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In 2000 the Howard government formed a consultative committee to review defence policy and gauge public opinion on defence issues. It concentrated on the impact of budgetary stringency and dramatic strategic change and supported increased defence spending on equipment to cater for high-level threats. Was there a thorough review? Inconsistencies occurred in the reports developed from the review and statements made by senior policy-makers while it was being conducted. The way the review was undertaken points to conceptual tensions in Australia's strategic culture and serious problems with entrenched interests in the services. Unless these challenges are addressed, a thorough review of defence policy cannot be undertaken. The review process itself needs to be reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses military policy in Great Britain. At issue is an examination of a British government report on military matters released during a period of continuing developments in national security. The author urges an expansion of Great Britain's strategic forces and considers aspects of deterrence and coercion in place of more traditional military actions. The article asserts that there is a need for a clear understanding of the motivation of Great Britain's potential adversaries.

This article describes Saudi Arabia's historic and arduous journey to national‐defense transformation, launched around 2015. It analyzes the challenges and opportunities of defense reform in the kingdom while highlighting the role of the United States in this process. Last, the article discusses the future of US‐Saudi defense relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as a point of departure a notion of reorganization as a way of managing risk. It examines the reorganization process in the Norwegian central administration for homeland security. As a central theme the paper explores why the proposal to radically reorganize the administration by replacing a network model with a hierarchical model resulted in a much more modest change to a hybrid agency model. The descriptive part of the paper traces the reorganization process, starting with the initiative taken by the Ministry of Justice in 1999 to establish a public commission and ending with the final parliamentary resolution in 2002. Despite the 9/11 terrorist attack that occurred in the middle of the process and its implications for security, only minor changes were made to existing arrangements. A striking feature of the process was negative coordination, indicating that the wish to coordinate was greater than the willingness to be coordinated. To understand why this was so, we look at bureaucratic politics and bargaining between different interests, at institutional identities and strong cultures and traditions within different governmental bodies. We focus especially on framing processes within and between organizational fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comparative study of the national security, defense policies and defense-planning approaches of three small states that include Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Singapore. Topics discussed include Qatar's prudent economic policies, astute diplomatic maneuvers, and national security and defense, the development of the national security policy and defense planning of the UAE, and Singapore's deterrent power.

This paper examines the foundations and rationale for Australian reliance on US assurances of extended nuclear deterrence. The Australian model of extended nuclear deterrence is marked by its lack of public presence, a lack of certainty about its standing and character in US eyes, its lack of a direct nuclear threat, and its resurgence at a time when nuclear abolition possibilities are being embraced by the leader of the deterrence provider. Australian policy amounts to a claim that the nuclear guarantee is necessary 'just in case'- though without any plausible specifics. The fundamental questions remain - for Australia as for other recipients of extended nuclear deterrence assurances - what threats, what probabilities, what alternatives? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Asian Politics & Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the programmatic and institutional reform of the national security field in Switzerland. Also cited are the principles of armed neutrality and autonomous defense as the basis in the creation of the field by the Swiss Defense Ministry, the direct effect of the field to the everyday life of Swiss residents, as well as the expansion of the field's purpose to include integrated peace-building, integrated border management, and transnational organized crime prevention.

In this article the author discusses aspects of the history British military policy and doctrine. The article was written in the wake of the 2010 release of British government mandated report that reviewed British military policy and the state of Great Britain's strategic forces. A number of topics are addressed including the changing nature of modern warfare, the diminished role played by Great Britain in global military exploits, and British reliance on her allies, particularly the United States.

