Eugenio Cusumano

The sea as humanitarian space. Non-governmental Search and Rescue dilemmas on the Central Mediterranean migratory route

Abstract In 2016 only, more than 5000 migrants lost their lives while attempting to cross the Mediterranean. To mitigate this humanitarian emergency, ten different non-governmental organisations (NGOs) started conducting Search and Rescue (SAR) operations offshore Libya. While operating at sea ostensibly provides humanitarian relief organisations with the possibility to work free of political interference, non-governmental SAR entails operational and ethical dilemmas, forcing NGOs to accept uneasy compromises on the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence that underlie humanitarian action.

Bridging the Gap: Mobilisation Constraints and Contractor Support to US and UK Military Operations

ABSTRACT The increasing use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) has attracted considerable scholarly attention due to its corrosive effects on US democracy. Drawing on neoclassical realism, this article provides a comparative dimension to the study of the political drivers of military privatisation by analysing contractor support to US and UK operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Domestic political constraints have shaped both US and UK response to the need for more boots on the ground, increasing the propensity to use contractors as a force multiplier in spite of their problematic impact on military effectiveness.

The scope of military privatisation: Military role conceptions and contractor support in the United States and the United Kingdom

Although the privatisation of military support is increasingly widespread, advanced military organisations have not relied on Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) to the same degree. The existing scholarship on PMSCs cannot explain why countries sharing similar material incentives and similar market and political ideologies like the United States and the United Kingdom have not outsourced the same operational tasks. This article contends that introducing military role conceptions as a factor enabling or inhibiting the outsourcing of certain functions provides important insights into the scope of military privatisation, explaining why the US military has systematically privatised armed security and foreign military training, while the UK military has not

Straightjacketing migrant rescuers? The code of conduct on maritime NGOs

Abstract In July 2017, Italy drafted an EU-sponsored code of conduct aimed at regulating non-governmental migrant rescuing NGOs offshore Libya. The code makes permission for NGO vessels to disembark migrants in Italian ports conditional on collaborating in the fight against smugglers and accepting the presence of law enforcement personnel on board. This article investigates the inception, content and likely consequences of the Code, arguing that most of its provisions are either redundant or counterproductive. As suggested by scholarship on civil–military cooperation and maritime rescuing, the code as it stands would only violate humanitarian principles without increasing existing rescuing capabilities.

Contractors as a Second Best Option: The Italian Hybrid Approach to Maritime Security

Initially based mainly on the use of Navy Vessel Protection Detachments (VPDs) paid by shipowners, Italian maritime security legislation also allows for the use of Privately Contracted Armed Security Personnel (PCASP) when VPDs are not available. Hence, Italy has adopted a hybrid antipiracy approach that entails two different forms of private sector involvement: the financing and partial control of public military forces by the maritime industry and the provision of armed security by PCASP, an option that includes Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs). This opening to the commercial sector is significant as one of the first of its kind in a state that has adopted a tight monopoly over the provision of armed services and can be explained as the interplay between the willingness to respond to the needs of the maritime industry and a long-standing resistance against loosening state control over the use of force.

Security privatisation at sea: Piracy and the commercialisation of vessel protection:

In 2011, the growing number of pirate attacks prompted several flag states to authorise the use of armed guards aboard vessels. Despite facing the same threat, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Italy have adopted three distinct approaches to securing their merchant ships, ranging from the exclusive use of private security companies (PSCs) to the employment of military personnel only. This article conducts a congruence testing of the main theoretical explanations for the use of PSCs on land against UK, Dutch and Italian vessel protection policies. By relying on sequencing as a technique for theoretical synthesis, we develop a multicausal explanation of states’ vessel protection arrangements, showing the varying influence of functionalist, ideational, organisational and political drivers of security privatisation at different phases of the policy process.

Resilience for Hire? NATO Contractor Support in Afghanistan Examined

Contractor support has become crucial for advanced military organisations, which increasingly rely on private providers of logistics, training, intelligence, and armed security. The different types of societal destabilisation tools falling under the rubric of hybrid threats all require expertise that military organisations alone neither possess nor can create. As a source of manpower, know–how, and cultural awareness that military organisations are not able to keep within their ranks, contractor support is crucial to respond to hybrid threats, providing an important force-multiplier for NATO forces conducting stability operations and strengthening the resilience of host societies by sustaining the local economy. The use of contractors in military operations, however, has often proved problematic. This chapter examines contractor support to NATO operation ISAF in Afghanistan as a source of insights into the presence and future of the privatization of military support.

From Strategic Communication to Sanctions: The European Union’s Approach to Hybrid Threats

As epitomised by the 2016 Communication outlining a ‘Joint Framework on Countering Hybrid Threats’, the European Union (EU) is increasingly involved in tackling destabilisation challenges ranging from disinformation to energy disruptions and cyberattacks. This chapter examines EU response to hybrid threats by looking at two types of policy instruments. The first one, the fight against disinformation, is a ‘soft’ type of response that the EU has increasingly adopted since 2015 as an answer to misinformation campaigns that have targeted it by a variety of actors, including Russia and the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The second one is a more traditional, ‘hard’ form of action, namely, the planning and implementation of sanctions and restrictive measures. Not only are strategic communication and sanctions key to countering hybrid threats. As this chapter illustrates, both policy instruments require especially close cooperation across military and civilian public actors and between the public and the private sector. Hence, strategic communications and sanctions are crucial cases in the study of EU responses to hybrid threats and the importance of a comprehensive approach in effectively countering them.

In deep waters: The legal, humanitarian and political implications of closing Italian ports to migrant rescuers

ABSTRACT The closure of ports to migrant rescue NGOs marked a turning point in Italy’s approach to seaborne migrations across the Mediterranean. This profile article examines the legal, humanitarian and political implications of this decision. Although closing ports is not necessarily unlawful under maritime, human rights and European law, this policy entails severe humanitarian externalities and may hardly help Italy’s call for structured, long-term solidarity in addressing the challenge of large-scale maritime migrations.

The Political Cost-Effectiveness of Private Vessel Protection: The Italian Case

Abstract Italy has traditionally been wary of private providers of security. Still, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have recently started to play an important role in protecting Italian merchant vessels, eventually replacing the military vessel protection detachment units (VPDs) provided by the Italian Navy. Drawing on neoclassical realism, the increasing involvement of PMSCs in protecting Italian merchant ships is presented as an attempt to reduce the political costs associated with the use of military personnel abroad, epitomised by the arrest of two Italian Navy fusiliers by Indian authorities in February 2012.