European Defence and Third Countries after Brexit
The UK’s departure from the European Union has given energy to the process towards ‘ever closer Union’ in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Many policies and initiatives have been brought to the table in the aftermath of the referendum that created shock waves in Europe. This policy brief takes stock of the developments in European defence integration since the Brexit referendum in June 2016. Contrary to the dominant political and public debate about those developments, and the political optimism inside the EU, the brief identifies some key obstacles towards expanded European defence integration. With the UK’s exit from the EU, the ‘third country’ role in the CSDP will inevitably be altered, as one of the largest military powers in Europe will stand outside of the EU. For current third countries – like Norway and Iceland – this should lead to caution regarding immediate participation and a pragmatic approach to the developments. Energy and resources should not be invested before post-Brexit institutions and practices have been established.
Cyber-weapons in International Politics : Possible sabotage against the Norwegian petroleum sector
The use of digital weapons is a rising global problem. Society is rapidly becoming more digitalized – and thereby more vulnerable to attacks. These vulnerabilities are increasingly abused by states and other international actors: Information is stolen, and sabotage occurs. Politically motivated digital attacks against petroleum-sector infrastructure represent one such threat, but this has not attracted as much attention by politicians and business leaders as other security challenges in the sector. In an international crisis, Norwegian oil and gas deliveries to Europe could be attacked on a scale far exceeding what the private and public sectors experience on a daily basis. Such attacks could be aimed at stopping or hindering the physical delivery of petroleum, with direct economic, security and political implications beyond the digital domain.This report examines the issue of digital sabotage of the Norwegian petroleum sector by placing the issue in a geopolitical context, by examining previous cases, and by investigating the current security setup in the petroleum sector.
Rival priorities in the Sahel – finding the balance between security and development
The G5 Sahel initiative goes some way to make up for the lack of supranational coordination in the troubled Sahel region. If moulded in the interests of development, it could bring about positive change. But the initiative risks becoming yet another excuse to get more ‘boots on the ground’, if external stakeholders place too much emphasis on fighting terror and stopping migration.
World of the Right: Alternative visions of global order (WoR)
The project looks deeper into the conservative New Right in Russia, the US, and Europe, examining in particular the alternative visions of Western civilisational order that these movem...
Øyvind Svendsen
Øyvind Svendsen is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Research group on global order and diplomacy at NUPI. The core themes in his research ar...
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’: three levels of judicial control over the CFSP
By examining possible forms of judicial control over CFSP at different levels (‘the good, the bad, and the ugly’), this chapter aims to discuss the Court’s approach to the system of judicial control over the CFSP and to provide a holistic picture of possibilities and pitfalls. Having recalled the post-Lisbon developments in the CJEU’s jurisdiction in relation to the CFSP, the present contribution thus asks whether and, if so, to what extent remaining gaps in the Court’s control can be filled by involving other courts: both internally at Member States level, and externally by involving international and/or third countries’ courts. Our main argument is that the Court’s suspicion in relation to alternative judicial oversight may be legitimate. Yet acknowledged gaps in the EU system of judicial remedies in relation to the CFSP ought to be filled for the Union to meet the requirements of the rule of law.
New war zones or evolving modes of insurgency warfare?
This chapter argues that new war zones are neither substantially new nor incomprehensible. It is only our approaches that all too often make us avoid seeing the obvious: people take up arms because they are angry, scared, poor, or short of other livelihood opportunities. On the one hand, regional ‘big men’ operate in a downward direction to capitalise on local grievances, largely for their own benefit. On the other hand, one can witness the evolution of local defence forces/militias moving upwards and becoming intertwined in larger networks and markets (and, in the process, producing new regional big men). A political anthropology of new war zones is therefore confronted by a field of constant flux and fragmentation, where the important dimension to keep track of is less the very agents of violence but the nodal points in these networks of governance and violence, and their ability to maintain networks across space and time.
Understanding the foreign fighter phenomenon in the Balkans: insights from Kosovo and Bosnia
Three researchers are visiting NUPI to talk about why the assumption we have about foreign fighters often is incorrect.