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1. The Increasing Importance of Hybrid Politics in Europe: Cyber Power Is Changing the Nature of Politics

Author:
Gabriel Cederberg and Jarno limnéll
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
This paper examines the concepts of cyber politics and cyber-enabled hybrid warfare. It pays specific attention to the vulnerabilities of modern Western societies from a strategic-political perspective. The paper concludes that instead of cyber politics as such, a new kind of politics is needed – hybrid politics. Hybrid politics will be presented as a potentially winning concept for European security. Key Points: Issues related to cyberspace and its uses have risen to the highest levels of international politics, creating an area and discipline known as cyber politics. Protecting critical infrastructure and services from cyber threats is a complicated matter. The cyber domain is a central part of modern hybrid warfare, and malicious cyber-technical and cyber-psychological threats have both increased. Hybrid politics is a useful concept to describe both the importance of a holistic approach and the nature of high politics in the modern security reality. Hybrid politics is constantly changing the modern political process. The European Union (EU) should primarily understand hybrid politics as a potentially “winning concept” and take active steps to implement and sustain this understanding.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, War, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Europe and European Union

2. The EU in the MENA region: confounded by the chaos?

Author:
Domhnall O'Sullivan
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The first concerns the fundamental methodological logic of the policy instruments underpinning EU action in its neighbourhood. Historically, a certain duality has existed between the multilateral regionalism of grand approaches towards the south and the bilateral realism which often comes to the fore. According to institutional dynamics and preferences – as well as vacillating local conditions – the EU has moved back and forth along this continuum.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and North Africa

3. Developments and Implications of Missile Defence

Author:
Gustav Lindstrom
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
On 9 December 2011, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) hosted a seminar entitled "Developments and Implications of Missile Defence". The event was organized by the GCSP with the financial support of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). About fifty participants attended the event, representing government, international organizations, the think tank community, and academia. The seminar had four principal aims. They were to: Examine recent developments in missile defence initiatives; Gauge the potential consequences of missile defence on regional and global security trends; Analyze the possible impact of missile defence developments on existing and future disarmament activities, including unintended consequences; and, Offer preliminary findings of key issues that policymakers should be aware of as missile defence evolves.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Europe

4. Regional and International Energy Security Dynamics: Consequences for NATO's Search for an Energy Security Role

Author:
Phillip Cornell
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
It should not come as a surprise that energy has been steadily gaining importance within security circles in recent years due to the military and security dimensions of this mainly economic issue. As globalization has blurred the lines between traditional security and economic interchange (and especially energy flows), new challenges have arisen. This process has fanned the debate surrounding the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with regard to energy questions and their evolution.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, NATO, and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

5. Cooperating to Build Peace: The UN-EU Inter-Institutional Complex

Author:
Thierry Tardy
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) are both key institutions in the peacebuilding realm. The UN has, since the end of the Cold War, embraced post-conflict peacebuilding as one of its core activities, and most of its sixteen current peacekeeping operations include a peacebuilding component. Likewise, the EU has become an increasingly important institution of peace consolidation in all its aspects, both through the role of the European Commission and more recently that of the intergovernmental Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Post-conflict peacebuilding is an all-encompassing activity, which takes place at the nexus of security and development and that requires a wide range of policy responses. This theoretically places the UN and the EU in favourable positions, as institutions that aspire to develop a holistic approach, and to cover the entire continuum of conflict management. The simultaneous involvement of these two institutions in post-conflict peacebuilding poses the question of their respective policies in different terms. From Bosnia-Herzegovina or Kosovo to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or Chad, through military cooperation or UN-led but European Commission-financed civilian programmes, questions arise as to the interaction between two different types of actors, the nature and depth of inter-institutional relations, the division of tasks and the level of mutual reinforcement or redundancy.
Topic:
Security, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Europe

6. The CSDP after Lisbon: Lost Opportunities or Changed Interests?

Author:
Antti Kaski
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The purpose of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty was to enhance the unity of the member states' foreign policies and the coherence of the external action of the European Union (EU). As manifested recently by the lack of unity and delayed action in the wake of the Arab revolutions, the EU still has considerable work to do before it can claim to have become a global heavyweight in foreign and security policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Europe, Arabia, and Lisbon

7. Reinforcing Disarmament: Combating Illicit Trade in Weapons and Materials

Author:
Marc Finaud and Philipp Annawitt
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Illicit trade in weapons and materials poses serious challenges to states and disarmament regimes. Although small arms and light weapons (SALW) are quite different from weapons of mass destruction (WMD), both categories are in increasing demand by violent non-state actors, often in relation to organized crime and terrorist activities.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Europe

8. The Role of Parliaments in Arms Control, Disarmament, and the Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Author:
Marc Finaud
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
From 30 March to 1 April 2011, a high-level workshop was organized for parliamentarians from countries belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Partnership for Peace (PfP). The topic of this event was “The Role of Parliaments in Arms Control, Disarmament, and the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)”. It was a joint initiative of the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and the WMD Non-Proliferation Centre of NATO. Some thirty-five parliamentarians (including several former government ministers) from twenty-three countries attended the workshop along with the same number of staffers, government representatives, and independent experts.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe

9. Beyond Geopolitics: Common Challenges, Joint Solutions?

Author:
Gustav Lindstrom
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The 2010 Gstaad Process meeting was held in Switzerland from 16-18 September. Entitled “Beyond Geopolitics – Common Challenges, Joint Solutions?”, the event was organised by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) with the financial support of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). Additional partners and contributors were the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies in Monterey (California) and the PIR Center (Moscow).
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Science and Technology, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe

10. The European External Action Service: Implications and Challenges

Author:
Gustav Lindstrom
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The 2009 Lisbon Treaty is considered by many a turning point for the EU as it encourages a more coherent and effective use of existing civilian, military, economic, and military instruments. Among its better known innovations is the new post of President of the European Council (currently Mr. Herman van Rompuy) and modified post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission (presently Baroness Catherine Ashton).
Topic:
International Organization and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe