Search

Begin New Search Topic Security Political Geography Europe

631. The European Union Defence Industry and the Appeal of the Chinese Market

Author:
Eugene Kogan
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Austrian National Defence Academy
Abstract:
This report deals exclusively with the European Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC, also known as China) and not with a broader range of issues, such as, for instance, the impact of an embargo lift on the Asia-Pacific balance of power or on the Trans-Atlantic relations. The concerns of countries, such as Australia, Japan, South Korea and, undoubtedly, Taiwan are a very important issue. However, this report sets out to deal exclusively with the EU-China issue. Nevertheless, one can say that, for instance, the delivery of the airborne early-warning and control system (AWACS) to China would considerably change the balance of power in the Asia- Pacific region and exacerbate already strained Trans-Atlantic relations. The US will face the serious dilemma of how to deal with the EU over such deliveries to China, since the EU is their partner and not a subordinate as Israel is, for instance.
Topic:
Security and Markets
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Europe, Asia, South Korea, and Australia

632. The Political Construction of Collective Insecurity: From Moral Panic to Blame Avoidance and Organized Irresponsibility

Author:
Daniel Béland
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This theoretical contribution explores the role of political actors in the social construction of collective insecurity. Two parts comprise the article. The first one briefly defines the concept of collective insecurity and the second one bridges existing sociological and political science literatures relevant for the analysis of the politics of insecurity. This theoretical framework articulates five main claims. First, although interesting, the concept of moral panic applies only to a limited range of insecurity episodes. Second, citizens of contemporary societies exhibit acute risk awareness and, when new collective threats emerge, the logic of "organized irresponsibility" often leads citizens and interest groups alike to blame elected officials. Third, political actors mobilize credit claiming and blame avoidance strategies to respond to these threats in a way that enhances their This theoretical contribution explores the role of political actors in the social construction of collective insecurity. Two part s comprise the article. The first one briefly defines the concept of collective insecurity and the second one bridges existing sociological and political science literatures relevant for the analysis of the politics of insecurity. This theoretical framework articulates five main claims. First, although interesting, the concept of moral panic applies only to a limited range of insecurity episodes. Second, citizens of contemporary societies exhibit acute risk awareness and, when new collective threats emerge, the logic of “organized irresponsibility” often leads citizens and interest groups alike to blame elected officials. Third, political actors mobilize credit claiming and blame avoidance strategies to respond to these threats in a way that enhances their position within the political field. Fourth, powerful interests and institutional forces as well as the “threat infrastructure” specific to a policy area create constraints and opportunities for these strategic actors. Finally, their behavior is proactive or reactive, as political actors can either help push a threat onto the agenda early, or, at a later stage, simply attempt to shape the perception of this threat after other forces have transformed it into a major political issue.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

633. The U.S. National Security Strategy and the Global War on Terror “Force Multiplier”

Author:
Charles W. Parker III
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
In September 2002, President George W. Bush published a new National Security Strategy (NSS) in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks in the United States homeland. The publication of the new NSS represented a codification of a series of policy ideas that had been brewing since the end of the first Bush Administration and throughout the Clinton Administration, which were sharpened as a result of the newly perceived threats to the United States' security posture. Some prominent academics have argued that the NSS and Bush's actions represent a “neoimperialist” or “unilateralist” approach to the conduct of U.S. foreign relations, and are a radical and fundamental shift in the trajectory of U.S. power projection and assertiveness. They also lament a rift in relations with European allies in part due to this new policy trajectory, to the point of declaring that the Europe and the United States will be future rivals on the world stage.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

634. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 6, Issue 40

Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Russian media have been reporting over the past week that large-scale security operations are continuing in Kabardino-Balkaria and elsewhere in the North Caucasus following the October 13 rebel attacks in Nalchik. Gazeta reported on October 26 that Ramazan Tembotov, a local legislator from the village of Khasnya in Nalchik's suburbs and a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, was arrested without explanation on October 23 and taken to the headquarters of RUBOP, the anti-organized crime directorate, in Nalchik. "People in masks came flying in, they [treated me] like a criminal, with obscene language. It is a disgrace for me—after all, the treatment of a deputy is special, like [the treatment of] an attorney; everyone knows me in the village," Tembotov told the newspaper. "I, unlike others, was not beaten: they lead me around the rooms, the cellars, and showed what they were doing to other detainees: they were torturing people like the Gestapo. No lawyers, no interrogations—simply beating to death, until they confessed or pointed to others." Tembotov said that the police personnel displayed particular animosity toward anything connected to Islam. He was released on October 24, the day after his detention, and told Gazeta that he thought the only thing that saved him was a telephone call he had managed to make to an acquaintance who works for the Federal Security Service.
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, and Islam
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Chechnya, and North Caucasus

635. Chechnya Weekly:Nalchik: The Official Stats Don't Add Up

Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Kavkazky Uzel reported on October 19 that a total of 92 rebel gunmen were killed on October 13 during the attack on government and law enforcement buildings in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. RIA Novosti reported that day that a total of 24 law enforcement officers died in the attack along with ten civilians, while Ekho Moskvy radio quoted the press secretary of Kabardino-Balkarian President Arsen Kanokov as saying that the bodies of ten civilians killed in the attack had been identified while another two bodies remained unidentified.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Kabardino

