War Security Research Articles

A Return to ‘Civilisational Geopolitics’ in the Mediterranean? Changing Geopolitical Images of the European Union and Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era

The prevalence of the discourse of ideological geopolitics during the Cold War meant that both Turkey and the EU belonged to the West by virtue of their ideological orientation. In the absence of this prevalent geopolitical discourse, both the EU and Turkey have spent the 1990s trying to locate themselves geographically. Drawing on the literature on critical approaches to political geography and international relations, this article seeks to answer the question of whether the EU's post-Cold War security discourse on the Mediterranean in general and on relations with Turkey in particular point to a return to the earlier discourse of civilisational geopolitics. The article also presents a reading of Turkish policy makers’ attempts to resist EU's representation of Turkey in ‘non-Europe’ (as with the ‘Middle East’ or the ‘Mediterranean’) as boundary-producing practices which have served to underline the boundaries between the ‘West’ and the ‘non-West’.

East-Central Europe’s new security concern: foreign land ownership

While foreign land ownership has become a post-Cold War security concern for East-Central Europe, it has been neglected in security studies focused on more traditional topics. This article offers a comparative analysis of: (1) the post-1989 development of policy towards land sales to non-citizens, (2) why foreign land ownership has been the most controversial in Hungary and especially Poland, and (3) why foreign ownership can be a useful tool for nationalists. Mining the land issue ultimately strikes a deeper tension between foreign-driven pressures to liberalize land markets within a pan-European free market and the still-strong belief that states should control land sales for the good of the nation.

Caught in the Middle East: U.S. Policy Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1945-1961 (review)

Reviewed by: Caught in the Middle East: U.S. Policy Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1945-1961 Bruce J. Evensen (bio) Caught in the Middle East: U.S. Policy Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1945-1961. By Peter L. Hahn. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. xii + 398 pp. On the eve of Israeli independence, Chaim Weizmann, the man who would become the new nation's first president, observed that those who came from outside the Middle East always overestimated the role they could play in bringing peace to the region. Weizmann's warning seems particularly prescient in analyzing U.S. policy in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Peter Hahn's detailed description of this period castigates Washington for failing to achieve Arab-Israeli reconciliation "because of limits U.S. leaders imposed on their peacemaking" (276). The limits Hahn has in mind are the efforts to stop the spread of Soviet influence in an oil-rich region seen as central to postwar recovery. Reading Hahn's carefully crafted narrative, however, would seem to suggest that Weizmann had it right. The "unrelenting antagonism" between Israel and her Arab neighbors (1), and not the myopia Hahn alleges, may well have led these sovereign states to resist initiatives they did not consider in their national interest, thereby scuttling peacemaking "on U.S. terms" (231). Hahn, an associate professor of history at Ohio State University and the executive director of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, reconstructs the power vacuum reluctantly filled by the United States following the collapse of British influence in the Arab Near East after World War II. Hahn sees Truman as "unsteady" and reactive. Eisenhower is characterized as proactive and "more consistent." Both administrations, however, appeared to "privilege Cold War security concerns over peacemaking ventures" (3). Hahn argues this approach prevented a peace settlement on issues ranging from borders to refugees to water rights. The United States, he suggests, "refrained from taking steps that might have led to peace" (277). Those steps, in Hahn's view, should have included Washington's collaboration with Moscow in imposing "a multilateral settlement" to end the conflict (279). Hahn's conclusion assumes something he gives little evidence for, namely, that Stalin was interested in settling outstanding differences between the Arabs and Israelis and that the parties to the dispute could have been coerced to embrace an imposed settlement. Hahn acknowledges that throughout the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies there was "a deep reluctance of Arabs and Israelis to make concessions or compromises" that might have advanced the peace process (2). Franklin Roosevelt's efforts to straddle these differences left "an ambiguous legacy" for his successors (19). Truman's policymaking [End Page 129] on Palestine was further inhibited by divisions within his own administration. The White House staff, key members of Congress, and organized public opinion reinforced Truman's internal inclination to support the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This prospect was vigorously opposed by the Near East desk in the State Department and defense planners, who feared the outbreak of civil unrest in Palestine would destabilize the region and encourage Soviet meddling. Hahn is tough on Truman because of what he sees as Truman's vacillation between these two competing points of view. Truman embraces a two-state solution for Palestine in November 1947 only to favor a United Nations trusteeship four months later. Because Truman was "buffeted by public opinion" over Palestine, "ambivalence became a trademark of his policy" toward the region (32). Hahn believes that Truman becomes "more impartial" in his handling of Israel when he "refrains from overturning the handiwork of the State Department" in the post-independence period (68). Those initiatives on refugee resettlement and border disputes left U.S. officials "profoundly angry at Israel for its stubborn refusal to accept (American) counsel" (122). Hahn argues that President Eisenhower's international experience and practical "impartiality" in the ongoing Arab-Israeli dispute were critical in defusing the Suez-Sinai crisis in October 1956 (147). The decision of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to nationalize the Suez Canal in July 1956 provoked "strenuous attempts" by Washington to contain the conflict (192). While Eisenhower...

