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21. The limitations of European Union reports on arms exports: the case of Central Asia

Author:
Mark Bromley and Paul Holtom
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
All European Union (EU) member states are required to submit information on arms export licences and arms exports for inclusion in the EU annual reports on arms exports. The example of Central Asia— Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—shows that the data in these EU annual reports has only a limited utility for monitoring exports of arms and military equipment. The specific case of Uzbekistan, which was subject to an EU arms embargo between 2005 and 2009, shows that certain transfers of apparent concern have been reported but not investigated, while other transfers have not appeared in the annual reports.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Trade and Finance, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Europe, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan

22. The Impact on Domestic Policy of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports The Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Spain

Author:
Mark Bromley
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
In the 17 years since the European Union (EU) first formulated common standards to be applied in arms export decision making, there has been a rapid expansion in the EU's role as a coordinator and generator of policy in an area that was previously the exclusive domain of national governments. Most relevant to this change has been the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports (EU Code of Conduct), which was adopted by the Council of the EU in June 1998 and will celebrate its 10th anniversary in June 2008. The Code takes the form of a Council declaration— it contains political commitments but is not legally binding. Under the Code, EU member states commit themselves to set 'high common standards which should be regarded as the minimum for the management of, and restraint in, conventional arms transfers' and 'to reinforce cooperation and to promote convergence in the field of conventional arms exports' within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It lists eight criteria that member states agree to take into account when assessing applications for arms export licences. More importantly, the Code outlines reporting procedures and consultation mechanisms intended to ensure consistent interpretation of the criteria.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Spain, and Netherlands

23. Countering Bio-threats: EU Instruments for Managing Biological Materials, Technology and Knowledge

Author:
Frida Kuhlau
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
The urgency of fighting terrorism has been heightened by the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States and subsequent attacks around the world. The use of anthrax to attack targets in the USA in September–November 2001, reinforced the need to include various potential biological threats—such as the deliberate use of disease as a weapon—on the anti-terrorism agenda. This paper identifies the instruments available to the European Community and examines how they are employed as part of the wider effort to reduce the potential threat posed by biological agents. However, it is important to recognize that these instruments and their use are only one aspect of European Union (EU) activity towards that end and that Community actions are set within the wider EU context.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

24. Foreign Military Bases in Eurasia

Author:
Zdzislaw Lachowski
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
On 16 August 2004 the President of the United States, George W. Bush, announced that some 60 000–70 000 US troops stationed in Asia and Europe would be returned to the USA over the coming decade. This realignment of forces signals a major change in US global and regional policies that will affect the structure of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) base deployment (referred to as 'basing' or 'forward basing' by the military) throughout the world. In the 1990s Russia had begun pulling out of its cold war spheres of influence, but it either halted or began to reverse its base withdrawal process at almost the same time as Bush's plan was made known.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Eurasia, and Asia

25. The European Security Strategy: An Evolutionary History

Author:
Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
The adoption by the European Union (EU) of its first official and comprehensive security strategy—'A Secure Europe in a Better World'—in 20031 may be seen (aside from any practical results it leads to) as a conceptual and procedural turning point in the development of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Set against its specific political background, it was also an important stage in the developing self-awareness and ambition of the EU as a player in the global arena.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

26. The European Security Strategy: An Evolutionary History

Author:
Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
The adoption by the European Union (EU) of its first official and comprehensive security strategy—'A Secure Europe in a Better World'—in 2003 may be seen (aside from any practical results it leads to) as a conceptual and procedural turning point in the development of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Set against its specific political background, it was also an important stage in the developing self-awareness and ambition of the EU as a player in the global arena. The European Security Strategy (ESS) has already attracted perhaps more than its fair share of exegesis, comment and debate. Too often, however, it has been treated almost in the style of literary criticism, divorced from its historical, institutional and short-term political context. This Policy Paper illuminates the latter dimensions of the document's significance and lays out a framework for considering and monitoring its future impact.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

