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The geostrategic aspect of Africa’s position is examined with reference to the foreign military presence. Following on a brief survey of Africa’s place in world politics and of the reasons for the foreign military presence, the paper considers the various geostrategic factors: international sea and air communications; energy and mineral resources; the territories of some countries which allow control over a wider region and the political positions of independent modern states. The author concludes that it is only the interaction of these factors which motivates the presence of military forces from non-African countries (illustrated by data), thus ensuring the political presence and enhancing the influence of great powers in international relations.
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The USA, which is still the world military dominant power, wants to keep an edge over the global strategic affairs and protect its homeland but also the territories and populations of its major allies. Russia is extremely worried by these evolutions and problematic defense bunkers focused attention and commentators and authors of studies in the area international relations, producing a significant amount of literature and aimed at estimating consequences if they produce these developments. Using a more technical approach, this article briefly presents the implications of antimissile shield with the relations between NATO and Russia at the beginning of the 21st century.
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Given that Europe is facing the worst security crisis since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the issue of defence budgets has become an acute matter for NATO. The reassurance measures on the eastern flank of the Alliance, the terrorist threat, instability in the MENA region represent challenges for NATO members, which put significant pressure not only politically, but also on the budget. Romania was appreciated in January this year by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for the initiative of President Klaus Iohannis to conclude a political agreement signed by all parliamentary parties to support a minimum defence budget of 2% of GDP for the 2017- 2027 interval. There are however some dangers that may call into question the agreement and implicitly the start of the programmes of equipping the Romanian Armed Forces with modern technology. Apart from an inability to complete projects undertaken in the medium term, an increase in the deficit in the coming years, following the implementation of tax relaxation measures in 2015, is another risk. It adds to the election weight of the year 2016, as often at such times budge t funds are used for election-related projects, which may cause a delay in the promised supplementing of funding for defence.
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The political relations between Romania and Ukraine after Ukrainian independence in 1991 were difficult to establish and keep in a positive shape because of the lack of trust and collective negative images that the tow nations had on each other. In spite of Ukraine owning some territories which were inherited from USSR and previously forcedly taken by Moscow from inter-war Romania, our country recognized the existing borders and only “fought” against Ukraine for the Serpent Island continental shelf’s waters and resources, before the International Court of Justice. The insufficient protection of the Romanian minority’s rights by Ukraine also hindered the good neighborly relations, together with the contentious “Bystroye canal” affair. Now, in the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and NATO-EU actions to counter Russian illegal military activities, Bucharest and Kyiv have a historic opportunity to develop closer and friendlier relations.
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After the conclusion of the Minsk-2 agreement, there were different narratives which have developed concerning the solution in Ukrainian crisis. One was about the eventual deal concluded with Russia. According to it, in order to avoid the worst case scenario, it is necessary to accommodate with Moscow’s requests and to forget for the moment the Crimea issue. The second narrative was that Russia should be confronted with robust responses whenever she is overcoming the obligations taken at Minsk and encourages and support the bellicose activity of the Russian separatists in Donbas. Down the road, both narratives have developed strongly, and different diplomatic actions consumed since the end of March 2015 seemed to respond either to one of them or both. In this text I am detailing both narratives and finally I will try to assess the way ahead in the Ukrainian crisis.
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THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) AND THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO) SHARE LONGSTANDING MUTUAL INTERESTS AND FACE COMMON THREATS; BUT DEVELOPING THE EU-NATO RELATIONSHIP WHILE RESPECTING THE INDEPENDENT NATURE OF BOTH ORGANISATIONS HAS BEEN AN ONGOING CHALLENGE. SHARING STRATEGIC INTERESTS AND SIMILAR PURPOSES LIKE PROVIDING POLITICAL STABILITY TO ITS MEMBER THROUGH SECURING DEMOCRACY; NATO AND THE EUROPEAN UNION COOPERATE ON ISSUES OF COMMON INTEREST AND ARE WORKING SIDE BY SIDE IN CRISIS MANAGEMENT; CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICAL CONSULTATIONS. HAVING A MAJORITY OF MEMBERS; COMMON VALUES AND PURPOSES PROVIDE A STRONG ARGUMENT TO ENHANCE THE COOPERATION BETWEEN NATO AND THE EU.