NATO Crisis Management: Cooperation with PfP Partners and Other International Organizations

Crisis management and conflict prevention, including crisis response operations that do not fall under Article V of the NATO Charter, have been major themes in the continuing adaptation of the Alliance to the post-Cold War security environment. This article focuses on a key aspect of the adaptation of NATO crisis management and conflict prevention mechanisms: cooperation with Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) and Partnership for Peace (PfP) partners and with other key international organizations that contribute to international peace and security and, in particular, recent developments in NATO–EU relations. The Strategic Concept adopted in Rome in 1991 emphasized the importance of crisis management, and the revised Strategic Concept adopted in Washington on 24 April 1999 identified crisis management and conflict prevention as ‘fundamental security tasks’ of the Alliance. It stated: “... in order to enhance the security and stability of the Euro-Atlantic area: Crisis Management: To stand ready, case-by-case and by consensus, in conformity with Article 7 of the Washington Treaty, to contribute to effective conflict prevention and to engage actively in crisis management, including crisis response operations.” Alliance members noted that NATO’s preparedness to carry out such operations supports the broader objective of reinforcing and extending stability and often involves the participation of NATO’s partners, and that it will make full use of partnership, cooperation and dialogue and NATO’s links to other organizations to contribute to preventing crises and, should they arise, defusing them at an early stage.

Carcass of Dead Policies: The Irrelevance of NATO

In 1877, Lord Salisbury, commenting on Great Britain's policy on Eastern Question, noted that the commonest error in politics is sticking to carcass of dead policies. (1) Salisbury was bemoaning fact that many influential members of British ruling class could not recognize that history had moved on; they continued to cling to policies and institutions that were relics of another era. Salisbury went on to note that cost was enormous because this preoccupation with anachronism damaged Britain's real interests. Despite Salisbury's clever words, his observation is nothing new. Throughout Western history policymakers often have tended to rely on past realities, policies, and institutions to assess and deal with contemporary and future situations. Post-Cold War American policymakers have not been immune from falling into this trap. Indeed, this inertial approach, characterized by Washington's unbending support for NATO and its expansion, has defined American foreign and security policy since collapse of Soviet Union and bipolar world. During Cold War, NATO provided proper linchpin of American--and West European--security policy, and served as a useful, even fundamental deterrent to Soviet military might and expansionism. However, NATO's time has come and gone, and today there is no legitimate reason for it to exist. Although strong differences exhibited in Alliance over war against Iraq have accelerated NATO's irrelevancy, root causes of its problems go much deeper. Consequently, for both United States and Europe, NATO is at best an irrelevant distraction and at worst toxic to their respective contemporary security needs. The Inertial Imperative The end of Cold War presented a problem similar to one faced by post-World War II American leaders. A tectonic shift had occurred that required innovation, creativity, and a real understanding of evolving world. For some experts--both in government and academia, as well as on both sides of Atlantic--the collapse of Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact called into question need for NATO. They recognized that an era had ended and time was ripe for a basic debate about future of NATO and Western security policies and structures. Unfortunately, policymakers in Washington who established priorities for post-Cold War era reacted quite differently from their predecessors. A small, influential coterie of policymakers in elder Bush and then Clinton administrations reacted reflexively and inertially, cutting off what should have been useful debate on future. Moreover, virtually all of officials who helped define foreign and security policy in Bush 41 Administration have resurfaced in current Bush Administration. According to them, existence and viability of NATO was not to be questioned. It was to remain basically same successful alliance of American and European foreign and security policy that it had been since 1949. But a fundamental change was taking place in post-Cold War security environment. In 1949, a genuine, measurable security threat justified NATO for all its members. Now, with end of Cold War, inertial attachment to NATO meant that alliance had to seek or invent reasons to justify its existence and relevance. American officials recognized threats to alliance. NATO needed props. Expansion into former Warsaw Pact was one. Not only did expansion provide a whole new raison d'etre for alliance, but--perhaps more important--it spawned a large new bureaucracy and accompanying busyness that provide lifeblood of institutions trying to justify their existence. At same time, theological mantra changed. Since there was no longer an enemy, NATO could not be described as a defensive alliance, it now was to be a combination of a wide-ranging political and collective security alliance. …

