Papers on regional security and area studies presented at EISS conferences and workshops, newest first. 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z https://eiss-europa.com/feeds/themes/regional-security-and-area-studies.xml European Initiative for Security Studies https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-bosnia-and-herzegovina-on-the-edge-of-european-stability 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Prof. Kenan Hodžić Prof. Jasmin Ahić

Bosnia and Herzegovina occupies a critical position in the security architecture of the Western Balkans, serving as a nexus of domestic vulnerabilities, regional dynamics, and broader European security concerns. This paper employs the multi-level security framework (Buzan, Wæver & de Wilde, 1998) to examine the intersection of internal political fragmentation, institutional capacity, and external influences, including the European Union, NATO, and neighboring states. By integrating traditional state-centric security analysis with transnational and human-security dimensions, the study highlights the ways in which BiH’s structural complexities shape its resilience to both conventional and non-conventional threats. Methodologically, the study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with senior management within BiH’s intelligence, security, and military institutions. These interviews provide nuanced insights into threat perception, operational challenges, and the interplay between domestic capabilities and foreign influence. The paper further situates BiH’s security landscape within the wider Western Balkan region, exploring how regional interdependencies, EU policies, and strategic external actors influence national and sub-regional security outcomes. The findings underscore the importance of coordinated security approaches and highlight the potential for EU engagement to foster strategic stability, while preserving national sovereignty. This analysis contributes to the recent discourse by offering a case study of a post-conflict, geopolitically sensitive environment, illustrating the complexities of aligning domestic security policies with regional and European strategic frameworks. Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Western Balkans, European Security, Multi-Level Security

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-eu-s-ontological-security-and-geopolitical-enlargement 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Nikolaos Tzifakis

As Manners illustrated two decades ago, the EU’s identity is constructed around shared norms and principles. These norms and the corresponding self-narratives have provided legitimacy, consistency, and unity of purpose among EU members, and have informed the EU's view of the world. The EU has found meaning in its global role as a norm entrepreneur, promoting, with civilian means, the spread of the liberal international order. However, contemporary global power politics have generated multiple challenges to the EU’s fundamental assumptions and narratives about itself, presenting a major ontological security crisis. The EU’s constitutive ideas and its self-perception as a civilian great power are widely contested not only by non-Western authoritarian powers (e.g., Russia and its military revisionism) but also within the Western normative community, by US President Trump’s policies. The paper will argue that while the EU strives to come to terms with the imperative to adjust its self-image and corresponding role to the new geopolitical realities, its enlargement can play a critical role in alleviating anxiety. It provides a space where the EU can maintain a sense of continuity of purpose as a normative power, and an area where its self-image as an influential geopolitical actor relying exclusively on civilian power can be preserved.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-filling-the-eu-s-identity-void-from-without-and-within-forging-a-geopolitics-of 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Kurt Bassuener

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared her ambition to lead a “geopolitical Commission” upon taking office in 2019, at a time when debate over EU “strategic autonomy” was intensifying. Promoted most visibly by French President Emmanuel Macron during Donald Trump’s first presidency, marked by open doubts about NATO, this debate was driven by growing concern over Russian and Chinese influence in the EU’s neighbourhood, particularly in the Western Balkans (WB6). These concerns spanned the information space and critical infrastructure, extending even to EU member states participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Yet despite heightened rhetoric, the EU’s geopolitical development lagged behind its ambitions and remained largely reactive. This gap became evident during China’s Covid-19 “mask and vaccine diplomacy” and, more decisively, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. These exogenous shocks prompted renewed EU engagement with enlargement. The accession process in the Western Balkans was revived after being stalled in 2019, and pathways were opened for Eastern Partnership countries, notably Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. Nevertheless, despite multiple reforms and initiatives, including the 2024 Growth Plan, the EU’s underlying approach toward long-standing Balkan candidates has remained largely unchanged. The return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 has further unsettled the international order. US strategic documents now envision a world structured around competing hegemons, the United States, China, and Russia, with Europe relegated to a subordinate role rather than recognized as an autonomous geopolitical actor. The downgrading of democratic values as a policy objective, alongside actions such as the January 2026 US intervention in Venezuela, illustrates this shift. Europe has yet to articulate a coherent response, although divergent visions emerged in 2026 from leaders in Canada, France, and Ukraine. The proposed paper, drawing on data collected within the Geo-Power-EU project, argues that an EU geopolitics grounded in democratic values has a clear demand base among eastern candidates and potentially the Western Balkans. This normative distinction from hegemonic powers represents a strategic asset that should underpin the EU’s approach to enlargement and collective defence.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-from-normalisation-to-strategic-stabilisation-geopolitisation-of-the-pristina-be 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Filip Ejdus Alexandra Prodromidou Faye Ververidou Sonja Stojanovic Gajic

This paper applies a geopolitisation lens to the Pristina–Belgrade Dialogue, examining how geopolitics have affected the normalisation of the dialogue and to what extent the deterioration of the geopolitical situation in the world opens the space for an alteration in related measures within the broader transformation of the EU enlargement process. Initially framed as a technocratic and depoliticised process aimed at functional normalisation and rule-based convergence, the dialogue has increasingly been reframed as a strategic instrument in the EU’s response to contemporary security challenges. The paper argues that this transformation is driven by the re-emergence of hard geopolitics in Europe, particularly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has recast the Western Balkans as a zone of strategic vulnerability, as well as the latest shift in US foreign policy and security priorities and its subsequent rift with its traditional allies, including the EU. As a result, EU conditionality in the dialogue has evolved from a primarily normative mechanism into a tool of geopolitical stabilisation, prioritising containment of external influence, regional security, and alignment over legal clarity and democratic consolidation. The paper highlights the importance for the Union to balance between short-term stability and entrenching status ambiguity, undermining the EU’s normative credibility. The paper uses data collected from in-depth interviews from officials in Kosovo, Serbia and EU institutions inside the framework of the GEO-POWER-EU project.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-from-privateers-to-private-maritime-security-irregular-maritime-actors-and-the-l 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Pieter Zhao

This paper examines the re-emergence of private maritime security companies (PMSCs) in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, situating their rise within both recent developments in maritime security and a broader historical context. Since the early 2000s, PMSCs have become a visible feature of global shipping security, particularly in response to piracy and other low-intensity maritime threats. Their growing role as non-state actors operating in the maritime domain raises important questions about the organization of coercive power at sea and the boundaries of state authority. Drawing on my ongoing PhD research, the paper focuses on the structural conditions that enabled the expansion of PMSCs rather than treating their emergence as a purely novel or exceptional phenomenon. It highlights how the globalization of trade, the rapid growth of the merchant fleet, and the post–Cold War contraction and reprioritization of naval forces created persistent capacity gaps in maritime security provision. Within this context, PMSCs emerged as a practical solution to long-standing challenges of securing vast and dispersed sea lines of communication, particularly in regions where states lacked the resources or political willingness to provide continuous protection. The paper then briefly situates contemporary PMSCs within a longer historical trajectory of delegated maritime violence, comparing them to earlier non-state and semi-state actors such as privateers and chartered trading companies. This historical perspective demonstrates that the involvement of non-state actors in maritime security has been a recurrent feature of naval warfare and maritime order rather than an anomaly of the contemporary era. By placing PMSCs within this longer continuum, the paper contributes to discussions on non-state actors and security governance by showing how states have repeatedly adapted the distribution of authority at sea in response to changing economic, strategic, and technological conditions.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-geopoliticisation-of-eu-enlargement-in-the-western-balkans-and-eastern-partnersh 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Marko Kovačević Milan Varda Dr Tijana Rečević Krstić

