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Can and does realism explain the linkage between China’s economic advancement and its ever-increasing hard power and global influence? Realists assert that a growth in a nation’s economy triggers an upsurge in its craving for military or security advancement and power. Since the commencement of China’s ‘opening policy,’ its economy has witnessed tremendous hikes, being ranked second to the US economy. A vital coincidence of this is the ever-increasing attempt to modernising its military and general security systems. Of major concern is China’s recently established foreign military base in Djibouti in the ‘Horn of Africa.’ Realists have suggested that in such a Hobbesian world, Beijing will employ its economic power to assert its security interests. Analysing this linkage through a realist perspective, using case studies and historical analogies, the article concludes that realism best provides reasons for the phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International efforts to find a political solution to the conflict in Syria began early on in the war. The Arab League was the first body to attempt to mediate, starting in late 2012, but these efforts faltered due to the refusal of the regime--emboldened by the political support of Russia and China-- to make a single concession, despite being on the back foot militarily. In 2015, new international efforts were launched to resolve the crisis. The U.S. and Russia reached an agreement over the formulation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, which became the basis of UN-led negotiations between the opposition and the regime, including discussions on constitutional reform that began in 2019. However, more than a decade into the conflict, a political solution still appears distant, and is now closely linked to the fate of the foreign forces present in the country. The regime is no longer solely responsible for obstructing a solution. The presence on the ground of its allies, Russia and Iran, adds additional obstacles. It is no longer possible to formulate a peace deal without addressing the security concerns and various interests of foreign forces in Syria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a scoping review of English-language scientific literature for the period of 1990–2022, the article presents a synthetic outline of previous research, focusing on factors influencing the specifics of foreign military bases (FMBs) as examples of facilities that mostly generate negative attitudes known as ‘Not In My Backyard’ (NIMBY). The specific characteristics of different categories of objects that generate various social attitudes are also presented. The results of the analyses include a classification of factors and aspects related to the local impacts of foreign military bases, which have not been analysed before.

For decades, foreign military bases have been an integral part of international politics. The presence of foreign military forces in host nations can serve strategic and economic interests, but it can also raise legal, ethical, and political difficulties, especially with regard to sovereignty. Utilizing a qualitative research methodology this article investigates the political consequences of foreign military bases in Africa, concentrating on the conflict between protecting interests and eroding sovereignty. The findings emphasizes the significance for careful assessment of the political ramifications of foreign military bases in Africa as well as the benefits such facilities can offer to host nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of military bases for the economy and security of nations is enormous and serves different purposes. Thus, this study evaluates the impact of foreign military bases and economic security in Djibouti. This country in the Horn of Africa region was chosen because of its geostrategic location and because it currently hosts five foreign military bases in its small landmass. The specific objectives of the study are (i): to determine whether the geostrategic locations of these foreign bases in Djibouti are driven by the economic interests of the foreign countries and (ii) to ascertain whether the rent/premium on these bases has any significant impact on the economic development of Djibouti. The theoretical framework used in this study is the realist theory, while the method of data collection is the documentary method. The data collected were analysed using the qualitative descriptive method of data analysis that involves the explanation and description of the secondary sources of data. From this study, we observed that the geostrategic position of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa that hosts these foreign military bases drives its economy from premium and rent. Consequently, major findings include the locations of five military bases (US, France, Japan, China, and Italy) on the country's landmass which are driven by economic/national interests. Again, the premiums/rents paid on the military bases have not significantly increased the economic development of Djibouti. The study, therefore, recommends that Djibouti should explore other uses of its geostrategic location from hosting military bases to tourism. Again, the country should step up to take charge and control such regional economic routes around its maritime corridor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses judicial decisions which concerned claims brought by Federazione Italiana Lavoratori Commercio Turismo Servizi (FILCAMS) for alleged anti-union behaviour at the U.S. military bases in Vicenza and Sigonella. Topics include the rejection made by the Corte di Cassazione on the U.S.' immunity plea and affirmed jurisdiction, how the U.S. had engaged in anti-union behaviour according to FILCAMS, and the 1952 and 1961 treaties which the Court discussed.

Would Kim's theoretical framework then be able to explain Pakistan's hedging strategies, such as in terms of Indian-Pakistan or China-Pakistan asymmetry? I China and Its Small Neighbors i , by Sung Chull Kim, provides a novel explanation with an emphasis on the political implications of economic asymmetry between China and its small neighbours. Second, other small powers in South Asia (e.g. Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh) need to consider asymmetries vis-à-vis India and China. [Extracted from the article]