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Carl von Clausewitz, the founder of modem classical political theory of war provides a scientific interpretation of war on two levels. At the higher level there is the idea of war, which the author calls the "absolute picture of war"; it expresses the immanent laws of war and the relationship between politics and war. At the lower, empirical, level, there are real wars, which express incompletely the essence and the laws of war In general, due to inadequate knowledge, unforeseeable circumstances, erroneous evaluations of actions, incompetence of leaders and commanders, and the like. The sum total of these factors Clausewitz defines by the physical concept of "friction". The real war is, hence, absolute war minus "friction". He bases his theory of war on ten assertions, of which the first five refer to the immanent logic of force in war and the other five refer to the political substance and function of war. His theory is present also in contemporary military-political doctrines, both of capitalist and of socialist states.
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As inextricable part of modernity, technology is pursued for multiple rewards: enhancing knowledge, gaining power and respect, improving human life and work. Between nations and societies, acquiring technology has more than an economic meaning- it is a way of boosting one’s status. Nuclear energy as a special case marked the development of postwar societies possessing it. As military application, during the Cold War and after, nuclear deterrence spelled a strategic language that set apart nuclear governments from those deprived of the bomb. For smaller, decolonized countries, acquiring nuclear technology with both civil and military ends symbolized a statement of their sovereignty and an assurance against superpower interference. Such is the case for the Indian post 1947 nuclear history. Using Thorstein’s Veblen notion of conspicuous consumption, the present article will try to answer to the question why the elites from New Delhi did not build from the beginning thorium based nuclear reactors, even though India possess rich deposits of such metal and Homi Bhaba’s plan envisaged thorium grid infrastructures. We will show that the Indian nuclear research turned to uranium following a similar path with Western and Soviet industrial build-up. As uranium is much easier to weaponise than thorium, Indian political and scientific elites wanted fungibility between their civil and their military structures.
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We selected Turkey and Russia because they are the strongest local players in the Greater Black Sea Area, they are the successors of powerful empires which controlled the Black Sea pool and because nowadays they defend the regional status quo, that is the legal status of the Turkish Straits guaranteed by the Montreux Convention of 1936. Their interests are sometimes clashing but in many other instances go in the same direction, thus one can identify a Euro-Asian perspective on the Black Sea which is quite different from the Western vision, to which Romania now belongs.
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This piece focuses on Libya as a special case aport from the general trends of the Arab Spring and argues NATO’s involvement to have been a first crucial element on its transition to democracy. Unfortunately, it is neither sufficient an element, nor a certainty for Libya’s transition to democracy.
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The Romanian defense planning is under common logic, containing a strategic document emanating from the top of the state (National Security / Defense Strategy), an intermediate document developed at departmental level and undertaken by the Government (Defense White Paper) and a departmental document presented by the military establishment (Military Strategy). As shown in the article, the model is similar to the U.S. model consisting of National Security Strategy (the President’s view), National Defense Strategy (a document assumed by the Defense Secretary) and National Military Strategy. In fact, these documents can be found in almost any country of the world. Characteristic of our country is the difficulty of how these documents are issued, which led to a situation where the last Military Strategy dates from 1999 and the last White Paper was issued in 2004. But this year is expected that all these documents to be approved by the authorities and we believe that the new law of the defense planning will streamline the process of development and adoption of strategic documents.
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Since he took the White House office, Barack Obama carried up four important actions regarding USAP.R. China’s relations, that is the adapting of the traditional American practice of the difficult beginning, the issue of human rights respect, the continuing of his predecessor’s agreement on selling weapons to Taiwan and the meeting with Dalai Lama. The first two are tactical adjustments seen as a political tool, while the last two represent the strategic continuity of US policies. Thus, it seems that the US-China relations under the Obama administration will strategically continue to follow the same path as that established by the previous presidential administrations of the USA, while necessary corrections are made only at a tactical level.
