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481. Turkey’s Approach towards Nuclear Armament*

Author:
Sinan Ülgen
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
BILGESAM (Wise Men Center for Strategic Studies)
Abstract:
When we look at Turkey’s nuclear strategy particularly in the field of military, we see that the issue of nuclear armament is not frequently discussed (maybe for right reasons). However, outside the country, in other NATO members, this issue is often discussed. What is at stake here is not the debate over how many nuclear weapons each state possesses but what kind of roles nuclear weapons play in the security strategies of countries.The debate on whether nuclear weapons are still needed in today’s world is being made openly before the public opinion. There has not occurred such a debate environment in Turkey yet. I am of the view that beginning such a debate will be of benefit if we indeed have the ideal of ‘open society’.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, Public Opinion, Military Affairs, and Weapons
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

482. Debating US Interests in Syria's Civil War

Author:
Brian Haggerty
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
In the aftermath of a chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21, President Obama's threat to launch a limited cruise missile strike to "deter and degrade" Syrian President Bashar al-Asad's chemical weapons capability has once again thrust U.S. Syria policy to the forefront of national debate.
Topic:
Civil War, Military Strategy, Hegemony, and Military Intervention
Political Geography:
Middle East, Syria, North America, and United States of America

483. Pakistan Remains A Question Mark in Lead Up to NATO Summit

Author:
Boris Macguire
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
After a decade of war in Afghanistan, world leaders will arrive at May’s NATO Summit in Chicago having finally articulated a plan to transfer control of security to Afghan forces. There has also been increasing pressure on President Obama and the alliance’s leaders to use the summit to announce a timetable for the second stage of the endgame process – the actual extraction of NATO forces. But Pakistan, which has perhaps the greatest stake in NATO’s exit and the endurance of a negotiated settlement with Taliban, has yet to publicly articulate a clear and unified position on the process. Instead, Pakistan has initiated a “strategic pause” in relations, appointing a parliamentary committee on national security to review the country’s official engagement with the United States and NATO. Until the results of the review and the status of U.S.-Pakistan relations are clarified, President Obama and NATO leaders will be severely restricted in their ability to formulate a realistic withdrawal timeline.
Topic:
Security, NATO, International Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Europe, North Atlantic, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

484. What a Tangled Web: India Caught Between U.S. and Iranian Interests

Author:
Felix Imonti
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
India is caught between the consequences of provoking a United States driven by its fixation upon the Iranian nuclear program and by an Iran that is a major supplier of oil, providing India with access to its vital interests in Afghanistan. The best that the Ind
Topic:
Diplomacy, Energy Policy, International Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, India, Asia, North America, and United States of America

485. Congress Considers New Sanctions on Iran - But Why

Author:
Paul Nadeau
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
It is not surprising that Congress can take a more aggressive stance on foreign policy issues than the Executive: Congress rarely bears the loss in foreign policy mistakes (consider where foreign policy issues rank on voters’ lists of priorities) and that consequently gives Congress an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, since high profile issues in most other issue areas carry considerably more risk. The result is that Congress will often take a position that is contrary to that of the Executive, most frequently by adopting a more extreme position, and then either assailing the Executive for a lack of leadership when the Executive does not follow or by taking credit when the Executive adopts Congress’s position. The most recent example is the issue of Iran’s nuclear program—which is likely the only current issue where there is genuine bipartisan support, famously evidenced in the Senate’s December 2011 100-0 passage of legislation sanctioning Iran’s financial sector. So far, international sanctions, and particularly the European Union’s sanctions of Iran’s oil sector, seem to have succeeded in damaging Iran’s economy and possibly even encouraging them to negotiate, though a breakthrough has been elusive. The problem is that while the sanctions may have succeeded in crippling Iran’s (already weak) economy so far, the goal of the sanctions program is supposed to have been to convince Iran to terminate its nuclear program. On that score, it’s unclear that additional sanctions may help the American cause and it might even undermine it.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

486. Türkiye’nin İsrail ile İlişkilerinin Değişen Dinamikleri: Bir ‘Güvenlikleştirme’ Analizi* | The Changing Dynamics of Turkey’s Relations with Israel: An Analysis of ‘Securitization’

