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292. Emerging Security Challenges: A Glue for NATO and Partners?
- Author:
- Ioanna-Nikoletta Zyga
- Publication Date:
- 11-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- NATO Defense College
- Abstract:
- When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed as a defensive military alliance more than six decades ago, one of its fundamental tasks was to deter Soviet aggression against Western Europe. Since the end of the Cold War, the Allies have come to understand that their security depends on their ability to face threats emerging from well beyond the Euro-Atlantic space. NATO has thus broadened its focus from collective defense to security management beyond its borders: its numerous operations in this capacity have included peace support, peacekeeping, disaster relief and counter-piracy missions. These operations have taken place not only in NATO's traditional areas of intervention such as the Balkans, but also as far afield as the Gulf of Aden, the Horn of Africa, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, NATO, International Security, and Peacekeeping
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa, Europe, and North Atlantic
293. Can NATO Find a Role for Itself vis-À -vis China?
- Author:
- James Boutilier
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- NATO Defense College
- Abstract:
- NATO is at a crossroads. This is not the first time that Brussels has been faced with critical decisions about the direction, character and raison d'être of this unique and remarkable organization. But this time the stakes are even higher. The major centers of global power are all weak simultaneously for individual and inter-connected reasons. The greatest power on earth and NATO's banker, the United States, is confronting almost insurmountable levels of debt and talk about the end of the American empire has become commonplace. The European community is reeling from the cumulative effect of debt crises. And China, the 21st century's "workshop of the world" (and in the eyes of some a potential savor of ailing economies in Europe) has begun to see its economy slow disturbingly. At the same time, two other phenomena are unfolding; the rapid and profound shift in the global centre of economic gravity from the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific region and the winding down of NATO's involvement in Afghanistan. The latter, of course, raises the inevitable question: "What next?" The former raises a related question: "Does NATO's future lie in Asia?"
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, NATO, and Hegemony
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, China, Europe, and Asia
294. Turkey-NATO Relations at the 60th Anniversary
- Author:
- Sofia Hafdell
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Global Political Trends Center
- Abstract:
- After 60 years of membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Turkey’s role in the alliance stands strong amid new security threats and challenging regional change. It also largely corresponds to the New Strategic Concept of the 2010 Lisbon Summit, outlining the range of principles to which the members must adopt in order to continue effective cooperation and meet new responses, capabilities and partners (NATO, 2010). In light of this, Turkey’s strategic geography is crucial for the new security environment in the Euro-Atlantic region and beyond. Taking the recent examples of the intervention in Libya and the missile defense system, this policy update will highlight the importance of Turkey’s role within NATO regardless of initial foreign policy disagreements with the alliance and recent negative trends in Turkish public opinion towards the West.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, NATO, International Cooperation, Public Opinion, and History
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, and Mediterranean
295. Turkey-Ukraine Relations: High Potential, Low Voltage
- Author:
- Habibe Özdal and Viktoriia Demydova
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Strategic Research Organization (USAK)
- Abstract:
- With its strategic location of the existing power lines and economic potential, Ukraine, as one of the most important countries of Eastern Europe, is one of the pilot countries with which Turkey aims to develop its relations in an 'exemplary manner'. Besides, since Ankara and Kiev, share common values and priorities within the framework of preserving stability in the region, the Black Sea neighborhood adds another dimension to bilateral relations.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, Ukraine, and India
296. Young Minds Rethinking the Mediterranean
- Author:
- Nihan Akıncılar, Anna Alexieva, Jennifer Brindisi, Evinç Doğan, Amanda E. Rogers, and Beatrice Schimmang
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- Global Political Trends Center
- Abstract:
- In this paper, Europeanization of minority rights in Turkey will be explained in detail and in the conclusion part, it will be compared and contrasted with the Europeanization of minority rights in Greece. In this comparison, it is difficult to compare and contrast the mechanisms of Europeanization in Turkey and Greece because these mechanisms are suitable for the member states of the European Union (EU). For the candidate countries, the question of “how it is Europeanized” can be only answered with conditionality. Therefore, instead of trying to adapt Turkey in the case of minority rights to the mechanisms of Europeanization for the member states, in this study, it will be dealt with how the EU matters in affecting the minority rights protection in candidate and member states. Therefore, what this study implies when it is expected to explain Europeanization of mi`nority rights in Turkey is not to handle this case through the Europeanization theories, but how the EU affects the candidate countries through conditionality.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, Political Violence, Human Rights, War, and Political Theory
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, and Greece
297. Worse, not Better ? Reinvigorating Early Warning for Conflict Prevention in the Post Lisbon European Union
- Author:
- John Brante, Chiara De Franco, Christoph Meyer, and Florian Otto
