In the wake of the post-Cold War era, students of international relations were forced to review their theoretical frameworks to explain new rules for international peace and security. States are now confronted with new constraints for their security and survival as current trends in international politics depict a 'regionalisation' of peace and security. For southern Africa, likewise, the end of the Cold War and, moreover, apartheid, compels its member states to redefine their security strategies and mechanisms for survival. This thesis undertakes to examine southern Africa's adaptation to new rules of a changing world environment, to ensure a stable and secure region, into the next millennium. At the outset of this thesis lies a conceptual contextualisation of security within the major contemporary theoretical approaches of international relations. By examining the essential differences between the redefinitions and new conceptualisations of security, this thesis, firstly argues that the state in southern Africa must be retained as a primary referent of security. This argument is premised on the need to create stronger states for a 'regionalisation' of security in southern Africa. The second issue examined is the changing world environment and its impact on the state and development in Africa, as the new constraints to which the continent must adapt, for security and survival. Arguing that the new international economic order and 'globalisation' dictate the new rules, this chapter asserts that the 'weak' states in Africa need to be strengthened to have the necessary capacity to be the means for its people's security. Finally this thesis examines the new rules for southern Africa's adaptation to a changing world environment. The new rules for the African sub-continent involve the formation of a security regime and economic community with, the power-house, South Africa. Using the Southern African Development Community(SADC) as the umbrella body, the formation of the Organ for Politics, Defence and Security, and signing of trade protocols for a movement towards a free trade area, are evidence of southern Africa's attempts to adapt to new rules for its security. Such adaptation cannot, however, be accomplished with 'weak' states. Southern African states will have to, therefore, be strengthened to attain a more secure adaptation to the new international (economic) order.

The objective of this study is to investigate and analyse covert action as an option in national security policy. To achieve this aim, the study focused on aspects such as changes in the current international security environment; new challenges that exist; and a conceptual framework of covert action as an element of intelligence. An analysis of the conduct of covert action by the United States of America (US) during the Cold War era as well as the post-Cold War era was also done with the specific intention of identifying problem areas, reasons for success, as well as legislative control measures instituted to regulate the activity. A similar study referring to the situation in South Africa, with the focus on the pre- and post-1994 eras, is also presented. The nature of covert action and especially negative perceptions within society, have led to the questioning of the use of covert action as a legitimate option within security policy. However, as shown in the analysis of case studies, reality indicates that governments continue to conduct covert action. The importance of the study lies in its clarification of the concept of covert action, not only for policy-makers but also for intelligence functionaries. It indicates the measures that should be in place for covert action to be an effective element of national security options; its advantages and disadvantages; the circumstances in which it should be conducted; and the fact that it is still a viable option in the current security milieu. / Dissertation (MSS (Political Science))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

The research focuses on the utilisation of open-source information in augmentation of the all-source counterespionage endeavour. The study has the principal objective of designing, contextualising and elucidating a micro-theoretical framework for open-source environmental scanning within the civilian, statutory counterespionage sphere. The research is underpinned by the central assumption that the environmental scanning and the contextual analysis of overt information will enable the identification, description and prioritisation of espionage risks that would not necessarily have emerged through the statutory counterespionage process in which secretly collected information predominates. The environmental scanning framework is further assumed to offer a theoretical foundation to surmount a degenerative counterespionage spiral driven by an over-reliance on classified information. Flowing from the central assumption, five further assumptions formulated and tested in the research are the following: (1) A methodically demarcated referent premise enables the focusing and structuring of the counterespionage environmental scanning process amid the exponential proliferation of overt information. (2) Effective environmental scanning of overt information for counterespionage necessitates a distinctive definition of ‘risk’ and ‘threat’, as these are interlinked yet different concepts. It is therefore asserted that current notions of ‘threat’ and ‘risk’ are inadequate for feasible employment within an overt counterespionage environmental scanning framework. (3) A framework for overt counterespionage environmental scanning has as its primary requirement the ability to identify diverse risks, descriptively and predicatively, on a strategic as well as a tactical level. (4) The degree of adversity in the relationship between a government and an adversary constitutes the principal indicator and determinant of an espionage risk. (5) The logical accommodation of a framework for overt counterespionage environmental scanning necessitates a distinctive counterintelligence cycle, as existing conceptualisations of the intelligence cycle are inadequate. The study’s objective and the testing of these five assumptions are pursued on both the theoretical and pragmatic-utilitarian levels. The framework for counterespionage, open-source environmental scanning and risk assessment is presented as part of a multilayered unison of alternative theoretical propositions on the all-source intelligence, counterintelligence and counterespionage processes. It is furthermore advanced from the premise of an alternative proposition on an integrated approach to open-source intelligence. On a pragmatic-utilitarian level, the framework’s design is informed and its application elucidated through an examination of the 21st century espionage reality confronting the nation state, contemporary statutory counterintelligence measures and the ‘real-life’ difficulties of open-source intelligence confronting practitioners. Although with certain qualifications, the assumptions are in the main validated by the research. The research furthermore affirms this as an exploratory thesis in a largely unexplored field. / Thesis (Ph.D)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Political Sciences / Unrestricted

