Suchergebnisse

This volume examines the new, the changing, and the enduring features of international security in the post-Cold War era. In so doing, it examines the extent to which present state structures and institutions have been able to adapt and accommodate themselves to the diversity of security threats.

During the twenty years of war in Afghanistan much attention was focussed on the issue of female human rights. The emancipation of women from the rule and legacies of the Taliban was a core objective of Western states. This article traces the resistance within communities and regions to these liberal endeavours and highlights the challenges of imposing rather than embedding values. We note that the Afghan state has always struggled to provide basic human rights for its population, especially for its women. Until those needs are addressed, full emancipation through education and representation of women in society is unlikely. As a case study the country provides an understanding of feminism from a female Afghan perspective as well as an opportunity to explore the human rights context for women generally. Hence, we explain how this war allowed females in Western military forces to operate with greater gender equality on the frontline. Further research has the potential to reveal useful lessons in how female emancipation may be facilitated through an improved understanding of cultural contexts and an appreciation of how basic human rights such as the right to life and security are a prerequisite for female emancipation.

Hybrid warfare is currently a fashionable phrase utilised to analyse a specific form of warfare waged against both large and small states. Currently, concern is raised about how China or Russia may be attempting to influence the domestic politics of states or alliances regarded as hostile to their interests. This could be mischief making in electoral politics or stirring up unrest in an age of populism to weaken and fragment state authority. This chapter examines how small states may be exploited in the age of the hybrid challenge but how sheltering may permit resistance.

ABSTRACTAs debate continues over the conduct, the legality and the morality of the war in Iraq, this article addresses how and why Prime Minister Blair decided on the British road to war in Iraq. The article argues that Tony Blair was working within a mindset at both the domestic and international levels that meant he was predisposed to use military force against Iraq and indeed against other perceived threats to the West. His mindset arose, we will argue, through fear rather than arrogance, through the experiences of the past two decades as much as contemporary events, and this meant that he systematically over-estimated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. We postulate that Blair was not pressured into invading Iraq by President Bush. Rather, he believed that it was the right path for Britain to take, and that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was actually the logical outcome of the 'Doctrine of the International Community' outlined in his Chicago speech in 1999. We go on to make the claim that by concentrating on supporting the United States in its grand strategy, Tony Blair misunderstood the pattern of politics at home and perhaps more seriously of the 'threat' to the domestic security of the United Kingdom. This was not a danger from Iraqi WMD or even from 'foreign' terrorists as had happened on 9/11 but from home-grown suicide bombers, some of whom claimed to be inspired by opposition to Blair's wars. This was the blowback that mattered – and will continue to do so – for the UK.

This piece1 responds to some of the challenges posed by Rosemary Foot in her article, 'Torture: The Struggle over a Peremptory Norm in a Counter-Terrorist Era', also published in International Relations. It looks again at the debates about the seeming rise in the acceptability of torture in the post-9/11 environment, reflects on what the use of 'torture' in Ireland during the 1970s might tell us, and suggests ways of thinking about rules, norms and the mistreatment of terrorist suspects.