The Dangers of German History: Lessons from a Decade of Post-Cold War German Foreign and Security Policy

The Dangers of German History: Lessons from a Decade of Post-Cold War German Foreign and Security Policy

The dangers of German history: Lessons from a decade of post‐cold war German foreign and security policy1

Historically, Germany's progress has been intimately entwined with past experience. It has been a tale of reinvention: Imperial Germany, Weimar Germany, National Socialist Germany, and Divided Germany. On each transition, the historical shock was sufficiently traumatic to force/enable subsequent leaders to steer Germany upon a new path. This article examines whether this positive linkage has continued in the context of post‐Cold War German foreign and security policy. In doing so it steps back from the popular ‘normalisation’ debate about whether or not Germany should, or has, maintained its civilian power status. Rather; it argues that attempts to maintain FRG foreign policy traditions produced increasingly difficult role conflicts and that the efforts of successive German governments to address these were compromised by the enduring power of historical memory, regardless of whether or not normalisation is desired. And as a consequence Germany became awkwardly placed between the predictable attritional multilateralism of the FRG and a ‘normal’ power and between its rhetorical commitment to exercising a leadership role and its practical ability to deliver such, especially in terms of military interventionism.

The China Factor in the U.S.-Japan Alliance: The Myth of a China Threat

This paper argues that “China threat” was largely a myth and that the China factor was not the critical factor leading to the re-affirmation process of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the mid-1990s. It took the 1994 Korean crisis for this to materialize. The China factor was important only as a general background, and the role of the U.S.-Japan alliance in dealing with the rise of China was implicit, remaining in the domain of managing shifting major power relations after the Cold War rather than being directed against the myth of a “China threat.” The paper also argues that preoccupation with Japan as an independent security pole is an important source of confusion about the nature of Japan's security policies and its profile therein, which, as before, will continue to be premised on the U.S.-Japan alliance. It explains actual records of Japanese security behaviors as a series of attempts to cope with the dual identity as a security actor. Japan's readjustment to the post-Cold War security environment, founded upon the re-affirmation of the U.S.-Japan alliance, was a clear case in point.

Is There a Democratic Norm in the Americas? An Analysis of the Organization of American States

