The integration of ‘AI’ technologies into weapon systems introduces a complex dimension to international relations and security, championing technological solutions for enduring warfare challenges, notably enhancing ‘situational awareness’ through advances such as automated ‘vision’. However, the discourse, particularly in Western militaries like that of the United States, often overlooks inherent limitations and issues in AI-based warfare. This paper explores ‘AI’s’ implications for military vision by inter alia scrutinising the US military’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) process. It argues that the US military actively transforms the observation, decision, and action apparatus, progressively substituting human vision and decision-making, leading to a multidimensional de-visualisation. This denotes fundamental changes in human perception, reshaping knowledge, control, and agency dynamics. In conclusion, the paper suggests an imminent era of de-visualisation in the military – a deliberate relinquishment of human control for perceived military efficiency and effectiveness. This marks a transformative shift, urging nuanced consideration of the profound impact of ‘AI’ technologies on warfare dynamics.

Women who are currently serving in a variety of combat roles and combat support positions in many state militaries around the globe have had to struggle for their positions by proving their abilities, and such struggles are still ongoing. Based on interview materials with veterans, this article examines the ways in which the veterans interpret their roles as women in combat positions and how they understand agency. The article further traces how their presence in war could alter the gendered meaning of protection. While the military is a key institution of overt gendered power in the state, women combatants’ voices can create a crack in the masculine dominance that is taken for granted in state narratives; they can also create a wedge that allows in a reconsideration of gendered roles and power relations in the context of militaries, thereby offering more nuanced interpretations of protection and agency.

The Covid-19 pandemic saw a surge in cyber attacks targeting pharmaceutical companies and research organisations working on vaccines and treatments for the virus. Such attacks raised concerns around the (in)security of bioinformation (e.g. genomic data, epidemiological data, biomedical data, and health data) and the potential cyberbio risks resulting from stealing, compromising, or exploiting it in hostile cyber operations. This article critically investigates threat discourses around bioinformation as presented in the newly emerging field of ‘cyberbiosecurity’. As introduced by scholarly literature in life sciences, cyberbiosecurity aims to understand and address cyber risks engendered by the digitisation of biology. Such risks include, for example, embedding malware in DNA, corrupting gene-sequencing, manipulating biomedical materials, stealing epidemiological data, or even developing biological weapons and spreading diseases. This article brings the discussion on cyberbiosecurity into the realms of International Relations and Security Studies by problematising the futuristic threat discourses co-producing this burgeoning field and the pre-emptive security measures it advocates, specifically in relation to bioinformation. It analyses how cyberbiosecurity as a concept and field of policy analysis influences the existing securitised governance of bioinformation, the global competition to control it, and the inequalities associated with its ownership and dissemination. As such, the article presents a critical intervention in current debates around the intersection between biological dangers and cyber threats and in the calls for ‘peculiar’ policy measures to defend against cyberbio risks in the ‘new normal’.

For more than two decades, Iran’s nuclear programme has concerned policymakers and scholars alike. Whether speeding up uranium enrichment, slowing down international negotiations, or disrupting the timing of key initiatives, actions around Iran’s nuclear programme bear a clear time signature. Yet systematic accounts of the importance of time in shaping foreign and security policymaking have been largely neglected. Through foreign policy timing theory’s (FP4D) reconceptualisation of time we show how actors both constructed and then used time to pursue their strategic interests, creating, altering, and sabotaging the timing mechanism linking Iranian nuclear technology and international sanctions. These manipulations of time by both domestic and international actors resulted in prolonged international negotiations and fluctuating periods of crisis and produced a temporally flawed agreement frozen in time. We consider time’s impact on the current challenges and future direction of nuclear diplomacy with Iran as well as its importance for broader nuclear security issues.

This article explores the emergence of new military-strategic rationalities in relation to conceptions of hybrid warfare in the grey zone through a case study of Sweden’s reinstatement of total defence since 2015. Through a governmentality-inspired approach, I analyse what it means for the organisation of a new total defence when one of the main threats to be dealt with is daily antagonistic but highly ambiguous hybrid attacks. I illustrate how conceptions of an ambiguous strategic non-peace entails a move beyond war preparedness into urgent demands for an everyday active total defence that hinges on a ‘martialisation’ of civilian life. This in turn run the risk of challenging fundamental democratic principles and civil liberties. The analysis contributes to an increased understanding and uncovering of the politics made possible by a military-strategic rationality geared towards hybrid threats in the grey zone – which in the Swedish case has resulted in a historically specific version of total defence that builds on a highly diffused and rather extreme form of decentralised defence.

Although Critical Security Studies (CSS) has done much to advance security debates, some shortcomings remain. Its excessive focus on the individual – which we term ‘me’ – reduces CSS' capacity to propose solutions to current global security problems such as pandemics and climate change. This paper contributes to the emerging scholarship on the potential of relational ontologies in Security Studies by introducing Buen Vivir Indigenous cosmopraxes into the debate. Indigenous cosmopraxes such as Sumak Kawsay, Suma Qamaña, and Teko Kavi, we argue, can inform CSS by providing alternative considerations to the pluriverse of ideas that address security crises. These cosmopraxes, which make up the broad notion of Buen Vivir, provide a way to think and enact security from a collective perspective, one that emphasises ‘we’ instead of the liberal self. In that sense, these cosmopraxes allow us to conceive security differently and face insecurities together.