The EU’s recently proclaimed geopolitical turn, that we see as an instance of “transitional order” (Beasley, Oppermann, and Kaarbo 2026), has reshaped its enlargement policy, transforming it from a predominantly socialising process into an explicit instrument of geopolitical positioning (cf. Privitera et al. 2024). The rapid upgrading of the Eastern Partnership countries into an “Associated Trio” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine formalised the narrative framing the EU as a geopolitical power (Anghel 2025). Whereas classical accession conditionality in Central and Southeast Europe assumed primarily gradual normative socialisation, the revival of enlargement in a geopolitical disguise exhibits a growing element of geopolitical “altercasting” (Oppermann 2024), characterised by more explicit expectations (and possible status rewards) regarding strategic alignment and positioning. While this turn was expected to produce stronger patterns of (re)alignment among candidate countries, the geopoliticisation of enlargement also appears to generate increasingly transactional (or somewhat ambiguous) modes of engagement. This paper, therefore, examines how EU candidates position themselves at the EU integration stage within the transitional international order. Have they gotten fully on board with the Geopolitical Power EU, or do they consider pursuing hedging due to the uncertainties of the “merit-based approach”? The study uses the original quantitative and qualitative data from the Geo-Power-EU project, including the country-based Interdependence Database containing the entries on political, security, economic, and social spheres before and during the geopolitical turn. We also leverage the original qualitative data from interviews by local experts, journalists, and politicians from 9 countries to assess their perception of the consequences of the geopolitical turn. By using the concepts from foreign policy role theory, we flesh out the processes related to role adaptation and contestation in the times of international order transition at the global level and its momentous implications for Europe and its states.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-governing-cybersecurity-and-the-politics-of-state-control-in-the-digital-age 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Moritz Weiss Ms Yagnyashri Kodaru

Digital technologies have become deeply entangled with the fabric of contemporary societies. Data infrastructures and cybersecurity practices underpin not only economic activity but also state authority and national security. This growing entanglement gives rise to a central question: how are states reorganizing their authority structures and cybersecurity policies, when digital infrastructures are simultaneously strategic assets and commercial commodities? To address this question, we develop a comparative framework investigating how states design cybersecurity policies across institutional and technological contexts. We distinguish between centralized or fragmented authority, on the one hand, and capacities-based or rules-based cybersecurity policies, on the other. These distinctions serve us as a typology of state control over cybersecurity. First, ‘controllers’ possess the ultimate authority and capacity to command and control. Second, ‘custodians’ set agendas and align a variety of government actors without delegation. Third, ‘incentivizers’ influence third-party behavior indirectly through mostly material and legal incentives. Fourth, ‘managers’ exercise delegated authority over day-to-day implementation. We argue that the evolution of these models is shaped by the interaction of two factors: the demand for securing cyberspace and technological complexity. Empirically, we take a longue durée and focus on a single rising power, India. We analyze the temporal evolution of cybersecurity governance within India from 1950 to 2025, with a focus on information and communication technologies (ICT) – the backbone of all digital infrastructures. We identify four phases, each corresponding to one of our four types of state control. Our case study illustrates the politics of digital infrastructures. While less state control redistributes power to firms embedded in critical infrastructures, but also creates incentives for regulatory capture, states simultaneously seek to retain control through coercive backstops and “kill switches”. The paper thus speaks to broader debates on the hybrid ordering of security in the information age.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-peace-as-stalemate-bosnia-and-herzegovina-forever-missions-and-the-strategic-log 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Dr SENADA ŠELO ŠABIĆ

More than three decades after the Dayton Peace Agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains subject to a continuous international military presence and extensive external governance, yet without achieving political stability or institutional consolidation. This paper examines Bosnia as a paradigmatic case of forever missions and frozen peace: interventions that successfully prevent renewed violence while entrenching political stalemate. Building on theories of prolonged military intervention, conflict management, and institutional lock-in, the paper argues that the Dayton framework transformed peacekeeping from a temporary stabilisation mechanism into a permanent substitute for political settlement. While empirically centred on Bosnia and Herzegovina, the analysis situates the case within a broader universe of long-term interventions – including Kosovo, Cyprus, and Lebanon – where external military presence sustains stability without resolving underlying political conflict. The paper shows how Dayton institutionalised ethnic vetoes, fragmented authority, and international oversight, producing a condition of managed instability in which peace persists but sovereignty and democratic accountability remain suspended. International military presence, while effective in preventing violence, has thus become structurally necessary precisely because political settlement remains incomplete. Addressing a central but underexplored question in the literature – how long-standing interventions might move beyond stalemate without triggering renewed conflict – the paper identifies the strategic trade-offs that transform peacekeeping into conflict management. It concludes by reflecting on what political recalibration would be required to shift from frozen peace toward genuine settlement, and what the Bosnian case reveals about the limits of military intervention as a tool of political transformation.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-pitfalls-of-transitional-justice-and-in-security-in-the-western-balkans-case-stu 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Dr SANDRA CVIKIĆ

Drawing on the author's previous work, this paper offers insight into the implementation of transitional justice policies in the Western Balkans after the violent wars that accompanied the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia, with a focus on the former Yugoslav state of Serbia. This qualitative sociological analysis explores the paradoxical effects of the transitional justice process on Serbian populations and governments since 2001. The Serbian transitional justice process has had, and continues to have, a significant impact on the security of the entire Western Balkans region. The insecurity and instability of Serbian regimes are therefore analysed from a critical sociological perspective (Foucauldian discourse analysis) within the transitional justice framework of post-war liberal democratic development. A selection of key scholarly works on transitional justice in the Western Balkans and Serbia, as well as documents produced by international organisations and institutions, is reviewed. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how liberal notions of human and minority rights, justice, freedom, equality, rule of law, and peace in post-war societal reconstruction through the transitional justice process can have diverse and unintended consequences that contribute to the destabilisation and insecurity of the Western Balkans, which still struggles to maintain a steady course towards EU and NATO membership. Key words: transitional justice process, (in)security of the Western Balkans, Serbia.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-the-self-reliance-dilemma-in-conventional-weapons-when-does-india-innovate-inste 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Ms Yagnyashri Kodaru

