Prospects for Russian foreign policy in 2022

Significance Russian military deployments prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken on October 13 to reiterate the "ironclad" US commitment to Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin's main preoccupations now are Kyiv and Washington. In both foreign policy areas, Russia's comparative advantages have increased because of the energy crisis in Europe and rising US-China competition.

US global military deployments, 1950–2020*

Recent research has shown the importance of studying military deployments and their effects on a wide range of social, political, and economic outcomes. In particular, it has demonstrated how the US has shaped the international system through the largest, and most enduring, military footprint in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. However, data on US military deployments have been limited in scope and are often difficult to access, making it harder for researchers to use them more widely. In this article, we focus on three goals. First, we discuss the evolution of the quantitative US military deployment literature in recent years, highlighting some of the insights this work has generated for scholarship on international relations and US foreign policy. Second, we update the existing troop data assembled by Kane (2004) through 2020. We also include new data on deployment levels specific to US service branches. Third, to facilitate the use of these data we introduce troopdata, an R package containing the updated data and convenience functions to allow scholars to more easily access these data.

Military deployments will not end Colombia protests

Headline COLOMBIA: Military deployments will not end protests

Security struggles will exacerbate violence in Mexico

Significance Although this scenario had already been contemplated in the official decree that established the GN in 2019, the new terms for military deployments are notably different. Impacts The government’s reliance on the military threatens the norms of democratic-civilian politics. The agreement signals the failure of the GN and of AMLO’s security strategy. A more powerful military will not translate into a more effective anti-crime strategy.

Disaster Militarism? Military Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief

Military assets, which include personnel, make an important contribution to disaster relief. However, military deployments can be politically sensitive, and the relevant international law is contested and not binding. This article compares two sets of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) Guidelines on this issue. The 2007 Oslo Guidelines1 state that military assets should be used in disaster relief only as a last resort, while the 2014 Asia-Pacific Regional Guidelines2 acknowledge that military assets are often the first to respond to disasters in the region. Drawing on examples primarily from Asia, this article explores the apparent conflict between these two UN Guidelines and asks two questions about the deployment of foreign military assets in disaster relief. First, to what extent does international law authorize or limit the deployment of foreign military assets in disaster relief? Second, what are the politics of deploying military assets in disaster relief? This article argues that, rather than representing a global standard, the Oslo Guidelines better reflect European practice within Europe, while the Asia-Pacific Regional Guidelines are more representative of practice worldwide. It concludes that the type of military aid provided is key to its compliance with international law and its political acceptance.

Chikungunya Virus Infections in Military Deployments in Tropical Settings—A Narrative Minireview

Chikungunya fever is a vector-borne viral disease in subtropical and tropical areas of endemicity. Apart from the burden on local populations, chikungunya virus infection also poses a risk for travelers and, in particular, soldiers during prolonged deployment-associated outdoor activities. The absence of rapid diagnostic tests makes surveillance challenging during military deployments in war and crisis zones with restricted medical infrastructure. Consequently, both historical and up-to-date surveillance data from battlefields are scarce. From several studies and postdeployment assessments, some information on the epidemiology of chikungunya virus infections in deployed military personnel is nevertheless available. The few published data homogeneously suggest a low infection risk in the endemic setting. During outbreaks, however, the infection risk of military personnel is comparable to that of the local population. Infection clusters of soldiers without pronounced outdoor activity have been reported under such circumstances as well. In spite of efforts focusing on the development of a chikungunya virus vaccine, no licensed product is available so far.

The USE of Military Force by the United Kingdom

Accountability for decisions to go to war has evolved in particular since the 2003 Iraq War, both in a democratic dimension, involving parliaments in deployment decisions, and in a rule of law dimension, enforced by courts. Both forms of accountability lead to a rebalancing of the powers of the executive and the other two branches of government. This chapter considers the evolution of democratic accountability in the United Kingdom, i.e. the competence of Parliament to debate and vote on the government’s decision to deploy the military. The chapter outlines the emergence of a constitutional convention requiring prior parliamentary approval for uses of military force, considering the practice in relation to recent military deployments, e.g. in Syria and Iraq. In this context, different regulatory approaches to military deployments and reform proposals are discussed. The chapter then discusses some uncertainties about the rules of the constitutional convention, such as the threshold of the approval requirement and its exceptions. Finally, the chapter reflects on the U.K. practice from a comparative perspective of the implementation of democratic accountability in Germany. The chapter critically reflects on the lack of formality and malleability of the constitutional convention, resulting in an executive bias, and the obstacles to formalizing the constitutional convention. One particular concern with formalization is the courts’ potential role in reviewing executive war powers and the substantive legality of a military deployment. It is argued from a comparative perspective that some concerns about a further formalization of the constitutional convention may be overstated.