Traditional Threats – RegioSec https://regiosec.com Regional Security Wed, 10 Nov 2021 22:22:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.6 https://regiosec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/cropped-logo512-32x32.png Traditional Threats – RegioSec https://regiosec.com 32 32 Nigerian security challenges – Top 4 threats to national security https://regiosec.com/top-4-nigerian-security-challenges-top-4-in-2021/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=top-4-nigerian-security-challenges-top-4-in-2021 https://regiosec.com/top-4-nigerian-security-challenges-top-4-in-2021/#respond Mon, 08 Nov 2021 19:58:33 +0000 https://regiosec.com/?p=2081

Nigerian security challenges
Top 4 threats to national security

As one of many African countries with numerous security challenges, Nigeria faces multiple security threats that are endangering people and decelerating the prosperity of the country. We took 4 security challenges for the Nigerian government to face if developing democratic and independent institutions are the main goal. Those security challenges are:

Nigeria flag

#1 Separatism of Biafran people as a security challenge

Biafran separatism is the first challenge to Nigerian national security according to RegioSec
Source: https://www.cfr.org/

 As indigenous people of Igbo started to unite under strong ethnic beliefs and feel strong and unique, the idea of having their own country slowly evolved. In the 1960s a civil war emerged over economic, religious, ethnic, and cultural tensions and resulted in a runaway state called The Republic of Biafra. The tensions endure ever since.

In the 21st century, these tensions are not gone. The leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu was arrested in October 2021, in London with suspicion of being involved in terrorist actions in Nigeria. The Nigerian government is eager to deal with this group of people that are accused of a series of attacks on state leaders, politicians, and institutions.

So, even the decades after Nigeria took control over the Republic of Biafra, and regain its territorial integrity, this problem continues to exist and to have an effect on contemporary security challenges in Nigeria but also in possible civil war as one of traditional security threats.

#2 Piracy in Nigeria

The Gulf of Guinea was the region with the most pirate attacks in 2020. The operations of numerous pirate groups resulted in the most kidnapped people in the world (over 90% of all kidnapped crew members were in the Gulf of Guinea). With at least 35 attacks in one year,  almost 3 of registered attacks in a month on average, this represents a big security challenge for the countries in this region. We have to consider that this number is not final because many companies avoid reporting these attacks with a fear of publicity and repeated attacks.
In the Horn of Africa, these contemporary security challenges that reappeared after centuries continue to be a big challenge not only for the region but also globally. Many world governments along with big international companies are very interested in dealing with this problem but it remains unsolvable over the years.
Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea replaces Somalia as most dangerous place sail
https://www.sail-world.com/
Even though this threat has risen in the past few years, the groups that are involved are not new. The groups that use to attack pipelines and kidnap oil workers just spread their tentacles to sea and the international waters. On land, territorial jurisdiction is not in question, but in the international sea, it is very hard for governments to fight because it is hard to determine the jurisdiction. So, the bottom line is – piracy remains a big issue for the Nigerian security agencies.

#3 Organized crime

Wild life trafficking is one of aspects of organized crime in Nigeria

Like every country on our planet, especially those with weak institutions, law enforcement agencies, and other problems (financial, educational, ethnic, etc), Nigeria faces organized crime. Of course, the propensity to corruption is a bonus, because corruption is one of the main characteristics and preconditions for organized crime. According to Transparency International (www.transparency.org), Nigeria is in 149th place for the corruption perception index (CPI) for 2020.

Next, if we see the Global Crime Indeks (https://ocindex.net/) for the same year, we can see that the Criminality Indeks for Nigeria is 7,15 and it places Nigeria to 5th place out of 193 countries globally, 2nd place in Africa and 1st in West Africa. It is a very high index, and it should take enormous effort to lower that index.

The main branches of organized crime in Nigeria are:
       • Human trafficking and smuggling
       • Illegal trade (weapons, oil…)
       • Wildlife trafficking
       • Drug trafficking

#4 Terrorism

The first association that comes to mind when one thinks about terrorism in Nigeria is Boko Haram. This is not a mistake. Boko Haram is still a major threat to the national security of Nigeria. This is a terrorist organization operating mostly in Nort-western parts of Nigeria, but also Niger and Chad. With responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths, and between 2 and 3 million displaced because of the conflict, and continuous attacks on civilians, police, and armed forces, Boko Haram was and still is one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations.

The other terrorist organization operating in Nigeria is Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP). ISWAP is a group subordinated to Islamic State and is an armed, radical Islamist group. Not as famous and inglorious as Boko Haram but still, with thousands of followers, ISWAP represents a major security threat to Nigerian security agencies.

Boko Haram is still one of the great threats to the security of Nigerian state
Source: https://www.dw.com

Not in the list but still a great challenge
to security – COVID 19

We will conclude this list with 4 security threats to the government but in 2021, we cannot avoid mentioning the COVID 19 as one of the of-list security challenges. As we all fight this pandemic on various levels Nigeria is not excluded. Without talking about numbers, because the numbers are changing dramatically every day, this crisis remains a big challenge for security as well as for the economy, education, and many other aspects of living.

]]> https://regiosec.com/top-4-nigerian-security-challenges-top-4-in-2021/feed/ 0 Russia and the Western Balkans is getting stronger? https://regiosec.com/russia-in-the-western-balkans/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=russia-in-the-western-balkans Mon, 08 Apr 2019 18:54:00 +0000 https://regiosec.com/?p=1659

Russia in the Western Balkans: Is Russian influence getting stronger?

chess

Western Balkans. The backyard of the European Union as someone said. But if it really is a backyard of the European Union, why is it so hard for the EU to maintain its influence, and what are the reasons for strong Russian influence in this region? Why is it so hard to finally have the Balkan region without threats to some kind of conflict? In all of these possible conflicts, one party is Serbia and the other is different from time to time. Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and even Orthodox-majority Montenegro. EU is constantly trying to be the one to finally bring peace to the region but that is hardly possible because others want to be the peace-givers also, and the main problem is that Russia wouldn’t prefer the peace that is brought by the USA, NATO or EU, and vice versa, so there is a constant “diplomatic fight“ in Balkan countries. Furthermore, West wants to show that their project on the Balkan from late XX and early XXI century is still ongoing and Russia uses this conflict to justify their meddling in Ukraine, Georgia, and Crimea.

In that sense, the Balkan region is one of the „diplomatic battlefields“ where, whoever brings peace, will show the other global powers his strength. This region lost the priority over other, bigger conflicts in the world but still, no side wants to leave the region and let it „to its destiny“.

How the strife between Serbia and Kosovo helped Russia to increase the influence

The biggest issue in the Balkan now is the frozen conflict between Serbia and its seceded territory, Kosovo. At the end of the 20th century, there was a civil war that ended with peace and the UN Resolution 1244 that, in short, said that Serbian government should recall all of its security forces from Kosovo, to welcome international community and its organizations and in future to negotiate about the feasible solution. Twenty years later there is still no solution and it is hard that it will come in the near future.

In 1999. the western powers decided to bomb Yugoslavia because of the conflict in Kosovo and Metohija. It was first planned to do it under the auspices of the UN but as Russia wanted to use the veto in the Security Council, it was decided to do it under the patronage of the NATO. Was it an attempt to bring peace or just to impose influence in the region it is hard to say, but it is hard to accept that those global powers thought that Serbia will stand down and welcome the plan for independent Kosovo without any conflict. Russia then came as one of just a few powers that still considered Kosovo as a part of Serbia.

Balkan-Usa-EU-Russia

The fight between east and west in Balkan was seen clearly also in 1999. when Russian troops seized the airport in Prishtina before KFOR came to Kosovo just to show the dominance. Again, after Kosovo unilaterally declared independence (2008.), in June 2009. US vice president Joseph Biden came to Serbia and shortly after, in October the president of Russian Federation visited Serbia. And every few years, the prime minister or president of Russian Federation visits Serbia or Serbian officials go to Moscow. Not to mention the Russian economic connections over natural resources, banks and oil companies in most Balkan countries. That is a clear confirmation that the Balkan region maybe doesn’t have the highest priority in Russian interests but still is one of the regions where Russia, as well as western powers, see the opportunity to raise influence and dominance on a global scale. And Serbia is it not the only Balkan country where Russia wants to increase influence. Also, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro has economic relations with Russian federation over credits, the pipeline that should go through Serbia to Croatia, Slovenia, and the EU, and remarkably, many politicians carefully use words when speaking about Russia.

Furthermore, if the peace is the only thing that the western countries wanted, many other illogical moves were played, which literally made space for Russia to enhance its influence in Serbia with whom they share Slavic origin and Orthodox religion.

The aftereffect of unilateral decisions on a dialog

Is it hard to anticipate the consequences of supporting unilateral decisions of one side in a dialog that supposed to end the conflict and to help in the reconciliation of the people in the region? It doesn’t matter which side is that you support but when you recognize the decisions that are made outside of a dialog and without the consent of the other side, you send two messages.
The first message is to the side that made the decisions you support. That message represents aliment and encouragement for the next decisions. That side gets the message of sustenance for the future and, legitimately expects the recognition of every future unilateral declaration.
The second message is to the other side, where you send your determination of openly supporting the other party in a dialog. It is not strange that, as a consequence of that support, that side is pushed to look for the support of other powers. What should the other party expect from the dialog if unilateral decisions are almost always supported before they are even negotiated?

Serbia between the EU and Russia

The west strongly criticizes Serbian closeness with Russia but refuse to see that besides the fact that Serbia and Russia were relatively close through history, it is west that, with the moves that they take, actually helps Russia in keeping the dominance in a country that wants to become the member of EU. Moreover, during his visit to Republic of Serbia in January 2019., Putin said that Russia has many friends on the Balkans but that he sees Serbia as a strategic partner wich, with frequent bilateral meetings, shows that they are trying to keep and increase the influence and that Balkan is still very interesting for both East and West.Here we come to the paradox that a country like Serbia strives toward the EU but at the same time looking for support from Russia and China for the problem of Kosovo. It is a Gordian knot for the Balkan and South-East Europe that is hard to be solved in the near future. At least if the same tactics are used by western countries, the EU and the international community. „Apart from the energy sector and oil and gas imports, Russia’s role in the Serbian economy has been insignificant. In 2005-2013 Russia invested 598.4 million euros in Serbia, which is 4.5% of all foreign investments carried out over that period“ (Russia in Serbia – soft power and hard interests – Marta Szpala, OSW)

What is to be done to start the reconciliation?

The reconciliation between Serbia and Kosovo is almost impossible. Albanians from Kosovo think that they have the right to have their own state, and Serbs are resentful on the thought that Kosovo can be an independent state. Although Serbs are a minority in Kosovo, Serbia is very much connected to that territory for it was the crib of Serbian civilization. More than 1300 monasteries and churches of which more than 150 were destroyed after 1999. so the Serbs are afraid to stay in a country on their own. Also, the rhetoric used by politicians on both sides don’t really help people feel more secure.

As well, maybe the first thing that all countries in the former Yugoslavia should do is to start talking more about themselves and less about the others. As long as we accuse others of crimes, and at the same time avoid speaking of our own, the reconciliation is as far as we can imagine.

Besides all these hard issues it seems like the western community doesn’t have a perception of the dispute between Balkan people and what is the core difficulty of reconciliation. On the other hand, there is Russia, who strongly supports Serbian arguments and say that they will recognize Kosovo only if Serbia, as a central government, recognize it first. Until then, they consider Kosovo as a Serbian territory under the Resolution 1244. It can be that Russia uses this situation because of their own interest, but nevertheless, they speak what Serbs want to hear, about international law and how everyone should comply with it. They use arguments like international law, Resolution 1244, sovereignty and territorial integrity and in the eyes of people in Serbia, it seems like they care.

shake hands

More understanding of the overall situation is needed from the international community

The German government is openly against changing borders even though they weren’t against it when it came to changing borders of Serbia in 1999. That is why the Serbs are even more impending the German arguments because in Serbian perspective it doesn’t represent an objective insight and it seems like double standards. This is also one of the reasons why it is so hard for Serbs to accept any deal.
US government, in the last year, is more opened for a final deal, and don’t have anything against any deal that is accepted by both sides in the negotiations. However, this support maybe came a little late, because the Kosovo government came with a platform for the negotiations that is unacceptable for Serbia.

More honesty from all global powers is what this region needs but it is something that is almost impossible to get, because of the geopolitical situation and the possibilities that this region provides. The possibilities for the west to keep its dominance, and possibilities for the east to regain the influence and domination they want to have.

As a result of the last 30 years of politics and interests of the Balkan countries as well as international community and global powers, we came to the point where the full reconciliation is almost impossible and that situation is a fertile ground for rising capacity in today’s geopolitics.
]]> Military straightening in Balkan region and justification for that choice https://regiosec.com/military-straightening-in-balkan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=military-straightening-in-balkan Mon, 14 Jan 2019 10:01:40 +0000 https://regiosec.com/?p=962

Justification of military straightening in Balkan Region

checkmate

Peace. As much as one wants to be an optimist, no one with common sense is going to think that Global peace is something that we can achieve in this structure of the world. Big, powerful states, natural resources, money float, poverty and economic disparity in the world are some factors that lead to the cognition of the fact that there will always be some armed conflicts in the Earth. There will always be some interest of powerful subjects (state or non-state) that will lead to some conflict. Also, manufacturing of weapons and military equipment are one of the largest economies in the world. This is why we can say that war is very profitable for some actors in the global stage. 

Powerful state in the region

With the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Balkan was left without the most powerful state in the region. One country became five, and in the 2000s, six countries. One army divided on six, one economy divided into six, population divided on six… when we add years of an armed conflict between states, how much the war can cost, and more than 3 million people left the Balkan and went to Western Europe, Scandinavia, North America, and Australia, we see how much all of these states lost with the dissolution like it was. Could it be the other way? We believe yes, but there is a saying: “After the battle, everyone is a general”. This means that it is easier to speak about the things that happened earlier, from this perspective, mostly because we have more information and we don’t involve the emotion as much as we would in the real situation.

map

More than 20 years after?

So, what is happening now, more than 20 years after? Antagonism between ethnic groups multiplied with the speeches of the politicians. The leaders that don’t have the courage to admit their fault and the faults of the government that led those states into war. Those are the reasons why we can’t start looking into the future and not in past. Also, the courage is not the only impediment in reconciliation. Power, interests, economic issues, border disputes, rights of minorities… These are all the obstacles for peaceful coexistence which is most needed in future.

Special Police Forces

These days, Balkan countries are still in military marketing, trying to convince the citizens that military threat is the big security challenge. That the strong military is indispensable for territorial integrity. Of course, this is a two-way street. You need at least two subjects to have an altercation. In this case, we need at least two countries to have a military competition, and that competition is not good for any of these countries because neither one of them is economically capable of this competition. Forming an army when you have neither money nor equipment, is everything but endeavor to reconciliation. Also, buying used military equipment is mostly marketing. Buying used aircraft when your pilots have a few dozens of flight hours per year if we look logically, is just a commercial for future elections..

Necessity or not?

So, from this perspective one question is emerging – Is it necessary, to modernize the military in a way that Serbia and Croatia, as the two most important states in Balkan, are doing? Well, in a way it is because every state of former Yugoslavia is afraid of the rising influence of others in the region. If they want to stop this competition, the first thing that has to be done is building trust. However, trust is hard to build on the foundations that are built in the 1990s. Those foundations have to be demolished because they stand on the base of nationalism and antagonism. Every single country has to work on that thrust which has to be the first pillar of the future in the region. This is Sisyphean task… very hard but still not impossible to be done.

]]> Traditional security threats https://regiosec.com/traditional-security-threats/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=traditional-security-threats Wed, 09 Jan 2019 16:42:01 +0000 https://regiosec.com/?p=438

Traditional security threats​

In the traditional understanding of the security of the state, the threat to the security system was pure of a military nature. However, the modern concept of security sees other endangering factors than military ones.

Security today represent a great challenge for the state. Challenges, risks, and threats to security are extremely complex and, depending on intensity, they can be manifested at the national, regional and global level. The danger of armed aggression has been significantly reduced globally, due to the development of society itself, globalization and the capital flow. However, we are witnessing the constant emergence of new armed conflicts, which generally have a national or possibly regional character. Armed conflicts can arise as a result of the escalation of terrorism and also, border, territorial and other disputes between states.

military exercise

Military conflicts have become an enormous source of capital for powerful states, as well as a „range“ for demonstrating power. There are many security challenges to the state in the XXI century. Terrorism is one of the greatest threats to the global, regional and national security. Also, for the country and the threats to its security, there is a significant link between all forms of national-organized, transnational and cross-border crime. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to the logic, should pose a potentially biggest threat to regional and global security, as the party that has a power to use those weapons, whether is it a state or non-state party, will have an advantage in the negotiations of any kinds. However, smaller conflicts at national and regional levels that are happening constantly are currently getting more damage than WMD even though the logic says that the bigger threat is the threat of WMD.

What are the armed conflict threats?

soldier saluting

 

The armed conflict threats are the threats of massive use of conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction that can endanger the security of the state and its population. These threats we can divide to the threats that come from outside of the state like armed aggression, armed intervention, and armed pressures, as well as threats that come from inside the country like armed rebellion and civil war.

The military threats that come outside of the country are mainly directed by the great powers towards small states under the auspices of democracy, humanitarian law and the protection of the population of the country X from the will of the dictator. But the truth is more complicated than that. US diplomat Henry Kissinger once said: ” civil conflicts are viewed internationally through prisms of democratic or sectarian concerns. Outside powers demand that the incumbent government negotiate with its opponents for the purpose of transferring power. But because, for both sides, the issue is generally survival, these appeals usually fall on deaf ears. Where the parties are of comparable strength, some degree of outside intervention, including military force, is then invoked to break the deadlock.” (see the whole article here)

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