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The purpose of this paper is to unveil the main changes in the UAE’s policy towards Iran since its foundation in 1971. The UAE favored strategic hedging, extending its commercial and diplomatic relations with Iran, in addition to developing its military capabilities and maintaining military/security alliances with Saudi Arabia and the USA. However, the UAE started to reorient its policy towards Iran by adopting some sort of balancing strategy in the aftermath of the Arab Spring of 2011. This paper examines how and why the UAE had to change course and explores whether it would revert back to strategic hedging with Iran.

The study will be carried out based on a theoretical framework drawn from strategic hedging theory, a new structural theory in international relations, to examine the shifts in UAE policy towards Iran. Previous literature suggests that small states prefer hedging over balancing or bandwagoning. The authors also undertake a descriptive analysis and deploy a longitudinal within-case method to investigate changes in UAE policy towards Iran and identify the causal mechanisms behind these changes. That method allows investigating the impact of a particular event on a case by comparing the same case before and after that event occurred.

The main finding of this study is that the UAE hedging strategy towards Iran allowed maximizing the political and economic returns from the cooperation with Iran and mitigating the long-range national security risks without breaking up the consistent and beneficial ties with other regional and global powers. Hedging achieved the desired outcome, which is preventing direct military confrontation with Iran. Hard balancing, adopted by Abu Dhabi after the 2011 Arab Spring, has proved to have some negative effects, most importantly provoking Tehran. Some recent indicators suggest, though that the UAE may revert back to its long-established hedging policy towards Iran.

Strategic hedging is a new structural theory in international relation, although hedging behavior in states’ foreign policies is far from new. It is new enough, thus, not have been researched sufficiently, strategic hedging still needs theorizing and comparison. This paper highlights the importance of strategic hedging as the most appropriate strategy for small states. It provides an important contribution to the application of the theory to the case of UAE policy towards Iran. The paper also assesses the conventional wisdom that small states prefer hedging over balancing in the light of the changes in the UAE foreign policy since 2011.

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the role of Russia in the current world environment, focusing attention on its role in global security. Russia can play a leading role in contributing to global security or it can play a major role in undermining global security. The next section will present an interpretation of the nature of global security, followed by a discussion of recent changes in the global situation. Next, the current position of Russia in the global system and how that position has changed will be considered. Finally, the global security agenda and the contribution that Russia can make to this agenda will be examined. It will be shown that Russia can play a major role in the achievement of global security.

Since the first days of its independence, Kazakhstan has been overwhelmed by security issues involving its neighbors. It also recognized a number of conventional and unconventional security threats that might undermine stability and development in the region, as well as in the republic. One of the first official documents produced by the Kazakhstan government was the Strategy of Establishment and Development of Kazakhstan as a Sovereign State, initiated by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in May 1992.³ Although specific security threats in Kazakhstan were obvious (as the direction post-Soviet security, military arrangements and the CIS had yet to be determined), three sections of this document dealt specifically with security issues, albeit in relatively vague form.⁴ In the document, President Nazarbayev highlighted the fact that the national security of Kazakhstan had a regional dimension, and that relations with CIS members and other states with interests in Central Asia were very important.⁵ He stressed particularly that his country needed a military doctrine to “prevent and defend against (external) military threat.”⁶ It took several years for this concept of national security to be clarified and conceptualized in a comprehensive document, the Law on National Security of the Republic of Kazakhstan.⁷

The USA and China have had a complex relationship since the 1949 establishment of the People’s Republic of China. This relationship has gone from hostility to guarded friendliness to increased tension at the beginning of the new millennium. Recent years have seen the emergence of literature stressing China’s potential emergence as a national security threat to the USA. This article will look at books, government documents, and Internet resources examining the current and possible future national security relationship between these two countries from 1995/1996 to the present. This literature presents US and international perspectives representing a variety of viewpoints on a subject that may have a major impact on international relations during the twenty‐first century.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse supply chain network management (SCNM) in the context of emergency preparedness management (EPM). The results of this study revealed that civil-military relations are essential for EPM to function as a coordinated approach to safety and security, and are necessary to respond effectively to complex emergencies and mitigating threats to developed countries. Civil-military relations are still a concern in the context of communication, the exercise of authority, and the coordination of emergency supplies (ES) to emergency operations.

This qualitative study is based on field observations, with attention focused on the EPM of Sweden, Finland, and Poland. The analysis of a broader SCNM through EPM was supported by semi-structured interviews among civil-military actors in Sweden, information collected from informal conversations known as “hanging out”, and secondary materials. Empirically, the analysis included a variety of civil-military relationships and identified implications for management, policy, and planning that are applicable to developed countries.

The management of civil-military relations is a meaningful resource when used as an overall approach for safety and security. The integration of civil-military relations in EPM in the planning of ES is a long-standing and complex matter. The management of Swedish civil-military relations in EPM is recognising that implications for management are imbedded in continuous policy changes in, for example, the Swedish policy history. Civil-military relational complications that arise in the field of operations are impossible to anticipate during emergency planning, as those complications are grounded in policy changes.

Escalating threats to developed countries are highlighted. The study underlines the primary measures used in studying military involvement in EPM. An understanding of SCNM as a choice for management can be obtained in future research that focuses on a broader role of the military in EPM. Sweden has emphasised a clearer role for the military by reactivating total defence planning and by evolving common practices and processes with civil actors in civil defence. Meanwhile, Poland and Finland are increasing their focus on supporting the management of civil-military policies on safety and security regarding communication, authority, and developing coordination. Consistent with findings from previous reports on SCNM, civil-military relations are essential for EPM. This study confirmed the importance of civil-military coordination, the management and practice of authority, and shared forms of communication.

A unique regional scenario marked by a low probability of interstate-armed conflicts and the commitment to the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has been a good framework for the success of measures like peaceful solutions to controversies, economic cooperation, foreign affairs agreements and mutual confidence measures in the defense arena. At the same time, it has also redefined Latin American military organizations. The strategic planning of the armed forces through the conflict hypothesis pattern has been replaced by the hypothesis of convergence. Therefore, the focus has gone from deterrence to the development of capacities, among which are the peacekeeping capacities that became a priority for many countries of the region. In this sense, the aim of the article is to analyze the participation of Latin America in peacekeeping operations, in order to propose as a final point an ideal type of a Latin American peacekeeper.

The European Union (EU) is one of the most notable examples of economic cooperation and integration in international politics. However, it is difficult to argue that a similar stance prevails in politics and security. Although the EU made various advances and took institutional steps, particularly in the fields of defense and security during the Cold War, it acted on North Atlantic Treaty Organization's axis/with North Atlantic Treaty Organization throughout this period. During the post-Cold War period, the EU made concerted efforts to develop more independent defense and security policies. A similar determination, however, was not seen in terms of the reflections of these activities in practice. The diversity of the EU's issues, on the one hand, and the periodic divergence of interests between Atlanticist and Europeanist countries, on the other hand, posed barriers to acting on a single platform. At the same time, the United Kingdom's exit from the EU has resulted in the establishment of new defense and security balances. Nonetheless, the EU's efforts to develop an autonomous security policy persist. Among these initiatives is Permanent Structured Cooperation, which has recently been noted. Although debates on the effects of North Atlantic Treaty Organization's existence in the twenty-first century in their own context reflect a separate dimension, it does not appear plausible to foresee that the EU will have a wholly separate security perspective from North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the near future. Taking into account the relevant general framework, this study discusses the historical backdrop of the EU's security and defense strategy, new developments in the post-Cold War period, and projections for the future of transatlantic relations.