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Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-13 May
Highlights from our coverage region: asylum seeker abuse in Croatia; opening up in Uzbekistan; Telegram abandons blockchain; stunning fossils in Bulgaria; and a friendly reminder for Georgia.
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Highlights from our coverage region: asylum seeker abuse in Croatia; opening up in Uzbekistan; Telegram abandons blockchain; stunning fossils in Bulgaria; and a friendly reminder for Georgia.
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The diplomacy of Japan towards its Asian neighbours has always been a complex issue. Throughout the years, the foreign policy of Japan has witnessed severe alterations specifically after the Second World War. Since then, new challenges and opportunities have risen which have formed a new, adapted Japanese diplomacy, albeit not disconnected from its traditional aspects and its past. The current purpose of the paper is to highlight these evolutions and challenges of the post WWII Japanese diplomacy. The focus will be on the two main neighbours and traditional partners of Japan, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Korea. There will be an effort to highlight the challenges that Japan experiences with the aforementioned countries, its diplomatic approaches and how these could be evolved in the near future.
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This article describes the competition between China and the USA for global hegemony. Both states have hegemonic ambitions and compete with each other over the domination of Asia. The rise of China has transformed global politics, as well as the balance of the global economy. As China’s economic and military power increases steadily, its geopolitical ambitions are also constantly growing. Some experts do not exclude the possibility of conflict between China and the USA in the future. There are many potential hot spots in East Asia where conflict could erupt at any time in the future between the USA and China. Many experts doubt whether the USA and China can escape Thucydides’ Trap in the future.
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During the pre-historical period, The Sumerian civilization had developed between the Tigris and the Euphrates, now southern Iraq. The Sumerians were favoured by a natural environment conducive to living, good for agriculture, fishing and animal husbandry. They managed to build cities both on land and in the wet ecosystem, set up an army, have fortified cities. More importantly, they invented writing among other things.Today the inhabitants of those marshes, who are locally called "maadan" (or swamp inhabitants), have kept the sustainable lifestyle inherited from the Sumerians. They build homes adaptable to the tradition of the environment using the art of weaving rushes and reeds living in groups of rural conglomerates or natural islands. Thousands of years later, the wetlands have decreased owing to a variety of reasons, among which could be the climatic changes in addition to the passive actions people did to the environment. This has led some inhabitants to migrate to the neighboring cities. In the present time, this area has received some international concern when, on July 17, 2016, the UNESCO declared it as a protected area recognized over the world.
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The aim of this paper is to indicate current trends in the conventional arms trade in the Middle East and to determine its implications for regional security. The author attempts to answer the following questions: What are the trends in the legal arm imports and exports in the Middle East? What are the main problems related to arms trafficking in the region? How does the arms trade impact regional security in the Middle East? The participation of the Middle Eastern countries in global arms imports over the period 2015-2019 was analyzed as well as arms trafficking conducted by the states and non-state actors, including criminal organizations. The study was based on the analysis of relevant literature and sources as well as statistical methods, which allowed to determine the share of individual countries in the global and regional arms market. The quantitative analysis was based on the latest SIPRI reports, while the UNROCA register was used as an auxiliary source. The author assumes that the arms trade is multidimensional: it should not be deemed negative, provided that it is conducted transparently and in accordance with international law. On the other hand, the states’ unwillingness to put arms trade under international control, arming the parties of prolonged armed conflicts and arms trafficking by non-state actors, poses a threat to international security. The analyzed issue can be relevant for studies on current conflicts and instability in the Middle East, but also for studying their consequences for other parts of the world, particularly Europe.
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The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of the doctrinal rationale – doctrinal roots behind Denmark’s involvement in the security of the Gulf of Guinea region in West Africa. The subject of the considerations is, above all Denmark’s military support’s strategic goals to selected countries in the region. Taking into account the military potential of the Kingdom of Denmark and the possibility of projecting military force beyond the borders of Europe, Denmark’s active military involvement in West Africa should be considered a unique type of international use of armed forces in order to pursue the vital interests of the state, including security interests. In the article, the authors attempt to learn and discuss the formal factors that influence and motivate Denmark’s participation in bilateral and multilateral cooperation with the states of the Gulf of Guinea in the field of international security. The authors’ attention is focused primarily on the most important Danish documents that set the directions and nature of the state of Danish security policy, including the scope of the use of armed forces in relations with the outside world, from the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. The authors use the qualitative analysis of sources and critical content analysis, mainly of Danish doctrine and strategy documents. The aim of the study is to find an answer to the question: What are the premises and interests that shape the foundations of Danish involvement in the Gulf of Guinea?
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The proliferation of nuclear weapons is one of the major challenges of the modern world. It is also a challenge for the United States of America, which focuses its counterproliferation efforts on its adversaries’ nuclear programmes. Washington has gone to great lengths to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear programme during the last decade, albeit without achieving the desired result - the complete denuclearisation of North Korea. The purpose of this article is to identify the reason for this failure and, specifically, why the negotiations with North Korea failed. Used in this research are the historical analysis and content analysis methods. Content analysis was conducted using official documents, speeches, and press statements, which proved to be a valuable resource. The research was conducted in the light of offensive realism, and confirmed that the lack of trust between parties, which derives from the anarchical international system, made the complete denuclearisation of North Korea impossible.
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This research paper focuses on using the Russian intelligence old methods: the active measures supported and developed by the modern technology on the example of the presidential election in the United States. The paper tries to answer the questions about the aims of Russian engagement and attempt to measure effectiveness of these efforts. In addition, it presents and analyzes the usage of cyberattacks and massive information campaigns in social media and the extraordinary situation just before the presidential election. The case of using Russian social media in presidential election in 2016 is the most detailly accounted but not the only one when such a method was used. This paper should help to understand how the active measures were supported and developed by the new technology and what the most important aspects are. The several research methods were used in this article such as the critical analysis of the documents, research papers and books and the observation method was used to read research papers, press news. Last but not least the historic research method was implemented to this article to examine and present the development and the significance of the active measures during the Cold War.
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The activities of a few states in the Arctic taken in recent years attract the attention of the international opinion. We can observe arousing emotions, which achieves a particularly high level in relation to the issue of military presence in the High North. Military forces and various installations are currently maintained by five countries: Canada, the United States, Denmark, Norway, and Russia. The largest potential of the last of these countries, which also controls the longest part, almost half of the Arctic Sea coast. The article attempts to characterize the current level of Russian military activity in the Arctic. Attention was given first of all to the creating of the fifth Russian strategic territorial command on the basis of Northern Fleet Command and the restoration of military presence in the Arctic archipelagos, which were abandoned - primarily for financial reasons - after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Apart from the description, the author attempts to build a forecast regarding the further development of military architecture on the “top of the globe”. At the same time, because a coherent picture of the role of the Arctic in theory and the military practice of the Soviet Union during the Cold War era is outlined in other publications, this text presents the actions taken in the Russian Federation to strengthen the position of the state in the north after the period of "Jelcin's Smell" (1991-1999).
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The subject of research in this article is the phenomenon of foreign fighters participating in the Ukrainian-Russian armed conflict in the years 2014-2020. The author focused on the case of volunteers from Serbia, who are one of the most numerous national groups supporting pro-Russian separatists in Donbass. Their involvement in the conflict affects not only the security of Ukraine but also the (un)stability of the Western Balkans. The main purpose of this article is to clarify the essence and consequences of the participation of Serbian fighters in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. In the first part of the text, the definition framework for the concept of “foreign fighters” and its evolution towards “foreign terrorist fighters” has been discussed. Subsequently, a detailed analysis of the main problem was carried out, and the following research questions were answered: 1) What is the scale of the phenomenon of Serbian volunteers comparing them to foreign fighters from other countries? 2) What are their motivations goals, and what are their recruitment process and ways of moving into the war zone? 3) What threat returning fighters pose to the security of the Western Balkans and how individual countries counteract this phenomenon? The author mainly used qualitative research methods: historical analysis, comparative analysis, and critical analysis of literature, research papers, documents, reports, press materials. Based on the conducted research, it can be concluded that Serbian volunteers fighting in Donbass pose a potential threat to the security of the Western Balkans. Veterans returning to their places of origin may conduct subversive or terrorist activities on behalf of Russian intelligence, as in the case of Montenegro in 2016.