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Critic infrastructures are those ones which are considered as vital for the state security, as stability, safety and security of the political systems, the positive developments with the economic, social, political and military processes depends on them. Terrorism is an act intended to produce deliberate fear among the populations to put a pressure on governments to comply with terrorists’ demands. Cyber-terrorism takes play in cyberspace but is different from the cyber-crime, as its goal is to produce fear and has a political motivation. A strong security culture and the intelligence sharing among the nations is vital for fighting against cyber-terrorism.
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These last years Russian foreign policy is characterized by ambivalence which is expressed in the desire to be integrated in Western community and Western institutions and at the same time in the attempts to oppose to the West. This tendency has been developed especially since 2005-2006 when the world economic juncture did changed. It was connected with the growing oil and gas prices. Among Russian political class there was a temptation to correlate so called new «economic might» with new political role and status on international arena. An important dimension of military-political security today should be collective efforts in the struggle against international terrorism which is not only one of the main threats for stability, but for survival of individuals. That is why anti-terror and counter-terror activities should be in the focus of European institutions’ and states’ policy. It is extremely important not to mix such notions as social protest and terror. The soft security is also very important.
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This paper attempts to analyze the issue of legitimacy that political parties in Israel gain through the invocation of security problems. The issue of this kind of legitimacy has concerned the academic community in the field of security studies especially after the end of the Cold War. One of the approaches which had a considerable impact and which the author will employ in this analysis was the securitization theory. This analysis will refer to the securitization used by the political parties between 1992-2009, including the electoral campaign and the elections this year. The author chose this period because it includes significant evolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which modified the ways of securitizing different issues. This was a period of unprecedented fluctuations between peace initiatives and military confrontation and it includes the first and second Intifada with the peace process in between. The present analysis will focus on the four most important parties in Israel right now (Kadima, Likud, Israel Beiteinu and the Labor Party) because their securitizations have the most chances of success given their public/electoral support. On the other hand, these parties roughly represent the Israeli political spectrum from right to left. Nonetheless, the author will mention the positions of other parties if they are relevant for the analysis.
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China is probably on its way to become one of the main power-poles in a future likely multipolar world and even if it will be economically stronger than military, international relations history shows us that countries which are wealthy and whose big populations cultivate nationalistic feelings also developed strong military capabilities and tried to increase and protect their “sphere of interests” against possible challengers. Economically, China is the most spectacular “giant” of the planet, with about 9% increase of its GDP in 2006 and 2007, and an economy build on cheap-labour manufactures goods to be exported outside. Exports represent about 40% of the GDP and are seen as vital for a sustained economic growth in the future, thus the Chinese economic foreign policy obviously aims at keeping this rhythm or improving it.
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The cosmic space and satellite systems have a fundamental importance for building an advanced society, based on knowledge, one which is able to offer scientists the framework, instruments and necessary technology to understand the origins and evolutions of the Earth, of the solar system and the whole universe. The satellite systems are vital for the functioning of an informatized society. This society needs stable communications and good-quality navigation channels, and it must be able to observe the Earth and the circum-terrestrial space.
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This presentation has been displayed during the Crisis Management And Conflict Prevention Seminar, Brașov, Romania, 13-17 May 2008
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The study of terrorism is a very diverse, contingent and complex phenomenon. The world has long been fighting terrorism, pervaded with ethnic and religious characteristics, it does not represent a new tool against the civilized world order. Terrorism, featured by religious narratives backed by economic and political aspirations, has significantly changed a number of institutions and states’ geopolitical strategies towards the hot terroristic areas of the world. When the Western world, in particular the USA, started celebrating a meritorious victory against “Al-Qaeda”, by killing its spiritual leader Osama bin Laden, simultaneously a new terroristic organization called the “Islamic State of/in Iraq and Syria” (hereafter ISIS) announced a pretension of being a discretionary power in the Middle East. This paper aims at observing and analyzing how the ISIS has transformed from regional to a global threat and how the forming processes of such heavily militarized terrorist organization have developed to be perceived as a top global challenge of the world.
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