Complex Intersections

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-126
Author(s):  
Louis René Beres
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
Terror Attacks ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Military Necessity

Going forward, Israel’s foreign policy and defense planners will face increasingly complex challenges to the country’s national security. Such core challenges will present themselves in military and jurisprudential terms, and will need to be confronted together, sometimes in their more-or-less plausible interactions or synergies. One area of especially great significance will concern prospective enemy crimes of “perfidy”. Of most plainly urgent importance in this regard would be those circumstances wherein Palestinian and/or Shiite Arab terror attacks could involve weapons of mass destruction. To best avoid such dire circumstances, Israel will have to pay growing attention to certain measured strategies of preemption or “anticipatory self-defense.” Throughout its pertinent military operations, Jerusalem/Tel Aviv will need to heed the always binding expectations of “distinction,” “proportionality,” and “military necessity”, and to acknowledge the ongoing primacy of dispassionate intellectual analysis over any more narrowly political assessments.

Iraq: The Shifting Sands of Preemptive Self-Defense

2003 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Sapiro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
September 11 Terrorist Attacks

The United States articulated a new concept of preventive self-defense last fall that is designed to preclude emerging threats from endangering the country. Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the preventive approach to national security is intended to respond to new threats posed by “shadowy networks of individuals [who] can bring great chaos and suffering to our shores for less than it costs to purchase a single tank.” The Bush administration wisely concluded that it could not rely solely upon a reactive security posture, due to the difficulty in deterring potential attacks by those determined to challenge the United States and the magnitude of harm that could occur from weapons of mass destruction falling into the wrong hands. Although the administration has characterized its new approach as “preemptive,” it is more accurate to describe it as “preventive” self-defense. Rather than trying to preempt specific, imminent tiireats, the goal is to prevent more generalized threats from materializing.

Change on the Horizon

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-32
Author(s):  
David P. Oakley
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Reform Policy ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Intelligence Support ◽  
Defense Reform ◽  
Military Services

By taking the first steps to weaken the powerful military services and establishing a unified DoD, the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 increased the DoD’s influence in US foreign policy while also creating policy and structure that enabled and required future DoD/CIA collaboration. The failures in the field that motivated defense reform were the same failures that initiated discussions on intelligence support to military operations. Reviews of Operation Urgent Fury and the Beirut barracks bombing criticized the lack of intelligence support to commanders. In this regard, the defense reform enacted by Congress through Goldwater-Nichols was the initial phase of broader national security reforms. Although intelligence reform was initially not embraced to the same degree as defense reform, policy makers, motivated by perceived “intelligence failures,” looked to restructure intelligence for a post–Cold War environment.

America, Russia, and the Future of Arms Control

2001 ◽  
Vol 100 (648) ◽  
pp. 323-329
Author(s):  
Jack Mendelsohn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Security Policies ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

The Bush administration's national security policies, if fully and unilaterally implemented, will severely stress United States relations with Russia and China. … These policies would also deal a serious blow to the international treaty regimes developed over the past 30 years to control the spread of weapons of mass destruction and that continue to enjoy universal support and approval.

PROBLEMATIC ISSUES OF UKRAINE'S INFORMATION SECURITY UNDER HYBRID WARFARE

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
pp. 77-84
Author(s):  
I. Saienko ◽  
А. Iefimenko ◽  
O. Rozmaznin ◽  
A. Efimenko
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Psychological Treatment ◽  
Information Policy ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Operational Experience ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
The People ◽  
Hybrid War ◽  
Psychological Operations

The article deals with the problem of providing a unified information policy and the formation of a single information space in the territory of modern Ukraine in the context of escalating threats, faced by our state in the humanitarian sphere, Analysis of the peculiarities of the information-propaganda defining component of modern wars on the example of Russian Federation aggression in Ukraine. The disclosure of this issue in the context of the presented work is caused by the need of a scientific generalization of an existing theoretical and practical operational experience which should help clarify issues not reflected in open domestic and have no thorough, systematic analysis of the aforementioned wars and threats. Solving a certain problem will help ensure the national security of Ukraine through timely decision-making to prevent and eliminate the threats of the so-called "hybrid war". Impossible in modern conditions is to maintain frontal aggressive warfare, the use of weapons of mass destruction. This explains the spread of information wars. They achieve political objectives through global (strategic) psychological operations to shape the positive attitude of the international community to such actions, through the implementation of the psychological treatment of the conflict region, which are subjected to servicemen and the people of enemy.