27. Sizing and Shaping European Armed Forces Lessons and Considerations from the Nordic Countries

Author:
William Hopkinson
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
There are many threats in the current security agenda that call for collaborative international action: they include environmental degradation, organized crime, disease, natural disaster, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Sometimes collaboration is political or diplomatic, and sometimes it is economic. In other cases, security needs will require either the direct application of force or the use of organized, disciplined groups that may ultimately have to use force to protect themselves and others. Javier Solana, the European Union (EU) High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), pointed out: 'We need to develop a strategic culture that fosters early, rapid, and when necessary robust intervention. We should think particularly of operations involving both military and civilian capabilities'.
Topic:
Defense Policy and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe

28. Sizing and Shaping European Armed Forces Lessons and Considerations from the Nordic Countries

Author:
William Hopkinson
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
There are many threats in the current security agenda that call for collaborative international action: they include environmental degradation, organized crime, disease, natural disaster, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Sometimes collaboration is political or diplomatic, and sometimes it is economic. In other cases, security needs will require either the direct application of force or the use of organized, disciplined groups that may ultimately have to use force to protect themselves and others. Javier Solana, the European Union (EU) High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), pointed out: 'We need to develop a strategic culture that fosters early, rapid, and when necessary robust intervention. We should think particularly of operations involving both military and civilian capabilities'.
Topic:
Defense Policy and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe

29. Armament and Disarmament in the Caucasus and Central Asia

Author:
Zdzislaw Lachowski, Björn Hagelin, Sam Perlo-Freeman, Petter Stålenheim, Dmitri Trofimov, and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
The international attention paid to the nations of the South Caucasus region and Central Asia—a group of post-Soviet states beyond Europe's conventional frontiers but included in the Conference on/Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE/OSCE)—has been fitful at best over the past decade. During the last years of the 20th and at the start of the 21st century, after the conflicts in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh became (at least partly) 'frozen', security concerns about the regions tended to decline and to become overshadowed both by 'oil diplomacy' and by concern about developments within Russia itself, in Chechnya and Dagestan. In 2002–2003 a constellation of changes in the outside world has started to reverse this pattern. Chechnya is no longer a regular topic of high-level political debate between Russia and the West, and President Vladimir Putin has played the anti-terrorist card with some success to secure his freedom to deal with it as an internal security matter. The factors prompting greater international attention to Russia's south-western and southern neighbours, by contrast, have the potential to undermine—perhaps for good—any Russian pretension to decisive influence or an exclusive droit de regard in these regions. At the time of writing, however, this latest shift could again be called in question by a new diversion of focus to the 'greater Middle East' following hostilities in Iraq.
Topic:
Defense Policy and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
Russia, Iraq, Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, Middle East, Chechnya, and Georgia

30. Relics of Cold War: Europe's Challenge, Ukraine's Experience

Author:
Oleksiy Melnyk, Ian Anthony, and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
In 1989, the year when the death knell sounded for the Communist bloc in Europe and for the 'cold war' which it had pursued with the West, a total of 6–7.6 million personnel depending on the method of counting (2.5–3.7 million from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, and 3.5–3.9 million from the Warsaw Treaty Organization, WTO) stood in arms within the European theatre. This included some 915 000 forces stationed outside their national borders inter alia from Canada, the Soviet Union and the United States. In the same area there were 80 400 main battle tanks, 76 300 armoured combat vehicles (ACVs), 67 700 heavy artillery pieces, 11 160 combat aircraft and 2615 attack helicopters—as well as many millions of smaller and lighter weapons. Aimed at each other as part of the East–West strategic confrontation, the USA and the USSR in 1990 deployed 10 563 and 10 271 strategic nuclear warheads respectively, while the United Kingdom possessed 300 and France 621. In addition, significant proportions of European territory (especially in the 'front-line' states such as the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, GDR) were taken up by military bases, exercise areas and other facilities such as airfields and pipelines. Large sectors of industry and of scientific, technological, and research and development (R) work were devoted to the needs of military defence. The resources involved were shut out from peaceful, civilian use more emphatically than would normally be the case today, because the bitterness of the strategic confrontation—and the associated risks of espionage and subversion—imposed a degree of secrecy often creating a situation where the citizens of a given state did not know what was happening on their own territory.
Topic:
NATO, Politics, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine