Framing the Game: Objections to Bapat’s Game-Theoretic Modeling of the Afghan Surge

In a recently published article in the prestigious journal Foreign Policy Analysis, Navin A. Bapat uses a rationalist approach to explain key bargaining processes related to the Afghanistan conflict, concluding that “the Afghan mission may continue for political reasons until it is impossible to sustain militarily.” The article captures the essence of the strategic situation in Afghanistan: the losing dynamic involved. This brief commentary in response is an attempt to shed light on where the tenets of Bapat’s game-theoretic model may be erroneous, even while the model does produce conclusions that appear valid overall

What makes ISAF s/tick: An investigation of the politics of coalition burden-sharing

This paper is interested in conceptualising the often raised issue of over- and under-contributing in coalition operations; that of how and why members of complex coalitions2 may be punching above and below their weight, respectively. To this end, the first section presents a parsimonious baseline assumption regarding what variables may fundamentally inform coalition burden-sharing, to subsequently discuss how much each of these are found to play a role in the Afghanistan context. The second section elaborates on this by assessing the perception and the interpretation of threats by coalition member countries, related to Afghanistan, as this pertains to prioritising other variables within the scheme outlined in the previous section. The third and fourth sections then proceed to examine and further enrich the existing literature on coalition burden-sharing, and provide further insights regarding the operations of the International Security Assistance Force–Afghanistan, and regarding ISAF member-country decisionmaking; the objective here is to generate further refined assumptions, that can permit a preliminary assessment of the phenomenon of uneven burden-sharing in ISAF, complementing the initial baseline expectations

Nemzetközi tehermegosztás az ebolajárvány és az Iszlám Állam elleni fellépésben

Magyarország 2014-ben két, eltérő jellegű ad hoc nemzetközi együttműködésben is részt vett: az ebolajárvány kezeléséhez és az úgynevezett „Iszlám Állam” elleni fellépéshez is hozzájárult. A szerző a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Bolyai János kutatói ösztöndíjának támogatásával készített tanulmányában a nemzetközi tehermegosztás elméletét alapul véve azt vizsgálja meg, hogy Magyarország gyakorlati szerepvállalása e két esetben mennyiben tükrözi az elmélet által sugallt hozzájárulás mértékét. (Szerkesztői absztrakt.

The Challenges of Equitable International Burden-sharing

This article offers a brief sketch of some of the key concepts and dilemmas related to international burden-sharing. It presents the latter as a key aspect of contemporary global governance that nevertheless faces difficult strategic, political and ethical challenges. These often seem to stem from complaints about a lack of equity in burden-sharing and disagreements over how “equity” is to be interpreted. Contrary to this understanding, the article argues that the fundamental problem is rather that as long as a solution cannot be devised to the problems states are trying to manage in cooperation, no equitable sharing of the related burdens can meaningfully occur. This may be trivial to state but is acknowledged rarely compared to how often it might be the case. The article uses various examples to illustrate this, including a detailed look at international cooperation in the face of the Ebola epidemic and against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

Evolution in military affairs in the battlespace of Syria and Iraq

This paper will consider developments in the Syrian and Iraqi battlespaces that may be conceptualised as relevant to the broader evolution in military affairs. A brief discussion of different notions of „revolution" and „evolution” (in Military Affairs) will be offered, followed by an overview of the combatant actors involved in engagements in the battlespace concerned. The analysis distinguishes at the start between two different evolutionary processes: one specific to the local theatre of war in which local combatants, heavily constrained by their circumstances and limitations, show innovation with limited resources and means, and with very high (existential) stakes. This actually existential evolutionary process is complicated by the effects of the only quasi-evolutionary process of major powers’ interactions (with each other and with local combatants). The latter process is quasi-evolutionary in the sense that it does not carry direct existential stakes for the central players involved in it. The stakes are in a sense virtual: being a function of the prospects of imagined peer-competitor military conflict. Key cases studied in the course of the discussion include (inter alia) the evolution of the Syrian Arab Air Force's use of so-called barrel bombs as well as the use of land-attack cruise missiles and other high-end weaponry by major intervening powers

A RE-ASSESSMENT OF SOCIETAL SECURITY: A FEW THOUGHTS ON IMMIGRATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF INTERNATIONAL BURDEN-SHARING

This essay highlights a few key considerations related to current developments in the field of immigration. It offers reflection on a recently published overview of Security Studies [Marton-Balogh-Rada: Biztonsági tanulmányok…; AJTK: Budapest, 2015], and the assessment therein of the challenges of migration, as a baseline of evaluation to be critically reviewed in light of recent events. Along with weaknesses of the present system of international burden-sharing related to refugee protection, the essay points out pros and cons as to whether a fundamental re-assessment of the situation is truly necessary, and concludes by asking some basic questions that ought to be answered before it is possible to strategically conceive of the road ahead

Links between migration and the presence of foreign combatants in armed conflict

This article explores the connections between migration and foreign combat, offering an improved definition of „foreign fighters,” and a general concept of foreign combatants’ behaviour as an anomalous form of migration. In contrast with the popular discourse and terrorism-related concerns about present-day Western European foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria (and their return to Europe) and Middle Eastern migrant refugees (and their arrival in Europe), the intention of this article is to offer a conceptually thorough consideration of the causal connections between movements of migration and the presence of foreign combatants in armed conflict, informed by a wide sample of cases. Such an assessment has to take place with a view to all forms of migration (including forced migration), all forms of foreign combat (not only foreign combat on the side of non-state actors as David Malet's oft-cited but overly restrictive definition would imply), and regions of the world beyond the Middle East and Islamic countries. Along these guiding lines, the article points out many comparatively rarely considered cases of foreign combat as well as the underestimated obstacles in the way of fighting abroad. Taking account of the latter allows refutation of a key implication of „new war theory” (its focus on „greed” as a motive of combatants), in light of the continued importance of cultural factors and ideological motives for participation in foreign combat

A stalemating strategy in Afghanistan?

The article argues that the West is looking for a stalemate instead of a victory in Afghanistan, even if this statement requires further clarification in the sense of specifying what would happen to the key actors in the conceived stalemated situation. The article first provides an overview of the discourse in West about “stalemate in Afghanistan,” then examines Western strategy in the light of key decision-makers’ statements and noteworthy developments on the ground. It then concludes with an analysis of what sort of stalemate constitutes Western aims in Afghanistan and how it is hoped to be achieved, as well as with an assessment of the enormous difficulties this strategy faces, profoundly questioning its validity

Reflections on the Analysis of Counterfactual Propositions and Alternative History Speculative Fiction about WWI

This article offers a brief overview of the challenges of assessing counterfactual statements in terms of plausibility, to then consider the reasons for the comparative scarcity of WWI alternative histories in published alternative history (AH) speculative fiction. The relative rarity of such fiction may be striking, given the popularity of the notion that the event of the nearly-botched assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, in 1914, in Sarajevo — in a sense a small, improbable event — was the decisive trigger of the conflict. Explaining the comparative lack of AH in the light of a systematic understanding of the difficulties of counterfactual analysis may be as interesting for literary theory as to political analysis. The article closes with a discussion of the few relevant pieces of genre literature that have been identified during the course of the research for this piece