Italy

Author(s):  
Fabrizio Coticchia

Since the end of the bipolar era, Italy has regularly undertaken military interventions around the world, with an average of 8,000 units employed abroad in the twenty-first century. Moreover, Italy is one of the principal contributors to the UN operations. The end of the cold war represented a turning point for Italian defence, allowing for greater military dynamism. Several reforms have been approved, while public opinion changed its view regarding the armed forces. This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive perspective of the process of transformation that occurred in post-cold-war Italian defence, looking at the evolution of national strategies, military doctrines, and the structure of forces. After a brief literature review, the study highlights the process of transformation of Italian defeshnce policy since 1989. Through primary and secondary sources, the chapter illustrates the main changes that occurred, the never-ending cold-war legacies, and key challenges.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Rebecca Lissner

More than 75 years after the end of World War II, military interventions—rather than major wars—have emerged as a defining feature of contemporary geopolitics. Yet, for all the fierce policy debates over interventions and their lessons, scholars have largely ignored the systematic linkages between these smaller-scale wars and transformations in the grand strategies of states that prosecute them. This book develops a new theory—the informational theory of strategic adjustment—to explain why military interventions can be crucibles of grand strategy. It argues that, by prosecuting a military intervention, states glean rich and rare information about adversaries’ capabilities and intentions, as well as their own military power and cost tolerance. The uniquely costly nature of warfighting renders this data particularly credible. Amidst background conditions of intense interstate competition and pervasive uncertainty, states face strong incentives to reassess their grand strategies in light of this new information. This process of grand strategic updating begins with a reassessment of the strategic assumptions directly tested on the battlefield, but it doesn’t end there. Indeed, the grand strategic effects of military interventions are far-reaching because information conveyed via warfighting is widely extrapolated to related strategic assessments. This book demonstrates the plausibility of the informational theory of strategic adjustment in three historically detailed case studies that trace the evolution of American grand strategy over the course of the Cold War and into the early post–Cold War era: the Korean, Vietnam, and First Gulf Wars.


1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-200
Author(s):  
Ghiţa Ionescu

The expression post-globalization was chosen here because it is more comprehensive than the now much more popular ‘post-cold war’. While the latter has the advantage of offering a chronological turning point (the formalities of the end of the 1980s), in reality it is only the ideologico-military effect of a series of simultaneous changes in the world brought about in the last decade by the still ongoing and unpredictable information revolution. These changes affect all information and kinds of communication in the whole world and therefore justify the name of globalization - and for the transitional era which follows, of post-globalization in which we now live.


Author(s):  
Tim Dunne ◽  
Eglantine Staunton

It is conventional in IR literature to observe a sharp break between the Cold War and post-Cold War phases in the evolution of human protection norms. The chapter revisits these arguments in conjunction with the cases of India in Pakistan, Vietnam in Cambodia, and Tanzania in Uganda, where unilateral interventions had humanitarian effects but neither humanitarian justifications nor external legitimation. The predominant view regarding these cases is correct; namely, no evidence can be found for the emergence of a norm of legitimate intervention for protection reasons (in the absence of host state consent). However, this perspective underestimates the extent to which there was a consolidation of norms regarding state responsibilities and how these influenced state practice during the post-1945 period. The end of the Cold War should be seen as less of a stark turning point in the history of responsible sovereignty than has previously been believed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinay Kaura

Historically, India–Russia cooperation has largely been dictated by geopolitical factors. During the Cold War era, their relationship was defined by their similar strategic perceptions of the world. However, post-Cold War global politics has seen several transformations in geopolitical and geostrategic configurations, influencing the strategic worldview of both New Delhi and Moscow. Recent political trends demonstrate the growing divergence between the strategic approaches of the two states toward various global issues, including Pakistan and the Taliban. The article discusses the implications of the shift in Russia’s South Asia policy as well as India’s counterterrorism efforts.


