International Security

The Vietnamization of the Long War on Terror: An Ongoing Lesson in International Humanitarian Law Noncompliance

by Lesley Wexler

Boston University International Law Journal, Forthcoming

This essay rejects the conventional wisdom that post Vietnam military reforms adequately addressed the problem of U.S.... more This essay rejects the conventional wisdom that post Vietnam military reforms adequately addressed the problem of U.S. noncompliance with international humanitarian law. Just as My Lai and Son Thang defines the nadir of America’s counterinsurgency in Vietnam, and the trio of Haditha, Abu Ghraib, and Operation Iron Triangle evoke our worst behavior in Iraq, the recent events of the 5th Stryker “kill team” brigade may come to symbolize our greatest failings in Afghanistan. The premeditated and deliberate killing of Afghani civilians reveals an indifference to human life that is utterly inconsistent with the premises of International Humanitarian Law and the deeply held values of the American military. In this short piece, I examine the Stryker kill team’s behavior to help build the knowledge and insight necessary to develop further reforms for military practices during the long war on terror.

The essay situates the 5th Stryker brigade’s troubling behavior within the military’s recent shift to counterinsurgency and highlights the suboptimal compliance conditions likely to bedevil the U.S. military during the long war on terror. Though the U.S. military successfully restructured its goals and reformed its behavior after Vietnam, at least three notable similarities remain. In particular, the military still: (a) abandons effective sorting strategies to exclude high risk soldiers when the demand for troops rises; (b) lacks adequate safeguards against leadership failures that allow a culture of disrespect for human life to fester; and lastly (c) faces only weak checks on its behavior as the result of domestic pressure. In identifying these factors, this essay seeks to help the military and other actors better target efforts to improve international humanitarian law compliance.

Fighting Terror Through Justice: Implementing the IGAD Framework for Legal Cooperation Against Terrorism

by Matthew Schwartz

Co-authored with the Task Force on Legal Cooperation against Terrorism in the IGAD Subregion.

East Africa and the Horn face a number of transnational security threats, including terrorism, transnational crime,... more East Africa and the Horn face a number of transnational security threats, including terrorism, transnational crime, and piracy. In recent years, particularly following the July 2010 attacks in Kampala, al-Shabaab has been increasingly viewed as a threat not only to Somalia, but to the greater subregion. Tourism has declined and shipping costs have risen due to the threat of piracy from Somalia. Lawless pockets where government reach is weak, together with rampant corruption, have turned the region into a major transit point for black market financial flows and various forms of illicit trafficking.

Terrorism and transnational crime increasingly threaten security in the subregion of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development [IGAD]. Because of their transnational nature, no individual IGAD member state will single-handedly be able to deal effectively with these threats. As the IGAD Security Strategy adopted in December 2010 makes clear, effective cooperation will be crucial to winning the struggle against terrorism and to ensuring that other forms of transnational crime do not similarly jeopardize the IGAD subregion’s growth, prosperity, and stability.

Belarus 2012: The Paradox of Europe and its Relations with the EU and Russia

by Sotirios Karampampas

published in Research Program on Foreign Policy, Defence & Security, Center of Russia, Eurasia & Southern Europe (CERE), Institute of International Relations (IIR), vol. 6, pp. 10-15.

Deliberation and Global Civil Society: Agency Arena Affect

by james brassett

The article provides a critical analysis of the role and function of global civil society within deliberative... more The article provides a critical analysis of the role and function of global civil society within deliberative approaches to global governance. It critiques a common view that global civil society can/should act as an agent for democratising global governance and seeks to explore the importance of global civil society as an arena of deliberation. This more reconstructive aim is supplemented by an empirically focused discussion of the affective dimensions of global civil society, in general, and the increasingly important use of film, in particular. Ultimately, this then yields an image of the deliberative politics of global civil
society that is more reflective of the differences, ambiguities and contests that pervade its discourses about global governance. This is presented as a quality that debates about deliberative global governance might learn from as well as speak to.

Globalization of Surveillance

by David Murakami Wood

In the Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies (eds. K. Ball, K.D. Haggerty and D. Lyon), 2012.