The preamble of the Organization of American States (OAS) Charter is explicit about a commitment to representative democracy as indispensable condition for the stability, peace and development of the region. (1) However, in the four decades after inception in 1948, the OAS failed to develop a consistent policy regarding the promotion of democracy in the hemisphere. For instance, while the Cuban government was suspended from the OAS in 1962 for incompatibility with inter-American principles and objectives, the (anticommunist) authoritarian regimes that emerged in South America in the 1960s and 1970s were passively condoned. Many observers came to view the OAS as a facile extension of the Cold War security interests of most powerful member, the United States. With the end of the Cold War, however, the OAS has come to play an increasingly significant role in Western-hemispheric relations. (2) With the approval in June 1991 of the Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Inter-American System and the adoption of OAS Resolution 1080, the organization renewed pledge to protect democracy in the region and established the institutional mechanisms for doing so. In particular, Resolution 1080 pledges the OAS secretary-general to convene an immediate emergency meeting of the OAS Permanent Council following any sudden or irregular interruption of the democratic political institutional process. (3) It is then the task of the Permanent Council to examine the situation and recommend whether or not a special meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs or of the General Assembly is warranted--all within ten days of the democratic crisis. In amending the charter through the adoption of the Washington protocol, the organization established that the General Assembly c ould, with a two-thirds vote, suspend any member state from the OAS in the event that its democratically constituted government has been overthrown by force. (4) The OAS also created a specific organization arm, the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy (UPD), to develop programs reinforcing the hemispheric trend toward democracy. Moreover, with the recent adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter on 11 September 2001, the QAS broadened conception of what constitutes a democratic crisis to include any unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime. (5) In short, the OAS now appears to spearhead a vigorous international regime for the defense of democratic rule in the hemisphere. Indeed, Heraldo Mufioz, a former chairman of the OAS Permanent Council, recently claimed that there is now a right to democracy in the Americas in the sense that a concern for the promotion and defense of democracy in the inter-American system has evolved into a normative obligation and, most important, is being implemented through collective action. (6) This new commitment by the OAS, in turn, raises several key questions for the study of international politics. First and foremost, is OAS action in relation to the defense of democracy motivated primarily by strategic or by normative factors? Second, under what conditions would the OAS actually intercede to protect and/or restore democracy in a member state? Finally, what type of OAS action would we expect to see if the OAS were to intervene? Two competing theories in international relations, realism and normativism, offer different explanations for the existence and behavior of international organizations (IOs). Realists view IOs as reflections of the underlying balance of power within the international system; as such, IOs are thought to have no real autonomy of their own. Normativists, in contrast, see IOs as reflections of a normative consensus shared by member states and the wider population of epistemic communities. IOs, for normativists, may develop considerable autonomy from member states. In order to assess the purported normative obligation to democracy in the Western Hemisphere, this essay examines the predictions that realist and normativist theories make regarding IOs and evaluates them against the evidence of OAS practice since the Santiago declaration. …

Militarism and Terrorism: The Deadly Cycle

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, destined to strongly influence world politics well into the 21st century, can be understood as part of a larger dialectic linking US militarism and what has become global terrorism. This destructive cycle is likely to deepen as elements of American superpower hegemony--economic, political, cultural and military--become more consolidated, and as the USA continues to pursue its unprecedented and ill-defined war against terrorism. The goal of US ruling elites is to make the world increasingly accessible to capital investment, free trade and corporate domination while simultaneously closing off viable alternatives to the neoliberal New World Order. Here terrorism in its different manifestations amounts to both a striking back at US empire--what might be seen as an especially virulent form of blowback--and the unintended relegitimation of this empire as it helps to bolster the war economy and security state. One of the debilitating consequences of the militarism-terr...

Seapower as Strategy: Navies and National Interests

A noted defense analyst and naval weapons expert lays out the roles of navies and naval strategy in the twenty-first century. Drawing upon historical examples, Norman Friedman first explains how and why naval strategy differs from other kinds of military strategy and then provides a sense of the special flavor of a maritime or naval approach to national security problems. The various uses of navies are described and illustrated by extended case studies covering the last quarter-millennium. Friedman presents these observations in the context of U.S. post-Cold War security concerns and concepts. He explains how and why the United States currently espouses a maritime strategy and argues that navies are likely to regain a dominant position due to changes both in their own technology and in air and ground forces. He urges countries with the appropriate geographical and economic advantages, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia, to use their inherent maritime leverage.Rare among books on naval strategy, this work combines an examination of the vital role of coalition partners, especially those with significant ground forces, with a comprehensive survey of relevant technology and the way that strategy can be reflected in the design of an evolving fleet. The author is known for his ability to explain modern technology to lay audiences, and his book is suitable for all those interested in public policy questions as well as national security professionals and students of strategy. The book's publication at a time of potential change in U.S. national strategy only reinforces its value as a document worthy of study.

