While many assessments in the days after the coup in August foresaw instability in the region, no doubt due to the similarities seen in 2012, no increased instability, whether in Mali nor the greater Sahel region, has happened so far.

There has been a tendency among researchers and policy-makers studying the evolution and deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles, referred to colloquially as drones, to discount their contemporary effectiveness in inter-state conflict. However, the recent conflict in and around the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has in some ways challenged that assumption

While Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have sought to pull themselves out of Russia’s orbit and entrench themselves as Western, European states, Moscow has sought to influence and destabilise this process.

There has been extensive discussion of the challenges faced by Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. One major issue facing Suga which has not been analysed in depth is the ongoing territorial dispute between Russia and Japan concerning the ownership of the southern Kuril Islands.

The legal debate around the position of civilians in the combatant landscape can both have consequences for the rights of the individuals in question, and also for the legitimacy of the intervention by Western forces in the Sahel.

In 2014, the Marshall Islands (RMI) attempted, unsuccessfully, to use International Law to compel States to disarm their nuclear capacities. With the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons set to enter into force in January 2021, the RMI’s earlier attempt to have States’ legal obligations clarified is relevant to the discussion on the legal status of nuclear disarmament in International Law.

Human Security Centre (HSC) Deputy Director Simon Schofield has had a comment piece on Turkey's regional policy published in the Jerusalem Post.

Private military and security companies have a strong technical and security culture. But they lack human and humanitarian indicators to rely on. This shortfall contributes to widening the gap between security and human rights considerations, and to increasing possible human rights violations.

Shinzo Abe has caused a significant commotion recently with his resignation. What has perhaps caused just as much of a disturbance is the election of his successor, a veteran LDP politician of more humble origins by the name of Yoshihide Suga.

There may be no ‘smoking gun’ that proves governments consciously deploy SOF without regard for law. However, the intentional lack of public accountability, paired with patterns of potentially illegal deployment, indicate at a minimum a willingness to look the other way and not ask too many questions.