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31. The Russian Soldiers’ Question Revisited

Author:
Joris Van Bladel
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
The Russian authorities apply an “algorithm of lies”, the Russian armed forces have become a sealed organization, and tactical information about Russia’s war in Ukraine is fragmented and unreliable. Hence, definite conclusions concerning the Russian soldier cannot be drawn.
Topic:
Security, War, Military Strategy, Conflict, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

32. The cost of appeasement

Author:
Larry P. Goodson
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
The 1938 Munich Agreement (Akehurst, 1972) by which the Allies allowed Adolf Hitler’s Germany to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia is also known as the Munich Betrayal or, to English speakers, as appeasement by Neville Chamberlain (Valladares, 2020). This historical moment reminds me very much of how the West has dealt with Russia since Vladimir Putin rose to power. Like Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin has been sending aggressive signals to his neighbours and Western nations (Putin, 2007) since his 2005 speech arguing that the collapse of the Soviet empire ‘was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century’” (Putin, 2005). Note that he did not mention the Bloodlands that Timothy Snyder described, i.e. the killing of 14 million people in Central and Eastern Europe (Snyder, 2010), or World War II (Halloran, 2015) as the greatest catastrophe.
Topic:
War, International Security, Vladimir Putin, Appeasement, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Europe

33. Türkiye and the Russia-Ukraine War: Impact on the West, Central Asia, and the Caucasus

Author:
Matthew Bryza
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
During a recent webinar, I was asked to address the following question: what does Russia’s invasion of Ukraine mean for Türkiye’s approach to the Caucasus and Central Asia? At first, the question struck me as odd. Having worked on these issues since the late 1990s and now living in Istanbul, it seemed obvious to me that Türkiye’s goals in these regions have been enduring since the end of the Cold War and were not changing because of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine. These goals, I said, were and remain to: secure westward exports of oil and natural gas produced in the Caspian Basin; promote stability in the South Caucasus; and strengthen Türkiye’s business and cultural ties with the Turkic populations of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Türkiye’s approach toward Russia in this context also remains what it has been since the Ottoman centuries: cooperate where possible but confront where necessary. Reflecting momentarily on this question, however, I realized how different Ankara’s goals appear from the perspectives of Washington, Paris, and Athens. In these and other NATO capitals, Turkish foreign policy seems to have shifted from its pursuit of “zero problems with neighbors” during the early years of the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan to one of “zero neighbors without problems.” Türkiye is thus viewed within the Atlantic Alliance as a belligerent outlier, bent on violating international law to pursue the extraction of Eastern Mediterranean hydrocarbons, enabling Azerbaijan to use military force during the Second Karabakh War, and aligning in Syria more with Russia than with its own treaty allies.
Topic:
Security, War, Military Strategy, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
Europe and Asia

34. Children of War: The Ukrainian Case

Author:
Isabella Martin
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
The war in Ukraine has imposed considerable physical, mental, and emotional damage on children. It is critical to provide mental health and psychosocial support (MPHSS), as well as to reinforce psychological and social infrastructure—in Ukraine and countries hosting refugees—to help them cope with the immediate trauma of war and promote resilience for future reconstruction efforts. Severe damage to civilian infrastructure has left many children without access to schools, healthcare resources, and support networks within care facilities, while those who have fled Ukraine risk falling victim to human trafficking and exploitation. Moreover, children are targets of the Kremlin’s efforts to erase the Ukrainian identity, brutally executed through oppressive policies such as forced school curriculum in the occupied territories and atrocious practice of ’filtration’, with children separated, abducted, and then put up for adoption in Russia. Inside and outside of the country, Ukraine’s youth are left extremely vulnerable to abuse, with the consequences to their mental health to last for generations—and to affect the nation’s post-war recovery—if not taken care of already today. Without developing proper coping mechanisms in children and adolescents now, the trauma imposed on the young generation will hinder rebuilding efforts and undermine societal institutions. It is thus imperative to support MHPSS initiatives and contribute to a resilient society in post-war Ukraine.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, Education, Health, War, Children, Resilience, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