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The article attempts to present maritime infrastructure facilities that may or should be included in critical infrastructure facilities. Due to their nature and importance for safety and economy, these facilities may be classified as national or European critical infrastructure facilities. The threats resulting from intentional criminal human activity, which may disrupt the functioning of port facilities, were also presented. The basic and also the most vulnerable facilities of maritime critical infrastructure are seaports. Their safety can be violated from three directions: land, air, and sea. At the same time, it is not possible to ensure the same level of security in all port and land areas. Therefore, port facilities were particularly vulnerable to threats. Ensuring the proper level of port facilities security requires undertaking a number of organizational and technical projects.
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The article contains the results of the initial exploration of a new problem field in the area of energy security, covering a wide spectrum of complex threats and systemic risks facing the power industry undergoing rapid transformations towards cyber-physical systems. The purpose of the exploration, identification, and initial theoretical processing (conception, structuring, etc.) of the complexes of cognitive, decision-making and projection-organizational problems, which for the safety and reliability of the electricity supply, resulting from the rapid increase in internal complexity as well as complex synergies and interdependencies arising from the convergence of two-speed technologies - energy systems and information and communication technologies. The tendencies of such complex, turbulent systems for chaotic behavior and their ability to self-organizing behavior "without human intervention" threaten with sudden, unpredictable, dangerous initiating events that can cause uncontrolled cascades of disorders capable of overcoming all protective barriers, firewalls, and layers of protection. The spectrum of catastrophic consequences of large-scale power failures puts into question the current safety management model based on threat elementarization, vulnerability analysis, risk assessment, and crisis management, and prompts the search for a new paradigm in security management that would prepare critical energy infrastructures for 'normal disasters' better. The author of the article considers the usefulness of the security model based on systemic threats and risks as well as resilience management as a new energy security paradigm.
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Terrorism with religious ideological background today is a serious global threat. The modern infrastructure and the communications of movement allowed terrorist organizations to be able to attack everywhere in the world. The issue that is a point of interest of this paper is the current situation of returning the foreign terrorist fighters to their home country or third countries and the security consequences that may arise if they are not treated properly. For a more detailed perception of this problem through the case analysis – an operative police action related to the foreign terrorist fighters, the functional aspects of the criminal prosecution bodies of the Republic of North Macedonia will be better perceived and studied. Also, a special emphasis will be placed on the strategy for the fight against violent extremism and the financing of terrorist fighters.
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The essay concerns attempts to shape a common narrative about the history of Europe in the 1939–1991 period made by representatives of the Western Europe and the region of Central and Eastern Europe (East) since the fall of communism and collapse of the Eastern Bloc. It shows at the beginning the encounter and next the clash between two different historical experiences and narratives of West and East, and as a result the growing misunderstandings. The author distinguishes three strategies of the politics of memory used by the Eastern states internally and toward neighbors: historical reconciliation, transitional justice and national identity politics of memory. The author analyzes how the latter prevailed in the post-Yugoslav states in 1990s and in the states located on the Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands in the second decade of 21st century. Of a special subject of analysis are the two most explosive contemporary memory conflicts in the region: Serbian-Croatian and Polish-Ukrainian. The author shows how these conflicts developed in the conditions of a growing lack of understanding of the East by the West. The West representatives in the EU did not fully admit the postulates to change the common historical narrative in Europe put forward by the representatives of the East. Neither the entire EU nor its old member states did take a position on the disputes over memory between the Eastern states. As a result these conflicts linger and the prospects for ending them are weak.
