Critical Themes in Contemporary Security – serie

Over the past several years, rising cyber power has comprehensively and profoundly affected international security. Key areas include military operations, terrorism, critical infrastructure, corporate security, individual privacy and financial security, and political processes. The burgeoning development of information technology did not always seem especially daunting from a strategic perspective. For instance, as recently as the Arab ‘spring’, which began less than a decade ago, social media seemed to power political liberalisation, casting the digital revolution as an engine of social progress. It may yet prove to be that, but for the time being less salutary aspects of the technological march have arguably overtaken the sunnier ones. The articles in this collection reflect this arc.

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has undergone profound economic and political changes. Initial hopes for a tranquil post-Cold War world, however, look naive in retrospect. Rapid NATO enlargement and European Union expansion, and perhaps NATO’s Balkan interventions, now appear to have been premised on an assessment of Russian acquiescence that was far too optimistic, and seemed to extinguish any inkling Russia might have had of even limited integration with Europe. At the same time, the United States’ expansive ‘unipolar moment’ was unexpectedly fleeting, its end hastened by 9/11, which dulled the newly benevolent and hopeful edge of international relations in favour of hard security and martial resolve. This abrupt change in emphasis notably led to the United States’ strategic overreach in Iraq and immersion in Afghanistan, and arguably created conditions for an illiberal brand of leadership in line with Russia’s historical habit and the inclinations of those who succeeded Boris Yeltsin. Chronologically, these articles span the period starting with the early promise of Russia’s conciliation in the 1990s up to the more downbeat and agitated state of affairs at present. They cover a generous range of topics, including the end of the Cold War, Russia–NATO affairs, Russia and the West more broadly, Russia and other strategically important regions, nuclear weapons, Russian strategy, and Putin’s Russia in particular.

The shock of the vote for Brexit – the UK’s 23 June 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union – is being felt in all areas of the UK policy community: in domestic and foreign affairs, in politics, economics and the law. But the IISS is an international institution and Brexit is not just a British phenomenon. Spanning 13 years this collection of articles depict a European project struggling to expand geographically, to deepen institutionally, and to survive in the face of political, economic and security threats worldwide.