Michael Brzoska

University of Hamburg | UHH · Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy

Der afrikanische Kontinent hat nicht nur mit gewaltsam ausgetragenen Konflikten, Hungersnöten und Armut zu kämpfen, sondern auch mit den Folgen des Klimawandels. Zugleich ist Afrika aber auch ein Kontinent der Chancen und der Zukunft. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes fragen daher: Was können und sollten wir tun, damit sich auf unserem Nachbarkontinen...

Wie beeinflusst die Corona-Pandemie die Aussichten für Frieden und Sicherheit in Europa? Einige Trends zeichnen sich bereits ab. Sie betreffen die Rahmenbedingungen der traditionellen Sicherheitspolitik mit ihren diplomatischen und militärischen Mitteln. Das Ausmaß der Veränderungen ist allerdings noch offen. --Die Vorbereitungen auf ein breiteres...

Der afrikanische Kontinent hat nicht nur mit gewaltsam ausgetragenen Konflikten, Hungersnöten und Armut zu kämpfen, sondern auch mit den Folgen des Klimawandels. Zugleich ist Afrika aber auch ein Kontinent der Chancen und der Zukunft. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes fragen daher: Was können und sollten wir tun, damit sich auf unserem Nachbarkontinen...

Research on security-related aspects of climate change is an important element of climate change impact assessments. Hamburg has become a globally recognized center of pertinent analysis of the climate-conflict-nexus. The essays in this collection present a sample of the research conducted from 2009 to 2018 within an interdisciplinary cooperation o...

Der Klimawandel beeinträchtigt in vielen Regionen die Lebensbedingungen, steigert das Konfliktrisiko und erschwert nachhaltige Friedenssicherung. Seine Bedeutung für Gewaltkonflikte ist aber bisher eher gering. Multilaterale politische Instrumente sollten Sicherheitsrisiken frühzeitig erkennen helfen und kooperative Wege der Friedensbildung stärken...

Climate-related disasters are among the most societally disruptive impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Their potential impact on the risk of armed conflict is heavily debated in the context of the security implications of climate change. Yet, evidence for such climate-conflict-disaster links remains limited and contested. One reason for this i...

The extensive research on climate change and violence over the last 15 years has resulted in many important but also contested results. The diversity of results is in part due to epistemological and methodological questions. Thus, the conditions under which environmental changes can lead to or change violence are discussed often only in terms of ma...

Currently there exist no data series comparing arms production values among countries. The article outlines three methods for generating such data series based largely on already available data series relevant to arms production, in particular series on arms imports and exports, procurement, and turnover figures from the world’s largest arms produc...

The importance and extent of some of the linkages between disasters, migration and violent conflict are not very well understood. There has been controversy in the empirical analytical literature both over core elements of the nexus and over the mechanisms driving it. One reason for the current state of the pertinent literature is the widespread ne...

Das Verhältnis von Frieden und Wirtschaft ist ambivalent. Für viele wirtschaftliche Akteure ist Krieg schädlich, der Frieden hingegen förderlich; eine Erkenntnis, die sich auch in den herrschenden Theorien über die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen von Frieden niederschlägt. Doch können wirtschaftliche Interessen auch zu Kriegen führen. Auch in Kriegen...

At the end of the 20th century, a lasting peace based on liberal ideas seemed within reach. Today, the liberal world view is in a deep crisis, closely linked to effects of globalization. How can we conceptualize this crisis and its consequences for the liberal paradigm in peace research and peace-oriented security policy? The article begins with a...

Purpose of Review Summary of research on the consequences of extreme weather events, which manifest themselves as disasters, for collective violence as well as on policy measures to mitigate such negative effects. Recent Findings A growing, but contested, majority of studies indicate a slight increase in the likelihood of the occurrence, escalatio...

Seit der Klimawandel stärker ins öffentliche Bewusstsein drängt, wird er vom Schreckensbild hunderter Millionen von Umweltvertriebenen begleitet. Schon im ersten Bericht des Weltklimarates (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC) von 1990 wird gewarnt, dass Veränderungen bei Niederschlägen und Temperaturen zu großen Migrationsbewegungen fü...

Die Arbeit am Frieden bewegt sich im Spannungsfeld von Macht, Herrschaft, Technologie, Recht, Moral und Religion. Der Beitrag zeichnet daher Entwicklungen des Friedensbegriffs in der Philosophie, der christlichen Theologie, dem Völkerrecht, der Wirtschaftswissenschaft, den Internationalen Beziehungen sowie den Naturwissenschaften nach und stellt Ge...

Rüstungsproduktion ist ein hoch politisches Geschäft, obwohl es überwiegend von Privatfirmen betrieben wird. Dadurch ergeben sich Paradoxien bei der Rüstungsbeschaffung, der staatlichen Förderung der Rüstungsindustrie und im Export von Rüstungsgütern. Rüstungsproduktion und -export werden rechtlich strikt kontrolliert, aber von der Interaktion poli...

