Search

Begin New Search Publishing Institution The Geneva Centre for Security Policy

61. Why should we care about 3D-printing and what are potential security implications?

Author:
Dr Gustav Lindstrom
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Additive manufacturing, also known as 3 dimensional printing, is not a new technology.The first 3D-printer was unveiled in 1984 by 3D Systems Corporation - some thirty years ago. Some might even argue that the origins of 3D-printing were foreshadowed in the early 1900s through the automated pointing machine used by German sculptor Max Kruse. However, it was only around 2010 that a growing number of businesses and households began to explore its potential, largely due to the introduction of less expensive models. From 2007-2011, sales of 3D-printers grew 200-400 percent every year.
Topic:
Security, Communications, Mass Media, Intellectual Property/Copyright, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Germany

62. South Korea and China: A Strategic Partnership in the Making

Author:
Mr Alain Guidetti
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
President Xi Jinping's July 2014 visit to Seoul indicates that the strategic partnership between China and the Republic of Korea is moving forward against a backdrop of growing power competition and instability in the region. Both Seoul and Beijing have strong interest in close cooperation: Beijing wants to prevent a full-fledged trilateral alliance between the US, Japan and South Korea aimed at containing China's rising power Seoul needs Chinese support in its efforts to reach out to Pyongyang and work towards future reunification.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, International Affairs, Bilateral Relations, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Beijing, Asia, and South Korea

63. Cooperative Security: A New Paradigm for a World Without Nuclear Weapons?

Author:
Marc Finaud
Publication Date:
02-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
If there is a loose consensus on aiming at a world free of nuclear weapons in the future, there are clear oppositions as to the time-frame as well as the means for achieving this goal. The approach to nuclear disarmament followed to date has only yielded limited success because it has been conceived in isolation of global and regional security environments and threat perceptions. A new paradigm should thus be sought in order to reconcile nuclear powers' security doctrines with the global aspirations for a safer world, and ensure that nuclear powers derive their security less from others' insecurity but from mutually beneficial cooperative security. This should not become a pretext for preserving nuclear weapons for ever. It will on the contrary require parallel tracks addressing the initial motivations for acquiring nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), in particular in the context of regional conflicts, as well as dealing with the current issues necessarily related to nuclear disarmament (missile defence, weaponization of space, conventional imbalances and future weapon systems). Ultimately in a globalised nuclear-weapon free world, state security will not require nuclear weapons because it will be inserted into a broader network encompassing all aspects of security addressed in cooperative and multilateral approaches.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

64. Virtuality, Perception and Reality in Myanmar's Democratic Reform

Author:
Victoria Christensen
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Since the summer of 2011, the country of Myanmar has been experiencing rapid democratic reform. Headlines lauding these positive changes have become common-place in the international media. However, experts and academics who have been involved in the decade-long campaign to bring peace and democracy to Myanmar remain divided over how sincere these changes are. Some accuse the Government of carrying out “window-dressing” reforms to please the Western governments and enable the lifting of sanctions. They argue that the Government has a vested interest in maintaining the reins of power and that there is no incentive to make true democratic reforms. During a speech in Oslo in June 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmarese Pro-democracy leader described the recent reforms as positive but warned against blind faith in the process and pointed out the main challenges that remain unresolved – namely the ethnic issues and the ongoing imprisonment of political prisoners.
Topic:
Democratization, Human Rights, Political Economy, Governance, and Reform
Political Geography:
Geneva, United States, China, Tehran, Korea, and Southeast Asia

65. Bringing Back Transitology: Democratisation in the 21st Century

Author:
Timothy D. Sisk and Dr. Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Can political and socioeconomic transitions be systematised beyond their own contexts and specificities? In examining political liberalisation attempts taking place in the early twenty-first century, notably those leading up to and in the wake of the Arab Spring, dominant perspectives have featured a conspicuous absence of the literature on transitions to democracy of the past forty or so years. For all its insights and shortcomings, the framework of transitology (a body of literature that has comparatively and through case-study analysis examined common patterns, sequences, crises and outcomes of transitional periods) has been largely eschewed. The combined effect of the emphasis on regional narratives and immediate political dynamics has stripped the understanding of a new generation of political transitions of a deeper background of transitology which carries much relevance, albeit one in need of updating in light of recent experiences.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Politics, Sociology, and Social Movement
Political Geography:
Arabia

