Global Security

Securitisation is an analytical concept which was developed by the Copenhagen School. Its intended function is to provide us with a tool to study the process under which a security threat is constrcuted within a given state or a society.
In 2007, cyber attacks against the Estonian state haven been regarded as the “first war in cyberspace”.  The langue used by government officials has depicted the attacks as an existential threat to the survival of the state. As a result, the securitisation of cyberspace in Estonia has led to the integration of cyberspace into the national seucirty agenda.

There is a claim that the dominant feature of International Politics nowadays is cooperation rather than conflict. That claim address on the establishment of so many International Organizations that provide collaboration between states. Thus, International politics nowadays is dominated by cooperation rather than conflict. 

International Politics is proper functioning of power in the world political system1, where realist believe that this system is in the anarchy condition and there is no higher authority above the state in the world political system. Given that, the country will look for power and try to be the most powerful. Thus, Realist believes that conflict is always between states to gain a more significant power or resources that could help them even more powerful. However, by the end of the Cold War, the pattern is changing by the establishment of some international organisations to be the platform for cooperation to gain the interest for each state.

Thus, can we say that cooperation is replacing conflict these days? The purpose of this essay is to assess the claim that cooperation is replacing conflict as the dominant feature of International Politics from Realist standpoint. The example of China and Indonesia in the world political system will explain it.

Nuclear Arms Control has been a high-politics issue in the world of international security. The United States has participated in numerous arms control and non-proliferation efforts over the past 60 years. It is the tool that has occasionally been used to implement the US national security strategy. There are many domestic events in each administrative era of US Presidents, which affected the American policy towards Nuclear Arms Control. Indeed, the domestic society and politics is important in America’s pursuit of Nuclear Arms, but how important is it?

The purpose of this paper is to seek how important were the domestic politics in America’s pursuit of Nuclear Arms Control. Through the comparison of the administration of President Truman and President Johnson, this paper will show the importance of America’s domestic politics in the policy related to nuclear arms control.

The deliberate killing of a large group of people, have been a big terror and left scars in the history of the world. Genocide, a concept that Lemkin brought, happened in some different places in the world, such as the holocaust by the Nazi, mass Killings in Bosnia, Rwandan genocide, and Cambodian Genocide under the Khmer Rouge. Those atrocities were still happening after holocaust, despite the establishment of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 1948.

This essay examines what happened in Cambodia Between 1975-1979 and exploring what are the key challenges that have negatively affected international efforts to prevent the genocide in Cambodia. Those key challenges are Cambodian sovereignty, the government system under Khmer Rouge, ideology war in the international system, the international support to maintain genocide in Cambodia, and the cost that a country should consider before having policy to rescue people in Cambodia and prevent Genocide.

Conducting a research could be very complicated, but to analyse and critic it, it is more difficult as it needs a deeper understanding about the very basic of qualitative method like theory, method and research question. As Denzin stated that Qualitative research is difficult to define clearly because it has no theory or paradigm (Ritchie, Jane et al 2014), it shows that every research is diverse and special. Just like the research from Toby Miles-Johnson and Yurong Wang “Hidden identities: perceptions of sexual identity in Beijing”, this research is very special and different as it uses the perspective of volunteers working at the LBGT centre in Beijing.

The purpose of this research is to understand better what’s going on in the case of the Grand Mosque in Bucharest and knowing how media could affect the opinion of Romanian about Islam, especially in Bucharest. The researcher also chose this topic to satisfy the personal interest as a global security researcher. This research will be a significant contribution to the future knowledge of other scholars or researchers who are interested in the security issue, especially when it comes to religion and security. Hopefully, this research will impact the policy of the government to keep the news neutral and makes people aware of the real threat of this world, not the threat caused by the prejudice.

A research conducted by den Ouden (2015) showed that nursing home residents are mostly inactive. Den Ouden et. Al., observed the wards in nursing homes during five random observation times between 7.00 and 11.00, in which the daily activities of those times were scored. Most of them doing the activity of sleeping, doing nothing, and watching TV to spend the time for the day, which considered being inactive and unhealthy. Although the research was conducted in the Netherlands, it is believed that the condition of inactive and unhealthy life also happened in Scotland, the United Kingdom. Beside of the unhealthy condition, those inactivities make them socially disengaged with each other, lead to the risk of the high mental health issue of each elderly living in Nursing Homes. In Glasgow, 10% of older people in the city face chronic loneliness, with half of them living in Nursing Homes (Campaign to End Loneliness, 2019). The loneliness is caused by less social engagement and activities between elderly residents in Glasgow nursing homes. This case shows us how the activities of those inactive elderly residents in Glasgow nursing homes is unhealthy and increase the risk of mental health for the elderly residents in Glasgow.

Environmental Security has been identified as one of the most critical security issues nowadays, although it does not become the priority agenda for most of the states in the world. For some states, like Tuvalu, Environmental Security is a high priority to be securitised, so Tuvalu will not submerge under water in the future. Although the Paris Agreement established in 2015 and the United Nations Climate Change Conference held yearly since 1995, the issue and the academic literature discussions can be traced back from the late nineteenth century (Hough 2008). This literature review aims to discuss what is environmental security and why it is important. It would also explain why people should be aware and concern about this issue, and why this issue needs to be securitised by all international actors.

Environmental issues have been a concern for many nations as it is threatening human life through climate change, earth pollution and natural resource scarcity. As the largest country in the world, it is believed that the Russian Federation has an important role in protecting the environment globally as it has a vast area of ‘carbon sink’ forest. However, Russia is also contributing to be a major emitter of greenhouse gases and a leading global supplier of fossil fuels (Korppoo, et al., 2015: 25). Thus, it is interesting to discuss the Russian policy on climate change. “Environmental Protection 2012-2020” that was signed and approved on 27th December 2012 was Russian policy as the continuation of Climate Doctrine of Russian Federation 2009. It consists of 5 sub-programmes, aiming to improve environmental safety and to preserve natural systems. Although the Russian government has facilitated some research and industry to support sustainable development, the actions are not enough to protect the environment in Russia. This paper seeks to analyse Russian policy towards climate change through the fifth sub-programme of Environmental Protection policy, which is about the facilitating implementation of the programme.

On 19th November 2018, 5.9 kg of plastic waste found in dead whale’s stomach in Wakatobi, Indonesia. The total weight of the plastics was 5.9 kg. This case shows us how plastic is a big threat in Indonesian marine ecosystem. Not just being a danger to animal, the plastic is also polluting the coastal line in Indonesia such as in Bali and in Java Island, threatening the tourism industry in Indonesia. Jenna Jambeck (2016) found that Indonesia produces 3.2 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste every year, of which about 1.29 million metric tons ends up as marine debris. This lead Indonesia as the world second largest plastic waste producer after China.
Although the plastic pollution is dangerous for the whole Indonesia, it seems that Indonesian Government and all the stakeholders had not showed many efforts to tackle this problem seriously. This policy brief addresses four effective strategies that government should take action as a real commitment towards war on marine plastic pollution.

War has been a common phenomenon that happens almost everywhere in the world for a long time ago, from ancient time until today. We can spot many different wars in history books and even the headlines today. It is a game of power, which requires a strategy to achieve the aims. It is interesting to discuss the aims of war, as there are different thoughts of what the purpose of war is. To think about it, many scholars wonder why people go to war. In the Aristotelian and Roman tradition, peace was the only acceptable aim of war.  This idea of peace as the purpose of war was accepted by Christine de Pisan, which why it would be interesting to discuss her thought about war aims. The question that appears then is whether a feeling of peace in one side means the same peace on another side while the other side is facing destruction. The idea of war as the means to achieve peace is quite interesting as both of them are a contradiction. Meanwhile, Niccolo Machiavelli linked the aim of war with the political conditions in the country. War is the means to achieve the political interest. He underlined the importance of the leadership and politician to achieve the goal. It is necessary for people to serve the prince to go to war, for the nations itself. His thought of the aims of the war are quite different with Christine de Pisan, thus it is still interesting to compare although there is a century gap between them. This paper seeks to find the relations between war aims and the means to achieve it from the perspective of Christine de Pisan and Niccolo Machiavelli. Both of them are early modern strategists who contributed to the strategists thought later on and affecting some way of thinking about the conduct of war. This paper will also analyse how relevant their thoughts with our current strategist thinking.

Genocide is a concept that often heard in the history of security study, but the definition remains unclear and debatable for many scholars. Although Raphael Lemkin brought the concept in 1944, Kuper identified genocide as an “odious scourge that has inflicted great losses on humanity in all periods of history.” Some genocide cases, for example Holocaust during the World War II already happened before the concept exist. Erich Ludendorff used genocide as German strategy of total war. Although genocide and total war connected in the case of Holocaust, those are two separate phenomena with different meaning and way of conduct. This paper aims to review the theories of genocide and distinguish the concept of genocide with other concept like ethnocide, politicide, and total war.

