Strategic Liability Research Articles

NATO and Counter-insurgency: Strategic Liability or Tactical Asset?

This article examines NATO as a tool for counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. The authors show how its multinational character, reliance on consensus, and limited resources make NATO an unlikely contributor to effective COIN. Its role in the 1995 intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina is used to show that, in a suitably permissive environment, NATO can help to alleviate the conditions that can lead to insurgency movements. However, NATO's role in Afghanistan shows that the organization has serious limitations in the more challenging circumstances that tend to characterize contemporary COIN. It engaged there in such a way that it was difficult for it to play an effective tactical role, and its strategic liabilities were increasingly exposed. The article puts forward ways in which NATO might be reformed to take a more positive role in COIN and concludes that if it cannot make such a transition, its decline as a relevant tool for international security management will accelerate.

Chapter four: Dismantlement

For over three decades, driven by the core motive of deterring external threats to its security, Libya sought to acquire nuclear weapons. Having attempted but failed to procure them ‘off the shelf’ from several states during the 1970s, by late 2003 it had succeeded in assembling much of the technology required to manufacture them. Nevertheless, following secret negotiations with the UK and US governments, in December 2003 Colonel Muammar Gadhafi resolved to abandon the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. This decision reflected the regime's radically altered security perceptions during the 1990s and early twenty-first century. The pursuit of nuclear weapons had come to be viewed as a strategic liability. This Adelphi Paper examines the motives for Libya's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, from Gadhafi's rise to power in 1969 through to late 2003. It assesses the proliferation pathways that the regime followed, including early dependence on Soviet technology and assistance and, subsequently, its reliance on the A.Q. Khan network. It examines the decision to give up the quest for nuclear weapons, focusing on the main factors that influenced the regime's calculations, including the perceived need to re-engage with the international community and the United States in particular. The process of dismantling the nuclear programme is also addressed, as is the question of whether Libya constitutes a ‘model’ for addressing the challenges posed by other proliferators.

Introduction

For over three decades, driven by the core motive of deterring external threats to its security, Libya sought to acquire nuclear weapons. Having attempted but failed to procure them ‘off the shelf’ from several states during the 1970s, by late 2003 it had succeeded in assembling much of the technology required to manufacture them. Nevertheless, following secret negotiations with the UK and US governments, in December 2003 Colonel Muammar Gadhafi resolved to abandon the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. This decision reflected the regime's radically altered security perceptions during the 1990s and early twenty-first century. The pursuit of nuclear weapons had come to be viewed as a strategic liability. This Adelphi Paper examines the motives for Libya's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, from Gadhafi's rise to power in 1969 through to late 2003. It assesses the proliferation pathways that the regime followed, including early dependence on Soviet technology and assistance and, subsequently, its reliance on the A.Q. Khan network. It examines the decision to give up the quest for nuclear weapons, focusing on the main factors that influenced the regime's calculations, including the perceived need to re-engage with the international community and the United States in particular. The process of dismantling the nuclear programme is also addressed, as is the question of whether Libya constitutes a ‘model’ for addressing the challenges posed by other proliferators.

Chapter one: Nuclear ‘drivers’

For over three decades, driven by the core motive of deterring external threats to its security, Libya sought to acquire nuclear weapons. Having attempted but failed to procure them ‘off the shelf’ from several states during the 1970s, by late 2003 it had succeeded in assembling much of the technology required to manufacture them. Nevertheless, following secret negotiations with the UK and US governments, in December 2003 Colonel Muammar Gadhafi resolved to abandon the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. This decision reflected the regime's radically altered security perceptions during the 1990s and early twenty-first century. The pursuit of nuclear weapons had come to be viewed as a strategic liability. This Adelphi Paper examines the motives for Libya's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, from Gadhafi's rise to power in 1969 through to late 2003. It assesses the proliferation pathways that the regime followed, including early dependence on Soviet technology and assistance and, subsequently, its reliance on the A.Q. Khan network. It examines the decision to give up the quest for nuclear weapons, focusing on the main factors that influenced the regime's calculations, including the perceived need to re-engage with the international community and the United States in particular. The process of dismantling the nuclear programme is also addressed, as is the question of whether Libya constitutes a ‘model’ for addressing the challenges posed by other proliferators.

