Contemporary Diplomacy in Action

New Perspectives on Diplomacy

Alastair Masser, Jack Spence, Claire Yorke, Alastair Masser, Jack Spence, Claire Yorke

• Editore: I.B. Tauris
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781838604639
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Politics & International Relations
• Categoria: Geopolitics

Effective diplomacy remains fundamental to the conduct of international relations in the twenty-first century, as we seek to define and manage a challenging new world order peacefully.
New Perspectives on Diplomacy highlights the importance of diplomacy in political and military crises, featuring details of life as a diplomat, the importance of alliance building, managing failure and diplomatic negotiations with armed groups. Using regional case studies from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Russia and Asia, the second volume demonstrates that the importance of diplomacy and diplomats remains undiminished.

1

The globalization of insecurity and the new imperative for cooperation

Dr Alastair Masser

Today, states face an unprecedented number of threats to their national security. The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a rapid evolution of the strategic threat environment, and the emergence of a litany of new challenges, many of them unimaginable to the previous generation of policymakers. In the three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, this environment has changed – fundamentally. In addition to the threat posed by ‘traditional adversaries’, the 2019 US National Intelligence Strategy lists a dizzying array of ‘evolving threats’, from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and cyberattack to transnational terrorism, global pandemics, organized crime and mass migration.¹

As well as being more diffuse, such threats are arguably now more dispersed. As the number and nature of such threats have increased, so has the ease with which they can be transported across national borders. In many respects, the same advances in technology, transportation and communication that have enabled the globalization of the international economy have also transformed international security. The interconnected nature of the contemporary international order has rendered states increasingly vulnerable to malign actors. Insecurity has, in essence, become globalized.

However, there has been a persistent reluctance to examine the implications of this ‘obverse side’ of globalization.² The evolution of the strategic threat environment it has catalysed has challenged many of the state-centric normative assumptions underpinning security policymaking and scholarship. First, it has eroded the fundamental distinction between national and international security and highlighted the inherent interconnectedness of the contemporary international order. Second, it has rendered cooperation between security actors not only desirable, but essential. Third, as the demands of providing security increase, it has prompted a re-evaluation of the appropriate balance of responsibility between the public and private sector in this ‘age of choice’.³

These emerging – and accelerating – trends have exposed the increasingly outmoded nature of the key institutions which underpin today’s order, the majority of which reflect the post-war or Cold War balance of power, and the state-based nature of the principal threats to national security. This reality poses fundamental questions about the role of diplomacy in providing stability. Specifically, it remains unclear the extent to which diplomats have adapted to this new environment, and the role they can – and must – play in fostering a greater degree of security cooperation between nations.

This chapter examines this new imperative for security cooperation. First, it examines the foundations of contemporary security cooperation, and describes the cooperation orthodoxy that has historically been a key feature in mounting or deterring aggression within the international order. Second, it analyses how globalization has transformed that orthodoxy, as the interconnected nature of today’s order ensures that responsibility for security is increasingly an international, rather than national, concern. Third, it assesses the implications of this globalization of insecurity upon the international order, specifically its impact upon the relevance of established notions of ‘hard’ power, as well as the state’s monopoly on the provision of national security. Finally, it explores how this shifting dynamic has created a new imperative for effective – and agile – security cooperation between nation states, as well as between public and private actors.

The foundations of security cooperation

Security cooperation is by no means a new phenomenon. Historically, it has principally taken the form of cooperation between two or more states and has been viewed as a feature of the balance of power, with the principal objective of mounting or deterring aggression within the international order. As such, the concept has been used as a somewhat crude, blanket term to describe various forms of collaboration between nations, and is frequently used interchangeably with a multitude of others, including coalitions, security communities and strategic partnerships.⁴ Such cooperation, often formalized by alliance or entente, was long predicated on a largely rational – if not predictable – concert of nations; instances of such formal alliances abound, from the Hellenic Alliance of Greek states against the Persian Empire in the fifth century BC, to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949.

At their heart, such forms of security cooperation exhibited two common features: first, they were predominantly deterrent in nature; second, they were chiefly in response to state-based, symmetric threats. They can thus be characterized as deterrent symmetric forms of security cooperation. NATO, rightly lauded as the ‘cornerstone’ of international security for its thirty member states, was a key example of a deterrent symmetric security alliance.⁵ During his 1949 testimony to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations shortly after the formalization of the North Atlantic Treaty, former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson was at pains to concur with the statement that ‘unless a nation … contemplates, meditates, or makes plans looking toward aggression or armed attack on another nation, it has no cause to fear this treaty’.⁶ However, key features of the Alliance, notably Article 5, were arguably features of collective defence rather than of security cooperation – its advent was predicated on the notion of strategic deterrence of Soviet aggression, rather than as a means of improving the coordination of Alliance nations against it.

Despite their deterrent nature, participation in such forms of security cooperation has posed risks for member states, to both their national sovereignty and their national security. The implications are two-fold: first, nations risk exploitation at the hands of a more powerful partner; second, they risk falling victim to the security dilemma, becoming unintentionally embroiled in a large-scale international conflict as a direct result of their participation in an alliance system designed to deter aggression.⁷ Undoubtedly the most infamous example, the entente-alliance system was widely credited with providing a major structural contribution to the outbreak of the First World War. This reality placed an onus on leaders to calculate the risk and reward associated with participation in such forms of deterrent symmetric cooperation.

