Publications
Brexit-forhandlingene vakler videre
(Norwegian only): Det norske mediebildet har de siste ukene vært dominert av stortingsvalget. Ikke uventet har debattene handlet mest om hjemlige forhold, men mange har også etterlyst mer fokus rundt utenrikspolitiske spørsmål – i en tid hvor langvarige samarbeidsmønstre og maktkonstellasjoner ser ut til å være i endring. Norske velgere oppgir også å være noe mer opptatt av utenrikspolitikk enn før. Hva skjer med verden utenfor, og hvordan påvirker det norsk utenrikspolitikk og Norges rolle internasjonalt?
Building Bridges for Success:Rethinking Peace Operations Training for Complex Environments
Witnessing the changes in armed conflict since the 1990s, several global political-level agendas have emerged, recognizing the growing human suffering from armed conflict and the long-term consequences on societies. These high-level agendas, such as Protection of Civilians (POC), Women, Peace and Security (WPS), and Children in Armed Conflict (CAAC), address crucial issues that fall under a broader human security approach, and are to be addressed by peace operations. As such, they have at an increasing rate been included in strategic level doctrine and policy. The three global UN peace and security reviews published in 2015 stress the need for a shift to more people-centered, inclusive processes, establishing better context awareness, and investing in cooperation with external counterparts significantly. If peace operations are to remain relevant and effective in achieving international peace and security, this needs to be taken into account. This shift within peace operations requires that the preparation and training of peacekeepers follow suit in order to meet the challenges faced in increasingly complex environments. This policy brief therefore advocates for the adoption of an integrated approach to peace operations training, putting greater emphasis on comprehensive, people-centered approaches and contextual analysis.
How The Joint Strike Fighter Seeks To Preserve Air Supremacy For Decades To Come
Since its inception in 2001, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program has cleared several technical and political hurdles as it is nearing the end of its development stage, formally known as System Development and Demonstration (SDD), which is expected to be completed in the spring of 2018. The JSF is designed to be a game changer – with the combined air-to- air and air-to-surface capabilities – which means that it can both support ground troops and naval forces – when it comes to targeting enemy strategic targets during warfare. The JSF, also known as the F-35 Lightning II Program, can also operate in areas where the F-16 cannot. Furthermore, the JSF program has established comprehensive planning processes that seek to identify and analyze technological advances by adversaries such as North Korea, Russia, China and Iran as they seek to respectively close their military gaps with Washington.
The Lebanese army after the Syrian crisis: Alienating the Sunni community?
This chapter analyses Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) attempts to deal with security threats in the wake of the Syrian crisis and the implications for relations with Lebanon’s Sunni community. Examining incidents where the LAF has been accused of targeting and conspiring to kill Sunni clerics, the authors analyse the growing discontent among Lebanese Sunnis who are opposed to the military role of Hizbollah in Syria. Since the 2011 Syrian revolt, the LAF has been accused of being a partisan institution, reflecting the growing influence of militant jihadist movements targeting the army. The lack of a national defence strategy has forced the army to intervene on a case-by-case basis in a context of sectarian unrest. However, in contrast to the situation in Shia-majority areas controlled by one dominant actor, Hizbollah, the Sunni ‘scene’ emerges as more fragmented.
Situating (In-)Security: A United Army for a Divided Country?
This volume examines Lebanon’s post-2011 security dilemmas and the tenuous civil-military relations. The Syrian civil war has strained the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) cohesion and threatens its neutrality – its most valued assets in a divided society. The spill-over from the Syrian civil war and Hezbollah’s military engagement has magnified the security challenges facing the Army, making it a target. Massive foreign grants have sought to strengthen its military capability, stabilize the country and contain the Syria crisis. However, as this volume demonstrates, the real weakness of the LAF is not its lack of sophisticated armoury, but the fragile civil–military relations that compromise its fighting power, cripple its neutrality and expose it to accusations of partisanship and political bias. This testifies to both the importance of and the challenges facing multi-confessional armies in deeply divided countries.
The Mosul campaign: Winning the war, losing the peace?
After three years and a costly war, which recently destroyed the great al-Nouri mosque in Mosul, the military defeat of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq is imminent. The Mosul offensive is a test case for both Iraq and for the international coalition; if it succeeds, it could be used as a model to be applied elsewhere in the region, such as in Raqqa. If it fails to create stability in Nineveh and Iraq, a new radical group may emerge, with far-reaching consequences. There are at least four essential reasons for concern. The first is the lack of a real Iraqi and regional coalition against ISIS. The reluctance of regional actors to work together against ISIS makes the ideological battle against it difficult. Governments in the Middle East do not consider ISIS their prime enemy; for instance, for Turks, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and not ISIS, is the main terrorist group. The Saudi-Iran rivalry takes priority over the regional battle against ISIS and fuels sectarianisation and extremism in both camps.
