Around the Bloc: Pankisi Gorge No Terrorist Training Center, Georgian PM Says
Giorgi Kvirikashvili rejects Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s claim of a significant Islamic State presence in the mountain gorge bordering Chechnya.
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Giorgi Kvirikashvili rejects Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s claim of a significant Islamic State presence in the mountain gorge bordering Chechnya.
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Counterterrorist operations targeting jihadists in Russia have largely proven successful in the past three years. Still, there are reasons to worry that large-scale terrorism might return.
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Visit by CIA head indicates heightened U.S. interest in the region’s contribution of foreign jihadist fighters.
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Victims likely from the wars of the 1990s.
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The war in eastern Ukraine has taken its toll on the economy. This should help.
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Arrest of Frenchman with a small arsenal has ramped up concerns about Donbas weapons being smuggled westward.
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The aim of this paper is to discuss the usefulness of social conflict theory as a theoretical framework for analyzing the conflict in Northern Ireland. The social conflict theories under consideration are Lewis Coser’s functionalist theory of conflict, Ralf Dahrendorf’s theory, and Randall Collins’ sociology of conflict. The main question is whether social conflict theories provide a useful analytical tool in understanding ethnic conflicts: their nature, bases, and the actions of the social actors involved.
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The paper presented a vision of the plan to form a European Defence Community created by Polish caricatures and recounted over political considerations which affected the way the EDC was presented. The main source was caricatures which were published in Polish satirical magazine „Szpilki” from 1950 to 1954 – from when Pleven’s plan was announced to its rejection by France. The author used quantitative analysis which allowed the demonstration of the artists’ range of interests in EDC and to catch plots. The paper is composed of three parts which contain content analysis of the particular caricatures. It allowed for the discovery that the pictures showed the main Polish exter-nal enemies: the USA and West Germany. EDC was presented as their common plan to bring the Wehrmacht back to life. The way EDC was drawn resulted from the fact that Poland was a member of the socialist block.
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The participation of Poland in the Union’s military missions was dictated by a conviction about the need of a common, solidary cooperation in solving problems on a local, as well as international level, especially in the situation, when local issues could transform into a problem of a wider, so regional or global nature. Ensuring a state’s safety and strengthening of the position of Poland on the international arena, as constant purposes of our national policy, required joining in any international initiatives that were supposed to serve as a realization of strategic national aims. Due to the fact that different processes and phenomena happening in surroundings, regions and in the world influenced by the Polish safety, Poland had to actively participate in these actions. The active membership of Poland in foreign missions had been creating conditions that favor economical development and a progress of civilization. The participation in missions lead under the aegis of the European Union was also a realization of allied commitments and they were the one to constitute the credibility of Poland. The participation of Poland in the Common Security and Defence Policy can be divided into two periods. The first once embraces a time, when Poland was not a member of the European Union and, to be honest, its participation in a decisive process under the CSDP had more of a personal nature of engagement into lead missions. Therefore, Poland activated its military forces in military operations, as well as civilian ones, of which there were more. A second period is the time after 2004, when Poland had become a member of the European Union. In this case, we had a formal right to participate or make decisions ands not to participate in certain initiatives of the European Union. In operations that had national forces involved, it is possible to notice happening there processes of the Europeanization. Generally, they were based on taking over soft regulation aspects elaborated on a Union’s level and implementing them in actions of Polish organizations. Even though under the CSDP decisions were made and are made in an intergovernmental way, in situations when Poland participated in operations lead by the European Union, it has always adjusted to the dictate of Brussels. It resulted from an operational, organizational and logistic subordination of the Polish Military Contingent. To sum up, it can be assumed that even in a policy considered as a field with many flaws, there still are ongoing processes of Europeanization based on taking over elements of soft laws and in some cases – hard regulations as well. In this context, Polish armed forces received some “best practices”, learnt to act in completely different conditions and fields that made their adjustments and taking over good practices have some kind of a socialization nature.