Die Versorgung Deutschlands mit konventionellen Energieträgern, insbesondere Öl und Gas, ist in hohem Maße von politischer Stabilität und offenem Welthandel abhängig. Beide sind auf unterschiedlichen, miteinander verschränkten Ebenen gefährdet. Verschiedene Überlegungen prägen die Sorge, dass die gegenwärtige Energieversorgung Sicherheitsprobleme m...

International sanctions have become the instrument of choice for policymakers dealing with a variety of different challenges to international peace and security. This is the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of all the targeted sanctions regimes imposed by the United Nations since the end of the Cold War. Drawing on the collaboration of m...

United Nations sanctions are authorized by the international body that is legally charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, the UN Security Council. They are grounded in provisions of the UN Charter. However, only a fraction of all international sanctions are mandated by the UN. One of the findings of this article, which is...

Purpose – The paper aims to investigate the consequences of climate change for the future of armed forces and their presentation in national security documents. Design/methodology/approach – A classification of potential future military roles and functions is derived from relevant literature, resulting in six “military futures”. Frames are develop...

It has often been predicted that large numbers of people will be displaced by climate change and that this will lead to violent conflict. At the core of this prediction is a simple causal model which assumes that climate change will result in resource scarcities, which in turn will drive migration as well as violent conflict. Academic research into...

A recent Climatic Change review article reports a remarkable convergence of scientific evidence for a link between climatic events and violent intergroup conflict, thus departing markedly from other contemporary assessments of the empirical literature. This commentary revisits the review in order to understand the discrepancy. We believe the origin...

Assessments are an important instrument in shaping global counterterrorist financing (CTF) policy. However, while CTF policies had an impact on terrorist activity, it is not clear which CTF measures are useful and which are not. Past assessments have had a bias toward expanding the scope and intensity of CTF regulations and implementation because o...

Recent research has provided new insights into the relationship between climate change and violent conflict. In this review we compare the results, methodologies, and data applied in the peer-reviewed literature to recap the current state of the debate. While long-term historical studies suggest a coincidence between climate variability and armed c...

Current debates over the relation between climate change and conflict originate in a lack of data, as well as the complexity of pathways connecting the two phenomena.

The authors of this volume argue that research into the effects of climate change on human security, on societal stability, and on violent conflict is still in its early stages. There is, as yet, little in terms of established knowledge beyond the generally accepted proposition that climate change, if extensive, will have major effects on people, s...

Climate change has, within a few years, become one of the top items on the security agenda of many states and international organizations. After being a minor issue, in the years 2007/2008 the potential effects of climate change on the security of peoples and states became a major focus of attention. Security is now often seen by non-governmental o...

National security agencies of four major powers—the United States, Russia, China, and the United Kingdom—see their militaries taking on additional roles in domestic disaster relief because of the effects of global climate change. Otherwise, national security actors show drastically different responses to climate change. The US and Russian militarie...

This special issue addresses a range of fundamental issues related to security economics, which is defined as the study of the causes, forms, and effects of the human drivers of insecurity, which include terrorism and organized crime as well as the related policies. Most of the papers of this special issue reflect the general emphasis on various as...

„Sehen sie denn nicht, dass sie Kunden erschießen!“ soll ein englischer Kaufmann angesichts des Ausbruchs des Ersten Weltkriegs ausgerufen haben (Taylor 1957). Diesem Bonmot folgend, ist der Krieg also für viele wirtschaftliche Akteure schädlich, der Frieden hingegen förderlich; eine Erkenntnis, die sich auch in den herrschenden Theorien über die w...

Das Atomprogramm des Iran steht inzwischen seit fast acht Jahren mit an der Spitze der Probleme der internationalen Politik, gemessen sowohl an Schlagzeilen in der internationalen Presse wie an diplomatischen Bemühungen.

This paper presents key aspects and policy implications of a multi-annual research project on economic analyses of European security issues (EUSECON), with an emphasis on intentional threats of organised crime, piracy and terrorism. The first part argues that rational models can provide significant insights on the emergence and current patterns of...

Zusammenhänge zwischen Kriegführung und Ökonomie sind im politischen Diskurs und der wissenschaftlichen Analyse lange Zeit thematisiert worden und werden es auch gegenwärtig. Die erste historisch überlieferte Schilderung einer Schlacht (Megiddo, 1457 v. Chr.) enthält unter anderem eine detaillierte Aufzählung der Kriegsbeute (Redford 2003). Thuky-d...

Bereits vor dem 11. September 2001 wurde damit begonnen, Finanzmittel als Instrument im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus einzusetzen. Danach wurden sie zumindest zeitweilig als besonders effektiv angesehen, um den Aktionsradius transnationaler terroristischer Gruppen einzuschränken. Allerdings gibt es wenig fundierte Untersuchungen der Wirksamkeit der g...