Neoinstitutionalists applying the logic of rational choice institutionalism have leavened our understanding of public agency design and evolution in the domestic and national security policy domains. This paper seeks to advance theory building in empirically grounded ways by assessing the explanatory power of an important theoretical perspective (rational choice institutionalism), in an understudied “hybrid” policy domain where domestic and national security aims interact (domestic environmental policy and national security policy), and in an organizational type (the U.S. military) that has drawn scant attention from students of bureaucracy in political science, public administration, or public management. Analysis of three major efforts to green the U.S. military suggests that the patterns of politics accompanying agency evolution involving hybrid policy domains differ from domestic and national security domains in ways that limit the generalizability of rational choice institutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and evaluates the four approaches to nuclear threat assessment that are most commonly employed by U.S. national security analysts: (1) comparisons of U.S. and Soviet expenditures on nuclear forces; (2) comparisons of static indicators of nuclear capability, such as number of weapons or measures of the destructive power of these weapons; (3) using deterrence theory and battle simulations to predict nuclear war outcomes and evaluate the deterrent capability of U. S. nuclear forces; and (4) analyzing official Soviet military doctrine to make inferences about Soviet goals, images, and plans for nuclear war. The analysis of each approach begins with a brief description of how the approach is implemented. Next the conceptual bases of the approach both theoretical and empirical are examined. Then applications of the method are evaluated in terms of how well they deal with the uncertainties inherent in any attempt to assess nuclear capability or threat. Finally, applications of each method are evaluated in terms of how they incorporate subjective judgment, how well they document critical assumptions, and the extent to which they use sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of varying critical assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article does not question whether the EU has a strategic culture, but rather asks how one can investigate its nature. It creates and utilizes an analytical framework to demonstrate that the European Union's strategic culture is based on an extended concept of security and on a comprehensive, multilateral and internationally legitimated approach to threats, implying the use of military and civilian instruments in an integrated manner on over 20 common security and defence policy (CSDP) operations. It suggests that the analytical framework can also act as a stable reference point to compare and contrast the strategic cultures of a range of actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses military policy in Great Britain. The article was written in light of a British government mandated review of national security and defence. Central to the article is a discussion of British military policy with regard to the war in Afghanistan. A number of other issues are examined including the May 2010 general election and the political aspects of defence policy, the report titled "Adaptability and Partnership: Issue for a Strategic Defence Review," and economic issues involved in military policy.

This article reviews the recent release of material concerning the National Security Council by the Nixon presidential material staff in NARA. The new collection covers a wide array of issues relating not only to the structural and procedural developments of the council during the Nixon-Kissinger years, but also to the activities of its many interagency groups. Following an evaluation of the collection's sub-series, the article will demonstrate the significance of the findings by analyzing a particular document, suggesting that the new NSC series offers researchers a unique opportunity to reconstruct the story of the Nixon-Kissinger dyad and their control of the foreign policy machinery between 1969 and 1974. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on public policy which is a concept that students of the Presidency employ with some frequency but it does not dominate their analyses. It is of much importance in the U.S. government's case of the Presidential policies. In this regard, studies of presidential policy-making, of the President's impact particularly on foreign and defense policy, and of the effect of organization on presidential policy-making have sought to develop analytical approaches to the Presidency. Neither bureaucratic politics nor multiple advocacy, provide a comprehensive or integrating framework for analyzing presidential policy-making. Their focus is on the processes and structures employed in top-level decision-making for national security.

Copyright of Swiss Political Science Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Many studies of the Japanese prime minister in defense policy and politics have focused on the outstanding success of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro. These studies have noted the way Koizumi used the expanded resources of the kantei, bold public statements, and political theater to make significant changes to defense policy. However, just as important as exploring success in leadership is exploring failures. These failures can teach us about evolving political strategies and enduring aspects of international, regional, and domestic contexts. The prime ministership of Hatoyama Yukio (2009-2010) is an important case because it is the first time in recent history that a prime minister has challenged-however subtle that challenge may have been-the primacy of the U.S.- Japan Security Treaty. Hatoyama's prime ministership demonstrates the limitations of civilian internationalist approaches as a substitute for alliance maintenance with the United States, as well as the weaknesses of 'consensus-based' and 'muddle through' tactics in Japanese politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several articles on politics and culture in Africa. It mentions articles on Internal Developments, National Security and Continental Alignments. It also notes reports on political developments in various African countries including the president of Somalia, the ministerial meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the prime minister of Libya.