China lacks the network of foreign military bases that typically attends great-power expansion, yet its armed forces operate at an increasingly global scale. How has the People's Liberation Army (PLA) managed this feat without a significant footprint on foreign soil? Why has Chinese leadership not (yet) established a network of bases to address security threats to China's overseas interests? This article analyzes the structural constraints facing China's military basing abroad and then examines the methods by which the PLA has nonetheless achieved significant global power-projection capability. It highlights the capacity provided by international maritime transport infrastructure owned and operated by Chinese firms as a viable—yet limited—means of securing national interests overseas with military power. The study demonstrates that the structural setting and historical sequence of China's rise render foreign military bases relatively costly, incentivizing alternative modes of access and power projection in the maritime domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevailing assumption in discussions of foreign military basing is that such presences are hierarchical in nature. Though this was unavoidably the case prior to the Second World War, changes in the normative framework of international politics mean that such presences' relationship to hierarchy has become an empirical question. Specifically, changes in sovereignty norms and the emergence of territorial and jurisdictional integrity render the linkage between foreign military basing and hierarchy contingent. As a result, some basing arrangements' dynamics now closely resemble those of other interstate agreements. This analysis regrounds hierarchy in the specific normative context of action and in doing so highlights the implicit reification of the state in contemporary security studies. In practical terms, it shows how assuming hierarchy both overestimates the fragility of the US basing network and, by exaggerating authority relations, obscures the potential for greater fluidity in the basing space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Except Saudi Arabia who obtained ballistic missiles from China in the 80's during the Iran-Iraq war, 1 1 Clayton Thomas, « Arms Sales in the Middle East: Trends and Analytical Perspectives for U.S. Policy », Congressional Research Service , 10/11/17 Arab Gulf States' weapons procurement strategies seemed not oriented to get the means to guarantee their own security. In fact, despite the fact that these countries spent 24.7 billion dollars buying weapons between 1979 and 1989, 2 2 Source: SIPRI Database they were unable to protect themselves against Iraq when the latter launched an invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. After that new Gulf War, 3 3 The first Gulf war opposed Iraq to the Islamic Republic of Iran (1980–1988) the main Arab Gulf States pursued their 'life insurance policy' by still buying weapons from Western countries, hosting at the same time foreign military bases in their territories 4 4 Mainly the US, based in Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, Kuwait and Oman and signing Defense agreements with the greatest powers. However, things began to evolve at the beginning of the 21st century, with a change of strategy by certain Arab Gulf States, notably the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. These evolutions are largely due to different changes observed in the Gulf region from 2000 on: the Iranian nuclear program and Teheran's potential hegemony across the Middle East and the waters of the Gulf, the war in Yemen and the operational need for naval capabilities (mainly for the UAE), and the doubts about the American political and military involvement in the Middle East. Moreover, with the aim to reduce their countries' dependence on oil, many Arab Gulf States have promoted new national strategies to reduce the volume of importations from abroad, including military equipments, along with the targeted goal to promote local production of different products. The aim of this article is to analyze some Arab Gulf States' naval procurement strategy, according to the political and strategical evolutions that have occurred in the Middle East since the beginning of the 21st century. It will demonstrate that the two main powers of the Arab Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have developed a three-level procurement strategy in order to get autonomy while increasing operational capabilities and promote national industries. The first level of this strategy consists in pursuing the procurement of naval equipment from Western suppliers. The second level aims to gain skills and experience through transfer of technologies in the context of co-developed military projects. The third one consists to a full how-know production process of middle class vessels. This article will also analyze which challenges the Arab Gulf States are facing in their naval procurement ambitions, and the probability that these challenges could lead them to revise them downwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many reasons have been offered for Alexander the Great's foundation of Alexandria in Egypt. He wished to create a great economic and cultural centre, or a naval base from which to control the Aegean, or simply to expand his prestige. It has also been argued that Alexander may have had no greater purpose at all and that this entire episode in the Alexander saga owes much to Ptolemaic propaganda. This paper will argue that this Alexandria, like the Conqueror's other foundations, was primarily to be a military base in a foreign land, designed to thwart any future attempt, in this case by the Egyptians, to free themselves from his control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The United States regularly seeks to promote the liberal norms of respect for human rights and deference to civilian authority in the militaries that it trains. Yet norm-abiding behavior often does not follow from liberal foreign military training. Existing explanations ascribe norm violations either to insufficient socialization or to interest misalignment between providers and recipients. One reason violations occur is because liberal training imparts conflicting norms. How do militaries respond when they confront the dilemma of conflict between the liberal norms of respect for human rights and civilian control of the military? The U.S. policy expectation is that trained militaries will prioritize human rights over obedience to civilian authorities. But when liberal norms clash, soldiers fall back on a third norm of cohesion, which refers to the bonds that enable military forces to operate in a unified, group- and missionoriented way. Cohesion functions as both a military norm (particularly at the individual level) and an interest (particularly at the institutional level). If a military prioritizes cohesion, then it will choose the path that best serves its organization, which may entail violating human rights, civilian control, or both. An exploration of the effects of norm conflict on military attitudes among the Armed Forces of Liberia uses an experiment embedded in a survey to probe the theory. Results provide preliminary evidence that norm conflict weakens support for human rights and democracy. Results are strongest among soldiers with more U.S. training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research problem this article addresses is whether the unique confluence of overseas security forces in a single territorial space through the leasing of land for foreign military bases compromises the state's sovereignty. We study Djibouti's practice of renting land to military powers from an analytical position that is diametrically opposed to the literature on the 'scramble' for Africa and often erroneous assumptions of an erosion of sovereignty. Using the concept of 'worlding', we argue in this article that instead of reading 'military base diplomacy' as eroding and undermining Djibouti's sovereignty, this case demonstrates the ways in which 'the art of being global' underpins new forms of territoriality and unexpected forms of locality in Africa. Consequently, we maintain that African experiences of sovereignty offer the challenges, along with the rewards, of greater analytical depth to International Relations scholarship while expanding our understanding of different empirical cases beyond the western-centric accounts of sovereignty in line with an abstract ideal that does not tell us much about the world, postcolonial experiences and global politics. Through a case-study approach, we focus specifically on the stark distinctions between Japan and China, which both have their respective first postwar overseas military bases in the country, and the Djiboutian state itself, in terms of how each are interpreting and practicing sovereignty to fit their own national narrative, international status and domestic legal frameworks. The findings challenge simplistic analyses of African states as victims of exploitative Great Powers, gradually and repeatedly being stripped of their sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the transition of the journal African Security, marking the end of an era and the appointment of new editors-in-chief. The previous editors built upon the foundation laid by the founding editor-in-chief, Colonel James Hentz, and aimed to make African Security a leading scholarly source on security issues in Africa. The journal experienced significant growth in readership, authorship, and impact factor, and expanded its subject matter beyond military-strategic security. The article also provides a synopsis of the papers in the current issue and introduces the new editors-in-chief. The outgoing editors express their gratitude to contributors, subscribers, reviewers, readers, and the support team. [Extracted from the article]