This chapter makes three main arguments. The first argument is that surveillance itself is one of the existing... more This chapter makes three main arguments. The first argument is that surveillance itself is one of the existing phenomena being rescaled and becoming global. The second is that in order to facilitate this rescaling and to enable governmental functions to operate on a global level, there is what might be called a ‘surveillance of globalization’. The third argument is that although there is an identifiable emerging and perhaps potentially hegemonic form of global surveillance, there are other types of surveillance at the global level, and that surveillance occurs in varied ways and has radically different and uneven outcomes.

The chapter outlines the recent historical origins of the globalization of surveillance in the post-WW2 world and considers three examples of contemporary global surveillance: the economy, public goods, and communications, before discussing the interaction of surveillance and global circuits of capital at the local level.

What is complexity governance and how can this be implemented in a world complexity observatories grid?

by Andrés Ginestet

What is complexity governance and how can this be implemented in a world complexity observatories grid?
more What is complexity governance and how can this be implemented in a world complexity observatories grid?

Complexity governance is the governance of any human
relation (complexity pattern) on a peer-to-peer (complexity expression) level.

This peer-to-peer relationship gets massively monitored and deformed by the influence of the system of violence. The system of violence is based on trauma and its effects on human behavior. Trauma is automatically regulated and activated within
society by the system of violence, as a complex system. As humans do not regulate voluntarily their complexity, nature cares for the regulation of human complexity by the means of the violence system. Nature regulates human complexity for the sake of the balance of all natural systems. This interest is not contrary but also not in favor of human species.

First priority in order to take over control of this natural function is to behave as to reduce trauma influence on human social construction worldwide (complexity symptom caused by complexity patterns). Consequently, human beings need to start
regulating their complexity at the same speed at which they reduce trauma rates. In order to achieve the goal of reducing the influence of violence on society, trauma needs to be driven below the necessary critical level leading to war. The necessary
critical level is defined in clinical/medical terms. The estimate is that this level is 30% of traumatic experience and epigenetic aberration in any human population. How can we best attain this goal? Establishing a grid of complexity governance run by civil population, by normal citizens, because they are the complexity producers.

For this purpose, people will have to be trained. The training will follow a guidance described in 7 steps1. Every citizen on the planet will have the possibility to undergo complexity governance training within the next 50 years. Volunteers are on their way, and this is a very natural procedure in civil society. The situation is different for state forces like Military and police. They would like to be involved and encouraged to be the first training in complexity governance. Their job is to maintain security and to reduce violence world wide, and their role will have to be enforced by law because they act within institutions. They are in fact the first ones who need and wish to take on the mission and lead a war against the violence system, systematically and with full conviction. But, they need to redefine their enemy as defined by laws that are not yet designed for this purpose. For this reason, legal systems defining democracy need to incorporate the understanding for the existing violence system as a system, as to back up state forces mission. This can be done in agreement with Global Civil Society, if citizens take on their responsibility in the process.

Security Measures on the International Tourism

by Dr. Jesús Ezequiel Martínez Marín

Chapter of Book, published on the "Visions for Global Tourism Industry - Creating and Sustaining Competitive Strategies",  ISBN: 978-953-51-0520-6 , By | InTechOpen; Indexed by: EBSCO A-TO-Z , BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search , Engine, SCIRUS, OCLC WorldCat, Google Scholar

One of the most important elements of the tourism industry are the cruises. All the vessels and specially the... more One of the most important elements of the tourism industry are the cruises. All the vessels and specially the passenger ships are considered vulnerable to the incidents came from the intentionality of the humans. As of September 11- 2001, important changes have come about in security matters, especially for the Western Hemisphere. Ports and vessels, given their
vulnerability due to internationalization they represent, are the target for all kinds of terrorist attacks.
For years now the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has been establishing measures to prevent act of vandalism, such as piracy and attacks on vessels by insurgents in conflict zones.
However, to consider a port a high-risk location which could be used to perpetrate an attack on society or the port itself is a concept that has gained strength since 9/11.