Most national defense industries face a dilemma between technological self-reliance and (inter)dependence. While indigenously building weapons increases self-reliance, it can come at the cost of economic and technical efficiency. Conversely, interdependence helps a state integrate into global innovation/production networks and potentially access the most advanced weapons, but forsakes self-reliance for short-term efficiency gains. How do states act in such a dilemma, especially when acquiring large, technologically complex platform weapons systems? Despite being a major rising power, India’s defense industry remains surprisingly understudied in this regard. In this paper, I argue that domestic *belief coalitions* comprising political, military, and technocratic actors shape how India navigates its self-reliance dilemma. In a comparative case study of advanced warship and main battle tank procurement in India, I identify and test the causal role of *techno-nationalist, techno-strategic, and techno-epistemic beliefs* in shaping a higher level of technological self-reliance in naval warfare than in land warfare. My analysis draws on expert interviews with high-level Indian military officials and technocrats, as well as political speeches, policy documents, and strategic doctrines. My findings show that the breadth and robustness of coalitions of different technological beliefs can facilitate defense indigenization and self-reliance or, conversely, entrench existing dependencies by shaping what is seen as feasible and desirable. This paper challenges mainstream systemic and structural explanations of defense technological self-reliance, while enriching sociological and ideational political economy approaches to military innovation and defense studies. My focus on domestic beliefs opens the black box of decision-making in the Indian defense industry, offering an actor-centric perspective on the conditions and drivers that have shaped varied outcomes of the self-reliance dilemma in conventional weapons procurement. India’s emerging role as a significant security and defense industrial actor especially raises the empirical relevance of this research.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2026-western-balkan-criminal-groups-and-the-transformation-of-regional-security 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z 2026-06-11T12:00:00Z Dr Kire Babanoski

Criminal groups in the Western Balkans are influential non-state actors which informally regulate illegal markets, provide protection, and establish strategic partnerships with political and economic elites. They operate outside, alongside, and sometimes within state structures, and often through robust cross-border networks. They are quite flexible and adapt quickly to the evolving practices of law enforcement agencies, border regimes, and changing regional contexts. In this sense, criminal groups contribute to the emergence of a hybrid security environment in which formal and informal actors coexist and interact, and in doing so, they undermine state governance. One of the greatest challenges for such societies is the manifestation of the so-called “captured state,” which corrupts the justice system and renders institutions powerless to deal with organised crime. Organised crime is often viewed primarily through the prism of law enforcement and the judiciary. This paper therefore seeks to move beyond this by analysing criminal groups in the Western Balkans from a different perspective – namely, how they function as actors of informal power and their impact on security governance, territorial control and cross-border stability. In this regard, these dynamics are examined in the context of state-oriented approaches to regional security and inter-state trust in fragile and post-transition contexts, such as South-Eastern Europe and, more specifically, the Western Balkans. In particular, the paper explores how weak institutional capacity, corruption and fragmented regional cooperation serve as enablers that these groups exploit to establish robust and flexible transnational networks. The findings of the analysis in this research suggest that the fight against organised crime in the Western Balkans, in addition to stronger law enforcement and the rule of law, requires institutional reforms, governance-oriented approaches and a deeper understanding of the political and governance roles that criminal groups play within regional security.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-dynamics-of-defense-indigenization-state-private-relations-in-india-s-quest-for 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Yagnyashri Kodaru

In an era of hostile geopolitics, states of all stripes are striving to fortify domestic defense industries and secure defense supply lines. Despite increasing scholarly attention on national strategies of self-reliance—especially in rising powers in the global south—the concept and its associated policy of ‘defense indigenization’ (DI) remains little understood on a conceptual and empirical level. Notably, authors have studied broad variations in DI policies across states, while neglecting shifts in the roles of state and private actors over time. This fails to account for the complex and puzzling mix of protectionist and open-market liberalization policies that underlie many national DI strategies, warranting a deeper analysis of ongoing reconfigurations in the competencies of key defense industrial players. Using a case study of the Indian defense industry, this paper provides a unique conceptualization of DI that challenges current statist analyses and explores evolving state-private dynamics in contemporary DI approaches. Since 2014, under the Modi government, India has seemingly undergone renewed efforts at indigenization, central to which is the further liberalization of its otherwise state-led defense industry. In a systematic mapping of major weapons production, I track historical developments in DI policy and assess whether the “Make in India” campaign represents a critical juncture in state-private defense industrial relations. The findings suggest that India is on the cusp of major defense industrial transformations in its path to self-reliance, constituting an expanded role for the private sector despite persistent institutional and structural constraints. This empirical mapping can offer valuable insights into the political and industrial drivers of DI in rising powers in the Global South. The paper holds serious policy implications for India and other rising powers’ strategic positioning in the global order, contributing to broader debates in political economy and defense/security studies.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-the-delegation-of-defense-and-security-responsibilities-at-sea-in-historical-per 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Pieter Zhao

The maritime warfare and security environment of the 21st century is changing. The proliferation of non-traditional maritime security threats, such as piracy, maritime terrorism, and illegal fishing, combined with the emergence of gray-zone warfare at sea through irregular actors, attests to this change. As a result, the international norms surrounding the use of force at sea are evolving as well, as states are increasingly delegating defense and security capabilities, traditionally considered exclusively state or military terrain, to non-state, nonmilitary, and irregular actors. Current scholarship generally analyzes these examples in isolation and fails to consider the broader framework of the changing maritime warfare and security environment to identify the dynamics underpinning this development. Moreover, while current scholarship commonly assumes that these are novel phenomena, the historical record includes a long-standing tradition of non-state and irregular maritime warfare and security actors, including the privateers and mercantile companies of the early-modern period. As a result, these contemporary examples could be considered symptoms of a more significant 21st-century development, representing the historical dynamism surrounding the international norms of maritime warfare and security. My PhD research project aims to analyze this development by combining traditional historical methods based on written primary source material with international relations theory and expert interviews. As an example of applied history, the project aims to operationalize historical precedents to better inform current policymakers and military leadership about the maritime security challenges of the future.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-developing-digital-peripheries-for-strategic-advantage-competitive-cyber-capacit 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Julia Carver

