Global militarisation

The current priority of the dominant security actors is maintaining international security through the vigorous use of military force combined with the development of both nuclear and conventional weapons systems. Post-Cold War nuclear developments involve the modernisation and proliferation of nuclear systems, with an increasing risk of limited nuclear-weapons use in warfare – breaking a threshold that has held for sixty years and seriously undermining multilateral attempts at disarmament. These dangerous trends will be exacerbated by developments in national missile defence, chemical and biological weapons and a race towards the weaponisation of space.

Yemen: state fragility, piety, and the problems with intervention

Lisa Wedeen | NOREF | March 2010

Issue:Global militarisation

In this recent publication from the Norwegian  Peacebuilding Centre (NOREF), Lisa Wedeen argues that "The seemingly neutral category of “failed states,” as applied to Yemen, constructs the country as a place in need of intervention. In obscuring more than it reveals about local realities, outside interference runs the risk of being counterproductive."

Read more »

How small arms and light weapons proliferation undermines security and development

Rachel Stohl, EJ Hodendoorn | Center for American Progress | March 2010

Issues:Global militarisation, Marginalisation

The proliferation of small arms and light weapons is an immediate security challenge to individuals, societies, and states around the world and an enormous hurdle to sustainable security and development.

Read more »

America and Israel: a historic choice

Paul Rogers | openDemocracy | March 2010

Issue:Global militarisation

Pictured to the left, past construction in Har Homa settlement in East Jerusalem (courtesy of activestills); yet as Paul Rogers argues 'The serious row between Washington and Tel Aviv is about far more than the construction of homes in east Jerusalem; it goes to the heart of the close military alliance between the two states.'

Read more »

India's Defexpo 2010 and the Global Arms Trade

Nitasha Kaul | openDemocracy | March 2010

Issue:Global militarisation

The recently held  Indian Defexpo 2010 (described as "Asia's biggest arms bazaar") illustrates the increasing levels of militarisation both in India but also globally writes Nitasha Kaul.

 

Read more »

The nuclear-weapons moment

Paul Rogers | openDemocracy | March 2010

Issue:Global militarisation

The global effort to extinguish the nuclear peril needs to regain momentum. A bold act of leadership and imagination by one of the weapons-states could provide it.

Photo courtesy of thepretenda.

Read more »

Three connected conflicts - Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Paul Rogers | Oxford Research Group | February 2010

Issue:Global militarisation

Tagss:Afghanistan, Conflict, Iraq, Pakistan

At the beginning of February, ISAF sources announced that a major military offensive was about to be mounted in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. This was Operation Moshtarak (“together”), involving 15,000 US, British and Afghan National Army troops, and would concentrate on clearing Taliban and other paramilitary groups from two areas, one of them centred on the town of Marja. The publicity given to the operation appeared designed partly to encourage civilians to evacuate areas under Taliban influence, but would also serve to highlight the capabilities of coalition forces at a time when support for the war in the United States and Britain was fragile.

Given the size of the operation, it is likely that it will provide a major focus for western media attention for some weeks, but to get a full measure of its significance requires seeing it in the wider context of the conflicts in Iraq and Pakistan, and of the Status of the al-Qaida Movement. There have, in particular, been significant developments in both Iraq and Pakistan, with each likely to have an impact on what is now happening in Afghanistan.

Photo courtesy of Helmandblog.

Read more »