66. Diversion of Weapons within Peace Operations: Understanding the Phenomenon

Author:
Eric G. Berman and Mihaela Racovita
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Driven by the new security challenges of the post-Cold War period, peacekeeping has increased in tempo, scope and complexity. Missions have taken on broader mandates, with greater responsibilities, such as the protection of civilians, disarmament, demobilisation, and the reintegration of former combatants, and security sector reform. In this context, peacekeeping operations must overcome political, financial and operational challenges before they are even deployed. Once on the ground, peacekeepers become increasingly the targets of violence and crime. A former U.S. Senior Adviser on Darfur commented in October 2013: "It's kind of open season on UNAMID." This situation is not limited to Darfur. Rather, 'protecting the protectors' and their assets across missions and contexts has turned into a challenge in its own right.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Cold War, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
United States

67. Domestic and Regional Challenges in Mali after the French Intervention

Author:
Gerald Hainzl
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
On 11 January 2013, France initiated an intervention in Mali in order to stop rebel and Islamist fighters marching towards the capital Bamako. Exactly one month later, on 11 February, French President François Hollande claimed victory against Islamist insurgents. On 18 February, a group of seven tourists was kidnapped in Cameroon, near the Nigerian border, by Ansaru, a militant group loosely affiliated to the Nigerian group Boko Haram. One day later, a French soldier was killed in a clash with Islamist fighters in the mountainous region in Northern Mali. France originally planned to leave Mali in March 2013, but has since extended its commitment.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
France, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Northern Mali

68. Analysing the Crisis in the Sahel

Author:
Benjamin P. Nickels
Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
On 22 March 2012, disaffected soldiers took control of Bamako and reversed the regime of President Amadou Toumani Touré, known as ATT, an act that exacerbated Mali's descent into chaos and accelerated a disaster that has propelled the West African nation and the Sahel region to the front pages of newspapers across the world. Something of a consensus narrative of events has since coalesced. The demise of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi un - leashed weapons and warriors into the Sahel, where they mixed with terrorists and rebels who seized Mali's North by routing its military, sparking the coup but eventually provoking intervention by a French and African coalition that has reclaimed Northern cities and is now hunting down rebels in remote refuges. One year after the army rebellion, it may be useful to step back from this narrative and to analyze the Mali Crisis, responses to the crisis and ways to enhance those responses the Mali crisis are global, ethnic, governmental and environmental in nature. For each facet, the past year has provided spectacular examples, all of which are symptoms of much deeper and more persistent problems.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Africa, France, Libya, and Chad

69. Whither the Old Order?: The Regional Implications of the Syria Crisis

Author:
Karim Emile Bitar
Publication Date:
02-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Writing in September 2011, Hussein Agha and Robert Malley pointed out that the Arab awakening was "a tale of three battles rolled into one: people against regimes; people against people and regimes against other regimes." Nowhere is this more evident than in Syria where all three dimensions are forcefully present, simultaneously making Syria arguably the most complex of all Arab revolutions. The Syrian revolution started in March 2011 as an inevitable, spontaneous, legitimate and overwhelmingly non-violent movement, much akin to the Arab Spring revolutions that had taken place in Tunisia and Egypt. While the underlying political, economic and demographic causes of the Syrian uprising were quite similar to those which triggered the earlier revolutions, the regime's brutal reaction, Syria's geostrategic positioning and its sectarian heterogeneity, as well as the political agendas of regional and international powers led the revolution to morph into a bloody civil war.
Topic:
Security, Demographics, Economics, Human Rights, and Politics
Political Geography:
Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia

70. The Middle East: Change and Upheaval 2013

Author:
Dr. Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, Christian Koch, and Dr. Klejda Mulaj
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
As the Middle East continues to grapple with challenging questions of continuity and change, a group of distinguished thinkers on the region's politics and society met in Gstaad, Switzerland, to analyze current political dynamics and their implications for the region and beyond. This 11th Annual Conference organized jointly by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), the Crown Centre for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, and the Gulf Research Center (GRC) aimed to take stock of developments in the Middle East over the previous year and bring about a greater understanding of the complex problems faced by a perplexingly disordered region. Following on the 10th meeting in 2012, the primary focus of the discussion was on the Arab revolutions, their overall significance and outlook as well as their impact in the region with a specific emphasis on Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan. In addition, Iran's domestic politics and its international security implications; the GCC states and their place in the broader Middle East; as well as Israeli-Palestinian relations also featured prominently. The meeting opened by looking at the broader geopolitical and regional dynamics and concluded with a session considering policy implications in relation to present regional political dynamics. This report summarizes discussions held in the course of this meeting and in the tradition of previous reports on this Conference series, no direct, personal attributions are made herein. The Conference's program is attached.
Topic:
Political Violence, Governance, and Political Activism
Political Geography:
Geneva, Middle East, Israel, Arabia, Syria, Switzerland, and Egypt