Though the policy science movement was born with the purpose of counseling the Department of Defense on a plethora of security matters, modern research within the field of public policy has tended to neglect issues of defense and security focusing instead on a wide variety of domestic problems. This nearly exclusive focus on domestic issues remained largely intact until September 11, 2001, when the threat of terrorism propelled defense and security back onto the disciplinary research agenda. Though exceptionally slow to adjust, policy scholars are gradually coming to terms with this new reality and are beginning to focus on security and defense in a way that informs policymakers and advances policy theory. This research note is meant to introduce interested readers to this trend by exploring broad themes and exemplar works within the field over the last few years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructivist approaches have made a substantial contribution to our understanding of the European Union's security and defence policy, but their ability to explain and forecast change has suffered from neglecting the link between material structures and ideas. This article attempts to 'solidify' constructivism by drawing on realist thought to elaborate a theoretical argument about how material and ideational factors are interrelated and offers four propositions about how changes in material conditions affect the ideational dimension of defence co-operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore reasons that a defender might prefer secrecy or deception about her defensive resource allocations, rather than disclosure, in a homeland-security context. Our observations not only summarize and synthesize the results of existing game-theoretic work, but also provide intuitions about promising future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the EU has developed into a regional institution whose military ambitions extend well beyond Europe. This development counteracts the assumptions of realist and intergovernmental theories, raising the question of what concepts are appropriate for understanding security and defence policy in the EU. It has been argued that governance approaches are particularly well-suited to describe the functioning of the EU. Yet analyses of the EU's common security and defence policy (CSDP) have to date not been granted the benefits of this insight. This article seeks to remedy this by venturing down the yet unfulfilled EU trail of a burgeoning literature on security governance. Exploring five features of security governance, the article identifies the most promising questions and approaches of the so-called governance turn in IR theory, ending up with a putative EU security governance research agenda that will lead to a deeper understanding of the kind of security actor that the EU has evolved into. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author examines aspects of the review of military policy and national security ordered by the British government in 2010. At issue are the requirements of the British military from such a review. The author asserts that the wishes of the British armed forces are not clear or coherent. Noting the military desire for increased funding the author states that the size of Great Britain's budget deficit precludes growth in the military budget and will probably result in significant cuts.

In this article the author discusses the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, a government mandated report that examined military policy and national security in Great Britain at time and laid out plans for the future. The article was written to support the author's contention that such policy assessments, notably the defence review issued in 2010, are ineffective. The author addresses a number of issues related to the 1998 document including the actions of the Ministry of Defence at the time, command and control structures, and armed forces procurements.

Is Europe about to rise as a full political actor on the world stage? Conventional wisdom had it that European integration in foreign policy, security and defence was unlikely to amount to much very quickly. More recently, however, a diverse group of scholars has argued that pan-European political actorhood had gained considerable substance. Surveying the recent literature, pertinent related writings and relevant primary materials on the matter, this article identifies and systematizes the many different factors affecting European high-politics actorhood in the early 21st century. A fully grown international actor Europe, it finds, remains a longer-term project rather than an imminent prospect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1986, presidents have been required to submit an annual National Security Strategy (NSS). Recent years have seen a proliferation of national strategies of other kinds, linked in part to the NSS. The National Security Council, led by the national security advisor and employing its committee system and the interagency process, develops the NSS. The integration of all the necessary elements within the NSS involves an opaque and irregular set of rolling negotiations among national security principals. The 2006 NSS is best viewed in comparison to the 2002 version, which was issued in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. It stipulates that the United States is at war with transnational terrorism fueled by a perversion of Islam and proposes stable democracy as the primary solution, supported by aggressive efforts to control the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the option of taking preemptive military action. Criteria for assessing national security strategies can be process oriented or results based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On December 25, 1998 the Japanese government reinterpreted a long-standing policy prohibiting the use of outer space for military purposes by announcing its intention to develop a network of domestically produced and deployed “information-gathering” satellites to be utilized primarily by the Japan Defense Agency (JDA) and other national security institutions. This decision is important in its own right—for one, Japan is a major player in the space technology arena—but also because of the precedent it sets for other areas of technology and military policy in Japan today. As many observers have noted, Japan appears to be undergoing a broad reexamination both of its view of the appropriate level of interaction between government bureaucracy and industry and of its military security strategy in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The case of surveillance satellites links these two areas together, offering broader lessons for the course of Japanese policy in numerous areas in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Urban & Regional Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy. The U.S. foreign policy today is neither the engaged multilateralism of the second half of the twentieth century nor the isolationism of previous decades. It might be called aggressive unilateralism. The administration is determinedly pursuing what it perceives as the U.S. advantage through aggressive treatment of presumed enemies and presumed allies alike, rejecting the tradition of bargaining and mutual respect among allies and of a stable balance of deterrence with enemies. The new National Security Strategy asserts the right of the United States to attack anywhere at any time that its leaders perceive, or claim to perceive, a threat.

