The Migration Crisis and the Problems of “Soft Security” in Germany

The current migration crisis has far-reaching challenges for EU countries. Global migration is forcing countries to completely reconsider their migration policies, the effectiveness of control, and the integration of migrants. As one of the EU's leading countries, Germany is the biggest lobbyist for the establishment of a common migration policy in the EU. This chapter contributes to the academic discussion on establishing a single mechanism for managing migration flows in the European Union. The analysis confirms that EU countries are faced with the need to find new ways to resolve the migration crisis. In this direction, Germany has become the country where one can trace the uniqueness of the political phenomenon of integration of migrants into the host community as a measure to overcome the migration crisis. The evidence reveals the growth of threats for national, regional, and international security caused by the growing migration crisis and transformation of the policy of integration of migrants in Germany under the influence of this factor.

The Digital Society in the 21st Century: Security Issue

Digitalization is thought to be a key driver of recent economic, cultural, political, and society transformations, with these changes entailing both positive and negative consequences. The negative ones include various risks and threats for information security of both society and state. As a result, there has been growing impetus to rethink the concept of security in the digital age. In this paper the discourse of security is discussed in terms of dichotomy between soft and hard power in a digitalized society. This discussion involves the following issues to be considered: 1) how this soft/hard range of power can be applied to the security problem; 2) how different information threats could be countered within the discourse of the state security; 3) how the soft security could be implemented in a digitalized society. Structured analysis, discourse analysis and conceptual approach are mainly involved to provide research methodology for the discussion. It should be noted that our research is conducted within theoretical framework established by B. Buzan, J. Nye, with the acknowledgment of the results obtained from the previous studies of the authors of this paper. The concept of security was productively discussed in terms of soft and hard power vocabulary. As a result of this discussion, soft security was interpreted as the measure of protecting something from harm in invisible, unobtrusive ways, whether hard security was designed to oppose challenges and threats and it is traditionally associated with methods of force. It was particularly established that hard security measures are likely to be applied in the military sector, while soft security measures are commonly used in a non-military context. Due to the concept of soft security has not yet been clearly defined and has not received recognition as a scientific term, it is argued that further investigation is demanded. Within this investigation, information security is interpreted as a special category of soft security. The relevant distinction between information security and cybersecurity is made, with the different frequency of using these terms in official discourses of different states being explained. It is also considered that the problems of soft security insurance cannot be solved at the level of individual states due to the transnational nature of digital technology, so it requires international responses. Therefore, establishing the normative force (i.e. elaboration of international rules and institutions) can be an effective measure, while an international exchange of experience in countering information threats seems to be very useful. Educational programs aimed both at creating qualified personnel in the field of digital technologies, as well as at the general public (improving information literacy), also contribute to ensuring the safety of society and the state. Keywords: information security, digital society, soft security, international relationships, cybersecurity

NON-MILITARY SECURITY POLICY IN GREATER EURASIA: DO THE LEADING POWERS CONCUR?

The concept of Greater Eurasia is substantially a network concept inviting the multiplication of the number and quality of nods in Eurasian space. Presently it does not imply integration but proposes the growth of trade, investment, and cultural ties. The main impediment to the expansion of interlinks between the countries of the continent are differences in the approaches to security matters including soft security. This article focuses on security, and it will concentrate on the compatibility of soft security stances by most important Eurasian actors: China, Russia, and the European Union. Since military-political security is a particular and separate field, and because of the evolution of security concepts in recent years, the article will focus on non-military security, specifically on economic, technological, ecological, and societal security.

Insecurity Layer, Security Factor: Effects of Refugee Flow and Illegal Immigration on Turkish-Greek Relations

In this study, the factors that affect Turkish-Greek relations have at first been studied within a historical continuum. The effect of the refugee incident between two countries and its effect on shaping the relations has been scrutinized in detail and at the same time positive and negative sides of refugee influx that occurred after the wart hat took place in Syria have been evaluated. The second part deals with efforts put in place to prevent illegal immigrations. Upon this issue, the effect of the taking back deal made between Europe Union and Turkey over Turkish and Greek coastal waters andl imits have been evaluated. Within the relevant section arguments from both countries over illegal immigrants have been seperately dealt with. Finally in the third section, soft security problems such as immigration and their effect on establishing bilateral relations have been studied and also the layer of distrust that underlies the discussion and shapes the result and also the security factors have been added to the literature. Some results have been concluded about adding refugee and illegal immigration issues to the problems that occur around territorial waters and the limits and their effects on bilateral relations. Finally it has been emphasized that relevant immigration incident is being used as a tool of trust or distrust.

The Humanitarian and Social Agenda of the UN Security Council

By the end of XX–the beginning of XXI century the importance of humanitarian and social issues in the world has sharply increased. Humanitarian and social means began to be intensively included in military and economic actions and play a significant independent role. As a result, there was an increase in the importance of “soft security” aspects, and an expansion of this field. This has affected the UN Security Council, which began to pay more attention to humanitarian and social issues, which was demonstrated with the statistical method. The range of humanitarian issues discussed by the Security Council and the list of actors sponsoring resolutions on humanitarian issues has expanded. In the late 1990s–early 2000s the Council begins to consider large amount of humanitarian issues: security issues of individuals in armed conflicts (civilians, children, women, UN and humanitarian personnel); civilian aspects of conflict management and peacebuilding; and separate issues of “soft security” (humanitarian assistance and such “soft threats” to security as HIV/AIDS epidemics, food crises and climate change). In addition, the Council also addresses human rights violations. The promotion of humanitarian issues in the Council on separate occasions was facilitated by high-ranking officials who put a premium on humanitarian issues; various UN bodies and organizations, mainly with humanitarian mandates; some non-permanent members of the Security Council who wanted to leave their mark in the Council’s history; various NGOs. In turn, some countries opposed the adoption of measures that they consider to be within the internal competence of their states. At the same time, the expansion of humanitarian and social problems in the world poses a dilemma for the Security Council: whether to include the entire range of these issues on the agenda, or it is beyond the scope of the Council’s mandate. There is no definite answer here. On the one hand, the world is moving along the path of strengthening humanitarian problems and its ever-greater involvement in security issues. On the other hand, an expanded interpretation of security can impede the work of the Council.