Since the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), US administrations have criticized their European allies for not meeting security burden-sharing goals. This study aims to gain insight into what factors motivate alliance members to contribute to the burden-sharing objectives they have agreed to achieve. From a US perspective, the need for its European allies to reach these goals will allow the United States to shift resources to more pressing strategic challenges like the rise of China. Informed by Mancur Olson's theory of collective action and Glenn Snyder's concept of the security dilemma in alliances, this project tests the hypothesis that the more a NATO ally's foreign policy interests align with those of the United States, the less that ally will spend on defense as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This study uses a mixed-methods approach. The primary metric measuring an ally's contribution is the percentage of its GDP spent on defense. Furthermore, this study breaks NATO's history into three geopolitical periods: the Cold War (1950 to 1990), the Post-Cold War (1991 to 2006), and the Resurgent period (2007 to 2019). The analysis yields robust support for the theory in periods lacking a major threat (i.e., the Post-Cold War). That means the more aligned an ally's foreign policy preferences are with the United States, the less that ally spends on defense as a percentage of its GDP in such periods. The implications of these findings suggest that with the intensified threat of Russia made apparent with its attack on Ukraine in 2022, burden sharing in the NATO alliance will be less of a problem for the US in the immediate future. However, when this threat recedes, the burden-sharing issue will return, and the United States will have to send credible signals (like withdrawing troops from Europe) to its allies to cause them to question US protection and increase defense spending.

The boom of the Internet of Things (IoT) brings great convenience to the society by connecting the physical world to the cyber world, but it also attracts mischievous hackers for benefits. Therefore, understanding potential attacks aiming at IoT systems and devising new protection mechanisms are of great significance to maintain the security and privacy of the IoT ecosystem. In this dissertation, we first demonstrate potential threats against IoT networks and their severe consequences via analyzing a real-world air quality monitoring system. By exploiting the discovered flaws, we can impersonate any victim sensor device and polluting its data with fabricated data. It is a great challenge to fight against runtime software attacks targeting IoT devices based on microcontrollers (MCUs) due to the heterogeneity and constrained computational resources of MCUs. An emerging hardware-based solution is TrustZone-M, which isolates the trusted execution environment from the vulnerable rich execution environment. Though TrustZone-M provides the platform for implementing various protection mechanisms, programming TrustZone-M may introduce a new attack surface. We explore the feasibility of launching five exploits in the context of TrustZone-M and validate these attacks using SAM L11, a Microchip MCU with TrustZone-M enabled. We then propose a security framework for IoT devices using TrustZone-M enabled MCUs, in which device security is protected in five dimensions. The security framework is implemented and evaluated with a full-fledged secure and trustworthy air quality monitoring device using SAM L11 as its MCU. Based on TrustZone-M, a function-based ASLR (fASLR) scheme is designed for runtime software security of IoT devices. fASLR is capable of trapping and modifying control flow upon a function call and randomizing the callee function before its execution. Evaluation results show that fASLR achieves high entropy with low overheads.

Despite the existing body of literature dealing with policies and policy change and the impact of institutions on these changes, very little is understood about how food security policies emerge on the policy agenda and what influences their design. This study used a set theory analysis to investigate the role of political institutions, institutional environment and the structure of a country’s economy in determining its food security policy choices, and what configurations of these determinants enabled or constrained food security policy outcomes in eight African countries. A taxonomy was created to organise the food security policy outcomes against four criteria: i) Policy coordination (the degree to which different policies consistently address the cross-cutting aspects of food security); ii) Geographic scope (distinguishing policies that apply and are implemented across the country from those targeting a specific geographic area); iii) Orientation (distinguishing producer- from consumer-oriented policies); and iv) Level of state involvement (dealing with the state’s engagement in the provision of goods and services as an approach to governance that involves the assertion of authority or its conscious limitation). The food security policies of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique were evaluated against these criteria. The conditions analysed included constitutional rules (electoral and governance systems, veto players), institutional environments (accountability, trust, state legitimacy and capacity) and structural economic characteristics. A set-theoretic analysis was performed on the eight countries’ policies. Crisp and fuzzy analyses were applied to the same dataset to identify empirical patterns of sufficiency, necessity and INUS (insufficient but non-redundant parts of a condition, which is itself unnecessary but sufficient for the occurrence of the effect) conditions. Expectations drawn from the literature were examined against the logical results of the analysis. The results identified the causally relevant combinations for each policy criteria. Based on analytical results, an Excel-based tool was developed to check for contradictory predictions in all African countries, informing on the level of generalisation of these findings outside the sample. This work shows that formal political institutions matter for food security outcomes, but not everywhere. When (some) constitutional rules are in combination with conditions pertaining to country structural characteristics and informal institutions, policy outcomes can be explained and predicted. This work contributes to understanding the design and implementation of food security policies in Africa. These insights have benefit for both governments and donors. The inclusion of factors relating to the institutional environment enabled an innovative operationalisation of the suppositions related to neo-patrimonialism, providing insight into how formal political institutions and informal rules related to food security policy work in Africa. However, the focus of analysis on exogenous factors, rather than sector-specific governance in a country, facilitates more general (and generalisable) findings. / Thesis (PhD (Rural Development))--Univeristy of Pretoria, 2020. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / PhD (Rural Development) / Unrestricted