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- The number and lethality of conflicts has been declining significantly since the end of the Cold War, but five new armed conflicts still break out each year. While costly peace-making, stabilisation and reconstruction efforts have helped to end conflicts, no comparative efforts have gone into preventing them from occurring in the first place. The international community appears stuck in the never-ending travails of managing crises, finding it difficult to act early to prevent new conflicts from escalating. Encouraging signs that this is changing include the United Nations (UN) promotion of the preventive arm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the United States' efforts to improve its capacity to prevent conflicts and mass atrocities emerging from the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. Similarly, since the launch of the Gothenburg programme in 2001, the European Union (EU) has embraced the case for conflict prevention in policy documents as well as in the Lisbon Treaty itself, making it a hallmark of its approach to international security and conflict in contrast to conventional foreign policy. Yet, it has fallen significantly short in translating these aspirations into institutional practice and success on the ground. It suffers from the 'missing middle' syndrome between long-term structural prevention through instruments such as conditionality for EU accession and development policy, and short-term responses to erupting crisis through military and civilian missions.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, Peace Studies, War, Armed Struggle, and Peacekeeping
- Political Geography:
- Europe and United Nations
298. A new Geography of European power?
- Author:
- James Rogers
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- The naval historian and geostrategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, understood the utility of military power perhaps better than anyone before or since. In an article called The Place of Force in International Relations – penned two years before his death in 1914 – he claimed: 'Force is never more operative then when it is known to exist but is not brandished' (1912). If Mahan's point was valid then, it is perhaps even more pertinent now. The rise of new powers around the world has contributed to the emergence of an increasingly unpredictable and multipolar international system. Making the use of force progressively more dangerous and politically challenging, this phenomenon is merging with a new phase in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, many European governments are increasingly reluctant – perhaps even unable – to intervene militarily in foreign lands. The operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown that when armed force is used actively in support of foreign policy, it can go awry; far from re-affirming strength and determination on the part of its beholder, it can actually reveal weakness and a lack of resolve. Half-hearted military operations – of the kind frequently undertaken by democratic European states – tend not to go particularly well, especially when there is little by way of a political strategy or the financial resources needed to support them. A political community's accumulation of a military reputation, which can take decades, if not centuries, can then be rapidly squandered through a series of unsuccessful combat operations, which dent its confidence and give encouragement to its opponents or enemies.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Political Violence, Arms Control and Proliferation, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Armed Struggle
- Political Geography:
- Europe
299. Decision-Making in Security and Defence Policy. Towards Supranational Intergovernmentalism?
- Author:
- Jolyon Howorth
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
- Abstract:
- For scholars and practitioners of European politics alike, the distinction between supranationalism and intergovernmentalism has always been fundamental. This distinction has underpinned the various schools of European integration theory, just as it has remained crucial for European governments keen to demonstrate that the member states remain in charge of key policy areas. Nowhere is this considered to be more central than in the area of foreign and security policy, which has consciously been set within the rigid intergovernmental framework of Pillar Two of the Maastricht Treaty and, under the Lisbon Treaty, remains subject to the unanimity rule. And yet, scholarship on the major decision-making agencies of the foreign and security policy of the EU suggests that the distinction is not only blurred but increasingly meaningless. This paper demonstrates that, in virtually every case, decisions are shaped and even taken by small groups of relatively well-socialized officials in the key committees acting in a mode which is as close to supranational as it is to intergovernmental. The political control of foreign and security policy, which is considered sacrosanct by member state governments, is only rarely exercised by politicians at the level of the European Council or Council of Ministers.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- Europe
300. The Future of Diplomacy: European and Global Challenges
- Author:
- Ondřej Horký
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations Prague
- Abstract:
- As identified by the participants of the 1st Czech-French Forum of Young Talents, diplomacy needs to face globalization, geopolitical shifts, the call for transparency and budgetary restrictions. The diplomat has to act as a manager and interpreter of knowledge in a world characterized by an overflow of information. The need for a strong and effective EU diplomacy is not disputed but the European interest has not been clearly defined so far. The European External Action Service seems to offer an institutional setting that will help to articulate the European interest through everyday practice. The contradictory ideal of a generalist diplomat has not waned, but the diplomat must update its competences, enter the public debate and keep up dated with technological progress.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Globalization
- Political Geography:
- Europe