Democracy, ethnic diversity, and security in post-communist Europe

Introduction Democracy, Ethnic Diversity, and Post-Cold War Security: The Practical and Conceptual Dilemmas Managing Ethnic Diversity Through Political Structures and Ideologies: The Experiences of the Soviet Union, India, Sri Lanka, and Spain Self-Determination, Democracy, Minorities, and Sovereignty: The Issues Raised by the Collapse of Yugoslavia and the USSR Reconciling the International and Domestic Dimensions of Democracy On the Absence of War in the Former Communist Bloc: Magyar and Russian Minorities in Countries Neighboring Hungary and Russia Conclusions Bibliography

The Architecture of Government in the Face of Terrorism

2001, the post–Cold War security bubble anally burst. In the preceding ten years, the United States and its major allies failed to identify and invest in the prevention of“A-list” security problems that could affect their way oflife, po sition in the world, and very survival. Instead they behaved as ifgulled into a beliefthat the key security problems ofthe post–Cold War era were ethnic and other internal conoicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, East Timor, and Kosovo. Peacekeeping and peacemaking in these places, although engaging important humanitarian concerns, never addressed the vital security interests ofthe United States, and none ofthese conoicts could begin to threaten its sur vival. As ifto conarm this point, the of acial military strategy ofthe United States during the last decade centered not on peacekeeping but on the challenge ofaghting two Desert Storm reruns, one in Korea and one in the Persian Gulf, at the same time. The two-major-theater-war doctrine at least had the virtue ofaddressing threats to vital U.S. allies and interests. But as the decade wore on, it was increasingly apparent that although important interests were at stake in both major theaters, in neither was U.S. survival in question. The A-list seemed empty, so policy and strategy focused on B- and C-level problems instead. 1 A-list threats, such as the threat posed by the Soviet Union for the preceding half-century—were indeed absent, but only if threat is understood as the imminent possibility ofattack deaned in traditional military terms. Iftaken in stead to denote looming problems that could develop into Cold War–scale dangers, the A-list contained at least four major underattended items in the

Beyond 'the Mogadishu Line': Some Australian Lessons for Managing Intra-State Conflicts

The controversial humanitarian intervention in Somalia was a foretaste of a continuing international failure to come to terms with the post-Cold War security environment. For much of the 1990s, the wrong lessons, drawn almost entirely from the unsuccessful US experience in Mogadishu, shackled international thinking about international conflicts like Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Bosnia. Yet if the international communities going to develop a more effective response to the new pattern of intra-state violence, it should learn from the successes as well as the failures of humanitarian intervention in Somalia. In Baidoa, the Australians demonstrated it is possible to develop what might be termed a peace-enhancement strategy in a collapsed state situation. By striking a balance between political reconstruction and a measure willingness to use force to obtain compliance with UN demands the Australians indicated that the dire prophesies of Robert Kaplan's 'The Coming Anarchy' can be averted.

Mixing Carrots with Sticks: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Positive Incentives

Several recent studies argue that positive incentives have become important policy instruments allowing states to meet their post-Cold War security challenges. The leading research question is the effectiveness and efficiency of incentives relative to (economic) sanctions. Whereas earlier work often treated incentives merely as weak sanctions, these studies present a theoretical perspective in which incentives become powerful instruments to turn conflict into cooperation. The essay is constructed around four major issues: (1) the comparison of the effectiveness of incentives and sanctions, (2) the identification of conditions under which incentives are effective, (3) the use of the comparative case studies method to test these conditions, and (4) the identification of policy implications. A principal argument in this essay is that incentives need to be distinguished very carefully from sanctions. Moreover, none of the studies derives the conditions under which we expect incentives to matter more than sanctions. The books are good examples of both the strengths and weaknesses of the comparative case studies method. Expert knowledge provides valuable insight into the various cases, but lack of logical and inferential constraint remains a problem. Nevertheless, the studies offer important policy lessons for the successful implementation of incentives. This essay suggests various ways in which research on sanctions and incentives could progress. In particular, older work by Knorr (1975) already proposes how sanctions and incentives can be distinguished. Finally, it is indicated how selection bias could have been avoided.

ASIA America and the Japanese Miracle: The Cold War Context of Japan's Postwar Economic Revival, 1950–1960. By Aaron Forsberg. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Pp. xi, 332. $45.00.

This book is a history of how American foreign policy during the 1950s affected Japan's access to foreign markets. It is not an economic history per se, but rather a political history highlighting the interaction between Cold War security issues and U.S. trade policy. Extensive archival evidence paints a clear picture of U.S. policy toward Japan after the end of the Occupation. Forsberg's main thesis is that the United States contributed to the “Japanese miracle” by fostering an international environment in which Japan could export while maintaining protectionist policies.

Turkey’s Accession to the European Union: Differences in European and US Attitudes, and Challenges for Turkey

This contribution analyzes recent European Union (EU) policies toward Turkey’s candidacy for membership, with special attention to US-European differences on this issue, the interplay between prospective membership in the EU and Turkey’s security needs, and the relationship between Turkey and the projected European Security Defence Policy. It seeks to understand the challenges Turkey faces in balancing steps necessary for accession against the risks such steps pose for internal cohesion and regional security. It provides an interpretive overview of developments that changed EU policies toward Turkey’s candidacy for membership, with a special focus on European and US differences on this issue as well as implications for Turkish government policy. It reviews developments from the December 1997 Luxembourg summit (when the EU, in effect, “rejected” Turkey’s request for accession) to the December 1999 Helsinki summit (at which the EU reversed that decision and made Turkey a candidate state). Turkey’s vulnerability to external threats; and US and EU (especially German, French and Greek) perceptions of Turkey’s role relative to their post cold war security interests is then examined. It looks at two key issues regarding Turkish membership: the form an Accession Partnership Document (APD) with Turkey would take and whether the EU would endorse it; and the European Security Defence Policy (ESDP), the role Turkey would play in it, and whether NATO would endorse it. Finally, it attempts to understand the challenges Turkey faces in balancing the steps necessary to begin negotiations for accession against the risks such steps pose for internal cohesion and regional security.

North Korea and the U.S. Grand Security Strategy

Despite North Korea's atrocious human rights record and the transparent effort to blackmail the United States and its allies with its nuclear and long-range ballistic missile capabilities, Washington has treated Pyongyang with a remarkable degree of forbearance. In fact, rather than imposing on North Korea even a modest level of economic sanctions, let alone responding militarily to provocations, the United States has promoted economic and diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang. This essay analyzes how the United States has handled North Korea in the post-Cold War security environment and important structural factors that constrain Washington's policy toward Pyongyang despite the primacy of American power in the international system.

Whose Security?

The article discusses the conceptual transformation within UNHCR towards a 'security discourse' in the 1990s. The article first outlines the post-Cold War context in which this discourse evolved; this context was characterized by the increasing hostility displayed by refugee host states towrds refugees and by the inclusion of refugee movements on the post-Cold War security agenda. The article then analyses the contents of UNHCR's security discourse and notes how the refugee agency attempts to reconcile its concern with the security and stability of refugee host states, on the one hand, and the safety and dignity of the refugee individual, on the other, by merging the two in the concept of 'human security'. The article concludes by discussing some problems raised by UNHCR's reliance on this controversial concept.

Japan's naval power

In the last few months, there have been tentative changes in the Japanese navy’s role, component forces and area of operations. Japanese military planners have begun to reassess the navy’s needs in the light of changes in the post-Cold War security environment, such as China’s naval expansion, increasing threats from piracy and uncertainty over the long-term future of the US security umbrella in East Asia. Public and political backing is growing for greater changes to Japan’s defence role.