What challenges does Japan face in its human security and peace-building role?

by Sophie Marta

Accompanying hand-out to my presentation on the topic

Submitted as part of the assessment for "Japan Today: Politics and Governance"

Department of... more Submitted as part of the assessment for "Japan Today: Politics and Governance"

Department of Asian Studies
The University of Adelaide
2012

This presentation focused on two main points: how Japan came to be involved in international peace-building efforts, and the domestic social and legal challenges that Japan faces today because of this involvement.

SECURITY IN THE SKIES: USING BIOMETRICS TO OPTIMIZE AIRPORT SECURITY

by Zachary Birney

How Would Von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu approach challenged the War in Iraq? What advice would they give to the US military?

by Bradley Martin

Final Exam for my Introduction to Security Studies Course

How Would Von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu approach challenged the War in Iraq?  What advice would they give to the US... more How Would Von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu approach challenged the War in Iraq?  What advice would they give to the US military?  This paper will discuss how Clausewitz and Sun Tzu would view the War in Iraq and what advice they would have provided if they were alive today.  The paper is organized into the following sections:  1) History of Sun Tzu and The Art of War 2) History of Carl von Clausewitz and On War 3) A discussion of the planning phase for the War in Iraq 4) Conduct and Operations during the War in Iraq 5) Discussion of the rise of the Iraqi insurgency and a conclusion.  Ultimately the conclusion of this paper is that if Clausewitz and Sun Tzu were alive today they could find some strengths but primarily weaknesses in the United States military’s approach to planning, conducting, and organizing operations during the War in Iraq.   

Introduction to the Political Economy of the Sub-prime Crisis in Britain: Constructing and Contesting Competence

by james brassett

Performing the Sub-Prime Crisis: Trauma and the Financial Event

by james brassett

The article provides a critical analysis of the performative effects of invocations of trauma and traumatic imagery... more The article provides a critical analysis of the performative effects of invocations of trauma and traumatic imagery during the sub-prime crisis. We develop a pragmatic approach to performativity that foregrounds the ambiguity between the importance of performative utterances, on the one hand, and overlapping performativities that produce subjects capable of ‘‘hearing’’ such utterances, on the other. We argue that a performative effect of the traumatic narrative of the sub-prime crisis was to constitute it as ‘‘an event’’ with traumatic characteristics. Financial subjects came to anticipate the object of financial salvation through intervention to save the banks; and such a view worked to curtail the range of political possibilities that were thinkable. Lines of pragmatic resistance are suggested, which turn the logic of trauma toward broadly progressive ends. In this way, the political dimension of performativity is brought forward: if finance is performative, then this only invites the question of how we might perform it differently.

Crisis Is Governance: Sub-Prime, the Traumatic Event, and Bare Life

by james brassett

co-authored with Nick Vaughan-Williams

This article provides a critical analysis of how discourses of trauma and the traumatic event constituted the... more This article provides a critical analysis of how discourses of trauma and the traumatic event constituted the ethico-political possibilities and limits of the sub-prime crisis. Metaphors of a “financial tsunami” and pervasive media focus on emotional “responses” such as fear, anger and blame constituted the sub-prime crisis as a singular, traumatic “event” demanding particular (humanitarian) responses. Drawing upon the work of Giorgio Agamben, we render this constituted logic of event and response in terms of the securing of sovereign power and the concomitant production of bare life; the savers and homeowners who became “helpless victims” in need of rescue. Using Agamben’s recent arguments about “the apparatus” and processes of subjectification and de-subjectification, we illustrate this theoretical approach by addressing the position of the British economy, bankers and homeowners. On this view, it was the movement between subject positions—from safe to vulnerable, from entrepreneurial to greedy, from victim to survivor—that marked out the effective manner of governance during the sub-prime crisis. In the process sovereign categories of financial citizenship, asset based welfare and securitisation (which many would posit as the very problem) were confirmed as central to our future “survival”. In short, (the way that the) crisis (was constituted) is governance.

