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Call for papers: A world in flux? Analysis and prospects for the U.S. in global security

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A world in flux?
Analysis and prospects for the U.S. in global security

 Call for papers
US Foreign Policy Research Group and Strife first annual conference
March 4, 2015 at King’s College London

The world is in an increasing state of flux. Growing concerns over the rise of Islamic State and international tensions over Ukraine have compounded with ongoing dilemmas over North Korea’s nuclear program and international terrorism more broadly. Wikileaks has demonstrated gaps in state’s information security, while the growing problem of foreign fighters has showed how global events are linked increasingly with domestic concerns. The tools engaged to manage security are changing, as are partnerships and allies. The concept of security has also widened and deepened over recent decades, expanding from security between states, to areas such as individual and environmental security. At the forefront of these challenges, the United States has remained the hegemon, but how has this position changed and what role will it play in the future?

This one-day conference will bring together a diverse range of practitioners and academics who will critically analyze the shifting state of security and investigate the diverse ways in which the United States, as the continuing dominant force in global affairs has responded, and continues to respond to, these challenges.

The first annual joint United States Foreign Policy Research Group and Strife conference will survey the expansive terrain of global insecurity and the US response across its many diverse aspects. Held in the renowned Department of War Studies, at King’s College London, this conference is interested in theoretical explorations and empirical case studies, with particular emphasis on new approaches and cross-disciplinary dialogue. A selection of excellent papers will be included in a special spring edition of Strife Journal.

Under the conference theme, we welcome submissions of proposals for panels and papers, which address a number of the following cognate (though not exclusive) topics:

1. Military-to-military relations

  • Changing tactics of warfare (i.e. COIN and drones)
  • Counter-terrorism
  • Security sector and military reforms

2.  Responses to recent and continuing conflicts

  • Middle East (Palestine-Israel, Iraq, Syria)
  • Europe (Ukraine)
  • Asia (South China Sea disputes, Afghanistan, Pakistan)

3.  Emerging security concerns

  • Environment
  • Health care/epidemics
  • Cyber security

4. Homeland security

  • Detainees/Guantanamo/extraordinary rendition
  • Information security (i.e Wikileaks, the Bradley Manning case)
  • Impacts of the global on the domestic (i.e. civil liberties)

We welcome abstract submissions of 300 words and brief biographies from postgraduate research students. Consideration will also be made for exceptional graduate applications. Please submit to editors.strife@gmail.com by November 1, 2014 with the subject line “USFPRG-Strife Conference.”

The conference will take place on March 4, 2015 at King’s College London, Strand Campus. Attendance at the conference will be free and open to all.

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Downloadable version: Strife-USFP First Annual Conference – Call for Papers

Is Trident relevant?

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By Christy Quinn:

110301-N-7237C-009

The Trident Commission, comprised of representatives of the three major parties and members of the UK defence establishment and organised by the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), represents the latest attempt to evaluate the necessity of the UK nuclear deterrent and its renewal.[i] Unfortunately, it has simply ended up restating many of the existing contradictions of UK nuclear strategy.

Historically the UK government has justified maintaining its own nuclear arsenal as the necessary price of remaining a world power in an era dominated by the United States. Thankfully the Commission has recognised the declining role of nuclear power in international diplomacy and looked primarily at how Trident contributes to the UK’s national security. It has ended up focusing its requirement for retaining a UK nuclear deterrent around the hypothetical “nuclear blackmail”scenario, where an aggressive nuclear-armed state threatens nuclear attack unless its needs or objectives are met. However, the Commision provides very little evidence about the likelihood of such a scenario and when policymakers in unfriendly countries would consider it in their interests. Indeed, it is highly likely that such behavior would be counterproductive in turning such states into ‘pariahs’, resulting in diplomatic and economic isolation.[ii] The primary example of brinkmanship resembling nuclear blackmail in recent years has been North Korea, which has periodically raised tensions with the US and South Korea in order to extract economic concessions. However, the report rightly notes the isolation of the UK from the South Asian strategic theatre and its small role in the conflict, to the extent that the UK’s nuclear deterrent is not relevant.

