A Governance and Risk Inventory for a Changing Arctic
Background Paper for the Arctic Security Roundtable at the Munich Security Conference 2020
The Case for Integrating Sustaining Peace into an Expanded Climate, Peace and Security Concept
Sverige, Finland og NATO.
Våre naboland Sverige og Finland har alltid stått utenfor forsvarsalliansen NATO, men da Russland angrep Ukraina endret svensk og finsk politikk seg på kort tid. "Dette er en god dag i en kritisk tid for vår sikkerhet", sa NATO-sjef Jens Stoltenberg da han mottok søknadene om medlemskap fra Sverige og Finland i mai. Hvordan vil dette påvirke sikkerhetspolitikken i Norden?
End of an era: Future of Nordic security from a Finnish perspective
With the full-scale attack on Ukraine, Russia crossed a red line for Finland, prompting the country to abandon its long-term military non-alignment policy and seek NATO membership. Finland is thus moving away from the decades-long emphasis on good relations with its eastern neighbour and instead towards the clearest possible deterrence posture. The now coherent Alliance membership of all five Nordic countries will unlock new ambition levels in the regional framework of NORDEFCO that were hitherto blocked by Finland and Sweden remaining outside of the NATO command structure.
På hvilke områder har Norge best forutsetninger for å bidra til å styrke det nordiske forsvarssamarbeidet?
Hva skjer med sikkerhets- og forsvarspolitikken i Norden?
Finland og Sverige er på vei inn i NATO, Danmark har avviklet sitt langvarige forsvarsforbehold i EU.
A nuclear future and the evolution of the military dynamic on the Korean peninsula
North Korea’s nuclear program continues unabated and there is little prospect of a resolution to this seemingly intractable issue. The Kim regime, contrary to international law, is developing and testing a series of new missile and nuclear capabilities including more survivable missiles and tactical nuclear weapons that are increasingly difficult to defend against. At the same time, South Korea is investing in a series of conventional capabilities aimed at deterring and defending a North Korean nuclear attack. Consequently, there is increasing concern in the policy and academic discourse about strategic stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Ad-hoc Security Initiatives, an African response to insecurity
This article contends that Ad-hoc Security Initiatives (ASI) have developed over the last decade in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin and represents a new form of African collective security mechanism. The G5 Sahel Force and the Multi-National Joint Task Force emerged from a context-specific need for small clusters of African states to respond collectively to a shared cross-border security threat(s). The existing African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) mechanisms were not specific and responsive enough to meet this emerging need. Despite substantial investments over the last twenty years by the African Union, Regional Economic Community/ Regional Mechanisms and international partners to establish the African Standby Force, this instrument was not agile enough to respond to the type of threats experienced in the greater Sahel region. In this article, we trace the emergence of a new type of ASI, examine how they fill an essential gap and analyse why the African Standby Force was not able to meet this need. We then consider the implications of these developments for the future of the APSA and how closer collaboration between ASIs and APSA can be developed.
Standby security arrangements and deployment setbacks: The case of the African Standby Force
The African Standby Force (ASF) is a key mechanism for advancing African agency in addressing the continent’s peace and security threats. The African Union (AU), regional economic communities (RECs) and regional mechanisms (RMs) have previously deployed stabilisation missions and ad hoc security initiatives (ASIs). Yet these deployments don’t strictly reflect the principles envisaged in the original ASF make-up and authorisation processes. In this report, the authors argue that the future of the ASF future should be seen as an opportunity for the AU and RECs/RMs to standardise the quest for African agency and adopt an agile approach that aims for better partnerships between the RECs, ASIs and member states.