States and non-state actors conduct unclaimed coercive attacks, inflicting costs on adversaries to signal resolve to prevail in a dispute while refraining from claiming or denying responsibility. Analysts argue that targets often know who is responsible, which enables coercive communication, and that the lack of claims of responsibility grants coercers plausible deniability in the eyes of third parties. The puzzle of different audiences holding different beliefs about who is behind an unclaimed attack, even when they may have the same information, has been neglected. We address this puzzle by theorising that targets and third parties tend to reach different conclusions due to distinct emotional reactions: targets are more likely to experience anger, which induces certainty and a desire to blame someone, as well as heuristic and biased information processing, prompting confident attribution despite the limited evidence. A vignette-based experiment depicting a terrorist attack lends empirical plausibility to our argument.

This article investigates the defence policies of the Nordic and Baltic countries from the perspective of shared security culture. To that end, the article analyses conceptualisations of total defence and resilience in a comparative perspective and inquires into existing and prospective regional cooperation in this area, in order to determine to what degree there exists a common security culture based on shared norms and identities and manifested in practices of security cooperation. The study, which draws on 19 interviews with civil servants from the eight states of the region, shows that while there is fertile ground for a shared security culture to emerge, thus far, due to variations in conceptualisations, threat perceptions, and interaction preferences, only three Nordic states show clear signs of a shared security culture. The study contributes to existing research by situating the concept of resilience in (total) defence discourses; by expanding the theoretical work on security culture to an international context; and by offering a unique empirical account of the process of (re)building total defence policies in a region crucial to European security.

Is individual support for internationally agreed military humanitarian interventions (MHIs) subject to a religious bias? Conducting a vignette-based survey experiment, the paper provides micro-level evidence for such a bias within a highly unlikely sample: German university students. Participants in our survey experiment were more compassionate and indeed more supportive of an MHI when the victims of war-related violence were Christians rather than Muslims. The paper thus contributes to the literature on support for MHIs in two important ways: first, whereas the existing literature has a strong focus on the United States, this paper studies individuals’ support in another Western country that regularly contributes to MHIs, namely Germany. Second, while the existing literature has mainly examined how other social factors, such as the race or gender of the victims, affect individuals’ support for MHIs, drawing on social identity theory, this paper claims that religious identification also has an impact. Moreover, by showing that the religion of the victims of war-related violence shapes individuals’ attitudes towards MHIs through compassion, the paper also speaks to more recent literature that demonstrates that individuals’ attitudes towards refugees depend on – among other things – their religion. Against the background of a general rise of identitarian politics in many Western societies, our findings seem to be of particular relevance.

Many are now discussing the possible demise of the so called ‘liberal international order’, but how can we know whether any international order is changing? This article argues for understanding order as maintained by institutions of international society and further theorises the role those institutions play in the stability or transformation of international order. To usefully put institutional analysis to work, this article, first, models the stylised evolution of a primary institution. Second, it illustrates this evolution with a discussion of the historical institution of trusteeship in order to historicise adaptation and transformation in international order. Finally, this leads to a generalised idea of how institutional analysis can be employed to study stability and transformation in international order. Beyond making a contribution to the wider debates about the possible demise of the current international order, this piece also fills a gap in English School theory, which is quite silent on the question of when international society furthers transformation, and when it furthers stability. Accepting the view of history that the future is contingent on today’s events, this study suggests possible points where push comes to shove for change and continuity in international order more generally.

After all-male universal conscription had been deactivated in many European countries in the post-Cold War era, the past decade has seen a surprising reversal of this trend, with several countries reactivating, voting to retain, or even extending military conscription to women. Due to the strong historical link between conscription and the formation of hierarchical gender orders, this paper conducts a feminist analysis of debates on conscription in Sweden and Austria and asks how gender served to legitimise the ‘return’ of mandatory military service. We find that a neoliberal, individualistic discourse legitimised Sweden’s gender-neutral conscription as an efficient and progressive model that presents as competitive, while the Austrian all-male model was justified on the basis of conservative, communitarian sentiments of fostering responsible male citizens and preserving a solidaric national community. Moreover, while conscription was envisioned as strengthening Swedish defence and war preparedness, conscription in Austria was rather associated with containing militarism and preventing involvement in armed conflict. Despite these differences, we suggest that hierarchical notions of masculinity and femininity, intersecting with classed and racialised dichotomies, served to render conscription acceptable and even appealing in both cases.

This research delves into the identity construction and violence justification within the context of far-right lone-actor terrorism, particularly motivated by white supremacist ideologies. Employing a qualitative analysis of manifestos compiled by five lone-actor terrorists, this study adopts a model to unveil the nuanced processes behind the justification of violence and glorification of collective identities. The model has been formed for the purpose of the study, drawing from social identity and identity fusion approaches, including steps such as group alignment, exclusion, threat, virtue, and celebration. The analysis of these manifestos illuminates a progression through each phase of the violent act, meticulously crafted through textual expression. Central to the terrorists’ objectives is the creation of a rhetorical platform aimed at fomenting violence against non-white, ethnic, and religious groups. Their motivation arises from the perceived threat of the ‘white race’ being supplanted by immigrant communities across various social, political, and economic domains. This justification of violence hinges on the portrayal of themselves as protectors of the majority society, pitted against these minority groups. Strikingly, the terrorists celebrate their actions by commemorating past white supremacists who employed violence against marginalised communities.

