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This paper examines Azerbaijan's decision to go to war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. It aims to unveil the lessons Azerbaijan learned from the reaction of major regional actors in the South Caucasus to rising tensions in Armenian–Azerbaijani relations from the mid-2000s to the 2020 July border crisis. The paper argues that the consistent unresponsiveness of the international community emboldened Azerbaijan to proceed with its war preparations. It shows that Azerbaijan perceived the attitude of regional powers as inability and/or reluctance to interfere in the conflict, and this created a permissive environment for an all-out war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022 has created a sense of urgency across Europe and thus pushed forward significant changes and readjustments of foreign, security, and defense policies. These major shifts have been referred to as Zeitenwende by the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, the turning point not only for Germany but for the whole European security architecture. Western Balkans is increasingly stated as an area of strategic importance for the European (Euro-Atlantic) security community, whereby it is the geopolitical interest of the both the EU and NATO to have the Western Balkans integrated. This is one of the regions where the interests of the West and Russian Federation collide - this factor adds to the already complex security dynamics resulting from domestic, bilateral, and regional issues that affect regional security and stability. Hence, one characteristic of the regional political and security dynamics is the long-term presence of external actors. This paper explores the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the Western Balkans' political and security dynamics from the perspective of Regional Security Complex Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the notion of strategic intelligence, namely with respect to leadership and business-oriented areas. Strategic intelligence is a researched concept that primarily concerns the collection and analysis of intelligence for policy and military planning, mainly at national and international levels, whereas this study of management and organizational decision-making application is an extension of that. This article's subject is the necessity for strategic intelligence, a crucial competence for leaders, managers, and companies striving to remain competitive, to be utilized and best leveraged in today's volatile and dynamic business contexts. This study follows a research design that includes a thorough literature review and bibliometric research, executed via VoSViewer, illustrating the concept of strategic intelligence from a leadership point of view as a driver of competitive advantage, enhanced by knowledge dynamics. Furthermore, this article points out that the limitations are acknowledged because the literature on the matter is limited, as strategic intelligence is relatively new to the business sector; moreover, more research is required to fully understand and use the potential of strategic intelligence in business growth. Overcoming these limitations and continuing to study the strategic intelligence concept could, on the one hand, use multiple platforms, such as scholarly articles or encyclopedias, and, on the other hand, support businesses in gaining a competitive edge and making informed decisions that can fuel their success in an ever-evolving market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper scrutinizes the role of the principal policy objective of military intervention in conditioning citizen attitudes for the use of force. Extending the scope of analysis beyond the independent effects, it next assesses how the effects of two core variables of intervention, namely international organizations' approval of the operation and the regime type of the target country, vary for interventions with differing mandates. The results of the conjoint experiment in two dissimilar cases, the US and Turkey, show that despite substantial changes in relative support for different types of operations, policy objective is still a highly potent determinant of individual attitudes. The results also concur that compared to foreign policy restraint and humanitarian missions, individuals are more sensitive to international organizations' endorsements of the use of force for peace and internal political change operations. Finally, individuals are significantly disapproving of operations that seek internal political changes in democratic targets, though in contrast to the democratic peace theory, for other types of interventions, they are indifferent to the regime type of the opponent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some violent intrastate crises more likely to prompt humanitarian military interventions than others? States appear to intervene robustly in reaction to some internal conflicts, such as Kosovo, but withhold similar options in more intense conflict, as in Darfur. Much of the research on this 'selectivity gap' focuses on universal norms or geopolitical interests. I, however, argue that the selectivity of these interventions is a product of regional variations interacting with conflict perceptions. This paper introduces a dataset of almost 1000 observations of intrastate armed conflict between 1989 and 2014, paired with international military responses and non-responses, as well as an Intervention Index that accounts for the intensity of military interventions. I find that once a threshold of human suffering is met via the existence of an internal armed conflict, powerful states will intervene depending on whether the conflict occurs in the Western sphere of influence and whether it is denoted as an identity war. A Western region coupled with no perceptions of identity-based civil war prompts the greatest odds of humanitarian military intervention. Such conclusions carry implications on the role of norms and interests in international politics, as biased by region, and for military intervention as a policy choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

America’s security assistance policies have played a pivotal role in achieving its defense and foreign policy objectives since the early Cold War era. Notwithstanding the extensive corpus on U.S. security aid, there remains a notable paucity of scholarly inquiry into the strategic underpinnings of military technology cooperation, particularly in the domain of aerospace technologies, with the weaker allies. This research endeavors to elucidate and critically assess the nexus between the United States’ security objectives within defense assistance frameworks and the evolving patterns of its security aid programs. To realize this aim, the research delves into the specific instances of America’s security support, including both conventional ways and technical assistance, toward the Republic of Korea throughout the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. This investigation particularly foregrounds the bilateral technical cooperation patterns in the acquisition of combat fighters, encompassing the F-4, F-5, and F-16 fighters, alongside surface-to-surface missile development cooperation, as case studies for empirical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of SIRIUS - Zeitschrift fur Strategische Analysen is the property of De Gruyter 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.)

This article reflects on the complex security situation in the Sahel region, identifying the causes and drivers of conflicts. The main hypothesis underlying the article is that the security situation in the Sahel region is influenced by several different causes and conflict drivers which have cumulative effects, making conflict resolution extremely difficult. The first part of the article identifies the causes and drivers of conflict and classifies them into four main categories. In the second part, the article shows how the causes and drivers are interwoven, creating multiple spillover effects, making the Sahel region one of the most problematic regions in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nuova Rivista Storica is the property of Societa Editrice Dante Alighieri s.r.l. 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.)

In Swedish military policy, the concept of kompetens (competence) describes the skills and capability of military personnel. Furthermore, "competence-in-use," a multidimensional conceptual tool, has been used for decades in Swedish military instruction and training without having ever been empirically proven. In this pilot study, designed as an exploratory case study, we will try to connect theory to practice by examining the actual situations in which military competence is used. This article has two aims: First, to examine the relevance of the concept of competence-in-use in Swedish military practice abroad, and second, to combine and evaluate two methods in an exploratory case study. To capture firsthand experiences of real combat situations, we selected a sample of 28 firsthand narratives from Swedish service members. Our mapping identifies the blurred transition between combat and noncombat situations. By way of conclusion, we suggest that our analysis tool is further tested, for example, in comparative studies between nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does military conscription reduce the distance between the ordinary citizen and the state? Decades after its abolition, numerous European policy makers from across the political spectrum advocate the reintroduction of conscription to foster civic virtues, despite a lack of empirical evidence in this respect. Leveraging quasi‐random variation in conscription reforms across 15 European countries, we find that cohorts of men drafted just before its abolition display significantly and substantially lower institutional trust than cohorts of men who were just exempted. At the same time, ending conscription had no effect on institutional trust among women from comparable cohorts. Results are neither driven by more favorable attitudes toward the government, nor by educational choices. Instead, this civil–military gap unfolds through the formation of a homogeneous community with uniform values. We argue that reintroducing a compulsory military service may not produce the effects anticipated by its advocates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defense policy makers have become increasingly concerned about conflict in the "gray zone" between peace and war. Such conflicts are often interpreted as cases of deterrence failures, as new technologies or tactics—from cyber operations to "little green men"—seem to increase the effectiveness of low-intensity aggression. However, gray zone conflict could also be a case of deterrence success, where challengers adopt a constrained form of aggression in response to a credible escalation threat. We develop a model that formalizes both scenarios and identifies distinct empirical patterns across the two cases. We use the model's findings to empirically analyze Russian gray zone activity since the 1990s, finding that Russian activity appears, in part, to be restrained by NATO's deterrent threat. Our model also shows that developing gray zone conflict capabilities can lead to more peace but could also backfire and provoke a challenger to escalate to war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the European Union has continuously expanded its role in the area of security and defense policy. This process gained momentum following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. New decisions and initiatives on common defense were developed due to the effects of the war, which changed the dynamics of interaction between institutions and member states. The analysis highlights how the EU is using the opportunities created by crises to strategically expand its security policy mandate. It also examined how the war in Ukraine led to the establishment of new security and defense initiatives, which affected its geopolitical position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 15 years, the EU has gradually become more involved, de jure and de facto, in the field of collective defense. This underappreciated evolution occurred in three phases: first, an initial phase, from the steps leading up to the Lisbon Treaty, which incorporated collective defense into the EU's mandate via Article 42.7 TEU, to the first activation of this provision following the November 2015 Paris attacks; second, a phase of indirect development, with the launch of policies on military mobility and hybrid threats, tangentially linked to collective defense; and third, a phase of direct yet incomplete affirmation, with calls to operationalize Article 42.7 TEU and the signaling of the EU as a collective defense framework during crises with Turkey and Russia. The EU's modest forays in collective defense, while resulting from both a deliberate and emergent strategy, have become more conscious over time and thus increasingly difficult to ignore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militants led by Hamas launched a complex coordinated attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, triggering an Israeli ground invasion combined with an aerial bombing campaign. The Hamas fighters killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, while the death toll from Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip exceeded 31,600 in mid-March 2024. The Hamas attack not only shocked the whole world but also caught most people by surprise. Probably only a few could have imagined that the Palestinian organisation that controls the Gaza Strip could carry out such an attack on Israel. Following 7 October, several questions arose. Why Israeli intelligence could not predict the attack, and why did security and defence forces not react in time? The Israeli Government promised a full investigation once the Gaza ground offensive launched in response to the attack was over. But even without knowing more details of the events, we might still be able to provide a preliminary assessment of the surrounding Israeli intelligence failures based on the reports and accounts made public in the international media. Three months after the attack, the publicly available information showed that the Israel Defense Forces were unprepared and there was no battle plan in place in case Hamas militants broke out of the Gaza Strip with large forces. Clarifying what happened will be crucial not only to learn from the mistakes, but also because other actors or adversaries can learn from Hamas and copy its tactics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares Russia's legal justifications for the use of force against Ukraine and past U.S. uses of force and the accompanying legal justifications for such force. Topics discussed include survey of six U.S. military operations, and any gaps or inconsistencies in the U.S.'s legal analysis, overview of Russia's stated justifications for invading Ukraine, and recommendations for a legal information strategy accompanying uses of military force.

This article examines the contemporary history of the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) from peacekeeping to the most recent update to Canadian defence policy, highlighting their historical roles and contemporary challenges. It discusses the evolving purpose of the CAF, which has shifted from conventional defence to supporting and reinforcing a western-led international order. It explores issues such as defence spending, procurement challenges, peacekeeping endeavors, veterans' support, diversity and inclusion within the CAF. Moreover, it explores emerging threats in cyber, space and Arctic domains, including the rise of artificial intelligence threats, and emphasises the need for Canada to adapt its defence strategies accordingly. Specific focus is given to changes in Canadian defence policy in Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE) released in 2017, and Our North, Strong and Free released in 2024. Ultimately, the article offers a critical assessment of Canada's military role in the context of evolving global challenges and societal values, highlighting the recent policy shift towards expanding national and international defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]