M.Sc. (Information Technology) / The purpose of the research presented in this dissertation is to explore the uses of an adaptive multi-agent system for critical information infrastructure protection (CIIP). As the name suggests, CIIP is the process of protecting the information system which are connected to the infrastructure essential to the continued running of a country or organisation. CIIP is challenging due largely to the diversity of these infrastructures. The dissertation examines a number of artificial intelligence techniques that can be applied to CIIP; these techniques range from multi-agent systems to swarm optimisation. The task of protection is broken into three distinct areas: preventing unauthorised communication from outside the system; identifying anomalous actions on computers within the system; and ensuring that communication within the system is not modified externally. A multi-agent learning model, MALAMANTEAU, is proposed as a way to address the problem of CIIP. Due to various problems facing CIIP, multi-agent systems present good opportunities for solving these many problems in a single model. Agents within the MALAMANTEAU model will use diverse artificial and computational intelligence techniques in order to provide an adaptable approach to protecting critical networks. The research presented in the dissertation shows how computational intelligence can be employed alongside multi-agent systems in order to provide powerful protection for critical networks without exposing further security risks.

The present thesis deals with the US strategic approach and posture to cybersecurity from a national point of view. On such a topic much has been written already, nonetheless the present work finds a degree of originality by tackling such object of analysis shifting the focus to a ideational perspective. By drawing insights from the meta-theory of Constructivism and the rich research tradition on strategic culture, the present thesis aims at understanding what kind of norms seem to be informing/mirroring what has been labelled the US "cyber strategic culture", and if it is possible to speak of a "shift", or at least track an evolution regarding them, in a historical timeframe that runs from the early 2000s up to the present days. To pursue the stated research agenda, a methodology grounded in discourse and thematic analysis is utilised, with an analytical framework centred around two opposite "thematic normative categories" (themes) called "defensiveness" and "offensiveness", each characterised by a "story" made up by three sub-themes, delineating specific strategic behaviours. A set of official strategies, all tackling cybersecurity and published during the mentioned timeframe by both the White House and the military, form the primary sources to which such methodology is applied, with particular...

The dissertation aims to examine the intelligence coordination mechanisms in the US and UK with a view to comparing them and identifying similarities and differences between them. To achieve this aim, the study provides a conceptual framework of intelligence as a system and explains the rationale for coordination between the respective intelligence services. The study analyses the coordination mechanisms which existed in the US and UK prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks and the Second Gulf War. The study examines the findings and recommendations of inquiries in both the UK and US that followed these events. This is followed by an analysis of the measures that were introduced after these events in order to strengthen and improve intelligence coordinating mechanisms in the US and UK. The study highlights the need for centralised intelligence coordination systems, and illustrates that coordination is required to ensure that intelligence services function as a unified intelligence community. The study concludes that the nature of twenty-first century threats demands that intelligence communities improve coordination, which entails a shift from decentralised services toward a centralised, unified intelligence community. Copyright / Dissertation (MSS)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