Amidst escalating geopolitical competition and fears of weaponized interdependence, cyber capacity building assistance has climbed the foreign policy agendas of both weak and powerful actors. Yet, conventional wisdom about cyber capacity building (CCB) assistance implies a strategic conundrum: on the one hand, CCB assistance is held to be crucial for improving the recipient’s autonomy and security in cyberspace. On the other hand, three major providers of such assistance—the United States, the EU, and China—have been accused of benefiting from the same network vulnerabilities that these programmes aim to redress. Therefore, this paper asks, how do powerful donors perceive CCB assistance provisions to developing states as shaping their strategic advantage? Further, what factors have shaped variation in donors’ provision of CCB assistance to developing states? I argue that CCB assistance is a new and increasingly popular form of strategic alignment which has been used to reconfigure or maintain networked asymmetries in the donor’s favour. To probe the plausibility of this argument, I undertake a qualitative analysis of primary source documents and elite interviews to assess American, EU, and Chinese provision of CCB assistance to African states. My analysis supports this argument, and further shows these donors have adopted different strategies of assistance to encourage favourable structural alignments with the recipient. Three mediating factors help to explain their different strategies of assistance: the donor’s relative access to and control over the intermediary provider, their normative approach to development, and the locus of geopolitical competition. Ultimately, this paper reveals how CCB assistance can be instrumentalized to shape the hard and soft infrastructural conditions for strategic advantage.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-guarding-the-maritime-highways-europe-s-role-in-the-indo-pacific 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Paul van Hooft Benedetta Girardi Davis Ellison Tim Sweijs

While trite to say, the world’s geopolitical and geoeconomic centre of gravity has shifted to the Indo-Pacific. Trade between the EU and Asia is massive and almost exclusively waterborne, with the Indian Ocean being the hub, while high-tech supply chains now focus on multiple states in the Western Pacific. A European role in the Indo-Pacific is unavoidable but demands significant resources in an era of concurrent challenges in the Euro-Atlantic following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A naval presence is a powerful signal of interest, but European naval capacity is limited. How and with whom can these naval assets be deployed, and what are the central trade-offs? The paper tackles these issues, by spelling out the relative costs, risks, and benefits for various European coalitions of naval powers that look to build their presence in different parts of the Indo-Pacific.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-inter-alliance-security-dilemmas-korean-counterforce-systems-and-their-effect-on 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Samuel Seitz

Cold War strategic competition was dominated by the actions of the US and USSR. Their material preponderance, coupled with tightly integrated multilateral alliances systems in Europe, oriented competition around this central axis of competition. But the current environment is less centralized, characterized by cross-cutting alliances and interacting nuclear dyads. How has this changed the nature of nuclear competition? We assess this question by considering the inter-Korean competition and its effects outside the peninsula. In response to North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, Seoul has procured stealth aircraft and precision, long-range missiles. It has also authorized the deployment of US missile defense systems to its territory, pursued greater nuclear coordination with Washington, and even threatened nuclear acquisition itself. These moves are aimed at Pyongyang, but they have spillover effects on China. Exploiting new Chinese language military documents, we show that South Korea’s increasingly sophisticated arsenal of counterforce systems is contributing to Beijing’s anxiety about the survivability of its nuclear arsenal, helping to spur China’s nuclear arsenal expansion. This has important implications both for the academic literature on alliances and arms racing as well as for policy debates surrounding Sino-American nuclear competition. In particular, it suggests that alliances might not just entrap patrons in wars but also in arms races. This creates a type of inter-alliance security dilemma, where security spirals in one state dyad produce security spirals in separate state dyads. Further, it reveals that contemporary strategic competition in East Asia systematically differs from the Cold War due to the existence of multiple cross-cutting alliances. This complicates signalling efforts, and, by increasing the number of relevant actors, augurs deep challenges for any efforts at bilateral nuclear arms control between the US and China.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-multilateral-maritime-exercises-and-strategic-change-the-american-case-and-beyon 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Peter Dombrowski Simon Reich

Multilateral military exercises (MMEs) are largely ignored by scholars of international security, despite the fact that they tell us much about a state’s strategic goals and contingency plans. They arguably serve as a better indicator of a state’s intent than either studying discourse or policy documents alone or other metrics than are often invoked such as force structure, which may take decades to substantially alter. In that sense, they are a better predictor of where states intend to conduct humanitarian operations, manage crises or fight wars. Furthermore, their planning and execution represents a huge investment of any military’s time and energy, often being described as the “meat and potatoes” of what military forces do. In sum, they matter in theoretical, policy and operational terms. We examine that the role that maritime multilateral exercises play in the implementation of American grand strategy in three regions—Europe, the greater Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. First, we develop a conceptual framework, offering a threefold categorization of types and MMEs, and an explanation for why each might predominate in a particular region. Second, we explain why we focus on US-led exercises. We then discuss what MMEs can reveal about the evolving strategies of the last three American presidential administrations (Obama Trump, and Biden). Third, we examine our claims in the U.S.’ primary three theaters of operation, examining variance both across the regions and within each region over time and perceptions of the operating environment has changed. Finally, we conclude by considering the potential for using this approach to study the grand strategies of other states) in a comparable manner.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-navigating-the-indo-pacific-a-comparative-analysis-of-asean-and-quad-frameworks 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Giorgia Piovesan

The Indo-Pacific region has experienced a notable surge in the establishment and consolidation of new multilateral and minilateral frameworks, largely driven by the shifting geopolitical landscape shaped by China's growing influence. Notably, he Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), consisting of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, has advanced through intensive and regular cooperation to address pressing challenges in the region such as climate protection and health policy to maritime security. Concurrently, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a political and economic union representing 10 states in Southeast Asia, has progressively expanded its objectives to encompass the establishment of a shared security regime, in ordeer to contrast political repression by member states, narcotics trafficking,and terrorism. However, a noticeable research gap persists in the current literature regarding the ASEAN and Quad frameworks comparison. This paper aims to delve into the evolving dynamics within these two entities, meticulously scrutinizing the intricate interplay of differences, convergences, and emerging challenges within the evolving geopolitical landscape. The research will unfold in several key dimensions. Firstly, it will thoroughly examine the impact of changing geopolitical dynamics on joint military exercises, capacity-building efforts, and trainings for defense cooperation. Secondly, an in-depth analysis of existing charters and members' declarations will be conducted to illuminate the formal structures and commitments of both ASEAN and the Quad. Thirdly, the research will delve into the ASEAN-Quad bilateral relations with countries in the region —specifically South Korea, Mongolia, and Pakistan— providing a comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of these frameworks. Finally, the paper will undertake examine and analyze the interactions between ASEAN and the Quad. This comparative approach will shed light on the distinct roles, contributions, and potential collaborations between the two frameworks, thereby contributing to a more nuanced understanding of defence cooperation dynamics in the Indo-Pacific region.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-predicting-east-asian-security-competition-in-the-21st-century-a-regional-approa 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Chelsea Thorpe

In the past 600 years, only one war has occurred between China, Japan, and Korea (Imjin War, 1592-1598). Yet contemporary foreign policy conversations emphasize China’s threat to the West without proper consideration for the region’s security architecture and balance of power. Analysts predict Sino-American and Sino-European relations based on 19th century neorealist theories that derive from Western conflicts, failing to contextualize China’s role in its own regional security context and the power of competition between the three East Asian powers. Within the East Asian security complex, the political choice to engage – or not engage – will determine wars, as seen by the region’s approach to security competition in the past. This paper argues that East Asia is not a sub-section of the global security architecture, but rather demonstrates unique security dynamics. Consequently, when analysing, we must consider regional security complex theory in predicting great power competition that would integrate non-kinetic statecraft, such as cyber and nuclear capabilities. I challenge explanations of conflict that privilege structural explanations and instead explore how several aspects of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean foreign and security policy–their security interests and motivations, force projection capabilities, and willingness to balance against China–will define broader dynamics of competition and conflict both amongst these regional actors and between the US and China. By teasing out the regional drivers of competition, I highlight the multiple avenues through which competition can manifest that are overlooked in more structuralist theories of great power war.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-sino-russian-joint-military-exercises-in-focus-new-strategic-confluences-in-the 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Jerome Gapany

