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41. Missile Defence Systems: Global and Regional Implications

Author:
Dennis M. Gormley, Catherine M. Kelleher, and Scott Warren
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The GCSP hosted a workshop on missile defence systems, supported by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. A range of experts, officials and academics contributed to the policy discussion on current and future issues related to missile defence systems. Participants sought to develop a common understanding of current missile defence capabilities, as well as potential threats. Throughout the workshop, experts explored military-technical and political-diplomatic responses to these identified threats.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Switzerland

42. The Role of the European Union in International Non-proliferation and Disarmament Assistance

Author:
Ian Anthony and Marc Finaud
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
While states are responsible for honouring any commitments to one another that they make, it has become obvious that they are not always capable of doing so. Where the failure to implement agreed undertakings reflects a lack of financial or technical capacity rather than a deliberate effort to undermine the terms of an agreement it is preferable for all parties to offer assistance rather than criticism and punishment. Since the end of the Cold War a new type of international cooperation has taken place as states have rendered practical assistance to one another to reduce common threats arising from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as well as weapons-related materials and expertise. In broad terms this assistance has been of three types: facilitating the dismantlement and destruction of weapons; the establishment of a safe and secure chain of custody over weapons or other items; and demilitarization and conversion projects.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
Europe

43. GCSP UN Dialogue Series

Author:
Derek Lutterbeck (ed.)
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
During the summer of 2005, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), with the generous financial support of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland, Political Division III, organised a series of public presentations by distinguished personalities, focusing on the changing role of the UN system in the rapidly evolving international security landscape. The objective of these events was to provide a forum to discuss the most-pressing current challenges facing the UN, as well as other key players in the international system, and to chart possible ways forward in adapting the UN system to the demands of the contemporary security environment.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Development, and United Nations

44. The G8 Global Partnership on Weapons of Mass Destruction: What Next?

Author:
Daniil Kobyakov and Vladimir Orlov
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Since the inception of the G8 Global Partnership (GP) program in Kananaskis on June 27 2002, the program has passed through different stages. Initially, it was just a loud political declaration, adopted by the leaders of the G8 following the attacks of 9/11. A Russian participant of the Kananaskis Summit later recalled with some surprise how smoothly and, to some extent, unexpectedly for the Russians involved the "$20 billion" pledge was shaped in that Canadian village. Interviewed on a major European GP-related conference a year after the Kananaskis summit, he was frank to exclaim: "Arriving in Kananaskis, we [Russians] could hardly even expect that this whole giant wave now called Global Partnership would be born from our discussions of non-proliferation and counter-terrorism".
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia

45. The G8 Global Partnership: Background and Current Status

Author:
Cristina Chuen
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction is nearly three years old. While the initiative—launched on June 27, 2002, at the G8 annual summit in Kananaskis, Canadai—brought new donors to the table and added a new sense of urgency to nonproliferation projects in Russia, to date the programs have yielded mixed results. There is much that remains to be done if the next seven years are going to fulfill the promise of Kananaskis.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia

46. Traditional and Non-Traditional Security Issues in Latin America: Evolution and Recent Developments

Author:
Richard Narich
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
In the second part of the 20th century, the world's attention focused twice on Latin America, first during the Cuban crisis in 1962 and then during the conflicts in Central America in the Eighties and Nineties. The situation there had a direct impact on the general balance of the planet. It was a hot spot. Today this region is not on the agenda anymore: it no longer represents a global threat in terms of security.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America

47. The European Union: Energy Security and the Periphery

Author:
John Gault
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Europe relies upon imported energy, and the degree of this reliance will increase in coming decades. Internal (primarily North Sea) production of liquid fuels will decline, and production of natural gas will reach a plateau, so that incremental hydrocarbon requirements will necessarily come from external sources. This trend of rising energy imports has important security implications.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

48. Terrorism and Asymmetric Conflict in Southwest Asia

Author:
Shahram Chubin and Jerold D. Green
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
At previous RAND-GCSP workshops in 1999 and 2001, participants examined, respectively, possible roles for NATO in the Middle East and the challenges to Turkey as both a European and Middle Eastern actor. The 2002 workshop, scheduled for June 23-25, 2002, was originally intended to take a broad look at issues relating to Southwest Asia, where Europe and the United States have long grappled with a range of strategic and political differences. However, in light of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 and the subsequent U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, the organisers decided to refocus the workshop around the specific theme of terrorism and asymmetric conflict in Southwest Asia. The workshop focused on both the global and regional aspects of the terrorist threat.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, and Asia

49. Terrorism: Threat and Responses

Author:
Jean-Louis Bruguière
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Along with the highly developed forms of organized crime, can terrorism be ranked in the category of the tough challenges which the world has to face? This question is worth asking, as too often the perception of that threat is a faint one.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Europe

50. The European Union as a Security Actor in the Mediterranean

Author:
Fred Tanner and Joanna Schemm
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The publication of the proceedings of the GCSP workshop on the European Union and the Mediterranean is timely in more ways than one. First of all, the sudden emergence of European Security and Defence Policy from 1999 onwards has generated the need to examine the security and defence dimension of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership. The partnership was obviously not established in connection with ESDP in mind – if only because ESDP did not exist yet at the time of the launching of the Barcelona process – but the Barcelona process clearly has security and defence implications and ESDP necessarily has a Mediterranean dimension. Secondly, and more tentatively, the ESDP is likely to increase its focus on the Mediterranean as the wars of succession in the former Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia are progressively brought to a close. Not unnaturally, the conflicts which have worked their way down the length of post-Tito Yugoslavia from Slovenia in June 1991 to Macedonia ten years later, have been the foremost security and defence concern of the members of the European Union. These wars have not yet played themselves out, as events in Macedonia demonstrate; nor is it likely that European forces deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo will be withdrawn anytime soon. By the time the ESDP Rapid Reaction Force is ready in 2003, the European strategic spotlight may well have shifted from the Balkan doorstep to the broader Mediterranean arena. Thirdly, a number of substantial material changes are due to occur within the European Union during the next two to four years. At the military end of the spectrum, we have the 2003 goal for the Rapid Reaction Force, for which a strategic rationale will need to be found above and beyond the important but exceedingly vague statement that it is supposed to fulfil the Petersberg tasks, “including the most demanding” to use official European Council language. In institutional terms, the EU is preparing itself for the rendez-vous of 2004, which may or may not be a constitutional convention. Given the widely recognised need to give greater clarity and accountability to the EU's institutions – and this is a requirement which appears to be shared by Europhiles and Euroskeptics alike – chances are that this will not simply be an inter-governmental conference of the sort which led to the Amsterdam and Nice treaties. And then, of course, we have enlargement, which in EU terms will not only mesh in with the institutional debate, but which will also broaden the cast of players involved in the Euro-Med process. This applies even more to NATO enlargement: with something akin to a “Big Bang” beginning to take shape as NATO's current members prepare for the 2002 Prague Summit, countries such as Romania and Bulgaria will give a greater “Southern” tilt to the Alliance, before joining the European Union at a subsequent stage.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Europe