{"title":"When is it legitimate to abandon the NPT? Withdrawal as a political tool to move nuclear disarmament forward","authors":"Joelien Pretorius, Tom Sauer","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.2009695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.2009695","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Treaties can be denounced and withdrawn from unilaterally and collectively. We ask when it would be legitimate to abandon the NPT, a treaty that 50 years ago committed states to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, but still has not delivered on the latter. The end of the NPT is a taboo subject in the arms control community that sees it as the cornerstone of the nuclear order. We draw on literature on the legitimacy of and exit from international institutions. We especially explore the political substance of the discontent that the non-nuclear weapons states have expressed in and outside the NPT forum. Exiting the NPT can legitimately be used as a political tool to challenge the current status quo where five states claim a right to possess nuclear weapons based on the NPT, and to achieve a nuclear order where nuclear weapons are illegal for all.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42538496","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":"Durable institution under fire? The NPT confronts emerging multipolarity","authors":"R. Gibbons, Stephen Herzog","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1998294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1998294","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The regime built around the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has helped curtail the spread of nuclear arms for fifty years. In hindsight, it is remarkable only nine states possess the world’s most powerful weapon. The NPT achieved much success during Cold War bipolarity and U.S. unipolarity in its aftermath. But today, China’s rise and Russia’s resurgence have ushered in a new era of emerging multipolarity. Can the treaty withstand the potential challenges of this dynamic environment? There is a real risk that multipolarity may shake the scaffolding of the nonproliferation regime, presenting a significant test to the NPT’s durability. This article identifies four essential elements of the nonproliferation regime: widespread membership, adaptability, enforcement, and fairness. History suggests bipolarity and unipolarity in the international system largely sustained and promoted these NPT features. When international regimes lack such elements, it sharply curtails their long-term efficacy.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47783618","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":"Transformation of alliances: Mapping Russia’s close relationships in the era of multivectorism","authors":"Ecaterina Locoman, M. Papa","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1994692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1994692","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Russia led a key Cold War alliance and is now at the forefront of debates about major power realignments. Yet Russia’s own conceptualization of alliances in the post-Soviet era has received scant attention. How do Russian policymakers and academics view Russia’s post-Cold War alliances: Are they obsolete, or are they still used for cultivating strategic relationships? We examine the Russian conceptualization of alliances through a systematic study of Russian policy documents and academic debates between 1991 and 2019. We find that traditional alliances are considered ineffective and defense commitments have declined. However, we challenge claims that alliances are obsolete and that alignments/multivectorism have replaced them. Russian regional alliances are cultivated for new purposes and coexist with various other institutional forms. We conceptually map Russia’s close relationships and argue that alliance scholarship needs to move away from a single entity focus toward conceptualizations based on institutional choices.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48883899","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":"A wolf in sheep’s clothing? The NPT and symbolic proliferation","authors":"O. Noda","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1983699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1983699","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT I argue that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) not only fails to address non-quantitative forms of nuclear proliferation, but also acts as a proliferator of the symbolic values of nuclear weapons. Drawing from Semiotics scholarship, I identify two symbolic roles played by the NPT: as a symbol in itself and as a symbolic proliferator. To support my argument, I employ document and critical discourse analyses, examining the text of the treaty as well as statements from selected nuclear weapon states (NWS) and non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) at the 2015 NPT Review Conference (RevCon). This article is structured in two sections: Firstly, I put forward an analytical framework focused on symbolism, exploring the symbolic role of nuclear weapons. Secondly, I turn my attention to the NPT, examining its role and success in the past 50 years employing the symbolic analytical framework.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59721052","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":"Politics is not everything: New perspectives on the public disclosure of intelligence by states","authors":"Ofek Riemer","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1994238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1994238","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Why do states deliberately disclose hard-earned intelligence? For political and operational reasons, Official Public Intelligence Disclosure (OPID) is often considered counterintuitive and ill-advised. However, as this practice proliferates in international affairs in recent years, extant scholarship emphasizes domestic political incentives for its employment. Drawing on interviews with policy, defense, and media figures in Israel, this article generates alternative perspectives. First, in keeping with the dictates of contemporary information and media environment, states engage in OPID as a performative act designed to enhance diplomacy and shape international agenda. Second, in the age of limited wars, instead of being amassed purely for large-scale escalation, selective disclosure of intelligence can be weaponized against adversaries whose operations and very survival depend on secrecy, so as to shape their behavior below the threshold of war. The article advances our understanding of the innovative ways in which intelligence can be strategically employed in the information age.