This paper examines the current state of Sino-Russian strategic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region through the lens of joint military exercises. Over the last two decades, China and Russia have conducted an increasing number of joint military exercises around the globe, both multilaterally and bilaterally. In 2012 the two countries launched their first joint naval exercise in the Yellow Sea, codenamed “Joint Sea-2012”. Since then, China and Russia have continued to develop their “Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation” and conducted a series of strategic air and naval patrols in the Asia-Pacific. Additionally, they have shown more willingness to take political risks, by increasing their military presence in sensitive sea lanes in the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the Western Pacific. Drawing on existing academic literature on political and coercive signaling, this paper highlights the diplomatic-military dimension, as well as the significance of Sino-Russian exercises. By outlining emerging trends in the planning of bilateral exercises between China and Russia over the past decade, this paper shows how China is gradually shaping this cooperation to its advantage. Finally, this paper offers a reflection on the strategic risks and potential for escalation against the backdrop of territorial disputes and China’s military ambitions in the region.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-small-islands-big-potential-a-taiwan-contingency-alliance-politics-and-the-defen 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Takuya Matsuda Elliot Ji

Debates over great power competition in the western Pacific have largely been shaped by the question over a Taiwan contingency. Nevertheless, the scholarly work on the topic has rarely focused on the strategic and operational roles that some of the Japanese administered islands in the vicinity of Taiwan. We argue that the group of Japanese islands that are adjacent to Taiwan–namely the Sakishima Islands–are strategically important assets since they are both enablers of deterrence against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and potential vulnerabilities that China could leverage for a wedge strategy. Taking the opposite side of the main island of Okinawa across the 155-mile-wide Miyako Strait, the Sakishima Islands are part of Japan’s southwest island chain that stretches towards Taiwan. Drawing from a series of Chinese, Japanese, and military-technical sources, we demonstrate that patrolling and fortifying these islands as anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) outposts could strengthen deterrence against hostile Chinese action on two levels. First, fortifying this group of small and vulnerable islands is crucial in denying China the opportunity to engage in a salami tactic to test the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance through a fait accompli. Second, arming the group of small islands as A2/AD outposts could complicate Chinese operational planning for a blockade against Taiwan by directly threatening Chinese naval assets operating east of Taiwan. By doing so, the small islands not only closes a potential vulnerability of Chinese coercion but also plays a key role in checking Chinese maritime aggression. Our findings generate broad scholarly and policy implications in addressing strategic challenges in an age of great power competition, some of which are also of direct relevance to European security regarding deterrence in contested spaces, alliance politics, and escalation control.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-the-eu-in-the-indo-pacific-a-security-actor-sui-generis 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Eva Pejsova

The EU’s interest to play a role in Indo-Pacific security is rooted in the realization that European prosperity is inherently connected to and dependent on a stable and peaceful regional environment. Brussels has been advocating a more proactive engagement in the region already in its 2016 Global Strategy. The EU “Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific”, published in 2021, explicitly highlights security and defense as one of the key priority areas for cooperation. While the rationale stands, the exact contours and content of this engagement remain often unclear and misunderstood. Indeed, as a trading power with no army nor military leverage, the EU’s capacity to effectively contribute to the region’s traditional security hotspots is limited. However, such view fails to consider the evolving nature of security, which has become increasingly defined by hybrid tactics and all-encompassing weaponization. At the same time, it omits the importance of everyday functional security concerns that have been sidelined in the context of great power politics. This paper argues that the EU can play a constructive role in the Indo-Pacific at several levels. First, it can leverage its economic, technological, and normative heft in areas such as economic security, emerging and disruptive technologies, and governance of global commons, including the maritime, the outer, and the information space. Secondly, its expertise in addressing non-traditional security challenges such illegal fishing, transnational crime, or environmental degradation, is of great value to many developing countries in the region. Finally, its effort to forge a third way in the escalating Sino-American rivalry echoes the sentiments of many regional partners, building its image as a trustworthy, stabilizing force.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-the-eu-s-naval-signalling-in-the-indo-pacific 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Nicolas Blarel Niels van Willigen

In 2021, the Indo-Pacific suddenly and unexpectedly rose on top of the foreign policy agenda of the European Union (EU). The publication of the EU’s Indo Pacific Strategy (henceforth ‘Strategy’) in September 2021 showed that the EU considers the region of great geopolitical interest with important security challenges. The Strategy laid down the EU’s policy preferences and at the same time was an instance of signaling to various audiences. We argue in this paper that the EU, as a regional organization with intergovernmental and supranational elements, signals as well, albeit differently. We sketch what have been the most effective signals of the EU’s interests in the Indo-Pacific since the launch of the Strategy, as well as some of the limitations. We focus on the EU’s naval strategy and related signaling such as the EU Maritime Strategy. First, because a free and open Indo-Pacific (which the naval strategy aims to underpin) is a necessary condition to achieve many of the other European policy objectives. Secondly, because the EU’s naval strategy directly shapes the maritime security interests of countries in the region as well as external great powers.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-toward-a-novel-conception-of-naval-strategy-for-small-countries 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Friso Stevens

With the advent of the New Revolution in Military Affairs, the strategic environment that existed during the post-Cold War “unipolar moment,” when the US and its junior alliance partners could conduct combined arms operations with guaranteed air superiority and freedom of maneuver in the seas, is no more. Nevertheless, the fact that the globalized, hyperconnected 21st century will be a century where great power competition will in large part be over command of the sea is at odds with the scant literature to inform in particular small states’ naval strategy in the new bi/multipolar strategic environment. While there have been some recent works reviewing the literature, for example by Mulqueen et al. and McCabe et al., the latter rightly admit that these works have “only touched the surface of the topic”; indeed, it is more descriptive than theorizing. Long lulled into a false sense of security, and unwavering American protection, Europe’s current posture and approach are wholly inadequate. Especially if multiple crises in different parts around Europe crop up simultaneously, smaller European states dependent on the UK and France––Europe’s only two serious naval powers––will soon be overwhelmed. At the same time, it is smaller European countries’ combined economic surplus that can potentially yield the added capabilities that move us to European “strategic autonomy.” That is, if a region-centered common naval strategy is devised, a communication and command infrastructure separate from NATO is set up, needs-based procurement toward 2035 happens in a coordinated, complementary fashion, and there is the political will and long-term financial commitment along the lines of the “Zeitenwende” to do so. This article explores what a credible European external posture could look like, and how small European navies could contribute to such an overall stronger defense outlook.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-criminal-governance-amid-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-mexico 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Lucia Tiscornia

