Wyn Rees

Transatlantic counter-terrorism cooperation : the new imperative

Introduction 1. The Theory of Regimes 2. Organizational Frameworks for Transatlantic Cooperation 3. The Threat from International Terrorism 4. Internal Security Cooperation 5. External Security Cooperation Conclusion

Inside Out: the External Face of EU Internal Security Policy

Abstract The field of Justice, Liberty and Security has evolved into an important and dynamic policy domain since the early 1990s. An external policy dimension has developed in relation to internal security as the EU has wrestled with a range of transnational threats. This article analyses this external policy dimension and argues that the Union’s response has two facets. First, the EU has sought to impose its model of internal security upon its neighbours. Secondly, it has attempted to foster norms within the international community that will help to address transnational security challenges.

The Hague Programme

Jaap W. de Zwaan and Flora A.N.J. Goudappel (eds) Freedom, Security and Justice in the European Union. Implementation of the Hague Programme (The Hague: T. M. C Asser Press 2006) Books on the subje...

America, Brexit and the security of Europe:

The Obama administration played a surprisingly interventionist role in the UK referendum on membership of the European Union (EU), arguing that a vote to leave would damage European security. Yet this article contends that US attitudes towards the EU as a security actor, and the part played within it by the United Kingdom, have been much more complex than the United States has sought to portray. While it has spoken the language of partnership, it has acted as if the EU has been a problem for US policy. The United Kingdom was used as part of the mechanism for managing that problem. In doing so, America contributed, albeit inadvertently, to the Brexit result. With the aid of contrasting theoretical perspectives from Realism and Institutionalism, this article explores how America’s security relationship with the United Kingdom has helped to engineer a security situation that the United States wanted to avoid.

European and Asian responses to the US-led ‘war on terror’

This article seeks to establish a context for the other contributions to this special issue. Using the lens of strategic culture, the article tries to explore how states from Europe and Asia have responded to the US-led ‘war on terror’. It argues that the nature of the threat from international terrorism requires states in Europe and Asia to develop a range of external and internal policy responses. Europe has been able to react to this changing strategic environment more successfully because of the pre-existing pattern of interstate cooperation as well as the organizational framework of the European Union. The United States has been more successful in imposing its counterterrorism priorities upon particular Asian states due to the absence of mature frameworks for international cooperation within the region.

Britain and the Wider World

Throughout the ColdWar and post-ColdWar periods, Britain retained a sense of itself as a global actor. In spite of material constraints, the mindset of its political leaders had been to hold on to the country’s status as a leading power and to preserve its seat on the UN Security Council, thereby, in the words of the old adage, “punching above its weight.” In order to do so, it was considered necessary by successive governments to underpin that diplomatic ambition with sizeable military forces. In addition to a strategic nuclear deterrent, the United Kingdom (UK) has sought to deploy armed forces capable of intervening in situations around the world. The rationale for holding these ambitions in the contemporary environment is relatively straightforward. Britain continues to benefit from the Western order that was created after the SecondWorldWar.That order, constructed around political, financial and security institutions, has privileged this country and given it a stake in sustaining this system in the face ofWestern relative decline and the rise of new centers of power, such as China and India.The UK is still a major trading nation and overseas investor and believes that these interests must be protected.Millions of British citizens live and work abroad. It is also apparent that the international security agenda has increased the interdependence of all states.Threats, such as those from international terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the implosion of failed states, have ramifications for countries all around the world. Preventing terrorist organizations from enjoying a safe haven in Afghanistan, for example, has been the justification for Britain maintaining a troop presence there of over 9,000 personnel. The Spending Review announced in October 2010 by the Conservative–Liberal Coalition government poses a major challenge to Britain’s pretensions to remain a global power.TheDefence Secretary,LiamFox, had already argued that theUK could not afford to be a global policeman and indicated the intention of the government to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan by 2015. In the light of the country’s Defense & Security AnalysisVol. 27, No. 1, pp. 31–41,March 2011

The Challenge of the Eastern Enlargement

The quite significant extension of EU action in the fight against crime and illegal immigration after the Treaty of Amsterdam has clearly added some substance to the EU’s declared aim of establishing itself as an ‘area of security’ as a central element of the whole AFSJ treaty objective. This area — as any security zone — is to a considerable extent defined through the borderline it establishes between a secure (or to be secured) ‘inside’ and a (perceived) less secure ‘outside’. The ‘inside’ currently consists of the 15 existing EU Member States, but — with the Union’s first big enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe approaching fast — this ‘inside’ faces an extension to its current near ‘outside’ which could nearly double the number of countries making up the AFSJ within a decade.

The Problems of Organised Crime and Illegal Immigration in Western Europe

The extent of the threat to Europe from transnational organised crime and illegal immigration is more than merely an abstract issue: it has important policy implications for all EU Member States. The fact that these problems are taken seriously has become a policy driver for many areas of communitarised and intergovernmental cooperation. These include law enforcement collaboration, judicial cooperation as well as shaping common policies towards immigration and asylum. Furthermore, JHA cooperation within the EU has become a vital ingredient in the process of building political integration.

The Development of the EU as an Internal Security Actor

Providing internal security for its own citizens is among the essential public goods any state has to deliver and ranks high among its primary sources of legitimacy. The fact that in recent years the EU has emerged as an actor in its own right in this area is therefore of enormous significance to the European integration process. Under the rather colourless and technical-sounding label of justice and home affairs — only recently, with the Treaty of Amsterdam, upgraded to that of an ‘area of freedom, security and justice’ — EU action in internal security-relevant areas such as immigration policy, the fight against cross-border crime and judicial cooperation is now based on an extensive range of treaty objectives, several multi-annual action plans, improved legal instruments, and specific institutional structures both at the EU and at the national level. No other EU policy-making area has, in fact, grown to any similar extent during the past decade.

The Securitisation of Organised Crime and Illegal Immigration

Organised crime and illegal immigration have come to be seen as major problems in Europe, both at the nation-state and the European Union level. These are by nature transnational problems as they occur across recognised frontiers and yet do not comprise state-sponsored activities. Organised crime and illegal immigration are perceived as security problems that need to be countered by a range of policies and have become linked together in the minds of policy-makers for reasons that will be discussed below.