Nuclear Arms Control - Current Dimension and Future Challenges
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EDITION 04 2021 Table of contents Table of contents ................................................................................................................................1 Peischel: Editorial ...............................................................................................................................3 Lapins/Velija: An Albanian unitary state without effective power .......................................................5 Dialectic of Enlightenment ..............................................................................................................5 Kosovo's role in the problems surrounding Greater Albania/Pan-Albania ........................................5 The Vetëvendosje Party ..................................................................................................................9 Greater Albania in the intellectual discourse of the 1990s and 2000s ............................................ 11 Pan-Albanian dreams in Southern Serbia.... ................................................................................... 14 ... and in Macedonia...................................................................................................................... 16 Territorial exchange ...................................................................................................................... 16 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 18 Corriculum Vitae ........................................................................................................................... 23 Budde: Nuclear arms control - Current dimension and future challenges .......................................... 24 Geostrategic situation ................................................................................................................... 25 Deterrence as a strategic concept ................................................................................................. 26 The nuclear arsenals ..................................................................................................................... 28 Existing agreements ...................................................................................................................... 30 Verification ................................................................................................................................... 33 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 34 Corriculum Vitae ........................................................................................................................... 36 Herrmann/Maninger: Will steel remain decisive? ............................................................................. 37 The tank debate ............................................................................................................................ 37 Urban situations ........................................................................................................................... 41 Future Combat Systems ................................................................................................................ 45 Firepower: lethality of the system/platform .............................................................................. 46 Protection: Survivability of the system/platform ....................................................................... 47 Mobility: the ability to move on the road and in the field .......................................................... 47 Networkability: the ability to communicate with other vehicles, units, control centres and systems ..................................................................................................................................... 48 Sustainability: its reliability, efficiency and logistical footprint ................................................... 48 Flexibility: this means the adaptability of the platform .............................................................. 49 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 50 Corriculum Vitae ........................................................................................................................... 51 Kaiser: The invisible third party ......................................................................................................... 52 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 52 RELEASED AUGUST 2021 1 EDITION 04 2021 Nature and characteristics ............................................................................................................ 52 Invisibility...................................................................................................................................... 53 Fear and anxiety ........................................................................................................................... 56 Localisation and dissolution of boundaries .................................................................................... 58 Partisans, soldiers and mercenaries .............................................................................................. 60 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 67 Corriculum Vitae ........................................................................................................................... 68 RELEASED AUGUST 2021 2 EDITION 04 2021 Editorial Dear readers, With the peer-reviewed analysis of the concept of Pan-Albania Wulf Lapins and Enes Velija continued their research on the Albanian quest for national greatness on the western Balkan region, which they started in edition 3/2021. An EU integration process slowed down by the French, Dutch and Danish vetoes as well as by the specific interests of the US, the Russian Federation and Turkey would lead to the creation of a security and power vacuum, but also to decreasing trust in EU credibility. This kind of development seems all the more perilous as the western Balkan region already has to strike a balance between the Western, post-humanist narrative of peace making and visions of a big state, whereby foundation myths, language, culture, religion, ethnicity and ideology seem to promote the latter. This supports the thesis that strategic thinking is not only in itself dependent on the sphere of culture, but that its assessment has to take into account the particularities of this very sphere as important factors of influence. In his series on the ministers of defence of the Second Republic Manfred Rauchensteiner this time dedicated himself to Karl Ferdinand (Baron of) Lütgendorf, minister of defence from February 1971 to May 1977. Even before taking office, Lütgendorf started to discuss “small-scale war” as a thinkable process and, with his efforts to reposition the armed forces, aroused the enmity of pacifistic and military-hostile circles, which finally transferred the polemics against him to parliament. In November 1971, he presented “Armed Forces Organisation 72”, a reorganisation draft, to the national defence council. Towards the end of his term in office, there were signs of a serious conflict between him and the then commanding general of the armed forces regarding the concept of area defence. RELEASED AUGUST 2021 3 EDITION 04 2021 In his contribution Dieter Budde, a notorious expert regarding the development of nuclear arms control agreements, sheds light on their current dimensions and the challenges they will face in the future. In his view, large-scale arms control agreements are history by now. Although he considers nuclear arms to have been a considerable factor during the Cold War, he thinks the nuclear arms build- up of China, North Korea, and Iran has generated a new arms race, whose limits comprehensive arms control agreements will not be able to set in the near future. One might add that Europe should be careful urging the US and Russia to abide by arms control regulations that do not bind emergent powers like China and Iran - especially, when the EU itself depends on US “extended deterrence”. With their essay Christian Herrmann and Stephan Maninger considerably contribute to answering the question of the future importance of armoured troops in modern armed forces. They conclude that different usages of identical technologies might lead to fundamentally different results. This means that even if a technology loses importance with one actor, it could gain a completely new dimension of impact through another actor, which is, for instance, superior in the areas of AI and autonomous systems. According to the authors, the main battle tank will - due to its combat capacity both in conventional and asymmetric warfare - in all probability remain operational until at least 2035. Regardless of the conclusions drawn and the questioning of the role of armoured troops, the credibility of Europe’s defence policy largely depends on the capacity to reliably protect the Baltics; the potential of the latter, which no doubt entails a subjective threat perception, is largely based on a core of mechanised capabilities subject to continuous technological development. Matthias Kaiser