The Politics of Legitimate Global Governance

by james brassett

Legitimacy is an important question to ask of the theory and practice of global governance. In this introduction, we... more Legitimacy is an important question to ask of the theory and practice of global governance. In this introduction, we make two propositions that are used to push thinking about these issues forward. Firstly, in analytical terms we outline a spectrum between legitimacy and legitimization which is aimed to capture the diverse set of approaches to this subject and to develop an engaged and reformist attitude that refuses the either-or distinction in favour of a methodologically pluralist logic of ‘both and’. Secondly, in political terms, we argue that discussions of legitimate global governance in both policy and academic circles can carry a ‘Trojan horse’ quality whereby the ambiguity of the term might allow a point of intervention for more ambitious
ethical objectives.

International Political Economy and the Question of Ethics

by james brassett

The article provides a critical analysis of how IPE might engage with the question of ethics. After reviewing existing... more The article provides a critical analysis of how IPE might engage with the question of ethics. After reviewing existing calls to bring ethics and ethical considerations within the mainstream of the discipline several questions are made. Drawing from critical and post-structural thought, it is argued that existing accounts of ethics privilege a problematic separation between ethics and power. Power is depicted as obligation – as power over – while
ethics is depicted as an ameliorative other to power. We draw out several limits in this separation – including the reification of market subjectivities of contract, individualism, and a problematic global scale – arguing that ethics should be seen as a constitutive discourse like any other. Power is re-phrased as productive, as the power to. We conclude by articulating a pragmatist research agenda that seeks to foster the kernel ‘possibility’ in discourses of ethics while retaining sensitivity to the potential constitutive ‘violence’ of ethics. Given this dilemma, we argue that ongoing practices of ‘resistance’ – in both practical and scholarly senses – should be a central problematic for engaging with the (political) question of ethics in IPE.

British irony, global justice: a pragmatic reading of Chris Brown, Banksy and Ricky Gervais

by james brassett

The article provides a critical analysis of the concept of irony and how it relates to global justice. Taking Richard... more The article provides a critical analysis of the concept of irony and how it relates to global justice. Taking Richard Rorty as a lead, it is suggested that irony can foreground a sense of doubt over our own most heartfelt beliefs regarding justice. This provides at least one ideal sense in which irony can impact the discussion of global ethics by pitching less as a discourse of grand universals and more as a set of hopeful narratives about how to reduce suffering. The article then extends this notion via the particular – and particularly – ethnocentric case of British Irony. Accepting certain difficulties with any definition of British Irony the article reads the interventions of three protagonists on the subject of global justice – Chris Brown, Banksy and Ricky Gervais. It is argued that their considerations bring to light important nuances in irony relating to the importance of playfulness, tragedy, pain, self-criticism and paradox. The position is then qualified against the (opposing) critiques that irony is either too radical, or, too
conservative a quality to make a meaningful impact on the discussion of global justice. Ultimately, irony is defended as a critical and imaginative form, which can (but does not necessarily) foster a greater awareness of the possibilities and limits for thinking/doing global justice.

Ethics in world politics: cosmopolitanism and beyond?

by james brassett

Building the normative dimension (s) of a global polity

by james brassett

Deliberation and Global Governance: Liberal, Cosmopolitan, and Critical Perspectives

by james brassett

Contingent borders, ambiguous ethics: Migrants in (international) political theory

by james brassett

The article engages a critical analysis of liberal theory in the context of transnational migration. Normative... more The article engages a critical analysis of liberal theory in the context of transnational migration. Normative arguments provided by liberal-cosmopolitan and liberal-communitarian authors are contrasted. While sympathetic to such approaches, we argue that traditional liberal theory has attempted to downplay the contingency and resultant ambiguity of many of its moral precepts. Historically contingent borders underpin neat universal categories like ‘‘citizen’’ and ‘‘refugee,’’ which fail to reflect the diverse and contested experiences of migration. But such ambiguities need not undermine liberal approaches. Indeed, a proper engagement with the problematic and uncertain realities of migration can provide a spur to a more thoroughgoing ethical praxis. We draw on the philosophical pragmatism of Richard Rorty to outline an approach to migration that remains open to the contingent construction of terms like ‘‘migrant,’’ ‘‘refugee,’’ and ‘‘asylum-seeker.’’ By extending Rorty’s concept of sentimental education, we provide an imaginative and politically
challenging set of agendas for the ethics of migration.