636. Chechnya Weekly: Kosachev: Blair And Putin Discussed Zakaev

Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Russian media reported on October 5 that President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who held talks that day and signed a joint statement on combating terrorism, discussed the issue of Akhmed Zakaev, the Chechen separatist envoy who received political asylum in the United Kingdom in December 2003. State Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev, who was present at the meeting, said that Blair showed "understanding" on the issue. "The British prime minister made clear that he is in favor of changing and strengthening current British legislation to allow more specific and decisive action to be taken against people suspected of links to terrorism," Kosachev said in remarks carried by Ren-TV.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia

637. Chechnya Weekly: Putin Talks Up Chechen Parliamentary Elections

Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
President Vladimir Putin took several questions from residents of Chechnya in a live link-up from Grozny during his nationally televised three-hour call-in show on September 27. As the Moscow Times reported the following day, a woman told Putin her son had disappeared without a trace after being abducted four years ago and that thousands of people in Chechnya were in a similar situation. "We will continue work to search for both disappeared people and those who are guilty of these crimes," newsru.com quoted Putin as saying. The problem, he said, is linked to the fact that the problem of security has not been resolved fully, adding that it is sometimes impossible to determine whether abductions have been carried by disguised "bandits" or are "abuses by official law-enforcement organs." Dozens of criminal cases, including those targeting officials and federal servicemen, have been launched in connection with kidnappings in Chechnya, Putin said. "The main solution to the problem is political regularization in Chechnya, bringing in the largest number of people in the process of this regularization," he said, adding: "I attach very great importance to the upcoming parliamentary elections in Chechnya…It seems to me that people with the most varied political convictions should appear there [in parliament], so that all divisive issues are resolved openly, in a civilized manner, in a political process, and not through the use of force."
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya

638. Chechnya Weekly:Servicemen And Police Killed In Fresh Rebel Attacks

Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
An officer in Chechnya's Anti-Terrorist Center was killed and three Chechen policemen were wounded on September 20 when rebels fired on three police vehicles outside the Shelkovsky district village of Krasny Voskhod, Interfax and Kavkazky Uzel reported on September 21. Rebels also severely wounded a policeman in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district. "The attack was carried out near the district court by three unidentified assailants," a source told Interfax. "The policeman was hospitalized." RIA Novosti reported on September 20 that two policemen and a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer had been injured the previous day when the UAZ vehicle in which they were traveling hit a land mine near the town of Shali. According to the news agency, the mine exploded with a force equivalent to one kilogram of TNT. Separately, unidentified attackers fired shots at police officers on patrol in Borozdinovskaya on September 19, injuring one police officer. A Chechen law-enforcement source told Interfax that one policeman was wounded and hospitalized. Borozdinovskaya is the village from which eleven residents disappeared during a June raid allegedly carried out by Russian military intelligence's Vostok battalion. Also on September 19, a remand prison belonging to the Chechen narcotics control directorate in Grozny's Leninsky district came under fire from assault rifles and grenade launchers. According to Interfax, no one was injured in the attack and law-enforcers returned fire. Meanwhile, law-enforcers detained four militants in the Shali district village of Novye Atagi in connection with an August attack on a car carrying district police officers, which killed one policeman and wounded another.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya

639. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 6, Issue 32

Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Dzhabrailov raised eyebrows on August 15, when he told journalists that the two wars in Chechnya have killed about 160,000 combatants and civilians, 30,000-40,000 of them Chechen fighters and civilians. He said that the remaining victims were "representatives of various ethnic groups," but that the vast majority of these were Russians, Novye izvestia reported on August 16. Agence France-Presse noted that a large portion of the 400,000-450,000 people who lived in Grozny before the first war were ethnic Russian and that the city was devastated by Russian air and artillery bombardments in 1995 that caused massive civilian casualties. "They never thought they would have bombs dropped on their heads or be shot at by heavy weapons," the news agency quoted Dzhabrailov as saying. Izvestia, meanwhile, reported him as saying that "the figures I have quoted are compiled by collecting together information about all the losses in the republic in the last fifteen years. We obtained information from all those involved: the military, the Interior Ministry, and the districts. Our data for the Ichkeria period are based on official documents that I obtained from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Ministry of Internal Affairs when I was an employee of the republican mufti's press service. The losses at that time were no smaller than they are now or were during the counter-terrorist operation."
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, France, and Chechnya

640. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 6, Issue 31

Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The Council of Muftis of the Chechen Republic on August 4 officially declared a jihad against "Wahhabism." Interfax quoted Chechen Mufti Sultan Mirzaev as telling journalists that the decision had been announced during a meeting between representatives of the clergy and law-enforcement agencies in the village of Tsentoroi, which is the home village of the Kadyrov clan. Mirzaev said it was the largest such meeting since the death of Akhmad Kadyrov in May 2004. "Wahhabism is the plague of the 20th and the 21st centuries," he said. "All Arabic scholars have come to be unanimous that those fighting against Wahhabism are on the path of jihad, following the way of Allah." Wahhabis and terrorists, he said, "are bringing evil into the world and the entire world must oppose them. We adopted an official fatwa (a religious ruling in Islam – Interfax), so that those fighting terrorism and Wahhabism have no doubt that their cause is just. We have declared war on these phenomena. Those killing innocent people must be either stopped or put behind bars or exterminated. This has to be done by whatever method. Our fatwa is that those who have shed blood, those who do not want to stop must be killed by any method." Mirzaev said rebels had killed sixteen district imams in Chechnya and that he himself had been "seriously wounded" in a rebel attack. "Should I remain silent about this?" he said. "If it becomes necessary, I will take up arms and I am ready to fight against them."
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, Islam, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya