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The article describes the process of norm localisation in the security sector by analysing the context, format and functions of national security strategies published by the Visegrád countries between 1990 and 2020. After the end of the cold war, the "Europeanisation" of the security policy of Central European took place, which included the publication of Western-style national security strategies. Nevertheless, due to national and regional particularities, such documents serve specific political and communication functions, signifying that Visegrád states localised the practice of issuing national security strategies instead of merely copying them. This process led to the diminishing practical value of such documents at the expense of their communication role in terms of belonging and hedging. The article tracks these developments through the three waves of Central European national security strategies between 1990 and 2020 through the analysis of their political context, aims and specific attributes based on various criteria. Results of the research indicate that the functions of national security strategies varied in different stages of the norm localisation process, which questions the traditional method of comparing explicit strategies through content analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is necessary to think about the future of security and cooperation in Europe, in the hope that the war in Ukraine will not last for decades. But this long-term view forces us to reflect on the future of the entity that has dealt with these issues in Europe. What about the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which brings together 57 countries, works in 20 locations and has about 3,500 people working? And the answer will be associated with what kind of power the EU wants to be. The improvement of the defense of Europe should not be confused with its participation in the hegemonic competition of the powers based on its military power (USA, China or Russia). Europe must be a power that avoids a 21st century dominated by confrontation and instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Japan's security alignments with key Asian and European partners, notably Australia, India, the UK, France and the EU itself. The articles explores Tokyo's strategic expectations with regard to each of the five partnerships, as well as probing the likely future evolution of these alignments by providing a comparative perspective. Japan's alignments with Australia and India conform with and supplement the US-Japan alliance, addressing Japan's primary geostrategic concerns in the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean region. Tokyo's security partnerships with the European partners, and the EU, are more recent and not rooted in any US-led alliance in Asia. The degree of traditional kinetic military power these European players can bring to Asia is very limited. However, the pace with which Japan's new European alignments are quickly moving beyond the non-traditional security areas to encompass more traditional defence and military-security fields attests to their potential of evolving in the future into mechanisms able to perform a broad range of security functions in response to complex security threats. The boundaries between these two categories of partnerships are likely to be further blurred, providing Japan with various mechanisms at different levels to shape and influence the regional and global security environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's growing power and assertiveness towards its smaller and weaker neighbours has been a wakeup call for the European Union and its member states which, as a result, have stepped up their involvement in East Asia. EU security policy in the region shows many elements of alignment with the United States, but also differences. In North East Asia, the EU has adopted harsh sanctions against North Korea but, contrary to the Trump administration which continues to seek regime change, has left the door open for dialogue. Moreover, the EU supports the process of trilateral cooperation among China, Japan and South Korea, while Washington has traditionally been lukewarm towards a process that excludes the US and risks being dominated by Beijing. The transatlantic allies also show differing approaches with regard to maritime disputes in the South China Sea. While EU security policy in East Asia is largely complementary to that of Washington, in some cases Europe tends – albeit inadvertently – to favour Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last twenty years we have marked the launch of many national security strategies focusing on the rise of the new strategic concepts and security policies. The present paper scrutinizes five such documents adopted between 2002-2015 as follows: a) Strategy for the Republic of Croatia’s National Security (2002); b) National Security Strategy of the Republic of Slovenia (2010); c) National Security Strategy of the Republic of Serbia (2009); d) The National Security Strategy of the Republic of Albania (2004); e) Czech Republic Security Strategy (2015). The study uses the content analysis to provide some basic comparisons by addressing a theoretical background of the security and strategy in national legal documents and addressing a comprehensive guidance of the specific regional issues: transition, development, cooperation, partnership, national interest etc. Once the content analysis examines, the statistical and graphic benefits identify the new security engagements by considering the inputs and outpts of the core group of concepts and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically reviews and analyses the books listed below. The works reviewed provide an overview of the state of the art in the academic literature on the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy ( CSFP). Bearing their original contributions in mind, the themes standing out in the review do not dramatically depart from the ones that have repeatedly been placed under the microscope of scholars. This article argues that the EU is still an ineffective power due to the lack of coherence among the Member States and institutions, and its reluctance and/or inability to promote universal values around the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new European Union Directive (Defence and Security Procurement Directive 2009/81/EC) intends to liberalize the European defence market. This article investigates whether this Directive leads to a more liberalized European defence market and how the defence companies respond to these changes, by carrying out a set of interviews with a selected sample of some of the most important defence contractors in Norway and Sweden. The article points out two main results. (1) The defence companies believe that the liberalization of the European defence market will at best be partial and fear that the new regulations might end up favouring the larger nations (e.g., Germany, the United Kingdom and France) at the expense of the smaller countries (e.g., Norway and Sweden). (2) The companies' scepticism and response to the Directive vary according to the defence industrial policy regime they are part of and their position in the defence industrial value-chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) epitomises the EU's aspirations to be a key actor in global security. The logic underlying the policy, however, remains contentious. In order to elucidate the latter, this article compares the plausibility of different theoretical frameworks. It suggests that liberal IR theory offers considerable explanatory power in this respect, and argues that the decisive forces behind CSDP operations are governmental interests as defined by domestic expectations. European governments' shared interest lies in being perceived to effectively further national interests and domestically held values. Yet, this preoccupation with domestic politics also entails and explains CSDP's often-noted inconsistencies and constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many countries have begun to develop national security strategies, employing innovative methods and applying institutional design. In Germany, the question whether an explicit security strategy is needed remains controversial. This article analyses the experiences of important partner countries in Europe and across the Atlantic in order to examine whether a set of best practices in the development of national security strategies can be identified. It concludes that a pattern of designing and implementing strategy has emerged in Europe and the US which could serve as a useful basis of information for experts and decision-makers in Germany, as they further explore the option of a national security strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to clarify how the level of defence expenditures affected security policy in the post-World War II Europe and the United States till the present day. We first analyze theoretically the issue of a nation's power through its defence outlays. We then proceed to the examination of how security policy was formulated during Cold War and afterwards for both Europe and the United States through their defence expenditures. By comparing European to United States defence budgets ceilings we found that the European military capabilities are undermined by the low level of the defence budget which is provided by the European Union member states as a whole, as well as by the lack of homogeneity in military means. By contrast, we noticed that the historically large US defence expenditures were one of the major reasons for the US global hegemony during Cold war and afterwards. We also examine the implications that defence expenditures have on military industry, macroeconomic performance and geopolitics and the correlation that arises among them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article demonstrates that the development of "security" as a leading category and main field of state activity in the Early Modern Era was closely interconnected with the concept of "gute Policey" and the increasing body of police ordinances. Within Early Modern administrative law as well as in the theoretical discourses of the administrative sciences, "security" became a crucial objective of the well-ordered police state and thus succeeded "peace" and "unity" as a leading category. In this respect, the growing importance of security indicates the "secularization" of authoritarian regulatory policy. In parallel to this, administrative law was characterized by the differentiation between "internal" and "social" security. Whereas the former focused on exterior security threats, for example mobile marginal groups, the latter manifested itself in scopes such as "poor relief", the "health sector" and measures dealing with risks and hazards including bad harvests, epidemic plagues, fire hazards and natural disasters. The resulting regulatory policy gave rise to the gradual establishment of administrative measures in the area of internal and social security, ranging from surveillance to insurances. However, the addressees of ordinances and the subjects also participated in the production of security via "guter Policey", and in this respect security policy partially adopted popular demands for security and security discourses. Altogether, the Early Modern "gute Policey" could well be interpreted as a prototype of "human security". But on the other hand, "gute Policey" also implied the juridification of security and the implementation of a state-based security policy, which ultimately led to the fundamental separation between internal security and police on the one hand and welfare policy/administration on the other hand, by the beginning of the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the extended concept of security, the nation state is no longer the sole privileged reference object of security. The traditional model of national security is developing from military terms to a broader concept which embraces the international, economic, social, environmental, and human rights dimensions of security. The meaning and relevance of the concept is being extended "upwards", to international organisations, and "downwards", to regional and local authorities, non-governmental organisations, communities, and individual citizens. This has immediate bearing on the everyday security reality of the Czech Republic. In international context, the "security frontier" of the Czech Republic is expanding, e.g. through the country's involvement in UN and NATO security missions in conflict-ridden regions of Europe and the world. The country also helps enhance the internal security of the European Union, whose strength depends on its Member States' willingness to "harmonise" the pursuit of their respective national security interests. This approach is especially important with regard to the principal security threats Europe faces and will continue to face in the future: terrorism and organised crime. It is vital that the Czech Republic have a well-working security system capable of responding effectively to a broad range of threats. This requirement applies first and foremost to the Police, the Fire and Rescue Service, and intelligence services. Unfortunately, with the present effectiveness of the Czech security system, much remains wishful thinking and, due to the lack of a comprehensive framework, a comparatively low level of protection against emergencies exists. Fight against crime is hampered by inefficient operation of the Police and judiciary. A thorough analysis of the aforementioned problems could provide basis for a broader public debate over the priorities and goals of Czech security policy, which should accompany the drawing up of a new security strategy for the country. A step in the right direction would be if, after public debate, the Government submitted a new version of the country's security strategy for consideration and approval to the Parliament as the supreme representative body. The new strategy would thus be assigned greater importance than that of 2003 which was adopted only by the Government and, as a result, was often denied the status of a binding document. A broader public debate over the new security strategy would help ensure that the extended concept of security is more fully implemented in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The turmoils in international relations following the fall of the Berlin wall represented a serious challenge for the overall concept of European political unity. In its first international assignment outside the context of the Cold war, traditional national interests and animosities surfaced, and they demonstrated rather precisely all the complexity of the project promulgated by the Maastricht Agreement. At the time there was no common European approach to the solution of the crisis on the territory of the former Yugoslavia and no consent regarding the key issues, such as the recognition of the former Yugoslav republics as sovereign entities i.e. defining the criteria for their recognition. The paper focuses on this very specificity of the new approach to this problem, since it has increasingly been a subject of discretionary political decisions rather than the issue of international law in the traditional sense of meeting certain criteria for state recognition. And finally, concerning the degree of encroaching upon national sovereignty, there is a marked difference between the nature of the process of shaping a common foreign and security policy and shaping policies in other areas (e.g. transport, science and education, and so on). Also, the importance of developing an awareness of this difference as the main precondition for the realization of the project of the EU political integration is pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]