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This work analyzes and discusses the current security environment of today's (and future) smartphones, and proposes a security model which will reduce smartphone vulnerabilities, preserving privacy, integrity and availability of smartphone native applications to authorized parties. For this purpose, we begin with an overlook of current smartphone security standards, and explore the threats, vulnerabilities and attacks on them, that have been uncovered so far with existing popular smartphones. We also look ahead at the future uses of the smartphones, and the security threats that these newer applications would introduce. We use this knowledge to construct a mathematical model, which gives way to policies that should be followed to secure the smartphone under the model. We finally discuss existing and proposed security mechanisms that can be incorporated in the smartphone architecture to meet the set policies, and thus the set security standards.

Terrorism is a growing security issue for the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, most of what is understood or assumed about terrorism is based on traditional and realist understandings of the problem. There has been a skewed focus on male recruits and their participation. One way in which inaccurate research and representation of men in terrorist organisations has been portrayed is through the fact that behind women’s participation in terrorist organisations, a motivation is always given to explain their participation. This is where a gap in literature has been identified. In order to fill this gap, this study uses the feminist theoretical approach to form an understanding of women’s autonomy in Al-Shabaab through a lens that is not masculinist and free from gendered stereotypes. Furthermore, this ensures a broad bottom-up analysis of women in Al-Shabaab. A case study of Al-Shabaab found that women are victimised by Al-Shabaab, but also some women are autonomous actors of Al-Shabaab. Women are victimised in various ways including sexual and physical abuse, and through the limitations of various freedoms. However, some women do play more active roles, including acting as recruiters, fundraisers, teachers, explosive experts, suicide bombers, and spies among others. When comparing these two groups of women it is evident that even women who are victimised by Al-Shabaab do in some situations participate in the terrorist organisation’s activities. However, the reason for victims’ participation is purely due to their need for survival, whereas autonomous actors are motivated by diverse factors which include economic motivators, revenge, the need for power and influence, and a shared ideology and religion of Al-Shabaab. Motivation is also found to be an important tool in creating innovative counter-insurgency campaigns and strategies against Al-Shabaab. By questioning what Al-Shabaab’s motivations are, it is found that not only are its motivations different from its goals and aims, but in many cases the importance of its motivations outweighs its ideological and religious importance. By exploiting the motivations of Al-Shabaab, it is possible to create doubt within its members or potential members’ minds that Al-Shabaab’ goals and aims are not what it projects; but rather, that it uses its ideology and religion to manipulate those that share similar beliefs to join the cause. Thus, creating cracks in Al-Shabaab, its legitimacy and its authority without the use of any weapon, creating an innovative counter-insurgency strategy / Mini Dissertation (MA (Security Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Political Sciences / MA (Security Studies) / Unrestricted

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In this work, we propose three important contributions needed in the process of improving the security of the critical infrastructure: metrics, measurement, and analysis. To improve security, metrics are key to ensuring the accuracy of the assessment and evaluation. Measurements are the core of the process of identifying the causality and effectiveness of various behaviors, and accurate measurement with the right assumptions is a cornerstone for accurate analysis. Finally, contextualized analysis essential for understanding measurements. Different results can be derived for the same data according to the analysis method, and it can serve as a basis for understanding and improving systems security. In this dissertation, we look at whether these key concepts are well demonstrated in existing (networked) systems and research products. In the first thrust, we verified the validity of volume-based contribution evaluation metrics used in threat information sharing systems. Further, we proposed a qualitative evaluation as an alternative to supplement the shortcomings of the volume-based evaluation method. In the second thrust, we measured the effectiveness of the low-rate DDoS attacks in a realistic environment to highlight the importance of establishing assumptions grounded in reality for measurements. Moreover, we theoretically analyzed the low-rate DDoS attacks and conducted additional experiments to validate them. In the last thrust, we conducted a large-scale measurement and analyzed the behaviors of open resolvers, to estimate the potential threats of them. We then went beyond just figuring out the number of open resolvers and explored new implications that the behavioral analysis could provide. We also experimentally shown the existence of forwarding resolvers and their behavior by precisely analyzing DNS resolution packets.

