Fragile States as the New Development Agenda?
As Europe struggles with the repercussions of violent conflict in the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel, including high numbers of refugees attempting to enter Europe, the issue of fragile states is pushed to the top of European policy agendas. There are calls to do more – military interventions in different forms, but also humanitarian and development assistance. European countries seek to refocus their development aid towards stabilisation efforts in fragile states that send refugees their way. This trend is unfolding all over Europe, including the Nordic countries. What then could be the basis for a new development agenda for fragile states. Senior Research Fellow Morten Bøås adresses this in new debate article.
Swedish–Norwegian Defence Cooperation: New opportunities?
Swedish–Norwegian defence cooperation has encountered rough seas in recent years, but now seems to have entered smoother waters. This is due to both push and pull factors: push because the new security environment has increased the likelihood of a crisis in the Nordic/Baltic region, which would probably involve all Nordic states, irrespective of NATO or EU membership. Pull because of the renewed US engagement in the region, because of the EU incentives for industrial defence cooperation – and because geographical proximity in itself creates possibilities for shared solutions and practices. This Policy Brief focuses on Swedish–Norwegian defence cooperation in the broader Nordic/Baltic context. We begin by reviewing recent developments in Swedish defence policies, and the implications of previous failed joint Swedish–Norwegian projects. We then turn to opportunities that may emerge as a result of the mentioned push and pull factors. These opportunities are to be considered as ideas; they have not been thoroughly discussed and assessed, but may serve as starting points for follow-on debates and explorations.
Plug and Play: Multinational Rotation Contributions for UN Peacekeeping Operations
In 2016, Norway spearheaded the provision of multinational rotation contribution (MRC) of a C-130 transport plane, together with Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, and Sweden, lasting from January 2016 to December 2018. According to Hervé Ladsous, then Under Secretary-General (USG) for UN peacekeeping operations, speaking at the UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial in London on 8 September 2016, MRCs can be seen as a new and innovative partnership aimed at providing a predictable supply of niche capabilities to UN peace operations. This report studies early lessons from the C-130 MRC and argues that for some key capabilities, MRCs can complement traditional force generation for UN peacekeeping operations. For member states, the ‘plug-and-play’ characteristic can lower the threshold and increase the incentives for contribution; for the UN, they can enable predictable and cost-effective supply of niche capabilities in key areas. However, MRCs are not applicable to all capabilities, and require flexibility and the ability to reform among all concerned parties.
Upholding the NATO cyber pledge Cyber Deterrence and Resilience: Dilemmas in NATO defence and security politics
This Policy Brief clarifies the key concepts of traditional deterrence and explores how these apply to cyber deterrence for the NATO alliance. Firstly a range of problems inherent to cyberspace itself and to the translation of existing deterrence models to this domain are identified. Secondly a range of alternative and complementary approaches to deterrence are proposes that can assist in developing a new framework for conceptualizing NATO Alliance cyber deterrence. A rethinking cyber deterrence as a condition of success or failure is argued for: cyber deterrence must be reframed as an ongoing process, utilizing national and Alliance resources from multiple domains as a means to establish deterrence and resilience. It is argued that traditional models of deterrence, drawn from the nuclear and conventional deterrence thinking of many decades’ standing, are inadequate for addressing the challenge of deterring cyber threats in the 21st century. The dynamism of the environment, the range of threats, the multiplicity of state and non-state actors, and the technical challenges of attribution – all require a reorientation of deterrence posture and practice. This reconceptualization must focus on cyberspace itself in an intensification of attention to its idiosyncrasies, but should also be open to a relaxation of orthodoxy in its incorporation of new outlooks and ideas, some of which may strain the established boundaries of deterrence theory. Full text Policy Brief online version: http://www.nupi.no/en/About-NUPI/Projects-centres-and-programmes/Cyber-Security-Centre/Upholding-the-NATO-cyber-pledge