scholarly journals Disruption and deniable interventionism: explaining the appeal of covert action and Special Forces in contemporary British policy

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rory Cormac
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Special Forces ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Military Planning ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Policy Elites ◽  
Do So

The United Kingdom has long engaged in covert action. It continues to do so today. Owing to the secrecy involved, however, such activity has consistently been excluded from debates about Britain’s global role, foreign and security policy and military planning: an important lacuna given the controversy, risk, appeal and frequency of covert action. Examining when, how and why covert action is used, this article argues that contemporary covert action has emerged from, and is shaped by, a specific context. First, a gap exists between Britain’s perceived global responsibilities and its actual capabilities; policy elites see covert action as able to resolve, or at least conceal, this. Second, intelligence agencies can shape events proactively, especially at the tactical level, while flexible preventative operations are deemed well suited to the range of fluid threats currently faced. Third, existing Whitehall machinery makes covert action viable. However, current covert action is smaller scale and less provocative today than in the early Cold War; it revolves around ‘disruption’ operations. Despite being absent from the accompanying debates, this role was recognised in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, which placed intelligence actors at the heart of British thinking.

An unfinished battle: George C. Marshall and intelligence in the early Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 096834452110179
Author(s):  
Raphaël Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Truman Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article deals with the influence of Gen. George C. Marshall on the foundation of the US intelligence community after the Second World War. It argues that his uneven achievements demonstrate how the ceaseless wrangling within the Truman administration undermined the crafting of a coherent intelligence policy. Despite his bureaucratic skills and prominent positions, Marshall struggled to achieve his ends on matters like signals intelligence, covert action, or relations between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet he crafted an enduring vision of how intelligence should supplement US national security policy that remained potent throughout the Cold War and beyond.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

2020 ◽  
pp. 499-514
Author(s):  
Antonio Tizzano
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Introductory Note ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Migration Crisis

The introductory note describes the main developments of 2018 with regard to the functioning and the organization of the Court of Justice of the European Union, as well as to its case law. The Court of Justice and the General Court were confronted with many delicate legal questions pertaining to all aspects of EU law. Amongst others, the EU courts were confronted with the unresolved issues raised by the so-called “migration crisis,” by the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, and by the threats to the values inherent in the rule of law, which are worryingly emerging in various member states. The introductory note provides an overview of the most important judgments that were delivered in 2018, in an array of legal domains, including rights and obligations of third-country migrants, fundamental rights, rules of competition and internal market, common commercial policy, and common foreign and security policy.

Accommodating Defeat (1945–1991)

Special Duty ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 79-133
Author(s):  
Richard J. Samuels
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Subsequent Transformation ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Security Affairs

This chapter explores how the accommodation by Japanese leaders to U.S. power and to the public's widespread aversion to security affairs shaped and stunted the Japanese intelligence community during the Cold War and beyond. Japan's intelligence failures in the Asia-Pacific War contributed to the new strategic environment that, in turn, drove the subsequent transformation of each element of Japan's intelligence community. The subordination of Japanese foreign and security policy to U.S. priorities set strict limits on the shape, pace, and direction of intelligence reform. In the nearly half century from 1945 to 1991 during which Japan was a junior partner to its conqueror, Japan's degenerated intelligence community became an undersized, compromised, and organizationally handicapped operation. Analysts have called Japan's Cold War intelligence community “a stark transformation from the past” marked by sharp “discontinuity.”

Nonalignment to Multialignment

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-40
Author(s):  
Ian Hall
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy

This chapter outlines, by way of background, the evolution of Indian foreign and security policy after the country became independent in 1947. It discusses Jawaharlal Nehru’s dominance in the first phase and the generation of a Nehruvian tradition of thought about India’s international relations. It then explores the shift to a more realist approach under Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, and the post-Cold War transformation of foreign policy, prompted by a looming crisis in India’s economic and diplomatic circumstances. It traces the emergence of a more confident policy of ‘multialignment’ during the 2000s, as India’s economy grew and its regional importance developed with it. In the conclusion, it outlines Modi’s approach, comparing and contrasting it to those pursued by his immediate predecessors, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.

scholarly journals Uneingeschränkte Solidarität

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (162) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Strutynski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Eu

This article focuses on the analysis of the new strategic concept of NATO (Lisbon 2010) and its effect on German foreign and security policy. During the Cold War, the (old) Federal Republic of Germany had done well to recognize its limited sovereignty while at the same time expanding its economic and political influence in NATO and the EC/EU. This approach has not fundamentally changed with the unification of Germany in 1990. Since then Germany has been developing its imperial ambitions cautiously, embedded in the aggressive NATO military pact and the militarization of the EU. The credo of the new Germany is the enforcement of both;, German economic and geo-strategic interests as a nation cannot be achieved alone, but only within the range of existing alliances.

Cultural Influences on Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huiyun Feng
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
Cultural Variables ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Cold War

Scholars have heatedly debated whether and how culture impacts and shapes a state’s foreign and security policy in particular as well as international relations (IR) in general. The cultural approach to the studies of foreign policy has experienced two major waves since the end of the Cold War. We saw a revival of cultural studies in national security and foreign policy with the rise of constructivism in international relations in the 1990s, while into the 2000s, the culture approach focused on terrorism and globalization. Despite its achievement, the cultural approach continues to face theoretical and methodological challenges in conceptualization, measurement, and generalizability. Therefore, the cultural approach to foreign policy needs to work on demarcating the boundary of “cultural variables,” focusing on mid-range theorizing and placing the cultural variables within a context.

A model to the world?

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-64 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
National Media ◽  
Defence Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Eu

After the end of the Cold-War, the EU started advancing its Common Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security and Defence Policy (CFSP/CSDP), making them part of reform that eventually led to the Lisbon Treaty. The article argues that this endeavour was above all a project of polity-construction: it endowed European integration with new purpose, imagining the EU as a polity that legitimately asserted itself globally as a civilising power. The article investigates how such polity-construction was generated during multilateral negotiations on the EU constitution and what different meanings it took on once inserted in national media debates in Poland and France. The argument is made that EU community-building is more adequately captured when looked at as ‘recontextualising polity-construction’, triggered top-down in legitimations of EU institution-building, than as ‘identity’ emerging bottom-up from societal imagination.

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