35. Vengeful Citizens, Violent States: A Theory of War and Revenge, Rachel Stein

Author:
Peter Liberman
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
By showing that mass vengefulness helps democratic leaders bring their nations to war, this wonderful book significantly advances our understanding of how cultural values affect international politics. Its most important contribution is demonstrating that democracies that retain death penalty laws were significant more likely to initiate the use of force than non-death-penalty democracies in the 1945–2001 period. The finding is robust to a variety of control variables and specifications, although skeptics may wonder whether it might be inflated by ethnocentrism, beliefs about the utility of violence, or other unmeasured potential covariates. Rachel Stein attributes the belligerence of death penalty states to cross-national differences in vengeful cultures, on the grounds that citizens’ vengefulness predicts both cross-sectional support for the death penalty and cross-national differences in the penalty’s retention. Her rigorous analysis greatly strengthens the case that the unusual bellicosity of retributivists, observed by Stein and other researchers, affects actual interstate conflict.
Topic:
War, Prisons/Penal Systems, Leadership, Book Review, Elites, and Capital Punishment
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and United States of America

36. From Struggle to Permanent Failure Why the Karabakh Attempt at Secession Failed

Author:
Azer Babayev
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
After 44 days of fighting, the Second Karabakh War came to an end on 10 November 2020 as a result of a Russian‑brokered ceasefire agree­ment. The most important questions here appear to be: what led to this dangerous military escalation, and what does it mean for the conflict, given that it seems to have now entered into a (new) political phase, again? In the declining Soviet Union, what was originally a status dispute over the autonomous Nagorno‑Karabakh region escalated into an international violent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. Following the end of a bloody war in 1994 (the First Karabakh War, 1992‑ 1994), a fragile situation around the conflict region took root: the “frozen conflict,” as it came to be known, lasted for nearly three decades and led to conditions of neither war nor peace. And during this period, it was feared that the longer the sides had to wait for a peace agreement to be reached, the more likely the conflict would re‑escalate and even­tually erupt again into a hot war. As it turned out, this is exactly what happened: an all‑out six‑week war erupted again unexpectedly between the conflict parties in late September 2020, and, as a result, the Armenian side more or less capitulated. But first things first: in the First Karabakh War, Azerbaijan suffered a major defeat, ceding to Armenian forces not only the secessionist region itself but also seven surrounding territo­ries. These other lands were, as a whole, twice the size of Nagorno‑ Karabakh itself and contained five times the old oblast’s population, the entirety of which was expelled by the time an armistice was signed in 1994. And that is why during this war the UN Security Council re­sponded by passing four resolutions demanding the withdrawal of Arme­nian forces from the occupied areas of Azerbaijan. However, the UN res­olutions failed to have any effect. Since that time, no international protagonists felt a strong, compelling need to try to resolve the Nagorno‑ Karabakh conflict. In addition, all in­ternational actors dismissed the idea of “power mediation.” Moreover, although Russia as a key international actor is directly involved in all the conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union, its involvement in the Nagorno‑Karabakh dispute has been rather indirect: in the Karabakh case, Moscow has been both a critical and a questionable actor. On the one hand, the Kremlin has taken a central position in me­diating a peaceful settlement to the conflict while, on the other hand, it has been delivering weapons to both sides. This last represents perhaps the most striking situation regarding the international dimension of the con­flict. Russia is militarily allied with Armenia and has a military presence in the country. It has provided secu­rity guarantees to Yerevan, primarily through their shared membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which neu­tralized to a certain extent the poten­tial effects of Russian arms being sold to financially strong Azerbaijan on a purely commercial basis.
Topic:
Security, War, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan

37. Future warfare, future skills, future professional military education

Author:
Andrea Gilli
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Created in 1951 by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to endow NATO Allies’ officers with a forum for strategic education and politico-military re- flection, this year the NATO Defense College is cele- brating its 70th anniversary. In a world of rapid change and growing uncertainty, the best way to honor the past is to prepare for the future. This Policy Brief contributes to this goal by looking at the future of Professional Military Education (PME). Based on the recent Con- ference of Commandants,1 the discussion is divided into three parts: what the future of warfare is, what skills future warfighters will need to possess, and how professional military education will have to change ac- cordingly.
Topic:
NATO, Education, War, Military Strategy, Leadership, and Professionalism
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

