International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Russia considers the rapprochement or integration into NATO of other countries of Central and Eastern Europe or the Caucasus as a direct threat, even though it does not pose any danger to its own sovereignty and territorial integrity. Instead of interpreting this process as a mere competition for influence, Russian leaders perceive it primarily as a military threat, which would even justify the use of force to counteract it. In the present article we investigate the social and ideational factors that have led to this securitization of NATO enlargement, preventing Moscow from adapting to the new game of alliances in a more pragmatic way. The concept of “ontological security” allows us to explain the consistency and permanence over time of these Russian perceptions, which are derived from its own subjective needs.
Topic:
Security, NATO, Sovereignty, Non-Traditional Threats, and Ontology
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
The definition of a National Security Strategy is essential to take a stand in a world of limited resources where competence for access, use, and appropriation of international common spaces is going to escalate. Added to the role of preserving jurisdictional spaces the Armed Forces should develop new roles emerging from the defense of national interest in spaces of diffuse sovereignty in a global scenario of deterioration of governance. The Armed Forces should rethink accordingly their structure, doctrine, organization and capabilities to adapt themselves to those scenarios, in accordance with the guidelines of the National Security Strategy.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Sovereignty, Military Strategy, and Armed Forces
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Organized crime has grown in the world and in the region, and its criminal operations do not escape Uruguay. Among the challenges facing the State, is the fight against organized crime, especially drug trafficking, money laundering and arms theft. Likewise, the links that may arise between organized crime and terrorism must be addressed as a threat. This work aims to reflect about these threats that affect the Security and Defense of the State and what has been their response to this problem that has been placed in a first plane in the public agenda.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Organized Crime
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Despite being a transnational organized crime, drug trafficking has a local impact in terms of security and violence, which is typically managed by non-national state actors. This paper proposes that, given their juridical and material constraints, subnational state agencies, primarily police forces, regulate drug trafficking through a combination of toleration, repression and rent extraction. I also argue that greater coordination within law enforcement agencies at the subnational level leads to lower drug-related violence at the retail dealing level. I illustrate this argument with a subnational comparison of four cases in Argentina and Brazil during the last two decades.
Topic:
Narcotics Trafficking, Regulation, Violence, Drugs, Police, and Organized Crime
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
This article analyses the evolution of the security concept used by Chile. This piece studies the different security dimensions in which Chile operates such as domestic and regional. In this sense, the article also focuses on Chile’s relation towards Latin America and its vocation to be an active actor in peacekeeping operations. Likewise, this article also pays attention to Chile’s involvement in multilateral security organizations such as the current state of the South American Union (UNASUR).
Topic:
Security, Human Security, and South American Union (UNASUR)
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Regional cooperation in defense and security is the result of a long process that has been strongly influenced by the confluence of regional and subregional experiences, as well as by the different stages of development of regionalism. These experiences provided valuable capital for the creation of spaces for dialogue among countries that would allow addressing issues related to divergences and asymmetries in defense, as well as the generation of mutual trust with the aim of deactivating persisting conflict hypothesis in the region and address regional positions in the face of common threats.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Defense Policy, and Regional Cooperation
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Although Brazil has always been considered one of the most violent countries in the region, in the last years, violence has grown exponentially and has also become more complex. The present paper seeks to show how the increase of violence, especially in the North and Northeast of Brazil, is related to the dispute between different criminal organizations, by the illicit drug market since the end of the non-aggression agreement that the Primeiro Comando da Capital and the Comando Vermelho had. From a qualitative approach, combining documentary analysis of primary and secondary sources, with interviews with experts, our work tries to answer the following questions: What is the current situation of violence in Brazil and how has it been re-signified? After that, we will relate that mutation to the complex variety of criminal organizations that operate in its territory; and, finally, we will answer how these organizations relate to each other. The result of this work will enable the development of multiple lines of research, especially related to the confrontation between criminal organizations and the illicit drug market in Brazil.
Topic:
Narcotics Trafficking, Violence, and Organized Crime
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
In recent times, in the field of international relations, there has emerged an academic current that has revived the thinking of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to reformulate various fundamental concepts, from the study of everyday practices, symbolic structures, and conflict arenas in which various actors define the course of world politics. This article exposes a brief revision to the theoretical and methodological framework under which an academic study is being carried out on the contemporary military development, understood and explained from the national security culture and military strategic culture.
Topic:
International Relations, National Security, Military Strategy, Sociology, and 9/11
Political Geography:
Europe, Global Focus, and United States of America
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
The transcendental changes wrought during the Great War in military art aroused the interest of the Spanish military. But despite the eagerness to reform the military and politicians of the time, little was done at the end of the struggle to improve the organization of an army that maintained a structure more typical of the nineteenth century. In sum, the necessary technical reform was still not fully implemented, something that continued during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the Republic, although during this time there was an attempt to diversify its organization.
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
The lack of a dissuasive policy was one of the key factors that explains the outbreak of the last Spanish colonial war. This article analyses the contradictory policy of general Franco’s regime about its territories of the Africa Occidental Española. Especially, it deals with the absence of a credible dissuasive policy in contrast to the increasing menacing presence of the so-called Army of Liberation of the Sahara.