NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE PEACE • RESOURCES WAR NEGATIVE Download Facebook the issue 3 • 2019 Around the World CEJISS 2019 CEJISS is a non-profit open-access scholarly journal. Published by Metropolitan University Prague Press ISSN 1802-548X 88 3 9 771802 548007 current events at cejiss.org © CEJISS 2019 cejiss acts as a forum for advanced exploration of international and security studies. It is the mission of cejiss to provide its readers with valuable resources regarding the current state of international and European relations and security. To that end, cejiss pledges to publish articles of only the highest calibre and make them freely available to scholars and interested members of the public in both printed and electronic forms. editor in chief Mitchell Belfer associate editors Imad El-Anis, Jean Crombois, Bryan Groves, Jason Whiteley, Muhammad Atif Khan executive editor and administrator Jakub Marek book review editor Zuzana Buroňová Outreach and Development Lucie Švejdová web and support Metropolitan University Prague language editing Sheldon Kim editorial board Javaid Rehman, Ibrahim A. El-Hussari, Efraim Inbar, Tanya Narozhna, Michael Romancov, Marat Terterov, Yulia Zabyelina, Natalia Piskunova, Gary M. Kelly, Ladislav Cabada, Harald Haelterman, Nik Hynek, Petr Just, Karel B. Müller, Suresh Nanwani, Benjamin Tallis, Caroline Varin, Tomáš Pezl, Milada Polišenská, Victor Shadurski, Salvador Santino F. 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Studujte Metropolitní univerzitu Praha awww.mup.cz začněte psát svou story. #StoriesOfMUP www.mup.cz Contents Volume 13, Issue 3, September 2019 Editor‘s 6 Turkish Delight analysis Mitchell Belfer Research 12 The Democratization Potential of the Middle Class in Russia articles Jan Švec 26 From Negative to Positive Peace in Western Balkans A Case for Eclectic Theory Miroslava Kulkova 49 Trends in Investment Treaty Making Finding Balance between National Sovereignty and Investment Protection Martin Karas 64 Unregulated Migration and Nigeria-EU Relations Kingsley Emeka Ezemenaka 88 Hydro-Politics and the Dynamics of the Shifting Ethio-Egyptian Hydropolitical Relations Yayew Genet Chekol 101 Russia, the Arctic and Northeast Asia The Strategic Importance of the Far North Rafael Contreras Luna 133 Evidentiary Thresholds for Unilateral Aggression Douma, Skripal and Media Analysis of Chemical Weapon Attacks as a Casus Belli Gavan Patrick Gray 166 The United States’ China Containment Strategy and the South China Sea Dispute Victor Teixeira Book 196 Would The World Be Better Without the UN? reviews Reviewed by Gregorio Staglianò 199 Political Islam: A Critical Reader Reviewed by Alina Shymanska Turkish Delight Mitchell Belfer Turkey learned the wrong lessons from the past years of war in the Middle East. Unmoored, Ankara is now more aggressive, more nation- alist and more Islamist than at any other time in its modern history. Its foreign policy reflects this. Under the spell of President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, double-speak is commonplace. Turkey professes multilateralism but pursues unilater- al goals. It’s officially secular but wastes no opportunity to empower conservative Islamic groups. It screams its adherence to the rule of law, freedom of the press and of worship and is comfortable mak- ing mass-arrests, silencing the free press and hunting-down minori- ties. Ankara declared war on ISIS but its operations are reserved for Kurds—particularly in Northern Syria. All in all, Turkish rhetoric does not match its reality. Some depict Turkey as having an Ottoman Moment or experiment- ing with Neo-Ottomanism, but this is inaccurate. Instead of the bus- tling, ethno-cultural melting-pot of those imperial times, the Turkey of today is a hybrid state; founded with a Sultanic ruler who dangles between the internationalist creed of Islamism and the fervour of Tur- kic ethno-nationalism. But while it’s ideological twin-peaks might, on their own, misguide and infuse its leadership with inflated perceptions of national power and destiny, events have conspired to keep its mili- tary ambitions somewhat grounded. Ankara is learning its limitations and its opportunities—and how to respect the former and exploit the latter. When war erupted in Syria (2011), the Erdogan clique was full of excitement. Its frayed relationship to Israel and its growing Islamic credentials helped unmoor it from its republican legacy. Rather than