This article challenges established security ideas on Latin America, beginning with the assumption that militarised states and military coups d'état now belong to a bygone era. The attempt is to demonstrate that, despite a regional framework for cooperation, democratic governments here have not established a democratic process of decision-making, particularly where security issues are concerned. This absence of democratic civil control over the military could challenge, and even potentially undermine, the consolidation of democracy in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the implications of the war on terrorism for the progress made to date and the likely future of environmental security efforts in the national security state? To put the evolving post-September 11th environmental security challenge facing the U.S. military in perspective, this article begins with a synopsis of the doctrinal, tactical, operational, and regulatory dilemmas faced by the U.S. military in the post-Cold War era. Next, the article reviews how and why the 1990s bequeathed a set of misaligned administrative systems that make existing and future progress in balancing national security with environmental and natural resources protection extremely vulnerable to shifts in the political economy surrounding this issue in the post-September 11th era. The article concludes with a review of how September 11th has affected the patterns of politics surrounding this issue since those tragic events. Despite recent increases in the defense budget, this analysis suggests that conflict over this issue will continue, rendering structural realignment a daunting challenge and further complicating the integration of national security and environmental and natural resources responsibilities in the post-September 11th era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the implications of the common European security and defence policy (CESDP) for shifts in both the politics and the policy-making procedures of the European Union. It analyses the emerging dynamics of the new institutional structures of CESDP launched in 2000 (COPS, EUMC, EUMS, HR-CFSP) and in particular the tensions between national capitals and the process of ‘Brusselization’ in the definition and formulation of European foreign and security policy. It argues that, in the field of crisis management, the requirements of rapid decision-making and efficient implementation will increasingly favour Brussels as the locus of policy formulation. This process will be enhanced by the growing role in CESDP of military officials and of defence ministries, which will take primary responsibility for the shape and remit of the nascent European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF). The article also assesses the problems facing EU governments in selling CESDP to their publics. This involves the construction of a discourse which, both cognitively and normatively, can persuade electorates coming from very different security cultures of the necessity and appropriateness of the project. It also requires governments, sooner or later, to make the case for increased defence spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the issue concerning military nuclear wastes. After the cold war, the mission of the Department of Energy has shifted from the production of nuclear weapons to the management of nuclear wastes and the cleanup of the environmental damage produced by both. The scientific work across the Department of Energy has been shrouded in secrecy for years in the name of national security, preventing outsiders, especially scientists, from testing Department of Energy's usual claim that their practices and results were safe.

Presents a perspective on the necessity of a national defense policy after the next election in 1987 in Great Britain. Exploitation of Labour party's internal disagreements over the issue of Polaris nuclear force; Decision of the British government to replace Polaris nuclear force with Trident weapon system; Debates on the budget allocated for national defense.

The article offers the author's perspective regarding the concerns involving the civilian power in Europe. The author provides an overview the shift in the power system from traditional military and political power to civilian power, and especially to economic power. He also tackles various topics including the balance of power in international relations, the need for military power in Europe, and the foreign relations between the United States and European countries. He also explores the problems of national security posed by the Soviet Union to Europe and the foreign policy of European states.