This paper presents a theory of foreign military basing as a function of the degree of internal threat facing a host nation. The theory is based on rational choice logic where politicians balance economic and security benefits against sovereignty and legitimacy costs. When internal threat is low a host nation's political actors value legitimacy and sovereignty and hence reduce base access. When internal threat is high economic and security benefits trump legitimacy and sovereignty costs, hence increasing base access. The theory is assessed through process-tracing the historical events around U.S military basing in the Philippines. When internal threat was low from coups and revolutionary movements the Philippine government reduced U.S. basing access, but when a threat from these movements was high they either maintained or increased access. This study suggests more carefully considering the role of internal threats when assessing the dynamics of foreign basing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a small-scale war that erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabagh. It reports the involvement of Turkey, Pakistan, and Georgia in the conflict, it describes how they supported or remained neutral in the war. It highlights the use of foreign military resources and geopolitical dynamics in the region.

The US engages in extensive training and education of foreign militaries, often through exchange programs carried out at the different military services' staff and war colleges. Researchers have recently explored the way in which military training can affect civil-military relations in the host country, but not much work has studied whether military training actually leads to increased US influence in these states. This paper proposes a soft-power theoretical framework to argue that foreign military training can create affinity for the U.S. that can in turn result in more pro-U.S. voting behavior in the UN General Assembly. It further expands on the military training literature by distinguishing between different military training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andrew W. Marshall, who shaped the way in which contemporary international security experts think about strategy, has been mostly associated with the invention of net assessment. The intellectual sources of this analytical technique, and of the related competitive strategies concept, could be traced to Marshall's efforts to uncover Soviet post-World War II defense transformations. This article outlines the essence of these Soviet innovations – the empirical frame of reference that inspired Marshall. It provides a new perspective on the history of the net-assessment methodology, advances the debate within strategic studies over the nature of military innovations, and offers insights for experts examining defense transformations worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The category of the sphere of influence can explain some contemporary international processes. To define that category, however, much stress is laid on great powers' exclusivity within their spheres of influence. The author takes into consideration the thesis of the aforementioned exclusivity's erosion. Because foreign military bases are essential instruments of spheres of influence due to their strong impact on security policy, it is worth investigating their presence in this context. Specifically, the author carries out an in-depth study of military bases of more than one major power in one host country. Further, the article discusses the extent to which the gradual erosion of e xclusivity undermines the s ignificance of s pheres of influence as such. In conclusion, the author states that the case of Djibouti undermines the idea of great power exclusivity. Yet, other cases do not provide sufficient evidence on such deep transformation because of either limited periods of bases' existence or great power cooperative attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sahel-Saharan region, corresponding to West and Central Africa, has remained at the center of terrorist activism in Sub-Saharan Africa. The most affected countries remain Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. However, there have been changes in the actions of several groups. On one hand, Boko Haram has decreased its level of violence, which is manifested in a reduction in the number of civilian victims, while new cells have been reactivated on the Mali border with Burkina Faso. In this particular area there has been a substantial increase of groups such as the Islamic State in the Grand Sahara and the Islamic State of West Africa, among other groups of lesser degree of organization. Because of this, security problems and foreign military presence have been maintained in all these countries. A similar situation is presented in the Horn of Africa, where Al-Shabaab (ALS) is the main group, affecting not only Somalia but also Kenya with its transborder actions. The role of the Federal Government and the AMISON troops have been insufficient to reduce or finally eliminate ALS. For those reasons, terrorism continues to be the major security challenge of the sub saharan region and it will not be mitigate in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]