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21. Domestic and Regional Challenges in Mali after the French Intervention

Author:
Gerald Hainzl
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
On 11 January 2013, France initiated an intervention in Mali in order to stop rebel and Islamist fighters marching towards the capital Bamako. Exactly one month later, on 11 February, French President François Hollande claimed victory against Islamist insurgents. On 18 February, a group of seven tourists was kidnapped in Cameroon, near the Nigerian border, by Ansaru, a militant group loosely affiliated to the Nigerian group Boko Haram. One day later, a French soldier was killed in a clash with Islamist fighters in the mountainous region in Northern Mali. France originally planned to leave Mali in March 2013, but has since extended its commitment.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
France, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Northern Mali

22. Whither the Old Order?: The Regional Implications of the Syria Crisis

Author:
Karim Emile Bitar
Publication Date:
02-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Writing in September 2011, Hussein Agha and Robert Malley pointed out that the Arab awakening was "a tale of three battles rolled into one: people against regimes; people against people and regimes against other regimes." Nowhere is this more evident than in Syria where all three dimensions are forcefully present, simultaneously making Syria arguably the most complex of all Arab revolutions. The Syrian revolution started in March 2011 as an inevitable, spontaneous, legitimate and overwhelmingly non-violent movement, much akin to the Arab Spring revolutions that had taken place in Tunisia and Egypt. While the underlying political, economic and demographic causes of the Syrian uprising were quite similar to those which triggered the earlier revolutions, the regime's brutal reaction, Syria's geostrategic positioning and its sectarian heterogeneity, as well as the political agendas of regional and international powers led the revolution to morph into a bloody civil war.
Topic:
Security, Demographics, Economics, Human Rights, and Politics
Political Geography:
Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia

23. Developments and Implications of Missile Defence

Author:
Gustav Lindstrom
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
On 9 December 2011, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) hosted a seminar entitled "Developments and Implications of Missile Defence". The event was organized by the GCSP with the financial support of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). About fifty participants attended the event, representing government, international organizations, the think tank community, and academia. The seminar had four principal aims. They were to: Examine recent developments in missile defence initiatives; Gauge the potential consequences of missile defence on regional and global security trends; Analyze the possible impact of missile defence developments on existing and future disarmament activities, including unintended consequences; and, Offer preliminary findings of key issues that policymakers should be aware of as missile defence evolves.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Europe

24. Regional and International Energy Security Dynamics: Consequences for NATO's Search for an Energy Security Role

Author:
Phillip Cornell
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
It should not come as a surprise that energy has been steadily gaining importance within security circles in recent years due to the military and security dimensions of this mainly economic issue. As globalization has blurred the lines between traditional security and economic interchange (and especially energy flows), new challenges have arisen. This process has fanned the debate surrounding the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with regard to energy questions and their evolution.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, NATO, and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

25. Meeting the Cyber Security Challenge

Author:
Gustav Lindstrom
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
While most policymakers agree that there are substantial risks in cyber space, there is disagreement on whether or not it poses a threat to national security. The divergence in opinions is most obvious when references are made to terms such as cyber war and cyber warfare. In spite of these differences, there are many reasons why policymakers should care about developments in cyber space. With society's growing reliance on cyber space, a disruption can have wide ranging implications and cascading effects.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Crime, and Science and Technology

26. Cooperating to Build Peace: The UN-EU Inter-Institutional Complex

Author:
Thierry Tardy
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) are both key institutions in the peacebuilding realm. The UN has, since the end of the Cold War, embraced post-conflict peacebuilding as one of its core activities, and most of its sixteen current peacekeeping operations include a peacebuilding component. Likewise, the EU has become an increasingly important institution of peace consolidation in all its aspects, both through the role of the European Commission and more recently that of the intergovernmental Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Post-conflict peacebuilding is an all-encompassing activity, which takes place at the nexus of security and development and that requires a wide range of policy responses. This theoretically places the UN and the EU in favourable positions, as institutions that aspire to develop a holistic approach, and to cover the entire continuum of conflict management. The simultaneous involvement of these two institutions in post-conflict peacebuilding poses the question of their respective policies in different terms. From Bosnia-Herzegovina or Kosovo to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or Chad, through military cooperation or UN-led but European Commission-financed civilian programmes, questions arise as to the interaction between two different types of actors, the nature and depth of inter-institutional relations, the division of tasks and the level of mutual reinforcement or redundancy.
Topic:
Security, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Europe

27. The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda: Lessons in Post-September 11 Transnational Terrorism

Author:
Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Al Qaeda rose and fell between 1989 and 2011. Ten years after it conducted its most lethal operation in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, it had mutated into a movement that no longer resembled what it started as. From a hierarchical and centralised group, led by the bicephalous leadership of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al Dhawahiri, it had become a regionalised and decentralised organisation with several competing leaders following the death of Bin Laden in May 2011.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Islam, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
New York and Washington

28. Great Expectations: UN Peacekeeping, Civilian Protection, and the Use of Force

Author:
Alan Doss
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The proliferation of intra-state conflicts in the post-Cold War era has led to a substantial increase in the number of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations, resulting in the creation of forty-eight peacekeeping missions since 1990. The unprecedented challenges faced in the 1990's – and in particular, the failures in Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Somalia – obliged the UN to revisit and rethink its peacekeeping strategies.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Cold War, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Rwanda and Somalia

29. For a Renewed Consensus on UN Peacekeeping Operations

Author:
Thierry Tardy
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Contrary to some predictions of decline in United Nations (UN) involvement in peacekeeping (alongside the increasing role of regional organizations), the last decade has been characterized by a constant increase in personnel deployed in UN peacekeeping operations, demonstrating both the legitimacy of the UN for this type of activity, and its flexibility and adaptability. More precisely, the wide range of instruments at the disposal of the UN in the field of conflict management makes it a permanent option as well as a facilitator of burden sharing among organizations.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, United Nations, and Peacekeeping

30. Reinforcing Disarmament: Combating Illicit Trade in Weapons and Materials

Author:
Marc Finaud and Philipp Annawitt
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Illicit trade in weapons and materials poses serious challenges to states and disarmament regimes. Although small arms and light weapons (SALW) are quite different from weapons of mass destruction (WMD), both categories are in increasing demand by violent non-state actors, often in relation to organized crime and terrorist activities.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Europe