A decision theory perspective is used to analyze how individuals form preferences among competing strategic defense policies. It is argued that these preferences can be usefully conceptualized as the product of deliberative logical thinking. There are, however, a number of obstacles that may prevent people from making decisions in their own best interests or from reaching agreement with others who share those interests. Some of these obstacles are internal or psychological (e.g., difficulties in understanding probabilistic processes); some are external or institutional (e.g., limited access to relevant information). Some are encountered with even mundane problems (e.g., being overconfident in one's knowledge); some are particular to novel and consequential decisions (e.g., not knowing how to make tradeoffs among those consequences). Some seem restricted to the lay public (e. g., failure to understand technical terms); some may afflict technical experts (e.g., failure to acknowledge or question widely shared assumptions). The possibilities for research into the extent of these problems is discussed, along with the possibilities for action to alleviate them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the Defense Budget Process is to produce a force structure to support national security policy. To accomplish this task, the Department of Defense has designed a system built around planning, programming and budgeting and zero based budgeting. However, while these two systems help to marry policy and force structure, for several interrelated reasons the fit is far from perfect. These reasons include: resource constraints; inadequate guidance; length of the budget process; the size, scope, controllability and impact of the defense budget; inadequate decision- making methodology; past decisions; and domestic political constituencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines some apparent dilemmas and possible contradictions in U.S. policies spanning several of the most important arms control domains. The analysis is centered on the triangular relationship connecting nuclear non-proliferation, SALT, and conventional arms transfers (CAT), with each analyzed as dependent and independent variables in relation to the others. Further such link- ages are examined involving the comprehensive Test Ban, Indian Ocean de-militarization, and Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR). The study questions, in particular, whether or not U.S. policies on SALT and CAT may prove counterproductive for efforts to halt nuclear proliferation. The linkage of American overseas basing access to several areas of arms control endeavor is also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing international environment for U.S. strategic policy formation is causing progressive uncertainty about the adequacy of threat assessment concepts and procedures. The concept of "strategic value," which plays a central role in decisions to use and control military force, is defined and elaborated in terms of three key elements-territory, worth and access. This classification allows for a more coherent analysis of the nature of "strategic threat" in the changing international environment. It also provides a more realistic approach for making choices among available policy options and available means of implementing security policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the ability of the U.S. policy organization to support national security objectives and how to improve that ability. Special attention is given to the development of this organization and to forms of policy making over the last 30 years. The author outlines five major ways in which national security policy making affects American security interests and evaluates their effectiveness. The article then proceeds with a survey of policy making since World War II, focusing on the U.S. National Security Council and its development. Organizational politics will always play a large role in national security decision-making, the author concludes. Further, the five noted criteria have been unequally served. Social scientists must determine not only whether organizational elaboration is an effective response to national security problems, but also whether these national security policy-making organizations themselves fulfill the purposes for which they were created.

The article describes the procedures and conceptual underpinnings of the three basic budgeting processes used in the U.S. Department of Defense since its unification in 1947 and evaluate theft strengths and weaknesses. The first period was that of U.S. President Harry S. Truman-Dwight D. Eisenhower years, and the system of fixed allocations to each service used pleased no one, its only advantage being the early imposition of a spending ceiling. The second, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara Period, is best characterized by the complete control exercised by the Secretary of Defense and by the introduction of the planning programming and budgeting system (PPBS). The third system is that in use since 1968; its most important aspects are the decentralization of power and modified retention of PPBS. Despite the improvements in the system, there are still serious shortcomings in the budgeting process. The author concludes that while much progress has been made in the budgetary process, there is still considerable room for improvement. Two primary constraints, however, will remain its inherent political nature, and the near irrelevancy of planning.

The article focuses on some considerations relevant to national policy. There are social situations which do not allow the possibility of "rational" behavior so long as the conditions for mutual trust do not exist. A characteristic symptom of such non-rational situations is that any attempt on the part of any individual or nation to increase its own welfare or security (without regard to the security or welfare of others) is self-defeating. Thus, for example, if the Soviet Union attempts to increase its security by taking over Berlin, it will decrease its real security by increasing the likelihood of nuclear war. In such situations the only way that an individual or nation can avoid being trapped in a mutually reinforcing, self-defeating cycle is to attempt to change the situation so that a basis of mutual trust can develop. To induce a mutual welfare orientation in another, one has to demonstrate toward the other that its own behavior is based upon such a premise and that one cannot improve its welfare by violation of it.

The article reports on the decision of President Robert Mugabe to bring down the population of the Zimbabwean army. About 25 percent will be slashed, bringing the total number from 40,000 to 30,000. According to a senior Defense Ministry official, regional peace and prohibitive costs have played a key role behind the decision.

In this article the author discusses a review of British national security and defence measures undertaken in 2010 by the British government under the leadership of Conservative Party prime minister David Cameron. The article notes the need for a policy review that conforms to the political measures imposed by the coalition government that Cameron was forced to form with the Liberal Democrats. A number of issues are addressed including the war in Afghanistan, the use of American military power, and the lack of impartial reporting from Afghanistan.