The 10 Best Articles on International Security Concerns this week

Each week we provide a collection of 10 must reads from around the web on issues pertaining to international security. Simply click the article title to open a new tab.

This week’s top 10 (in alphabetical order) are:

 

Can Community Policing Combat al-Shabaab? by Ken Menkhaus

The Global Observatory

Can community policing deter terrorism in weak states where government security sectors are unable to cope with violent extremism?

 

China Sells South Sudan Arms as Its Government Talks Peace by Ilya Gridneff

Bloomberg

China is selling $38 million worth of missiles, grenade launchers, machine guns, and ammunition to South Sudan’s government, even as it pledges to help end a civil war in a country also on the brink of famine.

 

“Ethical Power Europe”, Between Realism and Idealism by Raluca Csernatoni

ISIS Europe

The two articles under review, Adrian Hyde-Price’s “A ‘tragic actor’? A realist perspective on ‘ethical power Europe’” and Ian Manners’ “The normative ethics of the European Union”, both tackle the still topical dilemmas provoked by the EU’s international exercise of power and its ethical legitimations.

 

Expendable Egypt by Benedetta Berti and Zack Gold

Foreign Affairs

The similarities between this month’s hostilities between Hamas and Israel and those during their last major confrontation, in November 2012, are striking. Yet one thing has changed: the relationship between Hamas and Egypt.

 

Five Myths About the Islamic State by Daniel Byman

The Washington Post

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has fought in Syria and plotted attacks in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. The group has slaughtered Shiites and members of other religious groups it deems apostates, as well as Sunnis perceived as collaborators. Nevertheless, its brutality has led to confusion about its aims and dangers.

 

Individuals Before Parties in Egypt’s Elections by Ahmed Morsy

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Three days before the inauguration of elected President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, on June 5, interim president Adly Mansour approved a parliamentary elections law amid a flurry of last-minute legislation. The new law establishes a mixed electoral system, likely to empower old networks.

 

The New Way of War: Killing the Kids by Robin Wright

The New Yorker

The specific targeting of children is a development showing how conflict has been waged over the past fifty years. In the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, roughly half of all deaths in conflict zones were civilian. By the twentieth century’s end, almost ninety per cent were civilian. Children have accounted for increasingly large chunks of those deaths.

 

Sect Supreme by Bassel F. Salloukh

Foreign Affairs

The military successes by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) have triggered a wave of gloomy prognoses about the demise of the Sykes-Picot regional order in the Levant. Indeed, this year could mark the birth of a new regional order that dismisses the realist geopolitical contests of the past and clings to sectarianism.

 

Ukraine’s Do-It-Yourself War by Vera Mironova and Valerie Hopkins

Foreign Policy

Ukraine’s military is not capable of fighting off pro-Russian separatists itself, and thus ordinary citizens are picking up for the slack.

 

You Can’t Kill Hamas, You Can Only Make It Stronger by Mark Perry

Foreign Policy

Experts and insiders say that Israel’s military offensive will only further radicalize the Palestinian population and alienate frustrated friends in the United States.

 

 

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