Special attention in the report was given to Russia, where Russian involvement in the Ukrainian conflict and the perceived threat to the Baltic states have forced a reassessment of the likelihood of Russian aggression against NATO member states. If Russia were to blackmail the UK to comply with its political objectives under threat of nuclear attack, it would have to assume that it faces no risk of nuclear retaliation. Russia would also have to assume that the US has also disarmed. There is frankly no possibility of the US completely disarming and withdrawing the nuclear umbrella over its NATO allies while there are any potentially unfriendly nuclear states still in existence. France conceivably may also have a problem with its EU partner, NATO ally and close neighbour being threatened with nuclear annihilation. In this reading, the United States’s nuclear deterrent and its willingness to protect its allies is the only one necessary to prevent nuclear blackmail. If Russia threatened to attack UK territory or bases with nuclear weapon, the US would be expected to honour Article 5 and defend Britain with any means necessary.[iii] Would the US stand idly by if London, a global trading centre and a key base of Western geopolitical power, suddenly disappeared under a rain of thermonuclear missiles? It’s a very hard scenario to imagine outside of a Hollywood thriller.

Furthermore, the report also confirms that the UK nuclear deterrent is entirely dependent upon US support and cooperation. Whilst the operational decisions for Trident are made by the Prime Minister, the UK only possesses Trident with the explicit support and technical cooperation of the US. If the US did withdraw its support for maintaining the UK nuclear deterrent, it would take “months rather than years” for their operational ability to expire due to shared maintenance agreements for the missiles and warheads.[iv] Many key components for the missiles are manufactured exclusively in the US. Even in the event of a renewed deterrent that featured an entirely new warhead and vehicle design, the prohibitive cost of starting from scratch would force the MoD to depend at least partially on US designs compatible with UK submarine designs.

Another major problem facing Trident is its lack of deterrent against the most likely form of nuclear attack; where a terrorist group, either with or without the help of an unfriendly state, detonates a mobile, low-yield nuclear weapon in a populated area. One of the most discussed scenarios in security circles is political instability in Pakistan leading to the country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands.[v] If the terrorist group were evidenced to have obtained its warhead from Pakistan’s military or intelligence units, what would constitute proportionate response? Does Mutually Assured Destruction apply to state-sponsored terrorism? Do the residents of Islamabad warrant nuclear retaliation due to the actions of their government, or rogue actors within it? If there was no evidence of state sponsorship and the attack was entirely conducted by non-state actors, who or where warrants retaliation? Trident answers none of these questions. It is a strategic relic from another age that the UK’s defence establishment cannot face up to losing, despite its diminishing value in the 21st century.

 

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Christy Quinn is an incoming student for the MA in Intelligence & International Security at the War Studies Department of Kings College London and is a graduate of International History at the London School of Economics. His primary research interests include cyber security, diplomacy & strategy, economic history and the SE Asia and MENA regions. You can follow Christy on Twitter @christyquinn

 

Bibliography

UK Cabinet Office. “Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR)”, HM Government, 2010.
T.C. “Accounting and the Bomb”, The Economist, 30 July 2010.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2010/07/britains_nuclear_weapons

NOTES

[i] BASIC, “The Trident Commission: Concluding Report”, British American Security Information Council (BASIC), 2014.
[ii] Sechser, Todd S. and Fuhrmann, Matthew, Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail (2012). International Organization, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2135028
[iii] North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), “What is Article 5?”NATO. http://www.nato.int/terrorism/five.htm
[iv] Taylor, Richard N. “UK’s nuclear deterrent entirely dependent on the US –cross party report”, The Guardian, 1 July 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/defence and-security-blog/2014/jul/01/trident-nuclear-weapons-uk
[v]“What US could do if Pakistan loses control over nukes”, Global Security Newswire, http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/what-us-could-do-if-pakistan-loses-control-over-nukes/

No guts, no glory

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By Matthew Bell:

scotland

Would an independent Scotland be missing some essential body parts?

How do you create a new country? Not a question many of us have had to ask, but one surely on the minds of thousands of Brits worrying what independence would mean for the security we have all come to take for granted.

The Scots now join an exclusive club of peoples who have found themselves charged with picking a course separate from that of its closest neighbour – in Scotland’s case, one it has been bound to for over 300 years.

Devolution has given Scotland a taste of independence, and much debate has understandably focused on whether Scotland could afford to lose the pound and many of the businesses that may prefer to be based across the border.

But the White Paper[1] published by the Scottish government last November also shows the scale of the task it faces in setting up new structures for defence and security.[2]

Or rather, it doesn’t. Because virtually every statement made on defence raised new questions without answering the multitude already posed.

Scotland’s future membership of the EU is far from certain, while the Scottish National Party has gently retreated from an absolute ban on nuclear weapons in its territory, reflecting just how much it values membership of NATO – an alliance underpinned by nuclear deterrence.

Vital organs

But even without descending into those uncertain waters, an independent Scotland would plainly have a plethora of problems to address, with few solutions clear.

