Written by: Vincent Chaput Edited by: Tomas Farinha Carney The United Kingdom, Japan and Italy are on the verge of signing up an unprecedented agreement to begin the construction of…
In the past decade, the cyber domain, or cyberspace, has become the most challenging and pressing issue of recent times in the area of international security. In an ultra-connected world, where information travels at an uncontrollable rate and data is becoming the new resource to be mined; it ultimately affects every aspect of modern life. From the economy to civil liberties, it has become the new focus of national security strategies and legal frameworks.
The topic of radicalisation is strictly linked to terrorism since, usually, the former leads to the latter. However, they are not synonyms, and the processes behind each are very different and complex to analyse. The radicalisation topic dominated public opinion following the surge of terrorist attacks in Europe by ISIS militants starting in 2015. These events led national and local institutions to commission projects and programs to tackle radicalisation by raising awareness on the topic in civil society. This paper aims to investigate radicalisation in European militaries to create a European framework in which armed forces and civil society can join to fight radicalisation processes related to armies. To do so, this analysis will focus on radicalisation processes within the military and amongst individuals who have left the armed forces.
Estonia took another step on January 14 to bolster its defence as the nation’s Ministry of Defence announced the signing of a new €36 million contract to procure twelve K9 Thunder Self-Propelled Howitzers (Ministry of Defence Estonia, 2023). The deal, signed with the company Hanwha Defence, is a result of what Defence Minister Hanno Peukur referred to as “lessons learned from the war in Ukraine” (as cited in Estonian World, 2023). The 47-ton, 155 mm howitzers manufactured in South Korea feature a maximum firing range of 40 kilometres and can reach a top speed of 67 kilometres per hour (European Defence Review, 2022).
Following the Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv’s Government received unprecedented military support from NATO members. The military cooperation between Ukraine and the Atlantic Alliance goes back to the early nineties, and it underwent an intensification process after the Crimea in 2014. The Western support during the 2022 conflict took the form of economic assistance, weapons supply, and training of troops. Despite NATO’s military aid certainly played a role in Ukraine being able to resist Moscow’s aggression, problems on and off the battlefield raised concerns about the Alliance’s interoperability capacity, not only with respect to its partners but also between its Member States. Therefore, NATO Chiefs of Staff need to identify and address these issues to steer the conflict in Kyiv’s favour and to avoid the re-emergence of these issues in the future.
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