Month: August 2013

Categories
Terrorism

Review – Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus

North Caucasus regions map
North Caucasus regions map. Photo: Peter Fitzgerald/Wikimedia Commons.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Schaefer, U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) and Eurasian Foreign Area Officer, offers a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the situation in the North Caucasus in his book The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad. Though this book was published three years ago, the recent Boston Marathon Bombing in the U.S. by Chechen extremists makes a review of the book, and its subject matter, timely. In reviewing the book, I gained useful insight into the politics, and sources of instability, in the North Caucasus region, and was able to clarify the role of Islam in Chechnya. Schaefer tackles the definition of insurgency, differentiating it from terrorism, gives a comprehensive history of the region, focusing on the past 300 years, and brings the reader up to date by covering the Chechen-Russian wars in the 1990s, and the aftermath, in detail. In so doing, the reader receives a rare glimpse into the region’s political tensions, as well as a forecast for the future.

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How Organized Crime and UN Peace Operations Came to Converge In Fragile States

UN Peacekeepers and UN Police from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
UN Peacekeepers and UN Police from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. Photo: MATEUS_27:24&25/flickr.

In 1948, the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) was deployed as the first United Nations peacekeeping mission, mandated to monitor the Arab-Israeli ceasefire. In the aftermath of World War II, the international system had evolved into a bipolar order in which international actors were focused mostly on interstate disturbances and proxy wars. During this time, organized crime was mostly concentrated in cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Naples, Palermo, and Tokyo, and of little significance to the international community. Peace operations and organized crime were separate and unrelated issues.

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Germany, the Euro and the Euro Crisis

Merkel and Barroso
Merkel and Barroso. Photo: European People’s Party/flickr.

In a recent article, Alexander Reisenbichler and Kimberly J. Morgen argue that ‘Germany won the Euro Crisis’[i]. I doubt that any country can be the winner of a major economic crisis, especially if we are talking about an exporting nation. Of course Germany does benefit from some economic developments of the current Euro Crisis–in particular the low interest rates for German government bonds which reduce public spendings for interets payments on public debt. However, as an exporting nation, Germany depends on stable economic conditions in Europe. Thus a sluggish economic situation in several European economies has a negative impact on German exports and thereby on Germany’s real domestic product (GDP) and labour market. Hence I would argue that Germany benefits from the Euro, not from the Euro Crisis.

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In the ICC’s Interest: Between ‘Pragmatism’ and ‘Idealism’?

The International Criminal Court in The Hague
The International Criminal Court in The Hague, courtesy of Vincent van Zeijst/Wikimedia Commons.

It is a regular occurrence to hear how the International Criminal Court (ICC) serves the interests of particular actors, be it warring governments, rebel groups, or members of the international community more broadly. Rarely, however, have scholars and observers considered how the ICC’s decision-making is shaped by the ICC’s own ‘institutional self-interest’.

At the heart of criticisms that the ICC is ‘political’ is the view that the Court is inherently and inevitably selective. This critique is deployed both within and between situations. In cases such as Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Libya, it is argued that the ICC has erred in targeting only one side of the conflict. Alternatively, it is argued that the Court focuses myopically on the weakest states in the international community (see the ICC-Africa debate), leaving situations where major power interests collide (e.g. Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan) beyond the reach of international justice.

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India and the Nuclear Grey Zone

Agni-II missile
Agni-II missile. Photo: Antônio Milena/Wikimedia Commons.

India’s status as a military power is underlined by its possession of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, India’s nuclear weapons program is not permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and New Delhi has elected to remain outside of the formal non-proliferation regime. This ambiguous position has become increasingly accepted by members of the regime, but it represents a challenge for global non-proliferation, because there is no incentive for the country to engage in disarmament or to stem proliferation while this status quo continues. Moreover, India’s place as an accepted nuclear weapons state outside of nuclear regulatory frameworks could significantly impact global non-proliferation efforts.

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