towing the US or European line, Turkey was ready to carve out its own strategic niche and Syria would provide it the legitimacy needed to 6 lead. Unfortunately for Erdogan — obsessed with legacy — Turkey’s initial optimism was soon tempered. It would not be the only exoge- nous actor entering the fray. Iran — Turkey’s enduring rival — was also quick to use the Syrian war as a springboard to consolidate some of its objectives: propping-up the Al Assad regime and, through it, establish- Editor’s ing its northern flank through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediter- Analysis ranean. Instead of providing Ankara an avenue to reemerge as a great Middle Eastern power, the Syria war is leading Ankara on the road to perdition and revealed — for all to see — the limitations of its power. Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian war was complicated from the very beginning. Having thrown its weight behind the anti-As- sad-Iran-Hezbollah axis by training, equipping and deploying the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Ankara locked itself in a particular role—champion of a secular insurgency in an increasingly religion-fuelled, sectarian conflict. The FSA was stillborn. Founded in 2011, comprised of defec- tors from the Syrian Arab Army, the FSA was structured as an armed force but preformed poorly; lacking adequate command, control and communications capabilities and an overarching set of strategic objec- tives besides the removal of the Al Assad regime. The original FSA did not last a year before the bulk of its members drifted to the growing number of Sunni jihadi groups. Against the backdrop of Al Assad’s and Iran’s sectarian agenda, Syria’s Sunnis — especially around the trade- hub of Aleppo — grew increasingly alarmed by the deployment of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah to support Al Assad forces and sought to fight radicalism with radical- ism. Turkey saw yet another opportunity and exploited it. Turkey’s strategy rapidly evolved from supporting secular forces against Al Assad to organising and unleashing an Islamist tidal wave that is now impossible to contain. With Doha’s financial support, An- kara threw its weight behind a cocktail of extremists in Syria including: Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (aka HTS, aka Jabhet Al Nusra) — an Al Qaeda umbrella group composed of Jabhet Ansar Al Deen, Jaish Al Sunna, Liwa’ Al Haq, Harakat Noor Al Deen Al Zanki and the Turkmen Ka- taeb Turkman Suria — and Muslim Brotherhood militias such as Jaish Al Islam and Ahrar Al Sham. Ankara softened its borders to facilitate the ease of international jihadis streaming over its frontiers en route to Syria and Iraq. While these charges have been vehemently denied by Ankara, the evidence continues to mount as to Turkey’s role in allowing the so-called ‘ji- 7 hadi highway’ to form, together with foreign fighters logistical centres in the Turkish towns and villages along the Syrian frontier between 2013-2014. By one account, in 2013, some ‘30,000 militants traversed Turkish soil.’1 2014, showed only a slight reduction in the jihadi flow CEJISS via Turkey. All in all, Turkey relied on radicalised jihadi groups to 3/2018 maintain its relevance in Syria—and the region. It facilitated their flow to conflict areas, allowed evacuations of fighters back to its- na tional territory and had developed important communications lines with the upper echelons of ISIS, it knowingly purchased oil and antiq- uities from ISIS and cut side-deals with the terror-state to secure its (technical) enclave of ‘Suleyman’s Mausoleum.’ Ankara even took up the mission of ISIS and launched a series of operations against Syrian, and Iraqi, Kurds. The enemy of the enemy slogan is certainly apt in this case. Immense pressure — not least from its NATO allies — led to Tur- key’s 30 May 2017 decision to rebrand the defunct FSA as the Syrian National Army (SNA) and to grow distance between it and ISIS. But this was a fig leaf and the SNA were never provided enough support for them to be effective. Instead, they have become an organisation sans fighters, money, ideology and legitimacy while Turkey’s prize fighters of Jaish Al Islam remain in control of Idlib and in partnership with Al Qaeda. It is worth noting — for the record — that neither the FSA or the SNA have ever fought ISIS. Turkey worked with and not against jihadis in Syria.
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