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301. NATO AND THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

Author:
Carlos Gustavo Poggio Teixeira and Daniella da Silva Nogueira de Melo
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Institution:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Abstract:
In May 2018, Colombia was recognised as a NATO global partner, being the first Latin American country to formalize this relationship. The historical and political context of the South Atlantic differs from the reality of central and eastern Europe and the Middle East where the organization has mainly acted. In the last decades, NATO presence in the South Atlantic has received a little academic discussion. This is not due to lack of evidence, as the formation of partnerships with Colombia, Mauritania, joint military operations with Cape Verde, Ghana andother countries of the western African coast reveal the importance that the South Atlantic has acquired for the Alliance’s agenda and its members. This article intends to contribute to this gap in the literature.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Military Affairs, and Global Security
Political Geography:
Colombia, Latin America, and South Atlantic

302. INTER-AMERICAN RELATIONS AFTER 9/11: OVERCOMING NEGLECT

Author:
Livia Peres Milani
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Institution:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Abstract:
The US Foreign Policy turn to the Middle East during the 2000s and the coming to power of left-leaning governments in Latin America was widely interpreted as a US neglect of the region and the beginning of a post-hegemonic era in the Western Hemisphere. Hakim (2006)argued that the US was losing interest to the region and Riggigorozzi and Tussie (2012)claimed the US decompression opened space to Latin American regionalism. These ideas became common sense, but they were rarely demonstrated (LONG, 2016). The recent reversion of that scenario, with the coming to power of right-wing governments and the US pressure on the Bolivarian Venezuelan government, makes clear that more research on the post 9/11 US policies to South America is needed.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Hegemony, and Regional Integration
Political Geography:
United States and Latin America

303. Thinking foreign policy in Russia: Think tanks and grand narratives

Author:
Anton Barbashin and Alexander Graef
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Over the course of the last decade Russian foreign policy has taken critical turns, surprising not only the entire international community but also Russia’s own foreign policy experts. Arguably, the most notable turn came in March 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, setting in motion developments that are continuously shaping Russia, its neighbors, and, to a certain degree, global affairs. Clearly, Russia’s post-Crimean foreign policy does not exist in a vacuum. Its ramifications are colliding with regional and global trends that are effectively destabilizing the post-Cold War international order, creating uncertainties that are defining the contemporary international moment. In this report, we deal with those whose job it is to explain the logic of Russia’s foreign policy turns and to analyze global trends and their meaning for Russia and the rest of the world. Although these experts, as a rule, do not directly influence political decision-making, their debates, as Graeme Herd argues, “set the parameters for foreign policy choices” and “shape elite and public perceptions of the international environment” in Russia.1 Especially in times of crisis and rapid change ideas produced at some earlier stage by experts and think tanks external to the state bureaucracy can suddenly obtain instrumental value and direct policy options. In Part 1, we briefly discuss the role of think tanks in Russian foreign policymaking and present the landscape of Russian think tanks working on foreign policy issues. We distinguish among three basic institutional forms: academic and university-based think tanks, private think tanks, and state-sponsored think tanks. Highlighting the diversity of organizations, we then focus on four state-sponsored think tanks whose size, political contacts, and financial means allow them to dominate the think tank scene in Russia and that represent different ideological angles of a broad, yet also comparatively volatile mainstream: the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (SVOP), the Valdai Discussion Club, the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), and the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI). Part 2 follows this selection by looking at Russian foreign policy debates since 2014. We consider how experts writing for these four organizations have approached three major themes: the evolution of the concept of Greater Europe and European Union (EU)-Russia relations, the establishment of the Greater Eurasia narrative in the context of Russia’s declared pivot to the East, and the concepts of multipolarity and the liberal world order.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Civil Society, Diplomacy, and Norms
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Eurasia

304. US Withdrawal from the Middle East: Perceptions and Reality

Author:
William F. Wechsler
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
This chapter is part of an edited volume that gathers analysis on the policy choices pursued by Washington and Moscow in the MENA region and develops case studies of the two powers’ policies in the countries beset by major crises
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, and Crisis Management
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America

305. Same Ends but Different Means: Change, Continuity and Moscow’s Middle East Policy

Author:
Mark N. Katz
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
This chapter is part of an edited volume that gathers analysis on the policy choices pursued by Washington and Moscow in the MENA region and develops case studies of the two powers’ policies in the countries beset by major crises.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, and Islamism
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

306. Iraqi-Russian Relations amidst US Security-Focused Engagement

Author:
Abbas Kadhim
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Iraq has a long and complicated history with the United States, and security and military engagements have been the primary driver of the relationship. Iraq’s relations with Russia, on the other hand, have been more transactional and economically-oriented. At a time when there are signs of US disengagement from the Middle East and North Africa while Russian and Chinese activities in the region are increasing, it is useful to trace the past US and Russian strategies in Iraq and assess how the United States could better tailor its strategy toward Iraq in the future in order to achieve durable outcomes that would bring benefits to both sides such as a responsive government, a thriving economy, and security. This chapter is part of an edited volume that gathers analysis on the policy choices pursued by Washington and Moscow in the MENA region and develops case studies of the two powers’ policies in the countries beset by major crises.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Russia, Iraq, Eurasia, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

307. Ocean horizons: Strengthening maritime security in Indo-Pacific island states

Author:
Anthony Bergin, David Brewster, and Aakriti Bachhawat
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
The report examines how Pacific island countries (PICs) and Indian Ocean island states (IO island states) are managing and prioritising their maritime security challenges. These islands, which we call the ‘Indo-Pacific island states’, face an intricate offshore tapestry. In particular, this report suggests that most of the maritime threats and risks facing the Indo-Pacific island states are increasing. That’s in part because of the general lack of effective maritime security identified in this report. The report describes the current geopolitical environment of the Indo-Pacific island states and how we should understand maritime security in the context of island states. It examines the core maritime security concerns of the PICs and IO island states and considers points of commonality and divergence in island state perspectives on maritime security and major-power competition. The report provides key recommendations for Indo-Pacific island states and for countries, such as Australia and its partners, that wish to more effectively engage with the island states on maritime security.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, National Security, and Maritime
Political Geography:
Australia, Asia-Pacific, and Indian Ocean

