Mapping The Emerging Strategic Stability And Arms Control Landscape
Our nuclear world is changing, and this will have significant impacts on strategic stability and arms control. This is being driven by a mixture of technological, geopolitical and normative forces. Technological change and innovation are facilitating new types of strategic weaponry and missions. These have the potential to challenge established notions of deterrence and create nuclear risks. The combination of an emerging system of nuclear great-power multipolarity at the same time as a growth in “nuclear nationalism” and a return of bellicose nuclear rhetoric and statecraft are challenging traditional power balances, arms control and nuclear stability based on restraint. This is all taking place within a bifurcating global nuclear environment characterised on one side by normative challenges to the established nuclear order and increasing demands for nuclear energy, and on the other with a resurgence in the political salience of nuclear weapons. Taken together, this suggests that we are arguably on the cusp of a new “nuclear age” where we will need to rethink the rules of the nuclear game and how we prevent nuclear use.
NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept – Change, Continuity and Implications
Evolving Japan–NATO Relations in the Leadup to the Madrid Summit
In response to growing security concerns in East Asia, Japan has increased its engagement with NATO at both the organisational and individual member-state level.
The Ukraine War and Food Security: Consequences for Norway’s Partner Countries
The war in Ukraine is causing disruptions in global food supplies, with grave consequences for many developing countries. Both Ukraine and Russia are significant food exporters and major producers of fertiliser ingredients. However, the effects of the war will vary significantly between different countries. Some countries rely on supplies from Russia and Ukraine. Others are less dependent on food imports but depend on Russian and Ukrainian import of fertilisers. Yet others will mainly be affected by general global price increases, especially in the long-term perspective (within the next three years). However, most of Norway’s partner countries are largely self-reliant in food. For them, the main problems caused by the war are the following: - Increased prices for fertilizers - Higher energy prices and higher interest rates - Increased risk of political instability and conflict - Cuts in aid In this situation, Norway should do the following: - Avoid cuts in aid to partner countries to fund support to Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees - Increase food support to countries most affected by drought and conflict - Support partner countries’ supply of fertilisers - Consider debt relief to countries negatively affected by price increases on energy and higher interest rates. Research for this report was funded by NORAD.
Craig Moffat
Craig Moffat was a Senior Research Fellow in the Research group on peace, conflict and development.
RESOLVED: Japan Should Maintain Investments in Russian Oil and Gas Projects
In this issue of Debating Japan, experts assess Japan’s investments in Russian oil and gas and whether Japan should fully divest from Russian energy.
Networked territoriality: A processual–relational view on the making (and makings) of regions in world politics
This article proposes a processual–relational perspective on region-making and its effects in world politics. It revisits the concepts of regionalism and regionalisation to unearth the relational mechanisms underlying these archetypical pathways of regional emergence. Regionalism refers to the bounding of regions – the definition of its inside and outside, and of which actors fall on either side. Regionalisation denotes the binding of regions, the amalgamations of relations around a shared territoriality. I argue that regions affect world politics in their making through the boundaries raised and relations produced in the process. I then mobilise network theory and analysis to propose a framework for studying the making and makings of regions. Regions’ binding and bounding are rooted in brokerage dynamics that sustain clusters of relations denser inside a regional boundary, rather than outside, and allow some actors to control interactions across that boundary. I illustrate this framework with a case study on the emergence of the Amazon as a region in world politics. I analyse interaction networks in UN-level environmental negotiations involving the ecosystem. The analysis shows how the making of the Amazon has been tied to preserving the position of Amazonian states as the main brokers, speaking for and acting on behalf of the region.
Re-imagining African—Nordic relations in a changing global order
This study asks how the special relationship between countries in Africa and the Nordic region may be affected by a changing global order, that the African-Nordic cooperation can continue to evolve and remain relevant for both regions. The meeting in Helsinki on 14 June 2022 is the 20th meeting of the forum of African–Nordic Foreign Ministers. The forum was established in 2000 between five Nordic countries and ten African countries. It was intended to emphasize the political importance of Africa and to demonstrate that Africa–Nordic relations went beyond development cooperation. The forum meets alternately and rotates among African and Nordic countries and African hosts have included Benin, Botswana, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania. The number of African countries expanded over time and now numbers around 25. The annual meeting is an opportunity to consolidate the special relationship between African and Nordic countries and creates a space where political issues of mutual concern can be discussed. As such, it has helped to broaden the African–Nordic relations beyond development cooperation and towards a more politically-oriented and interest-based strategic partnership. Beyond the annual foreign ministers meeting, the other aspect the report looks into is what the sum-total of African-Nordic bilateral relations in the areas of trade, development, peace and security and multilateral cooperation reveals about the status of the overall relationship. Africa pursues strategic partnerships that helps it to develop and strengthen the continent’s economic potential, political identity, and its role on the global stage. In this study we pay particular attention to Africa’s relationship with China, Europe, India, Russia and Turkey. One of the dominant features of Africa’s international relations has been its non-alignment. African countries have been careful to seek partnerships with many different states and regions, without being pulled into any one alliance that may prevent it from also gaining support for its development from others. Therefore, in its strategic partnerships, African countries seeks engagements that will help it to grow its economies.
Re-imagining African-Nordic relations in a changing global order
Webinar: Europe’s green transition – Opportunities and barriers for EU-Norway cooperation
To what extent Norway is an important element of the Commission’s vision of transition under the EGD, in which sectors beyond oil and gas are Norway’s contributions expected and welcome, and what obstacles to this partnership exist due to its non-member status?