38. El artículo analiza la compleja relación, presente en la esfera internacional,entre política y justicia que queda reflejada en el Tribunal Especial para el Líbano. Se emplean,como líneas argumentales, la problemática de su establecimiento por medio de la resolución 1757 (2007) del Consejo de Seguridad y su carácter selectivo, así como la confrontación jurídico-doctrinal planteada en el caso Ayyash et al., también conocido como asunto Hariri. Se subraya la importancia de los factores contextuales,especialmente aquellosdesencadenados a partir de 2004, con el fin de explicar la división interna —con protagonistas internacionales—del país en dos bloques cuya confrontación serviría de pretexto para la puesta en marcha de un tribunal único que responde a los intereses de una comunidad internacional seducida porla posibilidad de lograr una condena judicial por terrorismo contra Hizballah —y/o Siria—en un momento de preponderancia de la formación chií.La decisión interlocutoria de 2011 de la Sala de Apelaciones pareció manifestarse como un buen augurio en aquella dirección al afirmar la necesidad de interpretar el delito de terrorismo recogido en el artículo 314 del Código Penal del Líbano conforme a un crimen internacional de terrorismo de carácter consuetudinario. La revolucionaria decisión —junto con el proceso que llevó a su publicación—reveló,sin embargo,cierta precipitación y oportunismo que por fortuna y justicia la sentencia de 2020 rechaza por innecesaria e incierta.El artículo sostiene que todo ello ha contribuido a debilitar la credibilidad de un Tribunal,ejemplo de justicia selectiva, y ha mostrado pocadeferencia por la soberanía del Estado libanés.

Author:
Esteban Vidal Pérez
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Este artículo trata los diferentes enfoques geopolíticos de las causas de la guerra. Comienza con la exposición de la relación histórica entre la geopolítica y la guerra a partir de las contribuciones de diferentes autores para presentar las principales explicaciones sobre esta materia. De esta forma analizamos el papel de la geografía en la guerra y su impacto en los conflictos. Esto nos conduce a la perspectiva organicista que considera que la expansión del Estado es un fenómeno natural que produce la guerra. Además, la geografía físicainfluye en el estallido de la guerra. El segundo enfoquees el de la disposición de las tierras emergidas que afirma que determinados lugares son propensos a la guerra debido a su ubicación estratégica. El tercer enfoque es el accidentalista. Los autores de esta perspectiva afirman que la guerra depende de la distancia geográfica entre países y los conflictos fronterizos. Finalmente, desarrollamos una nueva perspectiva basada en la fragmentación geopolítica para explicar la guerra en la Europa moderna. Este enfoque explora la importancia de la fragmentación en la formación del Estado moderno y en el moldeamiento de un entorno anárquico con el nacimiento del sistema de Estados. La guerra se convirtió en un rasgo del sistema internacional debido a que el Estado moderno nació para hacer la guerray se convirtió en la institución dominante. Por tanto, la fragmentación geopolítica es la causa principal dela violencia entre Estados en la Europa moderna.
Topic:
War, Geopolitics, State, and Fragmentation
Political Geography:
Europe

39. The Srebrenica Genocide: A Testament to Persistence in “The Last Refuge”

Author:
Carly Kabot
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
History is the storyteller that holds all truth, yet when she speaks, much of mankind closes its ears. Hasan Nuhanović, a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide committed by a Bosnian Serb militia, narrates his family’s harrowing journey through Bosnia in The Last Refuge: A True Story of War, Survival, and Life under Seige in Srebrenica. Though Nuhanović’s story is tragic, it is not uncommon. He makes this clear from the beginning, writing, “I did not write this book to tell my own story” (5). Rather, his story embodies the experiences of eight thousand Bosniaks who were executed by Serb forces on July 11, 1995, and brings to mind the millions of genocide victims worldwide who have been mercilessly slaughtered in the past century.
Topic:
Genocide, War, History, Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Europe, Bosnia, Eastern Europe, Serbia, and Srebrenica

40. Hitting Home: Cyber-Hybrid Warfare in Ukraine and Its Impact on the United States

Author:
Yuriy Danyk, Chad Michael Briggs, and Tamara Maliarchuk
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
The conflict in Ukraine has received renewed attention in Washington D.C., and it is worth considering the relevance of this conflict to US national security interests. The open conflict in eastern Ukraine since 2014 has been part of a larger hybrid war, including political and information warfare, cyber warfare, assassinations, promotion of corruption, and traditional (kinetic) warfare carried out by destructive geopolitical actors (DGAs) [1]. The conventional conflict cannot be taken out of context, and it is the less visible and “dark” aspects of hybrid warfare that should particularly worry the United States. Hybrid warfare consists of a wide spectrum of attacks, from conventional to covert, carried out to destabilize one’s opponent. Rather than being isolated incidents, cyber attacks often represent part of a wide spectrum of coordinated, offensive strategies against countries like Ukraine and the United States.
Topic:
National Security, War, Cybersecurity, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Europe, Ukraine, North America, and United States of America