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41278644","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":"Externalizing EU crisis management: EU orchestration of the OSCE during the Ukrainian conflict","authors":"Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1985287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1985287","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Despite the Lisbon Treaty's modifications in the foreign and security policy domain, the EU has frequently relied on third parties to address external conflicts and crises. Using the Ukrainian conflict as a case study, this article adopts the orchestration model to explain why and how the EU enlists intermediary actors over which it has no formal control to pursue its objectives. It finds that in this conflict the EU outsourced part of its crisis management activities to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe because it lacked the civilian and military capabilities, as well as the regulatory competence and reputation to challenge Russia. Indeed, the Ukrainian case shows that orchestration has emerged as a crucial governance arrangement for the functioning of EU crisis management, raising serious questions about the EU overall capacity to act as a security provider in an international system marred by contestation and hard security concerns.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45181808","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":"A machine learning approach to the study of German strategic culture","authors":"Jonathan Tappe, Fredrik Doeser","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1992150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1992150","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article introduces supervised machine learning to the study of German strategic culture, analyzing both how German strategic culture has changed and the impact of strategic culture on Germany's military engagement between 1990 and 2017. In contrast with previous qualitative research on strategic culture, supervised machine learning can yield measurable and empirical insights into strategic culture and its effects at any given point in time over a very long period, based on the reproduction of human coding of a very extensive set of security policy documents. The article shows that German strategic culture has changed slowly and in a nonlinear way after the Cold War, and that strategic culture, when controlling for confounding variables and the temporal order, has a measurable impact on Germany's military engagement. The article demonstrates the analytical value of machine learning for future studies of strategic culture.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47662444","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 limitations of strategic narratives: The Sino-American struggle over the meaning of COVID-19","authors":"Linus Hagström, Karl Gustafsson","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1984725","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1984725","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 Recent research has explored how the Sino-American narrative struggle around COVID-19 might affect power shift dynamics and world order. An underlying assumption is that states craft strategic narratives in attempts to gain international support for their understandings of reality. This article evaluates such claims taking a mixed-methods approach. It analyzes American and Chinese strategic narratives about the pandemic, and their global diffusion and resonance in regional states that are important to the U.S.-led world order: Australia, India, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. While the article confirms that strategic narratives remain a highly popular policy instrument, it argues that their efficacy appears limited. Overall, the five states in question either ignored the Sino-American narrative power battle by disseminating their own strategic narratives, or they engaged in “narrative hedging.” Moreover, even China’s narrative entrepreneurship was enabled and constrained by pre-existing master narratives integral to the current U.S.-led world order.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48095800","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":"Not by NPT alone: The future of the global nuclear order","authors":"J. Knopf","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1983243","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1983243","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) constitutes just one component of broader arrangements that provide global nuclear governance. In recent decades, the other props in the global nuclear order beyond its nonproliferation elements have been eroding, thereby putting more weight on the contributions of the NPT and other aspects of the nonproliferation regime. Unfortunately, recent progress in building up the NPT-based nonproliferation regime seems also to have halted. This article outlines the elements of the global nuclear order and identifies signs of erosion in that order. It discusses whether a greater commitment to nuclear disarmament might help counter that erosion and highlights the underlying cognitive dimension of efforts to avoid nuclear war.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42235006","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":"Global Britain in the grey zone: Between stagecraft and statecraft","authors":"Vladimir Rauta, S. Monaghan","doi":"10.1080/13523260.2021.1980984","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1980984","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The United Kingdom’s integrated defense and security review put “grey zone” or “hybrid” challenges at the center of national security and defense strategy. The United Kingdom is not alone: The security and defense policies of NATO, the European Union, and several other countries (including the United States, France, Germany, and Australia) have taken a hybrid-turn in recent years. This article attempts to move the hybrid debate toward more fertile ground for international policymakers and scholars by advocating a simple distinction between threats and warfare. The United Kingdom’s attempts to grapple with its own hybrid policy offer a national case study in closing the gap between rhetoric and practice, or stagecraft and statecraft, before an avenue of moving forward is proposed—informally, through a series of questions, puzzles, and lessons from the British experience—to help international policy and research communities align their efforts to address their own stagecraft-statecraft dichotomies.","PeriodicalId":46729,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Security Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49446863","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}