Liban : les paradoxes du salafisme jihadisme levantin
Le Liban est un contre-exemple des recherches sur la guerre civile, qui souvent surévaluent le potentiel de contagion transfrontalière des conflits. En dépit de nombreux facteurs qui aurait pu entraîner l’expansion au Liban de la crise en Syrie, les débordements restent limités, comparés à la violence de l’autre côté de la frontière. Malgré les liens historiques étroits entre les champs islamistes syrien et libanais, le nombre de Libanais sunnites ayant rejoint les djihadistes en Syrie est réduit (environ 1 000 personnes). C’est avant tout la surenchère confessionnelle et la rancune vis-à-vis du Hezbollah qui pourraient entraîner un nombre plus important de jeunes sunnites vers la prise d’armes. Si Daech ou Al-Qaïda misent sur cette option, et si les frustrations politiques et économiques d’une partie des sunnites ne s’atténuent pas sous le nouveau gouvernement, les risques de violence et de discorde civile, à long terme, demeurent plus que réels.
Limiting violent spill-over in civil wars. The paradoxes of Lebanese Sunni jihadism. 2011-2017
Research on violent spillovers in civil war has often exaggerated the potential for conflict contagion. The case of Lebanon is a counter-example. Despite the massive pressure of the horrific war in next-door Syria, it has, against all odds, remained remarkably stable – despite the influx of more than 1 million Syrian refugees and almost complete institutional blockage. This paper, based on ethnographic research and semi-structured interviews from Lebanon, studies the determination to avoid a violent spillover into Lebanon from the perspective of the country’s Sunni Islamists. Recent trends in the scholarly literature have shown that Islamists are not inherently revolutionary, nor always dogmatists, and often serve many social purposes at home. The main argument is that the Syrian war has not been imported into Lebanon; instead, the Lebanese conflict is externalized to Syria. Lebanon’s conflicting factions, including the Islamists, have found the costs of resorting to violence inside Lebanon to be too high. Even those Lebanese Sunnis who have crossed the borders to fight in Syria do so because of domestic reasons, that is, to fight against Hezbollah on Syria soil, where they can do so without risking an explosion of the Lebanese security situation. Sectarianism, in the sense of opposition to Hezbollah and the Lebanese Shia, is the main driver of radicalization for Lebanese Sunnis.
Civil-Military Relations in Lebanon. Conflict, Cohesion and Confessionalism in a Divided Society
This volume examines Lebanon’s post-2011 security dilemmas and the tenuous civil-military relations. The Syrian civil war has strained the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) cohesion and threatens its neutrality – its most valued assets in a divided society. The spill-over from the Syrian civil war and Hezbollah’s military engagement has magnified the security challenges facing the Army, making it a target. Massive foreign grants have sought to strengthen its military capability, stabilize the country and contain the Syria crisis. However, as this volume demonstrates, the real weakness of the LAF is not its lack of sophisticated armoury, but the fragile civil–military relations that compromise its fighting power, cripple its neutrality and expose it to accusations of partisanship and political bias. This testifies to both the importance of and the challenges facing multi-confessional armies in deeply divided countries.
Conclusion: Are Rising Powers Breaking the Peacebuilding Mold?
In this concluding chapter we analyze the peacebuilding concepts, policies and practices of the group of rising powers - Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey – that we have chosen to focus on in this book. We find that these countries share a number of approaches, but note that they also diverge in several areas. The rising powers have a broader concept of peacebuilding than most Western donor countries, but the extent to which they equate peacebuilding with development varies. They have a more holistic operational approach, they have a longer time horizon and a strong emphasis on national ownership, but the latter is often narrowed down to governmental consent. They share a heightened sensitivity to sovereignty, but negotiate this in a variety of different ways. It is also possible that rising powers will adopt more results-based and shorter-term approaches. We find that the rising powers have influenced the discourse and practices of peacebuilding, especially at the United Nations, but have not transformed them. Several recent setbacks raise doubts about whether rising powers will sustain their new influential role in peacebuilding. Our research show that rising powers have set forth a broadly coherent set of principles and rationales as the basis for their new approach to peacebuilding. These principles and practices, and especially their results, are likely to influence how Western donors, the UN, regional organizations and non-governmental organizations approach peacebuilding in important ways in the coming years.