9/11 and American Foreign Policy

2019 ◽  
pp. 281-302
Author(s):  
Melvyn P. Leffler
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Threat Perception ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Level Of Importance ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Threat Environment

This chapter emphasizes that 9/11 dramatically altered the threat perception of U.S. policymakers. “The greater the threat,” said the strategy statement, “the greater the risk of inaction.” In this new threat environment, policymakers declared that the old tactics of deterrence and containment could not work. Although the employment of preemptive or preventative action was not entirely new in the U.S. diplomatic experience, the emphasis accorded to it was much more pronounced. Threat perception altered tactics, not goals. To justify the new tactics, President George W. Bush raised the rhetorical trope of democracy promotion to a new level of importance, and this was even more true after weapons of mass destruction were not located in Iraq. For this chapter, 9/11 raised interesting and complicated questions about the relationships between interests, values, threat perception, and the employment of power.

Self-Defense in an Imperfect World

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Brown
Keyword(s):  
Specific Problem ◽  
The United States ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
National Security Strategy ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Mere Possession

In his address at West Point on June 1, 2002, President George W. Bush appeared to be signaling America's willingness to regard the mere possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by potential enemies as grounds for an anticipatory war. Historically, however, a clear distinction has been drawn between preemptive and preventive, or anticipatory, war, with the latter regarded as illegitimate. The National Security Strategy announced by the president on September 20, 2002, was more conventional in its approach to preemption, but doubts remain as to whether the old distinction can be preserved. And this discussion is taking place in the context of a specific problem, namely the apparent desire of Iraq to obtain WMD and the determination of the United States, and, less clearly expressed, the UN Security Council, to prevent this from happening.

scholarly journals International terrorism as a political phenomenon. Problems of counteraction

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-48
Author(s):  
Iryna Alekseenko
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Security ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
The State ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Legal Development

One of the main features of international political and legal development is the unresolved problem of national security of the state and international security. This is particularly relevant in the current globalized environment, when the economy, informatization and democratization of international relations create unprecedented opportunities for development, but at the same time increase the vulnerability of the system to terrorism, the use of weapons of mass destruction, etc. Scientists of our time are faced with urgent tasks, the solution of which allows the study of the problems of state creation, especially such important determinants of this process as legal regulation in the field of national and international security of the state in the context of globalization. Proceeding from this,scientific researches in this context, in which the basic principles of organization of national and international security are systematically revealed, are expedient and timely

Conspiracy and foreign policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Aistrope ◽  
Roland Bleiker
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
The One

Conspiracies play a significant role in world politics. States often engage in covert operations. They plot in secret, with and against each other. At the same time, conspiracies are often associated with irrational thinking and delusion. We address this puzzle and highlight the need to see conspiracies as more than just empirical phenomena. We argue that claims about conspiracies should be seen as narratives that are intrinsically linked to power relations and the production of foreign policy knowledge. We illustrate the links between conspiracies, legitimacy and power by examining multiple conspiracies associated with 9/11 and the War on Terror. Two trends are visible. On the one hand, US officials identified a range of conspiracies and presented them as legitimate and rational, even though some, such as the alleged covert development of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, are now widely considered false. On the other hand, conspiracies circulating in the Arab-Muslim world were dismissed as irrational and pathological, even though some, like those concerned with the covert operation of US power in the Middle East, were based on credible concerns.

Nuclear verification in a Middle East WMD-Free Zone: Lessons from Past Verification Cases and Other Precedents

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Critical Importance ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Free Zone ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race

Verification will be of critical importance to achieving and maintaining a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction (ME WMD). Effective verification arrangements would serve a vital national security objective for each state in the region by reducing tensions, removing the motivation to proliferate, and mitigating the risk of a virtual nuclear arms race (or war). In view of the high levels of tension and mistrust within the zone, ensuring effective verification will be especially demanding. The paper examines specific elements of the future nuclear verification of the zone, including: Which states should be included? What prohibitions and obligations should apply in the zone and how would they be verified? How could elimination of nuclear weapons in the zone be achieved? On what basis would the zone treaty enter into force? The paper also examines a number of existing treaties and arrangements as well as the lessons learned from past verification cases which regional states can draw on in developing verification for a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone.

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