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International law of armed conflict governs the conduct of hostilities and includes rules designed to ensure “humanizing” military actions. One of these principles is the prohibition of causing unnecessary suffering of soldiers. Based on this principle many prohibitions on the use of certain types of weapons were introduced to treaty law of armed conflict, for example chemical weapons, biological weapons, anti-personal landmines, cluster bombs and blinding laser weapons. Some of these prohibitions are challenged especially given the technological and medical development. Questions are asked, including “is it better to be dead or blind?” which are an argument in favor of regulating the use of certain weapons and not their complete ban, as in the case of blinding laser weapons, which applies to this question. The article presents arguments for and against prohibiting the use of above all blinding laser weapons and tear gas. On this basis, the reader will be able to form an opinion on the title topic.
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This paper focuses on the rhetoric of USA and Russian political leaders during the Ukraine crisis by analyzing changes appearing in their speeches during the different stages of the crisis. The goal of the analysis is to investigate the speeches delivered by political leaders of the United States and Russia, being important actors in the Ukraine crisis, by identifying both countries’ attitudes to one another, further intentions regarding the management of the crisis and changes of topics in each stage. The speeches of the following most influential politicians in foreign policy formation in the USA and Russia are analyzed: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden, President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. The speeches were collected from the official websites of U.S. and Russian government institutions. The analysis revealed that from the beginning of the crisis the main tool in the Ukraine crisis was rhetoric. Western parties began to take real actions only later: sanctions on Russia were imposed, international organizations started to play more active role, ceasefire agreements were signed. In terms of communications strategies used by both countries, the USA rhetoric and its communication strategy as well as Russian leaders were using a combination of proactive and reactive strategies.
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The personality of Caius Julius Caesar was one of the most representative for the Late Republic. His political prowess doubled with excellent military abilities (and sometimes recklessness) made him overcome some rather challenging situation, especially during the conquest of Gaul. In this conflict the cavalry played a decisive role but, it also underwent significant changes.
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Adopted in 2000, the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 marked a key moment in the integration of a gender perspective into the agenda of international institutions in the security field. The resolution emphasized the importance of the gender perspective in the context of armed conflict, the protection of women’s rights and peacebuilding. An organisation that plays a key role in achieving these goals is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The article analyses the actions and initiatives undertaken by NATO to implement the UN Women, Peace and Security Agenda.
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The growing geopolitical dynamics in the South Caucasus and the Caspian Black Sea basin region and the role of Azerbaijan as an undisputed regional leader in this space appear to be an urgent trend in international relations. Azerbaijan is not a member of either NATO or the CSTO, fighting for leadership in this region. But at the same time, Azerbaijan is successfully developing bilateral and multilateral relations with the participating states of these military-political alliances. Armenia, as a member of the CSTO, and Georgia, which has officially included the goal of joining NATO in the Basic Laws of their country, to a certain extent, can produce a degree of inter-bloc competition to solve their own problems. Azerbaijan can objectively reduce the risks of geopolitical tension in the region by promoting a peaceful cooperation agenda through inter-block communication. Under the leadership of the President of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan was the first in the post-Soviet space to resolve an interstate conflict within the framework of international law. Systemic and structural-functional methods are used in the geopolitical, geostrategic and geo-economic analysis of the role of Azerbaijan in the studied region, the development and implementation of the Grand Strategy of President Ilham Aliyev and the main directions of national geoengineering at the present stage of development of Azerbaijan. The comparative method is used to analyse the main trends in international relations based on the study of international, international legal, and foreign documents and materials.
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The purpose of this study is to present the modern challenges facing the armed forces in examining the legality of means and methods of warfare, especially means and methods of warfare used in cyberspace. The study presents the method of military review in the context of Art. 36 of Additional Protocol I of 1977 and the need to extend it to modern means and methods of warfare. In addition, the positions of the states on the application of the military review to means and methods of warfare in cyberspace are presented.