Inevitably, the states-based foundation of this cooperation orthodoxy placed considerable emphasis on executive agency. The temperament and experience of national leaders, as well as the strengths of relationships between them, all formed a key feature of the security calculus; leaders viewed by allies and adversaries alike as predictable and rational helped uphold the deterrence framework that characterized Cold War-era international relations. Meanwhile, unpredictable and irrational leaders imperilled it, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

The implications of the globalization of insecurity

Definitions of globalization vary considerably across both geographic region and academic discipline. The phenomenon has been defined ‘in a variety of ways’ ranging from liberalization to Westernization, to supra-territorialization.⁸ In practice, the term is used to describe the phenomenon by which national economies have become integrated into a global economic system, and the increases in trade, growth and productivity it has catalysed. The results have been transformative, and created a world – and a world order – more interconnected and inter-reliant than ever before. Today, around a quarter of all goods produced worldwide are exported, while services, ideas and innovation now cross international borders swiftly, and with relative ease.⁹

So too can insecurity. Today’s globalized world order has dramatically altered the international security landscape. The same logistical, infrastructural and communications platforms that have enabled the rapid growth of international trade can also be exploited by terrorist and organized crime networks, facilitate the spread of pandemics or improve the capabilities of malign state actors. This is perhaps best illustrated by the globalization of the international drugs trade, the value of which has grown exponentially to between $350–500 billion annually, the approximate value of the global oil and gas sector.¹⁰

Globalization challenges many of the normative assumptions underpinning the notion of security cooperation. While formal military alliances such as NATO are still of fundamental importance to international security, examples of more informal security cooperation are commonplace, and witnessed across an inexhaustible list including intelligence sharing, border security, counter WMD, counterterrorism, counter narcotics, counterinsurgency, stabilization, cyber, disaster relief, maritime security, airport security, training, personnel exchanges and capability assessments.¹¹

Similarly, the distinction between defence and security has also diminished. This shift has been evident in political discourse, not least in the UK, where ‘national security’ has seemingly replaced ‘defence’ as ‘the first duty of Government’. More so than ever, discharging this duty requires leaders to assemble the agile suite of capabilities required to protect civilians from security threats at home, rather than harbouring military assets for deployment abroad. In response, the turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed a declining emphasis upon conventional, hard power defence capabilities designed to counter such traditional, state-based threats. This has been replaced by a greater balance between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ security capabilities, designed to give nations the requisite flexibility to respond to increasingly opaque and unpredictable threats to national security.

This shift has prompted a greater reliance upon non-military assets such as the police and intelligence services, a development which has, in turn, had an impact on the nature of civil-military relations. The military – notably Special Forces (SF) – now regularly complement civilian security structures, rather than vice versa. Furthermore, a greater number of non-state actors are today essential though reluctant providers of national security, from airport security personnel to those responsible for operating elements of nations’ Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).

The globalization of insecurity has arguably also served to diminish the significance of economic strength to national security. Historically, economic strength has enabled states to develop and maintain extensive militaries as the most effective means of aggression or deterrence. In today’s international order, however, nations are able to compensate for smaller defence budgets by exploiting the interconnected nature of our globalized world. In many respects, the application of ‘smart’ power can compensate for a lack of ‘hard’ power, or a reluctance to utilize it.¹² Nowhere has this been more evident than in China’s web-enabled industrial espionage against American defence contractors, which has enabled it to close significantly the military-technology gap with the United States.¹³

Globalization has given a new coterie of nations a greater degree of agency in debates on international security, diminishing the distinction between core and peripheral states. The experiences of African nations in particular are beginning to generate greater interest from policymakers and academics alike, as localized empirical examples of African insecurity such as coups and civil wars are joined by transnational ones, including failed states, terrorism, migratory pressures and the global narcotics trade. Consequently, the days when the debate over African security involved solely Western deliberations over humanitarian intervention are long gone.

Instead, African cooperation in international security is more urgent than ever. Since the cessation of the Cold War, much of the debate surrounding African security focused upon human security; most notably the issues of HIV AIDS and the merits and demerits of the so-called responsibility to protect (R2P) in the face of civil war, famine and genocide. Yet today, African states are an increasingly important partner in confronting transnational security threats. The continent still accounts for a disproportionate number of deaths from political violence and is home to fourteen of the world’s twenty most fragile states, while an estimated two-thirds of all cocaine destined for Europe from South America is believed to pass through West African states. In the realm of security as elsewhere, the changing international order means that Africa is no longer a recipient of solutions proffered by international diplomacy, but increasingly a partner in their creation.

The challenges for today’s policymakers and diplomats

The question of how best to address and mitigate this complex strategic threat environment preoccupies policymakers around the world. Globalization has inexorably altered the diplomatic landscape and the role of the diplomat within it. Greater integration has thrown up significant risks and opportunities which require effect...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents 
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: Contemporary diplomacy in action
• 1 The globalization of insecurity and the new imperative for cooperation
• 2 Engaging with proxy groups and indirect state influence in Ukraine and Syria
• 3 Approaches to strategic resets in diplomacy: The case of the Fifth Marquess of Lansdowne
• 4 The Middle East and North Africa in the twenty-first century: An analysis of social media impact and corresponding diplomatic trends
• 5 Defining environmental interest: Identity, discourse and American engagement with global environmental frameworks
• 6 Diplomacy and domestic populations
• 7 ‘Information War’ – The Russian strategy that blends diplomacy and war
• 8 Social movements, diplomacy and relationships of trust
• 9 Embody, empower and relate: Emotions in international leadership
• 10 Gender and diversity in diplomacy
• Conclusion
• Select bibliography
• Index
• Imprint