During the COVID-19 pandemic, organized criminal groups (OCG) in Mexico adopted various social control strategies to adapt their interests to the health risks stemming from the pandemic. Some used violent measures to enforce social distancing while others provided basic goods to ameliorate the economic consequences of the health crisis. What explains the variation in OCG governance strategies during the pandemic? What are the political consequences of such actions? To answer these questions, we deployed an online survey containing a list experiment to understand the extent and strategies of criminal control during the pandemic. Our research contributes to current knowledge about the manifestations of criminal governance regimes and opens new lines of research for the understanding of the effects of criminal governance on a wide range of behavioral outcomes.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-development-aid-humanitarian-assistance-and-criminal-violence-a-triple-nexus-for 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Pablo Kalmanovitz

Development and humanitarian relief organizations often follow contrasting operational logics: while humanitarian assistance is short-term, neutral, and prioritizes access to populations in need, development aid is long-term, partisan for the state, and dependent on state capacity to succeed. In cases of protracted armed conflict, this division becomes problematic, as only through development aid can humanitarian emergencies be overcome and prevented. Increasingly, humanitarian and development organizations work jointly within UN peacebuilding in a “triple nexus” aimed at long-term peace and security. This paper examines the relevance of the triple nexus construct for organized criminal violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. While not formally armed conflicts, the intensity and humanitarian toll of transnational criminal violence in the region is comparable to armed conflicts. And yet, prominent development aid organizations have followed the peacetime logic, instead of working jointly with humanitarian actors or UN agencies. The paper looks specifically at World Bank practice, contrasting its protocols for “Fragile and Conflict-Affected States” with its strategies of adjustment and response to organized criminal violence in the region.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-intelligence-under-dictatorship-and-democracy 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Zakia Shiraz

In the twenty first century, there has been a broad doubling of intelligence expenditure across the world. This has taken place alongside various forms of cooperation including notable forms of South-South cooperation. However, the intelligence services of the global South that are at the forefront of contemporary security dilemmas associated with violent conflict, terrorism, and transnational organised crime remain at the periphery of scholarship. As early as 1988, the pioneering scholar Adda Bozeman wrote a path-breaking essay on the importance of the study of intelligence cultures in non-Western societies. In the same year, Argentine security practitioner and scholar, Eduardo E. Estévez, offered one of the first assessments of intelligence in democratic transitions in Latin America. In 1996, Mexico's leading expert of intelligence and national security, Sergio Aguayo Quezada, characterised the imbalance as 'not only absurd, but dangerous'. Latin America offers fertile ground for the pioneering study of intelligence under dictatorship and democracy. Processes of democratisation from the 1980s resulted in constitutional shifts, legislation to establish national truth commissions, centres of national memory, and judicial proceedings, which have naturally led to the gradual opening of some notable official across all major Latin American states–Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico–and several other countries. More recently, the press has emerged as an informal oversight mechanism that has led to spying scandals in almost every state in the region as well as the disbanding of the premier intelligence services of Argentina and Colombia. This paper examines the extent to which intelligence services and their activities are impacted by (un)democratic shifts in political governance. Using an Area Studies approach to the study of intelligence, it explores legacies of authoritarianism in Latin America's secret services and examines how processes of democratic transitions and democratic consolidation since the 1980s have impacted intelligence practices and oversight in region.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-not-war-nor-peace-regulating-the-use-of-force-in-the-context-of-large-scale-crim 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Miriam Bradley

The scale of violence in Mexico and some other Latin American countries is comparable to that in some of the deadliest contemporaneous civil wars, and criminal violence is now firmly on the agenda of conflict studies, International Relations (IR) and political science. Significant attention has been paid to the similarities and differences between criminal violence and political insurgencies, but less has been paid to the international legal regulation of state responses to organized crime. In principle, international humanitarian law (IHL) regulates the conduct of hostilities in armed conflict contexts, and international human rights law (IHRL) applies in full in peacetime. The (in)applicability of IHL has important implications for, inter alia, who can use force, whom they can use force against, and the conditions under which they can use lethal force. Through analysis of the discourses and practices of domestic and international actors regarding organized criminal violence in Mexico, this paper argues that the “criminal wars” there are treated as a legal grey zone, regulated neither as war nor as peace. Even though the violence in Mexico is not formally classified as a non-international armed conflict, selective quasi-IHL thinking underpins public discourse and militarized responses, in particular in official designations of who is a legitimate target and who deserves protection from violence.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-the-allied-defence-dilemma-balancing-between-autonomy-and-alliance-cohesion 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Lotje Boswinkel

Against the backdrop of both an exacerbation of the threat environment and growing uncertainty about the reliability of the US security guarantee, in recent years allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific have begun reinforcing their militaries. Such efforts were framed as necessary, at least in part, for the sake of alliance cohesion: greater burden-sharing would make the alliance more attractive as it would render the US commitment less costly. Reality is more complex, however. Asymmetric alliances typically have both a ‘capability aggregating’ and ‘control’ value, and therefore increased protégé strength can upset the terms on which an alliance is based, potentially pushing a patron away. Aware of the risks that come with this trade-off between greater spending and alliance cohesion, protégés adopt various strategies to mitigate the potential loss in patron commitment and as such maximise their security (getting both arms and allies). This project examines how these protégé defence efforts reflect different calculations of the potential costs and benefits of increased burden-sharing. It hypothesises that allied defence strategies are shaped by protégé perceptions of both the abandonment cost and probability. Variation within these variables leads them to pursue autonomy-focused or patron-leaning defence strategies. To test this claim, this project examines the evolution in defence strategies among four US middle power allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific throughout the Cold War, post-Cold War period and current era.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-us-preponderance-in-nato-the-role-of-logistics-intelligence-training-cyber-and-c 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Alexandra Chinchilla Jordan Becker Stephen Brooks Hugo Meijer William Wohlforth

To meet the pacing challenge of a rising China, the United States seeks to devote increased resources and attention to the Indo-Pacific. Some have argued that the United States can free up resources by withdrawing most or all of its troops from Europe. After a US drawdown, the European members of NATO would make up for the loss of US manpower and equipment, though the United States would still provide C4ISR and a nuclear umbrella to its European allies. We argue that the US contribution to its NATO allies is much broader than manpower, equipment, C4ISR, and nuclear deterrence—and maintaining this larger contribution requires US boots on the ground in Europe. The United States provides important contributions to NATO allies in four main areas, which we term LITC: logistics, intelligence/information technology, training, and coordination. LITC includes the US contribution to multinational logistics efforts to transport, supply, and sustain NATO allies’ troops in the event of a war; strategic intelligence and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities; training activities, exercises, and broader ways in which the United States shares knowledge within NATO; and US coordination of allied procurement, war plans, and alliance decision-making. We show how US contributions in these areas cannot be easily replicated by the European members of NATO. Furthermore, substantially reducing US troop presence in Europe saves little money yet reduces its ability to provide LITC. Finally, we evaluate US alliances in the Indo-Pacific and offer recommendations for improving LITC provision to improve integrated deterrence in the region.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-violent-and-non-violent-mobilization-in-criminal-wars-current-determinants-and-h 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Juan Masullo

