Security and Defence

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.

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.

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.

The Human Security Centre is alarmed by the apparent decision to reduce the planned fleet of UK Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft from five to three.

In a previous article from the Human Security Centre on the topic of neutral European states, the concept of neutrality was examined in relation to how Switzerland, Austria and Ireland have put neutrality into practice, including a history of neutrality in each of these countries, followed by an analysis of conventional ground-based military assets. This second article which looks into aerial and naval military assets, and examines how neutrality is practiced as a foreign policy by these three countries.

Human Security Centre (HSC) Senior Fellow Simon Schofield has had a comment piece examining Turkey's foreign policy ambitions published in Reaction. In the article, he outlines how Ankara's conflict with Athens over maritime Exclusive Economic Zone boundaries and sponsorship of jihadists represent the latest manifestation of a Turkish foreign policy approach that risks undermining NATO and the West.

The Government’s tepid response to the Russia Report is unlikely to have made any in the Kremlin lose much sleep. A stronger effort is therefore imperative to deter any future attempts to undermine UK democracy.

The law of neutrality was codified in 1907. Otherwise known as the Hague Convention, this document sets out the rights and responsibilities of neutral states. Since its writing, two World Wars and the Cold War have challenged neutral states to take steps and ensure their neutrality while giving them the chance to develop unique foreign policies.