Military coups are the most consequential breakdown of civil-military relations. This dissertation contributes to the explanation and prediction of coups through three independent quantitative analyses. First, I argue that food insecurity is an important determinant of coups. The presence of hunger can generate discontent in society and subsequently alter coup plotter opportunities. Furthermore, I show that the presence of chronic hunger can condition the effect of increasing development. While increasing levels of development have been shown to limit coup proclivity, a state experiencing chronic hunger will recognize the fundamental failure of basic needs provision. As development increases, the presence of chronic hunger in a state will therefore increase the likelihood of a coup when compared to its absence. Findings indicate that food insecurity, and specifically the conditioning influence of chronic hunger, are important explanatory predictors of coups. In the second analysis, I argue that existing tests of the Coup-Contagion hypothesis have not been sensitive to the specific pathways through which coups may diffuse. After a robust analysis of spatial autocorrelation, I derive a novel feature of contagion that is sensitive to both shocks and historical legacy of neighborhood coups. Regression models including coup contagion as a predictor, provide substantive support for my hypotheses. In the final assessment, I synthesize explanatory models and provide a machine learning framework to forecast coups. This framework builds on a growing effort in social science to predict episodes of political instability. I leverage a rolling origin technique for cross-validation, sequential feature selection, and an ensemble voting classifier to provide forecasts for coups at the yearly level. I find that predictive sensitivity to coups is increasing over time using these methods and can result in practical forecasts for policy makers.

The project studies enlistment into Pro-Government Militia groups (or PGMs) in the context of modern armed conflicts. While PGMs as armed groups are getting an increased attention, very little insight has been generated regarding the circumstances under which pro-government combatants choose to join PGMs over the army. I develop survey tools, a survey experiments and a series of semi-structured interviews to study individual-level factors affecting recruitment dynamics in Ukraine, the country that successfully employed PGMs to defend itself against Russian hybrid aggression. The inquiry tests for the role of such factors as trust in the army, emotions, and subjective individual reasons (existential desires), and is aimed at helping policy makers and military analysts better understand combatants' motivation to join the fight and the potential of grassroots mobilization in the context of well-developed Western societies. The results offer several insights. The interview analysis reveals that the ex-combatants situate their choice within a dichotomy of "fight" vs. "serve". These self-identified fighters are driven to PGMs by their existential need for excitement, meaning or the need to "reinvent" themselves. Other most-cited reasons include the lack of trust in the army and informal communitarian obligations before the nation as opposed to the state. On the national level, results of an emotion-based survey experiment suggest that the respondents who experience pride as a result of recent conflict developments are more likely to support potential conflict participation of their friends and family. In contrast, self-efficacious, highly motivated individuals, are interested in joining PGMs as a way to fight for their home while not being constrained by army bureaucracy.

Intrusions are the intentional unauthorized violation of a state's sovereign territory or claimed space (e.g., air defense identification zone, exclusive economic zone) by assets controlled by another state. Intrusions are one of the most common military interactions between major powers. Yet, intrusions are poorly understood by security studies scholars. To the extent that they are addressed in the literature, they are usually understood through the lens of coercive signaling. However, most intrusions lack the requisite components for this coercive signaling such as competing political objectives, associated demands, and the necessary risk to demonstrate resolve. As a result, most intrusions are left unexplained by the literature. This dissertation argues that states use intrusions and responses to intrusions to assert their relative status in bilateral relationships. Leaders that are dissatisfied with their state's status in relation to another country are more likely to exhibit a pattern of escalated intrusions or responses to intrusions as a means of reframing the status relationship. The study tests these hypotheses using case studies centered on Chinese and Russian leaders vis-a-vis the United States. The cases were constructed using interviews with current and former senior officials as well as archival resources (some recently declassified). These findings are important. They provide insight on how states communicate and compete for status as well as the role of intimidation and deference in interstate relationships. The findings also help clarify how and why leaders today are using intrusions such as Xi Jinping in the South and East China Seas and Vladimir Putin's resumption of long-range bomber patrols against the United States and other NATO countries.