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This essay is dedicated to a book written by Tomasz Rawski titled "Boszniacki nacjonalizm. Strategie budowania narodu po 1995 roku" (Eng.: "Bosniac nationalism. Nation-building strategies after the year 1995") which was published by Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar in the year 2019. Basing on an analysis of contemporary politics of memory in Bosnia and Herzegovina relating to the 1992–1995 war, the author presents two antagonistic nation-building strategies.
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The article presents one of the traditional methods in the social sciences for the research and explanation of long-term historical processes such as revolutions, riots, uprisings, protest cycles and waves – the analysis of the collective events. The steps in collecting and coding a quantitative database, the types of sources, procedures, techniques and potential biases are discussed. The application of the method in historical science is illustrated by Sidney Tarow's study of the protest cycle in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. The end of the article contains some of the most popular publicly available databases for collective mobilizations indifferent historical periods and describes possible directions for historical research.
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This study examines the effects of the proliferation of SALWs on the security of the Nigerian state. Although this issue has seldom been tackled in regular or academic literature, it reflects the author’s keen awareness that, in an era of globalization, migrants have been identified as important agents in the proliferation of SALWs into third-world countries. The paper seeks to provide an insight into the socio-economic and political variables operating in the source and destination of such movements, with particular emphasis on migrants and arms proliferation. The study uses the qualitative approach for data analysis, it relies on upon, data gathered through secondary sources, and is reinforced with the argument on the liberal theoretical framework of analysis. The paper concludes that, while weapons play a significant role in intensifying conflict that exerts enormous human and economic costs, the causes of such conflicts lie in political, economic, ethnic, and religious differences and disparities. Finally, the paper looks at the appropriateness of examining the full implications of SALWs as a border management theme and the role of complementary measures for facilitating border control.
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The paper aims to analyze the development of national and liberation organizations in Baluchistan. The author attempts to answer the following questions: Why had pakistanyiat become obligatory to all people wanting to live in Pakistan? What were the reasons behind the formation of the Baluchistan National Movement, the Baloch Liberation Front, and the Liberation Army? What does the Baloch society expect from the authorities? The study was based on a critical review of the literature and other available and valuable sources such as Jinnah’s speeches. Another method used in the study was a synthesis that allowed the author to form conclusions. Studying Baluchistan means limited access to sources and materials since traveling to the land of Baluchistan is restricted by specific rules, and one can only visit the place under certain circumstances. Research on Baluchistan is relevant for studies of national liberation movements and current internal conflicts.
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Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons represent the biggest danger to humanity. During the Cold War, the US and USSR provided ‘umbrella protection’ to convince allies not to acquire nuclear weapons. Most ‘newly’ independent nations never had such security during the Cold War since they were not part of a power bloc. During the Iran-Iraq conflict (1980-1988), the Islamic Republic of Iran was attacked with chemical weapons. Since Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile organization, exposed Iran's hidden nuclear program in 2002, the topic has gained worldwide attention. Iran's nuclear agenda has produced a worldwide catastrophe despite its NPT membership. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and respects Islamic values. Most US politicians and academics consider Iran a rough nation with political and strategic concerns, including regional hegemony, human rights, terrorism, WMD proliferation, and military operations beyond the border. This study examines Iran's nuclear policies to demonstrate its essence, goal, and strategy.
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The main purpose of this article is to trace, present and analyze the development of “soft” antiterrorist approaches in the form of the so-called PCVE activities (i.e., “preventing and countering violent extremism”) in comparison with more traditional, “hard” counter-terrorism programs (CT) in four European countries: Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Spain, from 2005 till 2020. In the article, due to a comparison of the local specificity in the area under research, differences and few similarities in the programs aiming at combating political violence in the four EU countries were demonstrated. Each and every state selected for this article has developed various activities and capabilities as an answer to the increasing terrorist threat: Belgium and France, especially until the period 2015–2017, have a preference for “traditional” hard counter-terrorist measures, while Spain and particularly the Netherlands have developed more sophisticated and comprehensive stance including “soft” PCVE approach.
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