“National security” is one of the most powerful terms in the American vocabulary. It commands wide deference and almost unlimited resources, and what counts as a national security matter determines many of the government’s priorities and responsibilities. It is surprising, therefore, that we know so little about how national security came to be defined in the way Americans have understood it for the last 75 years. The problem is one of perspective. Almost everything written about the history of national security approaches the topic with a present-day understanding of the term’s meaning in mind and uses the term instrumentally to explain something else—most often some aspect of American foreign policy. Most of these works assume that national security refers principally to physical security, that national security policymaking is a foreign policy matter, and that it has always been thus. This dissertation historicizes the term national security. Rather than tracing the present-day conception of national security backwards in time, as has been the norm, it looks forward from the past. This shift in perspective reveals a history of national security that challenges the prevailing assumption that national security has always been a matter of physical security and foreign policy. When Franklin Roosevelt first put national security at the center of American political discourse in the 1930s, he equated it with individual economic security and considered domestic policy the primary domain for national security policymaking. Roosevelt also articulated a broad vision for the government’s national security responsibilities in the final years of his presidency that included economic, social, and physical security to be delivered through a mix of domestic and foreign policy. These findings raise a big question about American political development: why did the United States end up with separate “national security” and “welfare” states rather than the comprehensive national security state Roosevelt envisioned? To answer that question, this dissertation focuses on the interactions between political language, public opinion, and the institutional development of the American state. Combining traditional historical research methods with text mining, network analysis, and data visualization, this dissertation charts the movement of policy areas into and out of the national security frame. Franklin Roosevelt succeeded in placing domestic policy into the national security frame in the mid-1930s, thereby justifying the expansion of the government’s domestic responsibilities. But this success catalyzed the nascent conservative movement, which launched a public persuasion campaign to limit the further expansion of the government’s domestic responsibilities by removing domestic policy from the national security frame. Roosevelt’s subsequent success putting foreign policy into the national security frame at the end of the 1930s created a powerful foreign policy establishment that claimed the mantle of national security exclusively for its work. The exclusion of domestic policy from the purview of national security policymaking was therefore largely an ironic result of Roosevelt’s two successes using the language of security to expand the government’s responsibilities.

The thesis begins with a short section on the nature of neutrality in Europe in the 1930s, and briefly introduces the political circumstances of the six nations that remained neutral throughout the war. The primary subject of the paper deals with the relationship between the belligerents and the neutral states, especially the extent to which military strength and preparedness was responsible for the latter maintaining their neutrality.

This thesis deals with the role of the JOS as the principal military advisers of the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government. It concentrates on the JSC’s perception of Soviet military and political intentions and capabilities in the postwar era and on the JCS’s military proposals regarding the external threat. The purpose of the thesis is to assess the JCS’s role substantively rather than to evaluate the relative role of the JCS as an agency amongst other key agencies dealing with foreign policy.

La traite de personnes est un phénomène qui a suscité beaucoup d’attention au niveau international. L’analyse historique de l’encadrement juridique de ce crime révèle que différents stéréotypes ont contribué à sa construction. Plus particulièrement, l’élaboration des premiers traités visant à contrer la traite de personnes est le fruit des tractations du mouvement abolitionniste et « régulationiste » de la prostitution au début du 20e siècle qui impose une approche paternaliste et genrée. Les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, tout en renforçant cette vision, introduisent un élément supplémentaire dans la conceptualisation de la traite de personne : la sécurité nationale. Il en résulte que la traite de personnes est aujourd’hui considérée comme un crime nécessitant une répression agressive, une menace à la survie de l’État et comme un enjeu éminemment genré. Ces présupposés théoriques de la notion de traite de personnes méritent d’être analysés et revus pour comprendre comment ils affectent les victimes. Ce mémoire analyse leur rôle dans la construction des outils juridiques qui encadrent la traite de personnes en utilisant la notion de mythe, spécifiquement celui du « protecteur masculin ». Face aux conséquences négatives du mythe sur les victimes, la sécurité humaine apparaît comme un prisme d’analyse fécond pour s’assurer de positionner les victimes au centre des préoccupations de la communauté internationale. / Trafficking in persons has garnered a lot of attention on the international stage. Historical analysis of the anti-trafficking legal framework reveals that stereotypes contributed to its development. More specifically, the firsts treaties reveal that they are a product of prostitution’s abolitionist and regulationist movements that imposed a gendered and paternalistic approach on trafficking in persons in early 20th century. The September 11 attacks, while cementing that vision, introduced the notion of national security in the conceptualization of trafficking in persons. As a result, that phenomenon is considered today as crime in need of aggressive repression, as a threat to national security, and as an eminently gendered issue. These theoretical assumptions need to be analyzed and revised to understand their effects on victims. This thesis analyses their role in the elaboration of anti-trafficking legislation by using the concept of myth, more specifically the “male protector” myth. Considering the negative impact of that myth on victims, human security appears to be a useful tool to rethink the conceptual framework of trafficking in persons to make the victims the focus of the international community.