What explains collective mobilization against criminal violence? Why do communities mobilize against criminal victimization in different ways? Mexico has been entrapped in a vicious cycle of violence since 2006. Given the absence of state-sponsored security, ordinary citizens in many parts of the country have mobilized to resist the violence and coercive orders imposed by criminal organizations. Mobilization strategies, however, have not been homogeneous. Some communities have engaged in violent forms of collective action, such as organizing self-defense groups, while others have resorted to peaceful protest. We examine original data on citizen mobilization against criminal violence in Mexico from 2013 to 2018 to understand the forces that drive the emergence and type of collective mobilization against criminal groups. We find that similar dynamics drive violent and non-violent mobilization, in particular, moderate levels of violence and inter-cartel competition. However, while violent mobilization is associated with past experiences of armed struggles, non-violent mobilization is not. Based on detailed qualitative evidence from a set of cases of contemporary armed mobilization, we contend that past experiences of armed struggles leave organizational and normative legacies that make violent mobilization more available.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-an-indian-perspective-on-security-and-the-use-of-force-the-case-of-the-responsib 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Raphaëlle Khan

The global discussion around the concept of “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P), which proposes to reframe the norm of sovereignty, has represented one of the decade’s most controversial debates in the field of international security. The concept was applied most famously in the case of Libya in 2011. Its nature as an emerging norm and implications have been contested and remain debated in the international community. In that context, India’s nuanced reaction has been characterised as a kind of a puzzle by the media and numerous analysts in Europe and the United States. It was assumed that a democracy would embrace an initiative aiming at protecting human rights, yet India proved reticent to endorse R2P and its human rights promotion. From a different perspective, at a time when India has greatly increased its capabilities and become a recognised emerging power internationally, it could be supposed that its relation to sovereignty would evolve. Taking these paradoxes as a starting point, this paper will explore India’s relation to R2P as a lens to reflect on its current view on sovereignty, the use of force, and the United Nations. It will examine what this says about India’s larger understanding of the international order and its role in it. Finally, this paper will conclude by highlighting the implications of India’s position for the diplomacy of European states and the United States today.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-india-s-new-security-approach-to-the-european-union 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Constantino Xavier

For more than fifty years the European Union and India have steadily expanded their engagement, from trade to areas such as education, climate change and connectivity, but the last few years have added a surprising new dimension focused on defence and security cooperation that had hitherto been absent. Officials now discuss collaboration on maritime security, intelligence and counter-terrorism, and defence industries; new dialogues have been set up, including on cybersecurity; and the EU Naval Force and the Indian Navy conducted their first-ever joint manoeuvre in the Indian Ocean. What factors drive this new convergence, and why, given India's traditional reluctance to go beyond bilateral security cooperation with France or the United Kingdom, is Delhi warming to the idea of engaging the EU as a global security actor? Drawing on historical and official documents and interviews with Indian diplomatic, military and other officials, this paper shows that a changing Indian understanding of security — now more focused on cyber, technology, climate and other non-traditional domains — has paradoxically increased the EU's salience in Delhi's geostrategic perspective, with structural uncertainty marked by rising tensions with China, decreasing reliance on the United States, and the United Kingdom's Brexit further incentivising India to engage the EU as a global security actor.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-opening-the-black-box-of-defence-procurement-and-planning-processes-what-drives 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Nicolas Blarel

How does India identify and select its partners for security cooperation? Why does India develop defense partnerships in specialized areas with certain countries and not others? Which national institutions actually make those choices and then enact cooperation policies? The extant scholarship has looked at different explanations. Some studies concentrate on defense planning priorities such as the need to balance against China and Pakistan, and have mostly noted how the present Indian defence procurement process has led to sub-optimal outcomes in light of these strategic goals and in spite of growing financial means of a rising power like India. Other scholars have looked at how India’s strategic autonomy has led it to develop a robust indigenous defense industry but highlighted how the country remains has remained heavily reliant on defence imports, in spite of a strong political willingness supporting indigenization. Building on this, this paper looks more specifically at the role of sub-state organizations (SSOs) which are part of the official government machinery but have arguably developed some degree of agency to devise and implement defense partnerships over specific platforms with international partners. For the purposes of this study, this paper concentrates on the role of SSOs in three cases of defense procurement and/or joint ventures: the Rafale multi-role fighter jet (France), the BrahMos missiles (Russia), and the Barak AMD systems (Israel).

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2021-peacock-in-a-coal-mine-european-understanding-of-environmental-loss-in-india 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z 2021-09-03T12:00:00Z Damien Carrière

The environmental crisis is now rightly understood as a security and stability issue. A common approach in Europe tends to see environmental degradation as the source of resource-based violence, and a potential challenge for the state. Europe tends to look at environmental issues with an avowed fear of prospective climate refugees. Neo-Malthusian theories linking population growth with environmental degradation are still widely spread. This approach obscures the fact that the source of environmental loss and displacement can lay in an economic system that uses violence to implement the interests of ruling groups while disfranchising others. Appealing only to state and international negotiations to protect the environment is therefore problematic. India is a case in point: environmental degradation and the destabilization of local communities that cause their displacement often result from a resources mismanagement by the state, enforced with violence on local communities. The state here is not problem-solving but its development is at the source of conflicts. State decisions on building dams, sand mining, and coal extraction are taken without consultations and implemented by force against locals. The state often engages police/paramilitary forces against environmental movements. Unsurprisingly, then, despite the recognition of the urgency of the environmental crisis by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, no major policy has yet been implemented to mitigate the various environmental hazard that that India is facing, neither the smog nor climate change. Rather, efforts are put into fostering further disfranchisement that correspond to an ethnic and economic agenda. European plans of actions and understanding of the environmental crisis is sorely lacking an understanding of the systemic dynamics that are at the roots of the crisis. This paper contributes to this understanding by comparing Indian and European paths to environmental protection and points out at the limits of an international relations approach of the matter.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2019-theories-of-balancing-and-us-grand-strategy-unpacking-the-europe-vs-east-asia-tr 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z 2019-06-13T12:00:00Z Linde Desmaele Luis Simón