Author:
Ali Balcı and Tuncay Kardaş
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
Bu çalışmanın amacı şu sorulara cevap aramaktır: Ortadoğu’da düşük profilli bir politika izleyen Türkiye’nin 1990’larda İsrail devleti ile güçlü bir stratejik ittifak ilişkisi kurması nasıl mümkün olmuştur? Sonrasında bunun tersine iki ülke arasında 1990’lardaki benzersiz ve pozitif ilişkilerin yerini 2000’lerde neden düşmanca bir ortam almıştır? 1990’lar ile 2000’lerdeki ilişkilerin arasındaki bu fark nasıl açıklanabilir? Bu soruları cevaplamak için makale Kopenhag Okulu’nun “güvenlikleştirme” kavramını kullanmaktadır. Bu yaklaşım sadece Türkiye-İsrail ilişkilerindeki farklı dönemlerin özelliklerini resmetmeye yardımcı olmamakta, aynı zamanda politik anlamda sivil-asker ilişkilerinin dış politika yapımındaki etkisini vurgulamaya da imkân sağlamaktadır. | The present study seeks to answer the following questions: How was it possible that a state such as Turkey, which had until then pursued a low-profile policy in the Middle East, has able to forge a bold strategic alliance with the state of Israel in the 1990s? Conversely then, why was the unparalleled and positive nature of relations in the 1990s replaced by a hostile and toxic nature in the first decade of the 2000s? How can this difference in the relations between the 1990s and 2000s be explained? To answer such questions, this article uses the Copenhagen School’s theory of securitization. This approach not only helps to illustrate the characteristics of different periods in Turkish-Israeli relations, it also helps to highlight the specificity of the politics of civilmilitary relations in foreign policy making.
Topic:
Security, Government, Military Strategy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Israel

487. Iran's Two Navies

Author:
Joshua Himes
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of War
Abstract:
The Arab Spring has fomented increasing uncertainty in the Middle East, a circumstance in which Iran's regional intentions are of increasing concern. U.S. attempts to isolate the regime are driven by concerns over Iran's nuclear program, the enduring energy chokepoint at the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran's export of radical Shi'a militancy through proxy groups across the region, particularly as it affects Iraq, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon.
Topic:
Islam and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria

488. The Struggle for Syria in 2011

Author:
Joseph Holliday
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of War
Abstract:
This paper provides context for understanding the cycles of violence in Syria. The first section provides a brief historical overview of sectarianism in Syria in order to understand its role in the current conflict. The second section provides a framework for understanding the operations and strategy of the Assad regime. The paper then analyzes regime security operations in seven regions: Dera'a province; Damascus; Homs and Hama in central Syria; the coastal region; Idlib province; the Arab east; and the Kurdish northeast. The paper concludes with an examination of regional and international responses to the conflict.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Armed Struggle, and Sectarianism
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

489. Building a new military? The NATO Training Mission-Iraq

Author:
Florence Gaub
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
The military is the cradle of the state - simply because security precedes any social or economic development. In the 1990s, this consideration led to the advent of Security Sector Reform, essentially the consequence of the perception that building up strong and viable security institutions under civilian control is a precondition of state consolidation. The multiple defense reforms NATO assisted in many former Warsaw Pact member states, and the NATO Training Cooperation Initiative launched in 2006, are part of the consequent logic of military development aid, which is not entirely altruistic. Security is an intertwined construct, and the Alliance relies on stability and security in other states in order to ensure its own. In this context, NATO's Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I) is just a logical step - although surprising to some, given that it was Iraq that caused the Alliance a "near-death experience." Four years later it was followed by a sister mission in Afghanistan, indicating a trend in security force assistance that is likely to grow.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Middle East

490. Diamonds and War: State, Capital, and Labor in British Ruled Palestine

Author:
David De Vries
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
The mining of diamonds, their trading mechanisms, their financial institutions, and, not least, their cultural expressions as luxury items have engaged the work of historians, economists, social scientists, and international relations experts. Based on previously unexamined historical documents found in archives in Belgium, England, Israel, the Netherlands, and the United States, this book is the first in English to tell the story of the formation of one of the world’s main strongholds of diamond production and trade in Palestine during the 1930s and 1940s. The history of the diamond-cutting industry, characterized by a long-standing Jewish presence, is discussed as a social history embedded in the international political economy of its times; the genesis of the industry in Palestine is placed on a broad continuum within the geographic and economic dislocations of Dutch, Belgian, and German diamond-cutting centers. In providing a micro-historical and interdisciplinary perspective, the story of the diamond industry in Mandate Palestine proposes a more nuanced picture of the uncritical approach to the strict boundaries of ethnic-based occupational communities. This book unravels the Middle-eastern pattern of state intervention in the empowerment of private capital and recasts this craft culture’s inseparability from international politics during a period of war and transformation of empire.
Topic:
War, Military Strategy, Natural Resources, Labor Issues, State Violence, and Mining
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, and Palestine