Download or read book Great Power Assertivitis written by Stephan De Spiegeleire and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The wheel of fortune written by Stephan de Spiegeleire and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2016-06-24 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National security starts with strategic anticipation: what are the risks for the Dutch national security? How can the Netherlands prepare for this, and what choices and investments are needed in order to do so?

Download or read book Rethinking Middle Powers in the Asian Century written by Tanguy Struye de Swielande and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-27 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term "middle power" is conceptually fragile. Some scholars have even argued for abandoning it. This book argues that the concept needs to be analysed more profoundly and that new analytical tools need to be developed to better understand the phenomenon. The traditional approach, based on Western states, is insufficient and has become increasingly irrelevant in a transformed global environment. Instead of drawing from a single theory of international relations, the contributors have chosen to build upon a wide range of theories in a deliberate demonstration of analytic eclecticism. A pluralistic approach provides stronger explanations while remaining analytically and intellectually rigorous. Many of the theory contributions are reconsidering how the largely "Western" bases of such theorising need revising in light of the "emerging middle powers", many of which are in Asia. Presenting a strong argument for studying middle powers, this book explores both the theory and empirical applications of the concept by rethinking the definition and characteristics of middle powers using a range of case studies. It examines changes in the study of middle powers over the last decade, proposing to look at the concept of middle powers in a coherent and inclusive manner. Finally, it aims to further the discussion on the evolution of the international system and provides sound conclusions about the theoretical usefulness and empirical evolution of middle powers today.

Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Diplomatic Thought and Practice in the Digital Age written by Francis Onditi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-09-02 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook integrates a range of conceptual and empirical approaches to diplomacy in the context of ongoing technological and societal change. Technological and societal disruptions affect modern diplomacy, altering its character and reforming its way. In light of such changes, this book offers both historical foundations and contemporary perspectives in the field. By doing so, it demonstrates how contemporary change impacts the work of diplomats representing sovereign states. Global diplomatic services will forever be affected by the digitalization of engagement between states during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In this rapidly changing culture, with burgeoning geopolitical and geostrategic realignment among global powers, the tools of diplomacy have changed. The state’s foreign policy astuteness and responses to these changes could have long-term impacts. All this culminates in opportunities for improving the management of diplomatic services and efficiency of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) of various states. This book provides useful insights into how modern diplomacy works, especially the integration of informalities into formal diplomatic practices in complex peace and security environments, within such a framework of change.

Download or read book India and Europe in a Changing World written by Rajendra K. Jain and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-06-19 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ​This book explores India’s economic and political relations and defence cooperation with major West European countries—France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom as well as Austria, the Visegrad Four, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the Baltics. It examines the complexity, the elements of convergence and divergence as well as the challenges and prospects of India’s relations with these countries and assesses the diverging EU think tanks’ images of India. It focuses on India’s multi-dimensional relationship with European countries, which are major trading partners, a significant source and destination of foreign direct investment, an important source of technology and best practices. It examines the Narendra Modi government’s policies to re-energise the India-EU matrix and proactively engage Europe and its sub-regions.

Download or read book Nowcasting Geodynamics written by Stephan De Spiegeleire and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HCSS’ original term “nowcasting” – as opposed to forecasting – describes the process of monitoring, depicting, and analyzing ongoing developments in international relations as they occur. Once again, our study “Nowcasting Geodynamics” uses a rich base of quantitative data to move beyond the anecdotal, and towards the systematic. We intend our empirical approach to add to debates across all domains – diplomatic, economics, legal, military, etc. – and across all countries, whether they are great powers such as the United States or China, or smaller but strategically important states, such as Indonesia, and Egypt. This year’s analysis covers the geodynamic trends of countries across the world and traverses the different domains in order to give perspectives on the “now” trends, and where they might lead us in the future. This study is part of the 2016-2017 HCSS StratMon.