Chief among these is how to create the public bodies that will look ahead, gather information, make plans and execute them to ensure Scotland stays safe and secure. All the boring stuff that in reality comprises the vital organs of a country, helps animate its spirit and keeps everything working properly.

The UK government estimates Scotland would need to create over 200 public bodies after independence,[3] including about a dozen that would be essential to secure its borders and protect the new nation.

The Scottish government countered that the list proved how “cluttered” the UK’s public sector had become, and said it would absorb many of the required roles into pre-existing departments and agencies.[4] Even so, the list of essential defence bodies is formidable.

This should not be too surprising for a country vying to break away and go it alone. But astonishingly, the SNP seems to have given little or no thought on how to pay for it.

Settling on an annual defence budget of £2.5 billion is all very well, even if many of the SNP’s stated expectations – including a fleet of at least 12 Typhoon fighters – seem more than a little unrealistic.

But factor in the costs of setting up a sprawling network of highly skilled military and civilian staff to carry out a bewildering array of highly specialised jobs, and you wonder how much money would be left.

At the risk of burdening illumination with detail, this is how the list stands. Bear in mind this is not an exact science, and much of what is currently done in UK hands could indeed be shuffled around quite a bit, as the SNP suggests – but the sheer scale of the challenge is eye-watering:

MI5 – spying for protection of the homeland
MI6 – foreign spying for protection of the homeland and overseas interests
GCHQ – data and signals monitoring
Ministry of Defence – strategic planning, co-ordination and command, troop recruitment and training, essential liaison with other armed forces
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory – scientific and technical research on technologies too sensitive or specialised for the private sector
Defence Nuclear Safety Committee – expertise on nuclear programmes, sites and operations
Defence Scientific Advisory Council – expertise on other areas of engineering and technology
Defence Support Group – essential maintenance of land and aerial vehicles
Advisory Group on Military Medicine – advice on the use of medical treatments on operations
Armed Forces Pay Review Body – independent advice on military salaries

The list does not include the following bodies, whose roles are carried out within the MoD but are significant enough to warrant separate mention:

Defence Intelligence – strategic defence intelligence for the military
Defence Equipment & Support – buys all the MoD’s equipment, annual budget £14 billion

The Scottish government has at least tackled part of the conundrum, settling on the creation of a Security and Intelligence Agency to replace the work currently done by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.[5]

But even here the strategic planning and costing is woefully inadequate, according to the Royal United Services Institute.[6]

An effective agency would take years to build from scratch, and would probably have paltry access to data and signals intelligence to properly identify and track security threats, says RUSI.

To add to its woes, an independent Scotland would not have automatic access to the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence pool – shared by the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – and could also be left out from the Club of Berne, which enables intelligence sharing between European agency heads.

A familiar new friend

These challenges may push an independent Scotland towards close intelligence co-operation with the remainder of the UK, but the UK would not be in a position to share sensitive information garnered by others without their permission.

All things considered, the rest of the UK would have to decide how secure it would be with the country on its border shorn of useful intelligence and the means to understand it. In defence too, the UK and Scotland may prefer intimate collaboration to ensure the joint security of the island.

This is perhaps the nub of the issue: the extent to which UK co-operation would be desirable or even essential for Scotland in any number of areas, from defence and intelligence to finance and business.

The problem will hit both countries hard, at which point the politicians will really have to earn their pennies by striking acceptable compromises across the board.

Of course, both sides already know what could be coming and are busy installing leverage for what would be hugely important separation negotiations.

But in a worst case scenario, could Scotland really get by on its own if the political battle was lost, and it received minimal aid in defence and intelligence from the remainder UK?

Those working in defence and security already face a sea of uncertainties in their daily toil. Independence without proper planning could bring a whole lot more.

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Matthew Bell is author of ‘Making the Break’ (November 2013) and ‘Separation Anxiety’ (June 2012), articles on Scottish independence and defence published by IHS Jane’s.
www.Matthew-Bell.com
@MatthewAlBell

NOTES

[1]Scottish government White Paper: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/0
[2]Scottish government White Paper – international relations and defence: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/10
[3]List of 200 public bodies Scotland would need to establish after independence: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-public-bodies-that-operate-in-scotland
[4] BBC coverage of public bodies serving Scotland: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-22993752
[5] Scottish government White Paper – security and intelligence: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/11
[6]RUSI on the proposed Scottish security and intelligence agency: https://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/201403_BP_Scotlands_Blueprint.pdf