Week: Global Views

Posts from our partners at e-IR, Global Observatory and ISS Africa

NORAD’s Evolving Role in North American Homeland Defense

NORAD Command Center at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. Image: U.S Air Force/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by E-International Relations on 13 February, 2015.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has long been a function of the North American security environment.  Initially established during the Cold War, NORAD was intended to fulfill a homeland defense role by looking outwardly to identify and interdict threats approaching Canada and the United States. In the post-9/11 period, NORAD’s focus has evolved and the institution has shifted from looking outwardly to include participation in homeland security operations taking place within the United States and Canada.  NORAD’s participation in North American homeland security operations has resulted in the redefinition of the institution’s role in defense and security operations.  In recent years, NORAD has provided airborne security at major sporting events, government conventions, and other large public gatherings.  This homeland security support role has been buttressed by the institution’s appropriation of popular cultural icons, such as Santa Claus and Superman.  These examples are symbolic of a broader shift away from strategic defense, towards a public relations’ role.  In the post-9/11 period, NORAD’s primary function has been to affirm U.S. dominance over North American skies, and to convey to the public audience that the potential for future terrorist attacks remains a threat to domestic security.

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Our Great War Synthesis

A single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) launches from the U.S. Navy AEGIS cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70). Image: U.S Navy/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by War on the Rocks on 4 February, 2015.

Remember when the next war started? Now you do.

If we were to describe one of the main missions of the Atlantic Council’s Art of Future Warfare project, it would be using stories to create those “Remember when?” moments about events that have yet to happen. About characters who have yet to change the course of history. Places that will be marked forever as the spot where stone and steel met to spark a global conflagration. Or the information void into which we will peer, seeking any sign at all that the human catastrophe of the next “Great War” might be averted.

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Fascism in Interwar Egypt: Islam, Nationalism and Political Modernization

King Faruq I of Egypt in military uniform displaying several medals and decorations. Image: Riad Shehata/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by E-International Relations on 28 January, 2015.

Although Fascism has been a phenomenon made in Europe, it had its own political and ideological implications on the neighboring colonized Arab-Muslim world as well during the interwar period. Considering Egypt’s representative case, this article tends to show under which circumstances Fascism had established its own school in this Muslim country, what the native political forces had actually learned from it and how Fascism had been domestically translated into just another reflection of the political modernization process.

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Categories
Regional Stability

Palestine in the ICC: Game Changer for Peace Process?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Image: Vincent van Zeijst/Wikimedia

This article first appeared on The Sentinel on January 19, 2015.

The year 2014 ended with a cliffhanger for the Israeli-Palestinian question. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed the Rome Statute on New Year’s Eve, a day after a UN resolution mandating Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank failed to pass at the Security Council. As a result, Palestine will formally become a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on April 1, 2015.

Questions abound as to how significant the move will be in changing the balance of power between Israel and Palestine and what it means for the ever-elusive “peace process.”

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Tensions Rise Between India And Pakistan


This article was originally published by openDemocracy on 10 January 2015.

International constraint and mutual nuclear deterrence may have prevented all-out war with Pakistan in the past over contested Kashmir. With thousands fleeing their homes amid escalating violence, that may not remain a secure wager.

Rising tension at the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan is putting in question the widely-held assumption that their conflict will not escalate to an all-out conventional or even nuclear war. International concern has extended to the US, previously resistant to mediating in the Kashmir dispute.

This is at the heart of the existential rivalry between the two states. Kashmir has become so symbolically significant to both India and Pakistan that they are beset by zero-sum thinking, though a resolution would potentially put an end to their hostilities. In the current context that seems unlikely.

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