The popularity of arms embargoes makes sense on the one hand but can be puzzling on the other. Since arms are a type of good often linked directly to war and peace as one of the central objects of international politics, stemming the flow of arms to a country or group accused of acting against international peace and security is a logical response....

The dependent variables for this analysis include three measures of arms embargo effectiveness, which were referred to as ‘levels of effectiveness’ in the Framework Chapter. These are the embargo's success in causing a targeted policy change (level I effectiveness), success in changing arms flow to the target (level II effectiveness), and a measure...

In recent years there has been a concerted attempt to harmonize European policies on arms exports. Of particular importance is the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, which lays out standard criteria for assessing applications for arms export licences. This process has been interpreted as the ‘Europeanization’ of EU arms export policies, understood...

A debate has recently been initiated by a number of members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee to include security-related items in the definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA). This article looks at the logic of these proposals by means of a brief review of the history of the ODA definition as well as recent debates on the rel...

Arms embargoes are often said to be ineffective but mandated fairly often. A sample of 74 arms embargo cases between 1990 and 2005 is analysed in order to assess effectiveness. The analysis shows that such embargoes had notable effects on arms import patterns in about 30 percent of all cases. However, effects on targeted policies are much more limi...

The ‘long decade of disarmament’ between the mid-1980s and the late 1990s provides ample evidence of the effects of a substantial defense downturn. The chapter starts out with a brief discussion of various concepts of conversion, focusing on a resource-reuse perspective. This is followed by sections on measuring success and failure in the conversio...

Wie wenige Politikfelder ist Rüstungsexportpolitik von kurzzeitigen medialen „Skandalisierungen“ und langfristigem öffentlichem Desinteresse gekennzeichnet. Gründe dafür sind die Objekte, um die es geht, todbringende Waffen und anderes militärisches Gerät, deren Verwendung (nicht zuletzt bedingt durch die jüngere deutsche Geschichte) Emotionen herv...

One of the key challenges arising from the recent increase in international involvement in post-conflict situations has been to establish security and to transfer responsibility to local institutions in ways compatible with principles of ownership, accountability and economic sustainability. While there is no lack of prescriptions for security tran...

Already prior to the decline in absolute numbers, military r&d had declined in relative importance due to major increases in civilian r&d. Even in the US, civilian spending is now substantially larger than military spending. In global terms, civilian r&d is about 10 times as large as military r&d. Most of the civilian r&d is privately funded. The l...

The offer presented to Iran on June 6, agreed among the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany (P5+I), contains more concessions than the EU-3 (Germany, France, the UK) were able to make in the negotiations that failed in August 2005. Iran's right to peaceful use of nuclear energy is confirmed, as is the exercise of that right,...

n comparison with the turbulent year of 2003, marked by the Iraq War and the ensuing crisis within the United Nations, 2004 passed without similarly news-making man-made disasters. In fact, some good news can be reported from 2004. The overall number of wars and armed conflicts continued to decline. A number of conflicts were brought closer to peac...

A number of proposals for a tax on the international trade with weapons have been made during the last 25 years, most recently prior to the G-8 summit in Lyon, France, in June 2003. Originally, the major objectives were both to reduce the level of trade in arms and raise money for purposes such as development and disarmament. Later proposals includ...

Arms transfers are financed through a variety of means, including cash payments, barter trade, military aid and credit. The fiscal and economic effects of these various forms of arms transfer financing differ. Data on the flow of arms transfers, as provided by international sources on the arms transfers tell little about actual economic burdens. Du...

The past few years have seen the development in Germany of a discourse on the phenomenon of ‘new wars’. This debate on the nature and cause of new wars is linked to changes in German military policy in the 1990s as well as to growing criticism of globalization. In particular, this review discusses as examples two books that have found wide audience...

Regionally concentrated post-cold war military spending cuts offer an opportunity to compare regional conversion across countries. The authors briefly lay out the challenge and distinguish regional from national and industrial conversion strategies. Several factors facilitate or impede region-level conversion efforts: regional contextual factors—de...

Was war, mit Blick auf Staat und internationales System und ihrem Verhältnis zueinander, das Besondere des 20. Jahrhunderts? Was hat seinen Charakter ausgemacht, was verändert sich im Übergang zum nächsten Jahrhundert und was bleibt? Jahrhundertwechsel sind ein beliebter Anlaß für Rückbesinnungen. Auch dieser Beitrag ist ein Rückblick, aber sein Zi...

The production of weapons in less industrialized countries (LIC) grew rapidly from the 1960s to the mid-1980s when it began to stagnate. The trend is not universal, however, with drastic declines in countries in Africa and Latin America and stagnation or even growth in countries in Asia. Initiation and continuation of production often was dependent...