This paper explores the relationship between feminist foreign policy (FFP) and a country’s national role conception (NRC). Specifically, it asks whether countries with ‘masculine’ NRCs are opposed to the pursuit of FFP while countries with a more ‘feminine’ national role conception are advocates of FFP. To this end, the paper conducts a comparative analysis of ‘masculine’ Israel and ‘feminine’ Germany along three domains: normative (with a focus on the Women, Peace, and Security [WPS] agenda), material (in relation to development policy), and institutional (with reference to female representation). Generally speaking, Germany has indeed undertaken broader and more substantive activities in pursuit of FFP goals than Israel. At the same time, Israel has clearly been more active than its ‘masculine’ role would suggest, and Germany less active and vocal than its ‘civilian power’ role would imply. Overall, the discussion suggests that whether countries pursue FFP goals is strongly influenced by the latter’s compatibility with the countries’ overarching NRCs, with party ideology, institutional autonomy, and intersection between gender policy and state interests playing a greater role regarding the specific levels of commitment and intensity shown in the pursuit of those goals.

This article explores the analytical trajectory of desecuritisation strategies in the Global South through the case of Colombian refugees in Ecuador (2005–12). It maps desecuritisation strategies and their enabling and constraining factors against the backdrop of an entrenched infiltration discourse and an emerging rights-based discourse. The analysis of speeches, interviews, and policies demonstrates that governmental elites set in motion more transformative strategies when regional identity and emigration are raised in the political agenda. However, critical developments such as bilateral tensions and the lack of audience support sway desecuritisation towards more managerial strategies and ultimately, to resecuritisation. Shifting the empirical application of desecuritisation to this South American setting reveals the transformational capacity of desecuritisation strategies and reiterates the decisive role of the audience.

The Schengen Information System for law enforcement, border control, and judicial cooperation in the European Union has over the years seen a considerable expansion of the amount and types of data stored and its functionalities, as well as its user base. In light of this transformation from a simple information-sharing tool to a full-blown investigative database, there has, however, been surprisingly little public debate and pushback against the growing surveillance and control capacities that the system enables. This article proposes to understand the largely uncontested evolution of the SIS through the concept of ‘creep’, i.e. the incremental, unforeseen, and/or stealthy development of a technological system beyond what it was originally introduced for. More specifically, it retraces how creep has in the case of the SIS been enabled and facilitated through (1) latent development principles, i.e. the rationale of building dormant features into a system that can be activated at a later point in time once technology has sufficiently matured and/or legal foundations have been adopted; and (2) technology monitoring and steering mechanisms, i.e. the continuous assessment of the readiness of key technologies for anticipated updates to the system as well as interventions in publicly funded research programmes.

This article explores the growth of international civilian-protection concepts since the 1990s and the question of what protection means in a qualitative sense. It makes a significant intervention in advancing a typology of positive and negative protection, allowing more systematic analysis of whether protective practices fulfil the normative goals of internationalised protection and creating openings for expanded imagination of possible protective practices. It is argued that practices of refugee protection during this period have been shaped by logics of externalisation that seek to maintain distance between protector and protected and attenuate cosmopolitan solidarity with vulnerable non-citizens, both of which have detrimental impacts on the depth of protective practices and the experience of protection. These practices occur at the intersection of conflicting interpretative backdrops – between the cosmopolitan-minded commitments to the protection of vulnerable non-citizens and backdrops that frame migration as a problem. Using the case of the United Kingdom (UK) asylum system, the article argues that this is generative of negative protection – practices providing immediate physical protection, but simultaneously constructing conditions of acute vulnerability. Conversely, positive protection might be found in practices that embody fuller solidarity with protected people and enable them to flourish as a socially embedded individuals.

Studies of nuclear politics and IR more widely have failed to seriously engage with what future nuclear-disarmed worlds would or should look like. I respond to this failure of imagination by advocating for a project of ‘post-nuclear worldmaking’. Counter-hegemonic political efforts around the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) are a useful first step to ‘connecting’ our nuclear-armed present to a disarmed future. However, they do not tell us much about the broader characteristics of this future. Moreover, they often fail to transcend conservative assumptions of plausibility and probability, which unnecessarily exclude what might be called ‘utopian’ visions of alternative futures. In the context of mounting uncertainty generated by threats to planetary security, post-nuclear worldmaking can assist in drawing strong connections between the present and radically different future worlds, which should not be discounted as improbable or impossible. This project enables a widening of the scope of nuclear futures and policy options which are considered thinkable, as well as contributing a future-facing, prefigurative element of politics which complements existing counter-hegemonic strategy. It highlights the unavoidable obligation for nuclear scholars to think in utopian terms.