{"title":"Protecting hidden infrastructure: The security politics of the global submarine data cable network","authors":"Christian Bueger, Tobias Liebetrau","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1907129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1907129","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Undersea communication cables are the core critical infrastructure of the digital age. 99% of all transoceanic digital communication—financial transactions, emails, or voice messaging—is transported through undersea fiber-optic cables. The global submarine cable network is a critical infrastructure that does not receive the analytical attention it deserves. We argue that cable security is a core dimension of current and future international security governance. We present the first systematic survey of the academic discourses that investigate the politics, governance, and protection of submarine data cables. Three rather narrow literatures study the cables (1) as under threat from hybrid warfare and terrorism, or treat the cable network narrowly as a (2) technical or (3) regulatory problem. We demonstrate the need for broadening out the research agenda and addressing key questions of security governance and geopolitics of this increasingly critical infrastructure.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2021.1907129","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45065496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The regulation of private military and security companies: Analyzing power in multi-stakeholder initiatives","authors":"B. Prem","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1897225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1897225","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article studies the limitations of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) relating to Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs). It draws attention to three distinct ways in which power operates in and around MSIs: rules, structural positions, and discourses. Based on an analysis of two MSIs, it shows that these governance initiatives strengthen the perspectives of stakeholders that consider PMSCs as normal and legitimate security actors. Western governments and like-minded actors have used the Swiss Initiative and the International Code of Conduct for Security Service Providers to bypass the less privatization-friendly process in the United Nations. MSIs equally perform an important legitimizing function for PMSCs through their discourses and practices. Finally, participants of the MSIs have relegated critical voices, weakening their ability to partake in governing the PMSC industry. By studying the limitations of MSIs through a power-analytical lens, this article therefore points at an important but overlooked dimension.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2021.1897225","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41347097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The ambiguity of hybrid warfare: A qualitative content analysis of the United Kingdom's political–military discourse on Russia's hostile activities","authors":"Silvie Janičatová, P. Mlejnková","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1885921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1885921","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, hybrid warfare has become a widely used yet ambiguous term to describe Russia's hostile activities. In academic publications and policy documents, there have been a plethora of different definitions and concepts to make sense of hybrid warfare. This article takes a bottom-up approach and analyzes the discourse of political and military representatives in the United Kingdom to explore how they understand hybrid warfare by Russia and what the implications are for defense policy. Using qualitative content analysis with quantitative aspects, the results show not only a range of different terms used to describe Russia's hostile activities, but also that the discussed topics do not reflect one particular definition of hybrid warfare. The analysis further reveals that representatives highlight non-military aspects of hybrid warfare over the military ones and consider the role of defense policy dependent on the nature of a particular hybrid threat.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2021.1885921","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44453369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Peace operations are what states make of them: Why future evolution is more likely than extinction","authors":"K. P. Coleman, Paul D. Williams","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1882802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1882802","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Peace operations are a highly resilient international institution for managing armed conflict. Their resilience derives from what constructivists in International Relations theory call collective intentionality and the malleable constitutive rules that define and structure such missions. Despite a range of current constraints, challenges, and crises, peace operations are unlikely to become extinct unless a critical mass of states consistently withdraw material support for them and explicitly denigrate the concept of peace operations itself. We see little evidence that both these things are likely to occur. However, the constitutive rules guiding peace operations are likely to continue to evolve due to ideational and material changes. While the proliferation of actors and mission types makes precise predictions impossible, we expect an evolution both in how various actors define their own peace operations and how these actors relate to each other.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2021.1882802","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47769579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The crafting of alliance cohesion among insurgents: The case of al-Qaeda affiliated groups in the Sahel region","authors":"Troels Burchall Henningsen","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1876455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1876455","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In spite of several international interventions to contain and degrade militant groups in the Sahel region, al-Qaeda affiliated groups have managed to retain their alliance and even spread and intensify their use of violence. This article explains the cohesion of the insurgency alliance as the outcome of a number of sound strategic decisions. By applying a framework of irregular strategy, the article examines the processes of early adaption to pre-existing social networks and the subsequent shaping through political, violent, and communicative lines of effort. Although the primary purpose of the strategy was not alliance cohesion, the result is that al-Qaeda related networks cooperate across ethnic and social cleavages, despite the many setbacks and dilemmas that local politics generate. The article adds an agency-oriented perspective to the growing literature on insurgency fragmentation and cohesion, which are major factors in the outcome of civil wars.