EDITORIAL

Niles Webb
(Historian based in UK)

Copyright: @ 2022 Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 9 November 2022

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS)

The UK’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union (EU) is often cited alongside the election of Donald Trump as US President as evidence that the rules-based international order is in crisis. G. John Ikenberry, a leading liberal internationalist, writes that ‘[t]he two great powers that have done the most to give the modern international order a liberal character … seem to be pulling back from this leadership’ with Britain leaving the EU, ‘the silent bulwark of the Western liberal order’ and Trump’s promise to put ‘America First’ ... Read more

Competing and winning against peer or near-peer adversaries begins with intelligence gathering.

By Lt. Gen. Susan S. LAWRENCE, USA (ret)

Copyright @ 2022 https://www.afcea.org/signal-media/intelligence/presidents-commentary-boosting-osint-use-smart-move
Posted at RIEAS web site at 1 November 2022

Competing and winning against peer or near-peer adversaries begins with intelligence gathering, often in the form of open-source information, or OSINT. Every form of intelligence is vital to national security and defense, but the explosion of publicly available information and the information warfare efforts between Russia and Ukraine has placed OSINT center stage. ... Read more

Prof Glen Segell

(Research Fellow in the Department of Political Sciences and Governance at the University of the Free State – South Africa)

Copyright @ 2022 https://trendsresearch.org/insight/revisiting-the-montreux-convention-of-1936-in-light-of-the-current-conflict-between-russia-and-ukraine/
Posted at RIEAS web site on 1 November 2022.

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

Abstract

This paper examines and revisits the Regime of the Straits, often known simply as the Montreux Convention (1936), which went into effect in 1937. It is an international agreement governing the Turkish Straits that connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and so to the rest of the world. The regime it established is once again on the agenda following the military attack launched by Russia on Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Shortly after the onset of hostilities, Russia initiated a naval blockade of Ukrainian ports. The Convention prevented countries outside of the Black Sea area from sending ships into the Black Sea to break the blockade. In July, an agreement brokered by the United Nations was reached for limited exports of some products, especially grain, through three Ukrainian ports. There was an urgent need for this given that many countries worldwide rely on this grain and that without it hundreds of millions would starve. ... Read more

Shaul Shay
(Senior research fellow at the International Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council)

Copyright: @ 2022 Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 24 October 2022

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS)

Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, arrived in Israel on October 23, 2022 for a three-day visit to seek protection from Iranian cyberattacks. Prime Minister Rama’s visit came a month after Albania cut diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic after a series of cyberattacks it attributes to Iran. Rama’s delegation includes Albania’s cyber director and the national security adviser and chief spokesperson.
After Albania cut diplomatic ties with Iran, a second cyberattack from the same Iranian source hit an information system - the Total Information Management System (TIMS), a system that records Albanian border entries and exits.... Read more

Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm

Copyright@ https://nordicmonitor.com/2022/10/secretive-turkish-intelligence-unit-set-out-to-strike-greece-in-a-false-flag-operation/

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS)

The Turkish president, who in recent months has repeatedly threatened an invasion of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, plans to deploy a secretive, specially trained unit attached to intelligence agency MIT to escalate tensions with Greece, a NATO ally and neighbor. The MIT unit, the existence of which has never been publicly admitted, is a relatively new tool in the arsenal of Turkey’s intelligence agency and will be put to use for the first time in setting up a clandestine, military-style operation against a Western country. Read more

Reviewer: Raagini Sharma  (RIEAS Analyst)

Copyright @ https://www.foreignaffairs.com (Foreign Affairs Magazine) - posted at RIEAS on 2 October 2022.

Title of Article Review: The end of the Military-Industrial Complex, how the Pentagon is adapting itself to globalisation

Author: William J Lynn III

Source of Article: Foreign Affairs, Vol 93, No. 6 (November / December 2014), pp 104 - 110

Published By: Council of Foreign Affairs

Preserved By: JSTOR (short for Journals Storage), a digital library established in 1995 primarily to store the back issues and contents of books.

The Essence

The author through this article highlights the nuances of the Military-Industry Complex, MIC, a term coined by Dwight Eisenhower, and how it is not effective anymore to ensure the technological edge that the US military has been enjoying for the last seven decades. At one hand, the critical defence technologies are no longer the sole province of the US-based defence companies and at other, the Department of Defence (DoD) has failed so far to tap the technological advancements accrued of globalisation. .. Read more