Conclusion

For over three decades, driven by the core motive of deterring external threats to its security, Libya sought to acquire nuclear weapons. Having attempted but failed to procure them ‘off the shelf’ from several states during the 1970s, by late 2003 it had succeeded in assembling much of the technology required to manufacture them. Nevertheless, following secret negotiations with the UK and US governments, in December 2003 Colonel Muammar Gadhafi resolved to abandon the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. This decision reflected the regime's radically altered security perceptions during the 1990s and early twenty-first century. The pursuit of nuclear weapons had come to be viewed as a strategic liability. This Adelphi Paper examines the motives for Libya's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, from Gadhafi's rise to power in 1969 through to late 2003. It assesses the proliferation pathways that the regime followed, including early dependence on Soviet technology and assistance and, subsequently, its reliance on the A.Q. Khan network. It examines the decision to give up the quest for nuclear weapons, focusing on the main factors that influenced the regime's calculations, including the perceived need to re-engage with the international community and the United States in particular. The process of dismantling the nuclear programme is also addressed, as is the question of whether Libya constitutes a ‘model’ for addressing the challenges posed by other proliferators.

Chapter two: Proliferation pathways

For over three decades, driven by the core motive of deterring external threats to its security, Libya sought to acquire nuclear weapons. Having attempted but failed to procure them ‘off the shelf’ from several states during the 1970s, by late 2003 it had succeeded in assembling much of the technology required to manufacture them. Nevertheless, following secret negotiations with the UK and US governments, in December 2003 Colonel Muammar Gadhafi resolved to abandon the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. This decision reflected the regime's radically altered security perceptions during the 1990s and early twenty-first century. The pursuit of nuclear weapons had come to be viewed as a strategic liability. This Adelphi Paper examines the motives for Libya's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, from Gadhafi's rise to power in 1969 through to late 2003. It assesses the proliferation pathways that the regime followed, including early dependence on Soviet technology and assistance and, subsequently, its reliance on the A.Q. Khan network. It examines the decision to give up the quest for nuclear weapons, focusing on the main factors that influenced the regime's calculations, including the perceived need to re-engage with the international community and the United States in particular. The process of dismantling the nuclear programme is also addressed, as is the question of whether Libya constitutes a ‘model’ for addressing the challenges posed by other proliferators.

Chapter three: The decision

For over three decades, driven by the core motive of deterring external threats to its security, Libya sought to acquire nuclear weapons. Having attempted but failed to procure them ‘off the shelf’ from several states during the 1970s, by late 2003 it had succeeded in assembling much of the technology required to manufacture them. Nevertheless, following secret negotiations with the UK and US governments, in December 2003 Colonel Muammar Gadhafi resolved to abandon the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. This decision reflected the regime's radically altered security perceptions during the 1990s and early twenty-first century. The pursuit of nuclear weapons had come to be viewed as a strategic liability. This Adelphi Paper examines the motives for Libya's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, from Gadhafi's rise to power in 1969 through to late 2003. It assesses the proliferation pathways that the regime followed, including early dependence on Soviet technology and assistance and, subsequently, its reliance on the A.Q. Khan network. It examines the decision to give up the quest for nuclear weapons, focusing on the main factors that influenced the regime's calculations, including the perceived need to re-engage with the international community and the United States in particular. The process of dismantling the nuclear programme is also addressed, as is the question of whether Libya constitutes a ‘model’ for addressing the challenges posed by other proliferators.

The Definition of Strategic Liabilities, and their Impact on Firm Performance*

abstractStrategic Liabilities are processes and tangible and intangible holdings that are firm‐specific, context‐specific and create competitive disadvantage. They are scarce, inconvertible, costly, and appropriated. The concept of Strategic Liabilities contrasts and complements the resource‐based view's Strategic Assets. A firm is likely to possess Strategic Liabilities at some time because these liabilities can originate from endowments, from bad luck, from Strategic Assets, from rival actions, and from unfavourable changes in context. They represent the other side of the firm's ledger often implicitly ignored in the strategy literature. Thus, the formal definition and analysis of Strategic Liabilities is warranted.

When is a promise a strategic liability?

Employers offer pension plans for two main reasons: paternalism and skills market competitiveness. Recent changes in legislation and business practice have prompted the scrutiny of the underpinnings for such a management tradition. Identifies several relevant factors that derive from: field work undertaken by the authors; the Pensions Act 1995; and recent changes to corporations tax. It is argued that what has emerged is a sharply focused trade‐off, relating to the asset and liability characteristics of employer‐based pension schemes. This questions the sustainability of all types of pension plans, and thereby has a place in strategies affecting financial planning and business development.