Information Operations Increase Civilian Security Cooperation

Information operations are considered a central element of modern warfare and counterinsurgency, yet there remains little systematic evidence of their effectiveness. Using a geographic quasi-experiment conducted during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, we demonstrate that civilians exposed to the government’s information campaign resulted in more civilian security cooperation, which in turn increased bomb neutralisations. These results are robust to a number of alternative model specifications that account for troop presence, patrol-based operations, and local military aid allocation. The paper demonstrates that information campaigns can lead to substantive attitudinal and behavioural changes in an adversarial environment and substantially improve battlefield outcomes.

China and Russia Security Cooperation on Arms Exports Toward the US’ Global Hegemony

The purpose of this paper is to analyse China and Russia’s relationship in terms of arms exports between both countries and its implications for the United States (US) using a qualitative method and the conceptual framework of Neorealism: hegemony and security cooperation. China and Russia are two great powers that have maintained close diplomatic ties since the Cold War Era. Both China and Russia cooperate in various sectors, including security. Since the collapse of the SU (USSR), which marked the establishment of post-Cold War Russia, the country has become a major arms exporter to China. This close relationship has dynamically developed in the last few decades. China-Russia security cooperation has been assessed as a security challenge for the US. The security cooperation between China, the new rival for the US since its rising, and Russia, the US’ former superpower rival in the Cold War era, is interpreted as a threat to US domination in the Asia-Pacific. However, this paper concludes that while China and Russia have a close relationship, China can surpass Russia’s military technology. That is why, although these countries relationships are close and Russia does not see China as its primary threat, this does not mean that Russia will let its guard down in facing China’s development. There is a tri-polar power balance between these countries and with the US. The main worry is if two actors get too close, leaving the remaining state isolated. Regardless of the global power equilibrium trajectory, China and Russia will become more closed than the US.

Pre-Eminent or Subordinate? An Organisational Environment Perspective on the EU’s Security Cooperation with asean and ecowas

Security cooperation with other regional organisations (ros) has long been a facet of EU foreign policy. The EU’s relationships with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (asean) and the Economic Community of West African States (ecowas) illustrate the variety of the EU’s engagement. In West Africa, the EU is a pre-eminent actor, occasionally dictating an agenda and marginalising ecowas. In Southeast Asia, the EU remains subordinate, facing an uphill battle for relevance in the security sphere and a closer relationship to asean. Prevailing explanations focus on the EU’s internal characteristics or bilateral cooperation dynamics, but fail to fully explain this discrepancy. Based on new interview information, this article argues that the organisational environment also affects the EU’s security cooperation with asean and ecowas. The presence of competitive environments limits the EU’s role in security cooperation and relegates it to a subordinate role. In the absence of competition, the EU is allowed to become pre-eminent.

West African security cooperation needs foreign help

Headline WEST AFRICA: Security cooperation needs foreign help

Regional security cooperation against hegemonic threats: Theory and evidence from France and West Germany (1945–65)

Why do some regional powers collectively threatened by a potential hegemon eagerly cooperate to ensure their security, while others appear reluctant to do so? I argue that robust security cooperation at the regional level is less likely when an unbalanced distribution of power exists between the prospective security partners. In such situations, regional security cooperation tends to be stunted by foot-dragging and obstructionism on the part of materially inferior states wary of facilitating the strategic expansion of neighbours with larger endowments of power resources, anticipating that much of the coalition's gains in military capabilities are likely to be achieved through an expansion of the materially superior neighbour's force levels and strategic flexibility. Evidence drawn from primary material and the latest historiography of France's postwar foreign policy towards West Germany provides considerable support for this argument. My findings offer important correctives to standard accounts of the origins of Western European security cooperation and suggest the need to rethink the difficulties the United States has encountered in promoting cooperation among local allies in key global regions.

Missing Cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean

Resource discoveries and an emerging maritime arms race in the Eastern Mediterranean have created incentives for an overarching security cooperation framework However, collaboration in the mentioned sectors remains absent and the former regional coalitions have been reconfigured. This article investigates why a lack of cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean persists. In answering this question, Securitzation Theory and Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) serve as a theoretical foundation. Building on the latter theories, seeing the Eastern Mediterranean as a regional security complex leads to the contention that if two or more units of this system securitize each other’s activities within the said complex, this will lead to negative ramifications on regional collaboration. The chosen case is the reciprocal securitization of Turkey and Greece in 2020. Finally, the case study reveals blind spots in RSCT and introduces a new concept to cope with these: the buffer subcomplex.