Over the last two decades, mass communication in our modern society has been dominated by digital technologies. The fantastic yet powerful combination of mechanical calculation, electronics, binary code and human language systems touches us in almost every aspect of our life nowadays. Almost everyone in this globalisation era, will likely to use digital technologies, from waking up in the morning, working, socialising, communicating, even in the transportation system. It is not only used by individuals for the daily life, by companies to run their business, by the government to coordinate, but also by organisations in this world, including Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). CSOs also use digital tools to achieve their goals. Their goals are different and diverse, based on their organisation interests. This paper will answer how CSOs use digital tools to influence the national news agenda in democracies. I will answer this question by discussing the case study of change.org in Indonesia. This case study shows that the use of hashtag through change.org and the connective actions of other social media successfully gathered a petition to arrest the corruptor in Indonesia. This case study showed that CSOs influence the national news agenda. The petition, hashtag, and social media are tools to influence national news agenda through the decision maker and related institutions.

“Scotland is Now” is the new campaign that launched by Scottish Government in 2018. The idea of promoting Scotland, as the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said, is a bold and positive country that offers the warmest of welcomes, rich in history and cultural heritage with a progressive, pioneering and inclusive approach to Scotland future (Gallagher, 2018). In the last one year, the campaign goes viral through many digital media, such as video campaign, Facebook, Twitter, and the website. Compared to the Great Campaign by the UK government that has been campaigned since 2011 under David Cameroon, the branding pattern is similar, with underlining the trade, tourism and education. However, Scotland as part of the United Kingdom is also having its own nation branding, which is very interesting to be analysed. James Pamment (2016: 14) explains that the emergence of the nation brand is part of building image and identity; the two most important key concepts in nation branding. Analysed from these concepts, it is clear that Scottish Government aims to promote their new image and identity through digital media, start from the branding videos, website, and social Medias such as Facebook and Twitter. All their ‘Scotland is Now’ accounts focus on improving the trade and investment of Scotland through business, tourism and education. They actively promote Scotland and maintain good relations with other states to attract more investors and developing Scotland. They branded the country as an open Scotland, especially to Europe, regardless of what will happen to Great Britain on the Brexit issue. All of their diplomacy efforts have an impact on strengthening their economy for the whole of Scotland and strengthen their position and political interest globally. This paper aims to evaluate the aims and impact of digital diplomacy conducted by Scotland as part of the Great Britain, to develop the economic power and deliver their political interest in the region.

This study aims to explore and explain to what extent and what ways the Indonesian Government has securitised the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in Indonesia before and after 2014, by using critical discourse analysis. Referred to the Copenhagen School theorists, it is called a securitisation process. I tried to understand the process by analysing the speech act and extraordinary measures in 2009 and 2014. This research is an exploratory case study research, using one single case, by comparing the securitisation process in two different administrations. IUU fishing has been a severe global security issue, with 30 percent of the cases happen in Indonesia. It is a threat to the Indonesian economy and maritime resources. In 2009, Indonesia amended the fisheries law by establishing the new article about the right to burn and sink the illegal foreign vessels. However, the securitisation remained ‘latent’. In 2014, with the change of president and administration, the Indonesian government focused on the maritime issue. They started to sink the illegal foreign vessels at the end of 2014, which became public debate and discussion. It caught the attention of audiences at home and abroad. The government succeeded in framing the issue by using the media and the politic strategy of blame avoidance. After compared and analysed both administrations, I would argue that the Indonesian Government successfully securitised the issue in 2014 after the latent securitisation in 2009. This study is unique, showing how a different actor and a different way could lead to a different result of securitisation.

Pasca perang dingin, persaingan ekonomi antar negara semakin meningkat, termasuk dalam bisnis penerbangan. Dari begitu banyaknya maskapai yang ada di dunia, maskapai-maskapai Timur Tengah menduduki  peringkat dunia sebagai maskapai terbaik. Timur Tengah, sebagai Kawasan yang menghubungkan Asia, Afrika dan Eropa memiliki letak yang strategis dan kekuatan geoekonomi yang kuat. Meskipun tantangan begitu kuat datang dari dalam Timur Tengah maupun dari benua lain, penerbangan sekelas Qatar Airways, Emirates dan Etihad masih bertahan menduduki peringkat maskapai dunia. Dengan cara dan strateginya sendiri, ketiga maskapai ini berhasil meletakkan negaranya dalam peta perekonomian global.