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2021.1876455","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44225142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The dual-use security dilemma and the social construction of insecurity","authors":"Amir Lupovici","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2020.1866845","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2020.1866845","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this article I introduce the concept of the “dual-use security dilemma,” specifically through elaborating on two main aspects that shape this dilemma. First, inspired by traditional security scholarship, I focus on the spiral dynamics of actors responding to the insecurities raised by dual-use technologies that affect this type of dilemma. Second, I further develop a securitization reading of the traditional security dilemma, tracing how social constructions of insecurities and the justification of extraordinary measures affect the dynamics of the security dilemma. Combining these two aspects, I suggest that enunciators shape the dynamics of the dual-use security dilemma by using specific rationales of insecurity to mobilize support for measures against opponents holding dual-use technologies, whose response further fuels insecurity that spirals over time. The innovative theoretical and policy implications of this research become especially important given the rise of dual-use cyber technologies.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2020.1866845","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44345568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Everyday visuality and risk management: Representing (in)security in UN peacekeeping","authors":"E. Krahmann","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2020.1847800","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2020.1847800","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Visuality is a central aspect of everyday security governance. In the recent visual turn in International Relations, however, the more mundane and routine visualities of security have been widely neglected. To address this gap, this article proposes a framework for analyzing the messages of security and risk conveyed by different modes of visual representations, ranging from press photos and educational images to outwardly appearances. Taking the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) as an example, it shows that everyday visual representations reflect and contribute to security risk management in four ways: (1) They assist in the construction of self and other identities with regard to security, (2) they help to identify potential vulnerabilities, (3) they are used to educate people how to detect, assess, and behave in risky situations, and (4) they are employed to deter violent attacks.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2020.1847800","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43855275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Predictors of support for a ban on killer robots: Preventive arms control as an anticipatory response to military innovation","authors":"Ondřej Rosendorf","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2020.1845935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2020.1845935","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Many see the advent of lethal autonomous weapon systems as the next revolution in military affairs. Currently, some 30 countries share the view that these weapons should be preemptively banned, but we know relatively little about their motivations. This study contributes to the growing literature on “killer robots” by theorizing preventive arms control as an anticipatory response to military innovation. I suggest that states prefer preventive arms control when they lack capacities or incentives to pursue innovation in the first place. I analyze a cross-sectional dataset on national positions toward the ban on autonomous weapons and demonstrate that the probability of support for preventive prohibition decreases with increasing financial and technological capacities. Both democracies and autocracies are less likely to support the ban than mixed regimes. Conversely, states with strong humanitarian orientation and high socialization within specific arms control regimes are more likely to support the ban.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2020.1845935","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43113579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Addressing the security needs of adolescent girls in protracted crises: Inclusive, responsive, and effective?","authors":"E. Gordon, Katrina Lee-Koo","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2020.1826149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2020.1826149","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Adolescent girls face significant and often unique forms of insecurity in protracted crises. Yet, their specific needs tend to be overlooked by international agencies, and they are rarely consulted as programs are developed and implemented. Drawing from field research conducted in four crisis contexts—Lake Chad (Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon), South Sudan and Uganda, Lebanon (Beirut), and Bangladesh (Cox’s Bazar)—this article explores the experiences of insecurity that adolescent girls face in crisis contexts, and the extent to which responses to their needs are inclusive, responsive, and effective. Employing literature from inclusive peacebuilding, the article argues that marginalizing adolescent girls in the development and implementation of programs compromises the ability for such programs to be responsive to their needs. Moreover, it misses the opportunity to employ their skills, knowledge, and strengths to build resilience and security within their communities.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2020.1826149","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46871983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Changes to the editorial board","authors":"H. Dijkstra","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2020.1849961","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2020.1849961","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13523260.2020.1849961","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48522859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}