NATO facing challenges from the Arctic to the Black Sea Region
Which challenges do NATO face on its Eastern flanks in the years to come? LSE IDEAS, the New Strategy Center Bucharest, and NUPI invite you to a one day conference.
The Dangers of Disconnection: Oscillations in Political Violence on Lake Chad
Narrations on fragility and resilience in the Sahel paint a picture about the region’s inherent ungovernability that lead to consider an endless state- and peace-building process as the most feasible governance solution. Everyday practices of violent entrepreneurship, coalescing with inter-community and land-tenure conflicts, now inform social relations and are transforming moral economies around Lake Chad. While competition over territory suitable for farming, grazing and fishing has intensified, dispute-settlement practices organised by community-level authorities have proven ineffective and lacking the necessary means to respond to the encroachment of a wide range of interests claimed by increasingly powerful actors. Meanwhile, communities organised in self-defence militias are undergoing a process of progressive militarisation that tends to normalise violence and legitimise extra-judicial vigilante justice, further empowering capital-endowed arms suppliers gravitating in the jihadi galaxy, such as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
The Nuclear Umbrella Revisited
The NPT is in miserable shape, betrayed on the disarmament dimension, stuck in the Middle East and mostly irrelevant to the Asian nuclear armed states, but it has proven resilient and lingers on. It will soon be accompanied by the TPNW, which is about to enter into force. Hopefully, the wrangling between the respective treaty supporters will calm down and enable a new consensus on the normative basis for non-proliferation and disarmament consisting of a combination of both treaties. That will not happen overnight, however. There is a long way from mutual recriminations to passive co-existence to bridge-building to exploitation of synergies – if it ever happens. The dilemma facing the umbrella states is a hard one. On the one hand, it is in their interest not to be defended with nuclear weapons. On the other hand, they deem it important to remain members of NATO. These propositions may or may not be compatible. Some believe they are, emphasising that the Alliance is a conglomerate of nuclear and non-nuclear states; of states that are hosting nuclear weapons and others which do not; and that France left the military part of NATO but remained part of the political cooperation without rocking the rest. Others claim they are not and note that in the face of big power pressure, small states tend to balk at running the risks involved – especially if they cannot agree to act together. Business as usual is the problem, not the solution. In view of current trends in international security affairs there can be little disagreement about that. If so, much is achieved, because it encourages reflection and re-examination of established positions. If not, the strength of argument will remain posited against the power of inertia.
Naming and shaming of cyber intruders – does it work?
Last month Norwegian authorities made the rather unusual decision to call out - to attribute - Russia for being behind a cyber operation towards the Norwegian parliament. NUPI’s Cybersecurity Centre has the pleasure to invite to a webinar with Professor Madeline Carr. She will provide an overview of why attribution in cyberspace is difficult, the challenges of not being able to attribute - and different options on how to deal with this issue.
Missiles, Vessels and Active Defence What Potential Threat Do the Russian Armed Forces Represent?
In 2019, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, presented a ‘strategy of active defence’, a possible prelude to the forthcoming Russian military doctrine. This article examines this strategy with particular emphasis on the role of precision-guided missiles, tactical nuclear weapons and the role of the navy. It provides insights on the shape of new Russian military doctrine and the military threat Russia might represent to the West. Maren Garberg Bredesen and Karsten Friis conclude that the active defence concept may imply a lowering of the use-of-force threshold. Russia’s continued build-up of tactical nuclear weapons integrated into the conventional forces reinforces this concern.
Spiraling toward a New Cold War in the North? The Effect of Mutual and Multifaceted Securitization
Building on a discourse-theoretical reading of securitization theory, this article theorizes and examines how two political entities can become locked in a negative spiral of identification that may lead to a violent confrontation. Through mutual and multifaceted securitization, each party increasingly construes the other as a threat to itself. When this representation spreads beyond the military domain to other dimensions (trade, culture, diplomacy), the other party is projected as “different” and “dangerous” at every encounter: positive mutual recognition is gradually blocked out. Military means then become the logical, legitimate way of relating: contact and collaboration in other issue-areas are precluded. Drawing on official statements 2014–2018, this article investigates how Norwegian–Russian relations shifted from being a collaborative partnership to one of enmity in the High North. The emerging and mutual pattern of representing the other as a threat across issue-areas since 2014 has become an “autonomous” driver of conflict—regardless of whether either party might originally have had offensive designs on the other.
The Nordic Balance Revisited: Differentiation and the Foreign Policy Repertoires of the Nordic States
Nordic governments frequently broadcast their ambition to do more together on the international stage. The five Nordic states (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway) also share many basic goals as foreign policy actors, including a steadfast and vocal commitment to safeguarding the ‘rules-based international order.’ Why then, do we not see more organized Nordic foreign policy collaboration, for example in the form of a joint ‘grand strategy’ on core foreign policy issues, or in relation to great powers and international organizations? In this article, we draw on Charles Tilly’s concept of ‘repertoires’ to address the discrepancy between ambitions and developments in Nordic foreign policy cooperation, highlighting how the bundles of policy instruments—repertoires—that each Nordic state has developed over time take on an identity-defining quality. We argue that the Nordic states have invested in and become attached to their foreign policy differences, niches, and ‘brands.’ On the international scene, and especially when interacting with significant other states, they tend not only to stick to what they know how to do and are accustomed to doing but also to promote their national rather than their Nordic profile. While Nordic cooperation forms part of all the five states’ foreign policy repertoire in specific policy areas, these are marginal compared to the distinctive repertoires on which each Nordic state rely in relation to more powerful states. It is therefore unlikely that we will see a ‘common order’ among the Nordic states in the foreign policy domain in the near future.
Liberal fred
Over the last years, the EU has become a more important actor in international security relations. Whereas its core objective used to be to prevent a return to Europe's bloody past, EU is now increasingly a defender of liberal values and the international order. In Norway, this security dimension of the Union has not been very present in the EU-debate. But is should be now.
Hvorfor sier regjeringen nei til forsvarsfondet?
The Norwegian government has decided not to join the European Defence Fund (EDF) at this stage - despite having lobbied for an invitation to be included for years.
Intergovernmental checkmate on cyber? Processes on cyberspace in the United Nations
Cyberspace is an increasingly controversial field on the international agenda. Despite the fact that processes on the thematic have been going on in the UN since 1998, a more significant international agreement is needed on what basic principles should apply in cyberspace. Small states have the opportunity of pushing cybersecurity as a thematic priority in the United Nations Security Council – a path Norway could pursue in its forthcoming 2021–2022 Security Council term. The attribution of the assumed Russian cyber operations toward the Norwegian parliament earlier this year actualizes the addressing of the issue in the Council. The policy brief discusses the GGE negotiations on cyberspace in 2015 and 2017 - and gives policy recommendations on the way forward.