Kosovar Refugees and National Security

Almost one million people have been forced to leave Kosovo in search of a safe place for settlement. Although it has not been explicitly stated, the main reason that the Balkan states, as well as those of the Western world, are reluctant to receive them as refugees is that they believe that this would jeopardize their security. Some justify this reluctance as another assertion of the "Fortress Europe" ideal. Approaching the subject from a comprehensive security perspective, this article aims to explain how and why the Kosovar refugees may threaten, or may be perceived to threaten, the national security of the receiving states as well as regional and international stability. In so doing, it discusses some methodological problems concerning the definition of security; it relates refugee migration to the various levels of security analysis; and it examines the impact of refugee activities with reference to the various security sectors.Prè d'un million de personnes ont été forcées de quitter Ie Kosovo à la recherche d'un endroit pour s'établir. Sans que cela n'ait été explicitement reconnu, la principale raison pour laquelle les états balkaniques, autant que ceux du monde occidental, repugnent à recevoir ces gens comme réfugiés est qu' ils sont considérés comme une menace à la securite. Certains justifient cette repugnance en y voyant une assertion de plus de l'idéal de l'Europe Forteresse. Approchant Ie sujet dans une perspective compréhensive sur les questions de sécurité, Ie présent article vise a expliquer comment et pourquoi les réfugiés kosovars pourraient tendre a menacer, ou pourraient être perçus comme tendant a menacer, la sécurité nationale des états hôtes, autant que les stabilités régionales et internationales. Ce faisant, il discute aussi certains problèmes methodologiques concernant la définition de l'idée de sécurité; à la question de la migration des réfugiés aux différentes perspectives de l'analyse des questions de sécurité; il examine l'impact des activités des réfugiés en rapport avec les différents secteurs sensibles sous l'aspect de la sécurité

The State-Society/Citizen Relationship in Security Analysis: Implications for Planning and Implementation of U.S. Intervention and Peace/State-building Operations

The end of the Cold War, and especially the events of September 11, 2001, have led to the redefinition of the U.S. Army’s role. In this new environment, the purpose of the U.S. Army is not only to win a battle or a war, but also to be involved effectively in peace operations in post-conflict societies. To make the U.S. Army more effective requires prior knowledge about the political, societal, and cultural environment within which these operations would take place, as well as the acquisition of a new set of skills that would allow the U.S. Army to handle sensitive situations relevant to this environment. Due to the presence of several “weak” states in the international system, the United States needs to devise and employ strategies aimed at preventing and managing the outbreak of domestic conflicts that have the potential of undermining regional and international peace and stability. To avoid oversimplifications in the planning process, U.S. policymakers should have a comprehensive view of the relationship between the state experiencing domestic conflict and its society/citizens. For the design and effective implementation of peacemaking and peace/state-building policies, U.S. strategists should be fully aware of what constitutes a security issue for social groups and individuals in third countries. Thus, U.S. strategic planning and actions should be based on the adoption of the broaden definition of security as well as the idea of human security. Since international stability is based on the stability of states, the United States needs to assist the creation and maintenance of “strong” states.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1460/thumbnail.jp

European Union: An Empire in New Clothes?

Introduction: The political and academic discourse(s) of whether, or not, the European Union (EU) can be understood as a form of empire are, first, controversial and, second, encounter widely indignant disapproval by those who those who ‘like’ the EU and by orthodox EU scholarship. From such perspectives, the EU is understood as a ‘normative’, i.e., good, power that spreads and conducts politics guided by human rights, democracy, and free markets, while ‘empire’ is understood as something evil, martial, and aggressive (amongst others, Manners, 2002; Telo, 2006; Whitman, 1998). This, somewhat simplified, dichotomy is in desperate need of clarification; and in this clarification exists the approach of this book and its attempt to assemble some of the most important contributors to the first wave of the ‘EU-as-empire-discourse’ to revisit their arguments after some 10 years

Liberal democracy, market economy, and international conduct as standards of ‘civilization’ in contemporary international society: The case of Russia's entry into the ‘community of civilized states’

In his report to the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation in the beginning of 1992, President Boris Yeltsin stated that one of the fundamental principles of his foreign policy was the integration of Russia into the ‘community of civilized states’. However, joining a society or community of some kind requires the fulfilment of certain standards. The first global application of international norms and expected standards of behaviour took place during the nineteenth century through the process of the expansion of the European society of states and its gradual transformation to the contemporary global international society. In this process, the standard of ‘civilization’ played an essential role in determining which states would join the expanding European society and which ones would not. Despite its official repudiation, the standard of ‘civilization’ has remained an international practice as well as a benchmark against which the attitudes and policies of states are assessed. This paper examines the changes that the Russian Government under President Yeltsin had to introduce in order to achieve the country's admission into post-Cold War international society. It argues that these changes included the democratization of the Russian political system, the transformation of the Russian economic system into a free market economy, and the de-ideologisation of the Russian foreign policy

International society and regional integration in Central Asia

This paper examines the degree of integration in Central Asia by utilizing the international society approach of the English School of International Relations (ES). After addressing the debate surrounding the concept of ‘international society’ and discussing its contents and application the paper suggests that within the contemporary heterogeneous global international society there exist some more homogeneous regional/sub-global international societies with Central Asia constituting one of them. It argues that during the Cold War the global international society was divided into two sub-global international societies with the Soviet Union and its allies forming one of them. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia sought to re-establish its regional primacy through the establishment of a set of international organizations ranging from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The paper claims that this range of organizations reflects the existence of a regional international society in Central Asia