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Disrupting states’ and societies’ capacity of functioning, turning to advantage a wide range of instruments is one of the objectives of what it is known on a large scale after the Ukrainian crisis as “hybrid warfare”. The present paper is an analysis of the security dynamic in the Western Balkan region from this perspective, having as a hypothesis the fact that this space can be turned to advantage as lever for heightening insecurity at European level. In this respect, the article includes a brief overview on the main European security trends, as well as an insight on the Russian Federation’s approach on Western Balkans not only in terms of strategic documents, but also in geopolitical studies. The region’s vulnerability is subsequently analysed both from the perspective of the conflict relations between the actors in this space, and in relation to the evolution of these actors in international barometers showing the level of institutions’ stability and strength.
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This paper develops the argument supporting the meaningfulness of the Wider Black Sea Region (WBSR) construct, and explaining the necessity of understanding the regional dynamics in order to find solutions to the problems with which countries and people in the area confront. It concludes that Western standards, ideas and values offer the framework for progress in WBSR. Within this context, opening to Western influence offers a great opportunity for WBSR, bringing to the forefront the soft power of the EU and all of the European and Euro-Atlantic instruments of money, legitimacy and know-how.
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Intra- or extra-regional institutionalized regional cooperation facilitates the joint approach to specific issues of countries that generate or can generate and/or export insecurity to other states of the region, but also beyond. Moreover, intra-regional cooperation between countries geographically close to each other supports cross-border dialogue to materialize common economic, political or environmental interests and the development of capacities to maintain or achieve an optimal regional security environment to ensure the prosperity of states and their citizens. MENA (Middle East and North Africa) is a particular case for intra-regional cooperation. Although the region has the prerequisites for its broad development, due to the its ethnicreligious factor and the reserves of oil and gas of most of its states, its ratio of integration and regionalization, even in the classical economic area, is presented by specialists as limited, due to the classical authoritarian forms of government and the divergent interests of the states of the region with different Islamic orientations. In this paper, we analyse the trend in MENA’s intraregional cooperation following the Arab Spring events, starting from the hypothesis that the abolition of authoritarian governments results in states opening towards democracy and dialogue.
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The first objective of the present article is to analyze the evolution of strategic communication in the field of security and defense, the definitions it has been given, the purpose for which it has been employed and the tools it has been based on. Secondly, the authors will determine the current role of the process, given the changes in context in the last decade which call for the particular approach of strategic communication. This context is generated by the evolutions in IT and public communication which drastically transform the ways in which reality is represented and perceived. Strategic communication can become the most effective process to manage security representations that democratic governments can resort to in order to defend and promote the values of the societies they represent.
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The article aims at examining the theory of reflexive control as it was developed during the USSR, the time of its emergence, and the transformation or how it has been adapted in the current international context. Nowadays, innovations in this field are quite scarce, we can talk more about adapting to the user’s needs or requests. For this, they are analizing hystorical, ideological and psychosocial factors that contributed to the emergence of this theory. The article is a first step towards a more-indepth study of the theory of reflexive control, as a basic element of the hybrid / non-linear war. It is expected that this material will raise interest, dialogue, differences of opinion and even controversies on this subject.
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Operations planning is one of the most complex and fascinating processes that take place in the dynamics of preparing military actions. Since uncertainty is the most prominent feature of this entire set of activities, we consider that identifying ways to reduce this shortcoming by involving forecast and the methods of testing and validating the resulting estimates is of particular importance. The most prolific method of this type is wargame. Forecast intervenes also within it, contributing to seeing the outcome in the confrontation between two sides. The ways of achieving the forecast results are the operational analysis / research, computer-assisted simulation and the intuitive analysis of the confrontation between the opposing parties, based on the acquired experience and the lessons learned from previous actions. Wargame contributes to the decision on the best course of action and its optimization, in order to be developed in the final operations plan.
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The technological boom recorded at the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third one has led to major, unprecedented, mutations in the way people communicate, interrelate and interact on every level of their personal, social and professional lives. Technological inventions and gadgets have subtly, unnoticeably, but indispensably infiltrated into everyday reality. The article aims at analyzing the extent to which applications, software and websites specifically designed to create and disseminate social media content - in audio, video, text and other formats - between members of social groups can pose challenges or opportunities for the specific processes of the intelligence cycle.
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The paper analyzes NATO events and actions in the last quarter of 2019, emphasizing on those that questioned its cohesion, as the Leaders Meeting in London (3-4 of December, 2019), also pointing out topics related to the Alliance's development directions reaffirmed by the London Declaration. As NATO cannot be analysed by referring exclusively to the organization itself, but in correlation with its member states, at the same time, the paper addresses issues that dominated the international agenda during the second half of 2019: US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), Turkey’s actions worldwide, allocation of 2% from GDP for defence spending, but also the statements of the French President regarding the Alliance’s present and future evolution.
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This paper analyzes events that happened in the EU in the second half of 2019, that show Europe’s vulnerabilities. Among them, the manner in which Brexit would become a reality, the repercussions of UK’s withdrawal from the Union, the possibility other states could follow the same course of action are just some examples of the topics the paper approaches.
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