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The research purpose of the paper is to analyze the key assumptions outlined in the US National Security Strategy 2022. The paper will look for answers to the following questions: What is national security strategy? Is it an important document? What and for whom does it matter? What direction will US policy take under Joe Biden’s administration? What tools and methods will be used? What are the goals and priorities set in the document? Which countries are among the closest allies and biggest adversaries? What impact had the Russian aggression against Ukraine on the shape of the US National Security Strategy 2022? The main research method will be source analysis and criticism, as well as a comparative method to contrast the current NSS with previous ones. The research thesis assumes that the priority of the current US security strategy remains the one initiated during previous White House administrations – the rivalry with China, which in tandem with Russia aims to change the modern international order, threatening the national interests of the United States of America. The conducted analysis, on the one hand, confirms the thesis, and, on the other hand, points to inconsistencies in US strategic thinking (which takes the form of a “wish list”), which can significantly affect the effectiveness of the implementation of the set goals and objectives.
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The aim of this article is to identify human traits that are responsible for the propensity to betray and take secrets outside the organisation. For this purpose, an analytical-diagnostic approach has been used. The primary research method to achieve the stated objectives is the method of analysis and critique of the literature on the subject and the analysis of review papers describing security breaches in cyberspace, when the source of these breaches is the exploitation of human personality weaknesses. First of all, personality and character traits leading to taking information outside the organisation or selling important data are identified. Psychopathic tendencies are identified, in addition to the immature, narcissistic and egotistical personality. The reasons for disclosing sensitive data are discussed. In this way, the article shows a different side of the problem of information system security and helps to understand the mechanism of theft or leakage of important information. Since security weaknesses are attributed to personality traits, the article points to the possibility of anticipatory threat recognition and security enhancement. This is achieved through the use of machine learning, artificial intelligence and behavioural analysis. This succeeds in identifying potentially dangerous individuals who are not coping with their own problems.
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The events of the past few years make the context of civil protection in Poland undeniably gaining importance. This is also evidenced by the fact that legislative work has intensified, aimed at establishing a new law in the area of civil defence, crisis management and state of natural disaster. In view of the above, the author of this article decided to present the activity of the Territorial Defence Forces (Polish: Wojska Obrony Terytorialnej), and also to apply the most important assumptions to the subject area in need of real and urgent transformation. One of the examples taken is the time of the COVID-19 epidemic, which obliged decision-makers of numerous state institutions to apply extraordinarily coordinated solutions. The article is a detailed analysis of the role of the Territorial Defence Forces within the broader population protection structure, as well as the conditions resulting from the introduced epidemic state. Synthetic conclusions resulting from the study indicate the clear potential of the TDF as part of the expected reconstruction of Polish civil defence.
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Purpose – The purpose of the article is to compare the macroeconomic effects ofmilitary and non-military government spending on the Polish economy, which is particularlyrelevant in the context of the rapid rise in military spending after the outbreak ofthe war in Ukraine.Research method – The research is based on a new-Keynesian dynamic stochasticgeneral equilibrium model estimated for the Polish economy. The model developed for thestudy takes into account differences between 3 types of government spending – militaryspending, non-military current spending and non-military investment.Results – On the one hand, the empirical results show that in the short and mediumterm, increasing military spending is a more effective method of stimulating GDPthan rising non-military spending. On the other hand, the impulse response functionsindicate that increasing non-military spending is a better tool for enhancing effectiveconsumption.Originality / value / implications / recommendations – This is the first research exploringthe macroeconomic effects of military spending in a CEE country, which is based on sto-chastic general equilibrium model accounting for heterogeneity of government spending.Assessing these effects at a time of unprecedented growth in military spending in Poland is an important added value of the study. The main implication of the research is to recommendincreasing military spending to boost GDP, while rising non-military spending tostimulate effective consumption.
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