Download or read book Volatility and friction in the age of disintermediation written by Tim Sweijs and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Events unfolded once again at a swirling pace in 2016. Terrorists hit Europe’s capital in March. The British population voted for Brexit in June. Turkish armed forces failed to topple Erdoğan in July. A resurgent Russia flexed its military muscles again in the Middle East and actively interfered in American elections, in which the American population elected Trump, in November. We are worried but certainly not surprised by the volatility of contemporary international relations. In previous editions of our contribution to the Dutch government’s Strategic Monitor, we already observed a surge in assertive behavior, noted a dangerous uptick in crises, and warned for the contagiousness of political violence. The current volatility is not a coincidence, but rather the result of fundamental disturbances of the global order that are greatly amplified by rapid technological developments. Most mainstream explanations of recent turbulence focus on power transitions (the decline of the West and the rise of the rest), the concomitant return to more aggressive forms of power politics, and a backlash against globalization. What strikes us is that many of the explanations ignore what we consider one of the most striking mega trends that is reshaping the dynamics of power: the ongoing process of disintermediation. The StratMon 2016-2017 analyzes global trends in confrontation, cooperation and conflict based on different datasets. This year the report also contains case studies on Turkey, Moldova and The rise and fall of ISIS. Chapters analyzing the many faces of political violence and 'the other side of the security coin' are also included.

Download or read book Conflict and Cooperation written by Stephan De Spiegeleire and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HCSS has tracked overall trends in global cooperation and conflict as part of its contribution to the Strategic Monitor of the Dutch government. Our study takes into consideration two overarching questions: “Will state or non-state actors be most dominant in the future world?” and “Will whoever becomes most dominant be more cooperative, or more conflictual?” Our approach to this ‘monitoring’ effort aspires to collate and curate a systematic empirical evidence base that allows all relevant stakeholders – analysts, military planners, policy-makers, but also interested companies, NGOs, citizens, etc. – to get a better grip on these fundamental international trends. With the advent of (open-source) event datasets, this has become more possible than ever. This year we updated our findings using data from three different sources and have uncovered a number of different trends. How can we leverage big data to inform policymakers on complex geopolitical trends in our new uncertain era? What are the world’s most cooperative countries? Where in the world can we find the highest concentrations of conflictual behavior? What is the Netherlands’ position in the ebb and flow of international communications? This study is part of the 2016-2017 HCSS StratMon.

Download or read book India s Foreign Policy and Economic Challenges written by Silvio Beretta and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-02-13 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a state-of-the-art analysis of India’s foreign and security policies, examining e.g. the country’s security, economic and trade ties and interactions with Pakistan, China, the United States, Japan, the Middle East and ASEAN. Furthermore, the contributors provide the reader with an overview and analysis of the quality and challenges of India’s regional and global trade and investment policies. While in the past India has been a reluctant and not particularly prominent foreign and security policy actor in East and Southeast Asia as well as globally, China’s resurgence and its assertive and increasingly aggressive regional security policies have led India’s policymakers to reconsider the country’s decades-old non-alignment policies and opt for expanding security and defence ties with the United States, Japan and others. The Indian-Chinese border clashes in 2020 and China’s unlawful occupation of disputed territories along the Indian-Chinese border in the Himalayas have convinced Delhi’s policymakers and the country’s security and defence elites that India is well advised to join and contribute to US-led China containment policies. The expansion of India’s security and defence ties with Japan over recent years in particular will continue to be instrumental to keeping Beijing’s territorial expansionism in Southeast and South Asia in check. This volume analyses India’s involvement and engagement in regional and global trade and investment structures and flows in great detail. Written by a team of prolific European and Indian scholars, the book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of international relations and security studies, as well as policymakers at governmental or international organizations.

Download or read book Assessing Assertions of Assertiveness written by Stephan De Spiegeleire and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study points to worrying trends in how far two great power contenders, Russia and China, have been willing to go to assert themselves in the international arena. It concludes that increased willingness to resort to brinkmanship has heightened the danger of a ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’-type event that could spiral into uncontrollable escalation.

Download or read book Geodesy written by Zhiping Lu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-23 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geodetic datum (including coordinate datum, height datum, depth datum, gravimetry datum) and geodetic systems (including geodetic coordinate system, plane coordinate system, height system, gravimetry system) are the common foundations for every aspect of geomatics. This course book focuses on geodetic datum and geodetic systems, and describes the basic theories, techniques, methods of geodesy. The main themes include: the various techniques of geodetic data acquisition, geodetic datum and geodetic control networks, geoid and height systems, reference ellipsoid and geodetic coordinate systems, Gaussian projection and Gaussian plan coordinates and the establishment of geodetic coordinate systems. The framework of this book is based on several decades of lecture noted and the contents are developed systematically for a complete introduction to the geodetic foundations of geomatics.

Download or read book The Other Side of the Security Coin written by Nicholas Farnham and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The presence of peace is more than the absence of conflict. Analyses and evaluations of the state of the international security environment often focus solely on the most concerning developments and tend to fall back on various conflict-centric metrics when providing assessments of a given security landscape. This chapter, entitled “The Other Side of the Security Coin” investigates a number of positive socioeconomic trends occurring on a global level and how they can contribute to sustainable peace in the future. Improving citizens’ access to socioeconomic opportunities and livelihood-enhancing goods and services is a key factor in increasing the stake that citizens hold in the state of peace in their communities. Fitting within global trends such as the rise of the platform economy and social media, the role of technological and developmental processes improving individual empowerment will become more important for security and defense organizations in the near future. As to how we can leverage the dramatic changes ongoing throughout the world to better suit our security objectives remains yet to be seen. This study provides a brief overview of these trends and identifies the options for security and defense organizations to remain on top of them. This study is part of the 2016-2017 HCSS StratMon.

Download or read book WHEEL OF FORTUNE UP AND DOWN ROUND AND ROUND FASTER AND FASTER written by Stephan de Spiegeleire and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Defense written by Stephan De Spiegeleire and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2017-05-17 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Artificial intelligence (AI) is on everybody’s minds these days. Most of the world’s leading companies are making massive investments in it. Governments are scrambling to catch up. Every single one of us who uses Google Search or any of the new digital assistants on our smartphones has witnessed first-hand how quickly these developments now go. Many analysts foresee truly disruptive changes in education, employment, health, knowledge generation, mobility, etc. But what will AI mean for defense and security? In a new study HCSS offers a unique perspective on this question. Most studies to date quickly jump from AI to autonomous (mostly weapon) systems. They anticipate future armed forces that mostly resemble today’s armed forces, engaging in fairly similar types of activities with a still primarily industrial-kinetic capability bundle that would increasingly be AI-augmented. The authors of this study argue that AI may have a far more transformational impact on defense and security whereby new incarnations of ‘armed force’ start doing different things in novel ways. The report sketches a much broader option space within which defense and security organizations (DSOs) may wish to invest in successive generations of AI technologies. It suggests that some of the most promising investment opportunities to start generating the sustainable security effects that our polities, societies and economies expect may lie in in the realms of prevention and resilience. Also in those areas any large-scale application of AI will have to result from a preliminary open-minded (on all sides) public debate on its legal, ethical and privacy implications. The authors submit, however, that such a debate would be more fruitful than the current heated discussions about ‘killer drones’ or robots. Finally, the study suggests that the advent of artificial super-intelligence (i.e. AI that is superior across the board to human intelligence), which many experts now put firmly within the longer-term planning horizons of our DSOs, presents us with unprecedented risks but also opportunities that we have to start to explore. The report contains an overview of the role that ‘intelligence’ - the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world - has played in defense and security throughout human history; a primer on AI (what it is, where it comes from and where it stands today - in both civilian and military contexts); a discussion of the broad option space for DSOs it opens up; 12 illustrative use cases across that option space; and a set of recommendations for - especially - small- and medium sized defense and security organizations.

Download or read book Dangerous Times written by Christopher J. Fettweis and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-27 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What horrors will the twenty-first century bring? For many people, a clash of civilizations and a perilous return to great power rivalries are the dominant visions of things to come. Fueled by daily headlines, overwhelming majorities of people from all walks of life consider the world to be a far more chaotic, frightening, and ultimately more dangerous place than ever before. Christopher J. Fettweis argues that these impressions, however widespread, are wrong. Dangerous Times? is an examination of international politics that reveals both theoretical logic and empirical data that support the vision of a future where wars between great powers are unlikely and transnational threats can be contained. Despite popular perception, today a far greater percentage of the world’s population lives in peace than at any time in history, and the number and intensity of all types of warfare have dropped steadily since the early 1990s. Terrorism, though reprehensible, can be combated and can actually increase international cooperation among states fighting a common threat. World wars like those of the twentieth century—the true clash of civilizations—are unlikely to be repeated in the close-knit world of the twenty-first century. In this sharp and insightful book, Fettweis discusses this revolution in human history and its ramifications for international relations theory. He suggests a new vision for a more restrained U.S. grand strategy and foreign policy and reveals how, despite pessimistic perceptions to the contrary, the world is more likely entering a golden age of peace and security.

Download or read book Si Vis Pacem Para Utique Pacem written by Willem Theo Oosterveld and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Rise of Populist Sovereignism written by Stephan De Spiegeleire and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2017-09-14 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: