Andrea Ellner

British nuclear non-proliferation policies towards Iran and the Middle East

The article argues that British non-proliferation policies towards the Middle East have had limited success because they are circumscribed by dependence on alliances and constrained by other factors such as Britains historical legacy, its status as a nuclear weapons state and, especially through the European Unions engagement with the region, the communication of self-interest rather than credible pursuit of the declared objective of regional security-building. Despite promoting and implementing its own disarmament policies, Britain has been unable to overcome mistrust and perceptions of hypocrisy in the region in order to strengthen the non-proliferation regime. This is particularly evident in the dispute with Iran, which is examined in detail with the assistance of Adlers ‘double-damned dilemma’ model. The analysis argues that the Western coercive approach has facilitated the stalemate with Iran, because it has encouraged Irans provocations and allowed it to respond with a strategy of denial. The analysis suggests that Britain and its allies adopt a defusing strategy which does not reduce the dispute to a proliferation problem, but treats Irans behaviour as a quest for recognition. Britain has little influence on Iran, but might build on its relationship with Turkey to develop this approach in conjunction with its allies.

Regional Security in a Global Context: A Critical Appraisal of European Approaches to Security

Abstract The EU has developed a normative approach to security over the past 15 years, which is strongly rooted in the concept of human security. This paper examines where human security is situated in the contemporary discourse on security and critically assesses both the concept itself and its application in European security policy. It argues that the approach has weaknesses in concept and practice which potentially undermine the normative aspirations of European security, particularly with regard to political agency, the universalisation of liberal values, legitimacy, sovereignty, the notion of security as a collective good and the external as well as internal dimensions of the EU as a security community.

Page Whaley Eager. Waging Gendered Wars: U.S. Military Women in Afghanistan and Iraq

must be applied to many other global terrains, where interveners are involved – and so often fail. The book is a must-read for intervention practitioners, policy advocates, scholars and researchers in the field, as well as educators in the classroom. Peaceland is not only about Peaceland, but about all the various, other “lands” where outsiders work, “try not to do harm” (252), but unfortunately often only create self-referential worlds of knowledge, which time and again unintentionally distort, if not damage, these very intervention efforts.

Carrier Airpower in the Royal Navy during the Cold War: THE International Strategic Context

An examination of the international strategic context of carrier airpower in the Royal Navy during the Cold War immediately raises a fundamental question: what strategic context? The Royal Navy’s role in the international strategic context was either contested or was in a state of flux, often both, for much of the Cold War period. The major contestant was the Royal Air Force (RAF). With both Services seemingly able to deliver the same (or broadly similar) capabilities – air power – they competed over financial resources for what both considered their “capital” weapon system: a principal strategic bomber and aircraft carriers plus attendant strike aircraft, respectively. Almost immediately after 1945, this had a direct and lasting bearing on their strategic context, which became increasingly defined by what successive governments could afford, rather than what they wished to do. In other words, the fluctuating and declining economic situation forced governments to choose between possible strategic priorities. For the Navy this was particularly problematic. The desire to control West Germany coupled with, and later superseded by, the “Soviet threat” set one priority for the government – the need to tie the US permanently to the Continent as the guarantor of European and British security via the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Contrary to the RAF’s roles – both in NATO and in defense of UK airspace – the Navy’s NATO role was unclear after the introduction of nuclear weapons, whose place in strategy and force structures was also uncertain until the 1960s. Its other reference point, the Empire, was disintegrating. Out of these tensions emerged an even more fundamental problem for the Navy. The surface fleet was designed around aircraft carriers and escorts, with the latter also able to be deployed individually or in groups. It too became a threatened asset. In Defense & Security Analysis Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 23–44, March 2006