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382. Security Council Working Methods and UN Peace Operations: The Case of Chad and the Central African Republic, 2006-2010

Author:
Richard Gowan and Alexandra Novosseloff
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
This paper, the second in a series on Security Council working methods and the performance of peace operations, addresses the Council's engagement in Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) from early 2006 to the end of 2010. While the Council explored options for deploying some sort of UN peacekeeping presence to these countries from mid-2006 onwards, these discussions were secondary to much higher-profile debates about the possibility of a large-scale force in Darfur. After Chad had stated its initial opposition to a UN military deployment, France initiated proposals for the deployments of an EU military mission linked to a UN police presence to Chad and CAR in mid-2007.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and France

383. UN Security Council, Report of the Committee on the Admission of New Members Concerning Palestine's Application for Membership to the UN , New York, 11 November 2011.

Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The UN Committee on the Admission of New Members, comprising representatives of the fifteen serving members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), considered the Palestinian application at a number of meetings between 28 September and 8 November, the date it completed its final report. In addition to the five permanent members (the U.S., France, Great Britain, Russia, and China), the rotating members during this period were Bosnia, Brazil, Colombia, Gabon, Germany, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, and South Africa. The report was formally accepted by the UNSC on 11 November.
Political Geography:
Britain, Africa, China, New York, Bosnia, Middle East, India, France, Brazil, Colombia, Palestine, Germany, United Nations, Nigeria, and Portugal

384. Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone and the Nuclear-Weapon States

Author:
Peter Crail and Xiaodon Liang
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Following a decade-long impasse, the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) is finally on a path to being endorsed by the world's five recognized nuclear-weapon states—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Agreement by these nuclear powers to respect the prohibition of nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia and to provide legal assurances that they will not use such weapons against zone members helps to strengthen the commitment by regional states not to pursue nuclear weapons, and contributes more broadly to global nonproliferation and disarmament efforts,
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, United Kingdom, France, and Southeast Asia

385. An Agenda for the European Council: Feasible steps to bring the eurozone back from the precipice

Author:
Stefano Micossi
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
Once again the European Council will meet in an emergency session at the end of June, with the eurozone economy in recession and actually plummeting in its Southern periphery. Further doubts are also growing on the sustainability of sovereign debts due to the vicious spiral of deteriorating bank balance sheets, ballooning potential liabilities from banking rescues and widening spreads on government borrowings. The sovereign debt crisis in the periphery has now turned into a fully fledged banking crisis that threatens to spread from Greece to Spain and tomorrow, who knows, to Italy, France and even Germany itself.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Regional Cooperation, Financial Crisis, and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe, Greece, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy

386. French-Iranian Relations: A New Realistic Perspective

Author:
Pirooz Izadi
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:
Relations between Iran and France have undergone many ups and downs during the past three decades. However, these relations have been on a downward spiral during the past several years. It seems that factors such as recent developments in the Middle East, Iran's nuclear dossier and the two countries' divergent approaches to foreign policy are responsible for this new situation. This article tries to answer the question of why relations between the two countries have reached their lowest point. The author uses the concepts developed in the framework of neo-realist theories emphasizing the necessity of preventing the rise of regional hegemonic powers to argue that France's concerns about Iran's increasing influence in the region, their conflict of interests at the regional level, and Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear technology - which contributes to the enhancement of its influence and can escalate their conflict to the international level - constitute the most important reasons for the unfriendly relations between the two countries.
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, and France

387. Militarism and Israeli Society

Author:
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The space between the military and society in Israel is the arena of a multifaceted and complicated relationship between the military and the civil sectors. As one of the contributors in Militarism and Israeli Society, Amir Bar- Or, declares: "Complexity is [a] key feature in civil-military relations in Israel" (p. 259). Militarism and Israeli Society is a collective attempt to understand this complexity. From the historian's point of view, the key strength of the book is its understanding of the way the space between Israel's civilian and military spheres changes-in scope and in nature-over time.
Political Geography:
Israel and France

388. What if Europe Fails?

Author:
Thomas Wright
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The European Union is engaged in a ferocious political, diplomatic, and economic struggle to preserve the future of the single currency, the Euro, and the viability of what has become known simply as ''the project,'' namely the process of integration that has been the bedrock of Western European politics for over half a century. It is distinctly possible that its members' efforts may fail, either in the short or long term, and give way to an era of disintegration. Some have sounded the alarm: German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously remarked, ''If the Euro fails, Europe fails.'' Former president Nicolas Sarkozy of France predicted, ''If the euro explodes, Europe would explode. It's the guarantee of peace in a continent where there were terrible wars.'' Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski warned the Euro's collapse could cause an ''apocalyptic'' crisis. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik cautioned ''the nightmare scenario would . . . be a 1930's-style victory for political extremism.'' After all, ''fascism, Nazism, and communism were children of a backlash against globalization.'' The erosion of democracy in Hungary and the rise in support for populist parties in Greece, the Netherlands, Finland, and France appears to some to be the beginning of the end.
Political Geography:
Europe, Finland, Greece, France, Germany, and Netherlands

389. Building Africa's Airlift Capacity: A Strategy for Enhancing Military Effectiveness

Author:
Birame Diop, David M. Peyton, and Gene McConville
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In April 2012, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) declared its readiness to deploy 3,000 troops to northern Mali in response to seizures of territory by Tuareg separatists and Islamist militias. Left unanswered was the question of how ECOWAS would transport these troops and their equipment to Mali. Only airlift resources would be able to deliver personnel and heavy equipment into the area of operations (AO) in a timely manner, provide operational mobility within the AO against dispersed and heavily armed irregular forces, monitor a geographic area larger than France, and sustain operations for months or years. The inability to respond to these challenges to territorial control, in turn, further emboldens such separatists and other spoilers.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Islam, Insurgency, and Narcotics Trafficking
Political Geography:
Africa and France

390. Recent Trends in Security and Stability in the South Caucasus

Author:
Richard Giragosian and Sergey Minasyan
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
After twenty years of independence, the three counties of the South Caucasus-Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia-continue to struggle with a daunting set of challenges. In light of several unresolved conflicts and profound deficiencies in efforts directed at democratic and economic reform, the South Caucasus continues to be a "region at risk." As if this rather bleak landscape was not enough, three more recent trends have emerged to further threaten the region's security and stability. The first trend, and one that is likely to have the most profound effects over the long term, is evident in a subtle shift in the already delicate balance of power in the region, driven largely by a steady surge in Azerbaijani defense spending and exacerbated by a lack of progress in the mediation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Since the 1994 ceasefire that resulted in the suspension of hostilities over Nagorno-Karabakh (but that did not definitively end them), this unresolved or "frozen" conflict has been subject to an international mediation effort conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) so-called Minsk Group. This tripartite body co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States seeks to engage and prod the parties to the conflict toward a negotiated resolution of the conflict.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Security
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Caucasus, France, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia