multi-organisation dynamic collaborations in construction. This paper presents a trust based Cooperation Value Estimation (CoVE) approach to enable and sustain collaboration among disciplines in construction projects mainly focusing on data privacy, security and performance. The proposed approach is demonstrated with data and processes from a real highway bridge construction project describing the entire selection process of a cloud provider. The selection process uses the audit and assessment process of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and real world performance data from the construction industry workloads. Other application domains can also make use of this proposed approach by adapting it to their respective specifications. Experimental evaluation has shown that the proposed approach ensures on-time completion of projects and enhanced...

Japan's New Security Partnerships: Beyond the Security Alliance ed. by Wilhelm Vosse and Paul Midford

Japan's New Security Partnerships: Beyond the Security Alliance ed. by Wilhelm Vosse and Paul Midford

Strengthening public healthcare systems in India; Learning lessons in COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic has involved nations and incapacitated the health systems globally. The pandemic preparedness has been tested with immense losses. Universal health coverage is needed more than ever to recuperate from the effects of the current pandemic. Post pandemic, many lessons need to be learnt especially for developing economies like India where public healthcare system is grossly inadequate to take care of health needs of citizens. World Health Organization's framework of six health system building blocks was utilized to study the lessons learnt and actionable points in the post pandemic period. Participation in Global Health Security Alliance has to be stepped up with involvement in Joint external evaluation and development of epidemiological core capacities. National Health Security Action Plan needs to drafted and available for health emergences. Ayushman Bharat scheme should incorporate elements to address surge capacity at the time of health emergencies and measures to deliver care at the time of pandemic. Technology through telemedicine, m-health, and digital platforms or apps should contribute to trainings, supervision, and facilitation of healthcare delivery at remote locations. Open data sharing policies should be developed for the practice of evidence-based public health. Public healthcare system and health manpower trained in epidemiology should be given a boost to have system readiness to respond in case of future pandemics.

A Study on the Overcoming of the Asymmetry of the Korea-U.S. Alliance: Focusing on the Trump Administration’s Security, Economic and MILITARY Alliance Policies

A Study on the Overcoming of the Asymmetry of the Korea-U.S. Alliance: Focusing on the Trump Administration’s Security, Economic and MILITARY Alliance Policies

CLOUD COMPUTING AND ANALYSIS FEATURES OF CLOUD INFORMATION SECURITY

The article discusses the current state of application and development of cloud computing, the main advantages and disadvantages of their use in the states, enterprises and in scientific activity. The standards, regulations and guidance documents in the field of cloud computing information security are developed and analyzed, developed by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the results of a detailed analysis of the issues information security in the cloud.

Accomplishment of New Protocol for Stupendous Security in Cloud Environment

Cloud is that the rising and thirst area of analysis and advantageous in all the fields. However security is the main disquiet for not espouse cloud for each application. Mainly of the security crisis are connected by authentication with data protection by the respect to cloud security alliance (CSA). The projected New (Biometric encoding and Biometric authentication) protocol can conquer every safety crisis in cloud adjacent. In NEW protocol biometric encryption has been provided for the cloud consumer’s valuable information and identity verification has been utilized in a unique way to scale back the problems associated with authentication and authorization. In NEW protocol Identity verification in cloud environment has been joint by pattern security in coincidence with four entirely dissimilar and influential encryption algorithms for accumulated safety. This protocol improves biometric template protection by the combination of RSA and AES encryption algorithms in proper locations and 3DES, Blowfish has been utilized in information security and solution safety supervision. By implementing such technique can vanish out the un trustiness of adopting cloud, specifically public and hybrid clouds. Since all the users information are hold on in off premise. Adopting this protocol has given nice results when examining with existing work and all the vulnerable places has been considered for improved security.

Conference Report: Global Health Security Alliance (GLoHSA), a Product of the World Health Summit.

Over the past decade, the World Health Summit (WHS) has provided a global platform for policy-makers and decision-makers to interact with academics and practitioners on global health. Recently the WHS adopted health security into their agenda for transnational disease risks (eg, Ebola and antimicrobial resistance) that increasingly threaten multiple sectors. Global health engagement (GHE) focuses efforts across interdisciplinary and interorganizational lines to identify critical threats and provide rapid deployment of key resources at the right time for addressing health security risks. As a product of subject matter experts convening at the WHS, a special side-group has organically risen with leadership and coordination from the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in support of GHE activities across governmental, academic, and industry partners. Through novel approaches and targeted methodology that maximize outcomes and streamline global health operational process, the Global Health Security Alliance (GloHSA) was born. This short conference report describes in more detail the GloHSA.

The US-Japan Alliance Dilemma in the Asia-Pacific: Changing Rationales and Scope

ABSTRACTThe changes in the US-Japan alliance are taking place in times of a global power shift – a transition from unipolarity to multipolarity – and China’s challenge to the US’ security dominance in the Asia-Pacific. The alliance security dilemma now manifests itself in the rise of ‘entrapment’ concerns for Washington and ‘abandonment’ anxieties for Tokyo. The US increasingly insists on more mutuality in alliance arrangements, while seeking to maintain ambiguity in its defence commitments to Japan. The relative decline of US power and the fluid regional security architecture, however, incentivise Japan to step up preparations for abandonment. Although Tokyo’s hedging strategy contributes to enhancement of the bilateral alliance in the short term, it also paves the way for Japan’s pursuit of strategic autonomy in the medium to long term.