Much of the scholarly debate on US grand strategy revolves around the question of whether the United States should adopt a forward-leaning global military posture or rather leverage its quasi- island status to let the world’s great powers balance against one another. Such debate is often held in relation to Europe and East Asia, for those are the only two regions with the wealth and military- industrial potential needed to credibly challenge the United States. However, the reality of US forward presence since WWII means that this debate has been fought primarily on prescriptive ground. In fact, a more relevant question – one with which policymakers have to grapple with on a daily basis – is which region matters most under which circumstances. It is surprising that the issue of resource tradeoffs between regions in US grand strategy has not received much attention in the IR literature yet, especially since the US 2017 National Security Strategy and the 2018 National Defense Strategy identity both Russia and China as “long-term strategic competitors.” Therefore, in this paper we present a theory of US balancing behavior in Europe and East Asia to elucidate which factors account for the prioritization of one region over the other. We hypothesize that, in a permissive environment, the United States balances against elements of power of competitors in both regions simultaneously. Yet, once a single competitor reaches an advantage across many elements of power, scarcity of US resources compels Washington to set regional priorities and to prepare for balancing against that single competitor across all elements of power. This is because the fungibility of the competitor’s power resources – through spill-over effects and issue linkage – logically increases as its overall amount of power increases. To illustrate the plausibility of our hypothesis, we select two case studies: The Cold War and the Pivot to Asia.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-a-weapon-of-the-weak-cyberwarfare-and-china-s-threat-perception 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Simone Dossi

Cyberwarfare is an intensely debated issue both in the policy community and in academia. Among scholars, a major point of discussion is whether the new technology empowers militarily weaker actors against stronger ones. Is cyber technology working as a new weapon of the weak? Or is it rather consolidating the power advantage enjoyed by strong actors in other areas of military competition? The aim of the proposed paper is to address this theoretical issue through a case-study on Chinese perceptions of cyberwarfare. As a rising power, China is a crucial case for the theoretical debate. What is China’s threat perception when it comes to the new technology and its national security implications? Is cyberwarfare perceived as a threat posed by a stronger actor – and, more precisely, a threat posed by the United States? Or is it rather perceived as a threat posed by weaker actors, including regional powers and non-state groups? To answer these questions, the paper will analyse how cyberwarfare is debated in a specialized Chinese journal: Guofang Keji. Established in 1979, this journal is the official publication of the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT), the PLA institution in charge of scientific education and research. Over the past decade, Guofang Keji has published several articles on information and communication technology, on cyberspace and cyberwarfare, with a focus not only on the technical aspects of the new domain, but also on its wider strategic implications. Authored by military researchers affiliated to NUDT or other military institutions, these articles help to understand how cyberwarfare is perceived and theorized in China.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-consistent-inconsistency-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-us-spoiling-a-region 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Catherine Jones

Since the election of Donald Trump, there are (even more) fears about the level of commitment of the US to its Asian partners; made more evident by Shinzo Abe being as the first world leader to visit Trump after his election, provocations of and by North Korea, and the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Given these oscillating policies and approaches, how should or can the US’s engagement in East Asia be evaluated? The argument here is that the issues in the Asia-Pacific should not be understood simply as an issue of Trump’s election or as an evaluation of the Obama administration. But, rather that Trump’s inheritance in Asia is a long-term pattern ineffectual political leadership by the US, since the end of the Cold War, which exacerbates the regional security dilemma. This paper makes this argument by identifying leadership as an essential component in the provision of stability and security. Yet, it is in an under-recognised issue in understanding the nature and success of alliances, deterrence, and their interconnection with multilateral institutions.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-coping-with-grey-zone-situations-japan-s-strategy-in-the-east-china-sea 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Cécile Pajon

Presented at EISS 2018. No abstract on file yet.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-criminal-networks-in-africa-a-new-door-of-latin-america-traffics 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Raquel Barras Tejudo

Regarding illicit routes, Africa, and concretely the Sahel becomes one on the main doors of the drug sent from Latin America. But there is no only drug. The same routes are used by the mafias as routes of migratory flows. In this sense, the Maghreb and the Sahel had registered recently an important increase in the illicit traffics. These routes are used by the transnational organized crime groups, which have illegal activities of arms traffic, money laundry, traffic of human beings as well as other illicit traffics. In this sense, Africa is the new ‘paradise’ for any type of illicit traffics: drugs, human beings, weapons and raw materials such as precious stones, ivory, gold, platinum, wood, or oil... Particularly, across the Sahel region there are some specific conditions such as conflicts and unresolved internal tensions, political instability, state fragility and widespread power vacuum, vast uncontrolled and permeable frontiers, institutional weaknesses or corrupt regimes, that constitute a perfect breeding ground for the criminal networks. All of these circumstances contribute also to generate the proliferation of non-State actors in North Africa, as armed groups, insurgent movements, ethnic militias, organized crime groups, contrabandists, traffickers as well as extremist religious groups. The result of this is a region with an important increment of violent extremism and terrorist activity (sometimes linked with criminal groups creating a hybrid hazard), the proliferation of migrant smuggling mafias, as well as the drug caravans. The aim of the paper is analyzing the new transnational crime organizations based in Africa, and at the same time, the tools to deal with this threat. The research focuses on the main conglomerates of crime, the links between Africa and Latin American organized crime groups and how this danger in combination with terrorist groups could have a massive impact in the security of the region as well as for the world security.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-the-evolution-of-us-alliances-in-northeast-asia-japan-and-south-korea 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Matteo Dian

The rise of China has determined a process of contestation of the several normative and strategic pillars of the regional order in East Asia, ranging from the regional hierarchy to the US capacity to provide public goods in the region (e.g. security and extended deterrence). This has led the United States and its major partners in East Asia, South Korea and Japan, to put in place a complex strategy that aims to uphold the current regional order while developing a new approach to great power management. On the one hand, this strategy entails the recognition of the new major social status of great power for China, and a quest for cooperation in theatres, such as the Korean peninsula, where it can maintain order. On the other hand, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have actively cooperated to set limits to the revisionist elements of China’s rise. This has generated a process of evolution in the US-led hub-and-spokes system, in three distinct ways: Tokyo and Seoul have expanded their security roles; the US-Japan and US-ROK bilateral alliances have been consolidated and deepened; and despite significant obstacles generated by domestic politics in South Korea and Japan, limited but significant steps have been taken to turn the bilateral structures into a ‘security triangle’.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-us-chinese-maritime-security-and-the-consequences-for-europe-s-relations-with-wa 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z 2018-06-15T12:00:00Z Liselotte Odgaard

The US and China are increasingly engaged in a competition for maritime security that does not merely concern changes in the balance of power, but also the rules underpinning good order at sea. China has been particularly determined to change the rules governing freedom of navigation for military vessels and aircraft. As a subscriber to the law of the sea and freedom of navigation in its widest sense, Europe is becoming increasingly involved in defending the US interpretation of the law of the sea and at the same time adopt a more conciliatory approach to China to avoid contributing to conflict in the maritime domain. This paper addresses Europe’s role in the competition for defining the rules underpinning good order at sea and if Europe contributes to lowering tension levels between the US and China.