International Security and Armed Conflicts 2104-ERASMUS-ISAC

International Security and Armed Conflicts
Prof. Kamila Pronińska

1. Introduction to security studies. The changing security paradigm.
[the evolution of security studies (“the golden age”, new areas of security studies in the 1970s, security studies after the cold war – critical security studies); traditional concepts of balance of power, balance of threats, power transition, hegemony and rivalry; redefinition of security: negative vs. positive approach, narrow vs. wide approach; state-centric vs. non state actors approach; securitization – the Copenhagen school concept]

2. International security environment.
[a conceptual framework; the key factors/structural, long- and short-term trends influencing the international security; threats to international security (military, non- military, asymmetric); understanding of
power - the diffusion of power
(materialistic vs. comprehensive approach to power); major global powers and regional powers; security and polarity – unipolar/bipolar/uni-mulipolar/multipolar world order]

3. Military security – world military powers; trends in world military expenditure; arms production and trade; key military alliances. Nuclear forces and non-proliferation regime vs. II nuclear revolution.

4-5. Trends in contemporary armed conflicts – the new conceptual framework of war (new and old wars); sources and consequences of armed conflicts; geography and the intensity and casualties (UCDP/SIPRI classification); the privatization of conflicts – PMC’s, warlordism; child- soldiers; asymmetrical strategies; the role of media (CNN effect, Al Jazeera effect);
Case studies.

6. International Security Institutions
[theory; types of ISI; alliances, collective security system, cooperative security systems, arms control and nonproliferation regimes; the effectiveness of ISI?]
Case studies: reactions of ISI to conflicts in MENA (Syria, Libya, Yemen, the 1st Gulf War).

7. Energy Security.
[the significance of the oil shocks for development of security studies; geostrategic, economic, institutional, environmental dimensions of energy security; links between military and energy security; threats to energy security].
Case studies: the South-China Sea rivalry; Oil/resource factor in the Western military interventions

8. Natural resources and armed conflicts.
[the relationship between natural resources and conflict; theoretical approaches - economic theories of violence, resource geopolitics, environmental perspective; the concept of resource curse, state-weakness and over- dependence on natural resource revenues; global market and its influence on development of illicit trade of natural resources]
Case studies: DRC, Niger Delta.

9-10. Environmental security. Climate change and armed conflicts.
[the genesis of studies on environmental security; environmental threats to security; geostrategic implications
of climate change; environmental
scarcity and armed conflicts]
Case studies: conflicts in Darfur and Sahel.