308. Augmenting maritime domain awareness in southeast Asia: Boosting national capabilities in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia

Author:
Peter Chalk
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
Promoting maritime domain awareness (MDA) has become an increasingly high priority area for many Southeast Asian states. The rising salience of a regional maritime ‘disorder’ that’s increasingly being shaped by the influence of so-called ‘grey area’ phenomena, combined with a growing awareness that these non-state challenges can be dealt with only through a whole-of-government approach, has prompted several regional countries to create multiagency operational fusion centres (FCs) to mitigate these dangers. Foremost among those initiatives have been the Philippine National Coast Watch Center (NCWC, established in 2012), the Thai Maritime Enforcement Command Centre (MECC, set up in 2019) and the Indonesian Sea Security Coordination Centre (Baden Keamanan Laut Prebublik Indonesia, BAKAMLA, formed in 2014). While the specific drivers for the creation of these organisations has differed according to the conditional contexts of the three countries concerned, they have all faced a similar set of challenges that has stymied progress in providing a truly coordinated approach to maritime security (MARSEC) threats.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, National Security, Maritime, and Defense Industry
Political Geography:
Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Southeast Asia

309. Rethinking Taiwan policy: History, politics, ideology

Author:
Mark Harrison
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
The issue of Taiwan has long been one of the most intractable and multilayered in regional political, defence, foreign affairs, trade and security policy. Taiwan is claimed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as part of its territory, and, under its official title of the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan is limited by Beijing to a marginal position in the international system. Political relations between Taipei and Beijing are fractious, but the Taiwan Strait is at the same time a critical link in global supply chains, carrying hundreds of billions of dollars of cross-strait trade in goods and services and investments every year. Hanging over this political and economic relationship is the constant threat of military action from Beijing. Taiwan policy in Australia and internationally is structured around the ‘resolution’ of the Taiwan issue, either through a negotiated settlement or through large-scale military action by the PRC. Australia should reassess its understanding of the Taiwan issue so as to identify alternative scenarios and calibrate its responses accordingly.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, Territorial Disputes, History, and Ideology
Political Geography:
China, Taiwan, and Asia

310. Mapping more of China's tech giants: AI and surveillance

Author:
Danielle Cave, Fergus Ryan, and Vicky Xiuzhong Xu
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre has updated the public database that maps the global expansion of key Chinese technology companies. This update adds a further 11 companies and organisations: iFlytek, Megvii, ByteDance (which owns TikTok), SenseTime, YITU, CloudWalk, DJI, Meiya Pico, Dahua, Uniview and BeiDou. Our public database now maps 23 companies and organisations and is visualised through our interactive website, Mapping China’s Technology Giants. The website seeks to give policymakers, academics, journalists, government officials and other interested readers a more holistic picture of the increasingly global reach of China’s tech giants. The response to phase 1 of this project—it quickly became one of ASPI’s most read products—suggests that the current lack of transparency about some of these companies’ operations and governance arrangements has created a gap this database is helping to fill. This update adds companies working mainly in the artificial intelligence (AI) and surveillance tech sectors. SenseTime, for example, is one of the world’s most valuable AI start-ups. iFlytek is a partially state-owned speech recognition company. Meiya Pico is a digital forensics and security company that created media headlines in 2019 because of its monitoring mobile app MFSocket.1 In addition, we’ve added DJI, which specialises in drone technologies, and BeiDou, which isn’t a company but the Chinese Government’s satellite navigation system. We also added ByteDance—an internet technology company perhaps best known internationally for its video app, TikTok, which is popular with teenagers around the world. TikTok is also attracting public and media scrutiny in the US over national security implications, the use of US citizens’ data and allegations of censorship, including shadow banning (the down-ranking of particular topics via the app’s algorithm so users don’t see certain topics in their feed). Company overviews now include a summary of their activities in Xinjiang.2 For some companies, including ByteDance and Huawei, we are including evidence of their work in Xinjiang that has not being reported publicly before. For most of these companies, the surveillance technologies and techniques being rolled out abroad—often funded by loans from the Export–Import Bank of China (China Eximbank)3—have long been used on Chinese citizens, and especially on the Uyghur and other minority populations in Xinjiang, where an estimated 1.5 million people are being arbitrarily held in detention centres.4 Some of these companies have actively and repeatedly obscured their work in Xinjiang, including in hearings with foreign parliamentary committees. This project now includes evidence and analysis of those activities in order to foster greater transparency about their engagement in human rights abuses or ethically questionable activities in the same way Western firms are held to account by Western media and civil society actors, as they should be. In this report, we include a number of case studies in which we delve deeper into parts of the dataset. This includes case studies on TikTok as a vector for censorship and surveillance, BeiDou’s satellite and space race and CloudWalk’s various AI, biometric data and facial recognition partnerships with the Zimbabwean Government. We also include a case study on Meiya Pico’s work with China’s Public Security Ministry on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aid projects in Southeast Asia and Central Asia. Those projects include the construction of digital forensics labs and cyber capacity training, including for police forces across Asia. We have also investigated the role that foreign investment plays in the global expansion of some of these companies, particularly in China’s surveillance and public security sector.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cybersecurity, Surveillance, Artificial Intelligence, and Emerging Technology
Political Geography:
China and Asia-Pacific