Author(s):  
C. Dale Walton

This chapter examines the role played by nuclear weapons in international politics during and after the cold war, making a distinction between the First Nuclear Age and the ongoing Second Nuclear Age. After providing a background on the First Nuclear Age, the chapter considers the various risks present in the Second Nuclear Age, focusing on issues related to nuclear deterrence, nuclear proliferation networks, strategic culture, and ballistic missile defences. It then discusses the assumption that arms control and disarmament treaties are the best means to further counterproliferation efforts. It also assesses the future of nuclear weapons and whether the world is facing a Third Nuclear Age before concluding with an analysis of the relevance of deterrence in the face of changing political and technological circumstances.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Morrison

How does the internal organization of a foreign aid donor affect its aid allocation decisions? Despite the voluminous literature on the political economy of foreign aid, little systematic scholarship exists on this topic. This paper analyzes the allocations of the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's lending arm for the poorest countries, to all eligible countries between 1977 and 2005. While factors such as a country's need and its policy environment have consistently impacted IDA's allocation decisions, other factors have changed in important ways. For example, IDA disbursements do not follow US aid disbursements in the post–Cold War period the way they did during the Cold War. And most strikingly, IDA's allocations have become tightly linked to debt owed to IDA's sister organization, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). While IDA used to shy away from countries with higher debt to the IBRD, the last two decades have seen IDA engage in apparently defensive lending for the IBRD, lending more to countries with outstanding balances to that institution. The results suggest greater focus on the internal structures of donors would yield insight into their allocation decisions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (34) ◽  
pp. 145-156
Author(s):  
Mateusz Ziętarski

Geography can restrain states, or create possibilities to the political activity that states carry out. Following Carl von Clausewitz, one can point to the relation between politics and war. The famous Prussian general claimed that war is an extension of politics made by means of the armed forces. Questions should therefore be posed how geography restrains or stregthens the activity of the armed forces, and how geopolitics determines the functioning of the military. The following article shows the abovementioned imperative in the historical as well as contemporary context. The aim of the study is to place the armed forces in the geopolitical framework and to show the cause-and-effect relationship between the operations of the armed forces and geopolitics. The research is carried out on the time axis: the time analysis is divided into the period of the Second World War, the Cold War and the post-Cold War period.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-85
Author(s):  
Hoshang Noraiee

The tribal structures of the society in Balochistan has strongly influenced Baloch nationalism in Pakistan. The Baloch nationalism has been shaped in the process of widespread politico-tribal rivalry, in the context of a week state in Pakistan interacted with the post-cold war conditions marked by the absence of the Soviet Union hegemonic power, and the processes of globalization. In this framework, the attitudes, scope, and directions of the Baloch nationalism, in this area, have shifted. The radical nationalism predominantly has become more aggressive, more exclusionary, more puritan, and more ethnically oriented. It has become more relaxed in using unethical and deceitful means such as indiscriminate killing, kidnapping, ransom; arm trafficking, and sometimes some of the nationalists, if not directly, gaining benefit from the drug trafficking, and banditry to achieve their objectives. Considering the geopolitical conditions in the whole region, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and the strength of tribal- sardari values associated with inter and intra rivalries, it is not surprising to find a peculiar situation in Balochistan. This research is mainly based on literature review, but also some limited conversations with a few anonymous informants and contacts with some of the Baloch political and community organizations and activists.


2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 873-895
Author(s):  
Vladimir Petrovsky ◽  
Friedrich Kratochwil ◽  
Erwin Lanc

Among many goals which governments and individuals always pursue, the broadest and most common is security. It is the basic context in which most other values are enjoyed, in the expectation that they will last for a long time. However, the meaning of security has always been ambiguous. At the end of the twentieth century the world held great promise: the Cold War was over and we hoped to see a peaceful, secure future after the century of interstate conflicts, taking full advantage of globalization and minimizing its negative effects. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, new challenges to security are looming over the horizon. We are facing today the emergence of a global society, which crosses national borders and makes the world closer economically and technologically.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-57
Author(s):  
Ionuț Alin Cirdei

Abstract In the 21st century, the international scene witnesses major changes in the security environment. There are many actions aimed at redefining spheres of influence and reaffirming states as great powers. The international scene is dominated by two entities that were antagonistic during the Cold War: Russia and NATO. In recent years, Russia is trying to impose itself again as a global actor and is therefore trying to consolidate its power in Europe and the world, both by reforming its armed forces and by participating in various conflicts in the hot zones of the world. Russia perceives NATO as its main adversary, which is trying to get closer to its vital space, reduce its spheres of influence and isolate it. As a reaction, Russia initiated a series of complex actions aimed at both maintaining buffer zones and banning access and limiting NATO's freedom of movement in the immediate vicinity of its borders. To this end, Russia has developed a series of capabilities to prevent the opponent from entering a certain area and to reduce or even forbid him any freedom of action once he has entered the area, this approach of Russia being part of the A2AD (Anti-access, Area Denial) policy


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