United nations peacekeeping is a contentious issue. What is mostly agreed on though, is thatthe brave men and women around the world risking their lives in peacekeeping missions around the world deserve the best security and protection the international community can offer. However, little research has been focused on the reasons behind violence against peacekeepers. This thesis theorizes that the presence of a third-party military operation that threatens theoperational capabilities of rebel groups has the potential to cause an increase in rebel violenceagainst a United Nations Peacekeeping operation in the same conflict. Through examiningconflict dynamics in the cases of Mali and the Central African Republic utilizing of astructured, focused comparison, the hypothesized relationship and causal explanations wereput to the test. The expectation was that in Mali, the high levels of violence would be explainedby the effectiveness of the French counterinsurgency operation in the country. In the CentralAfrican Republic, the contrary was expected. However, the hypothesis could not be confirmed. Due to some rather large caveats and limitations, the research gap could not be satisfied. Nonetheless, the study creates plenty for avenues of future research, and opportunities to learnfrom the challenges encountered.

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How has the EEAS affected, if in any way, the coherence of the CFSP on the vertical dimension in security and defence matters? In this thesis I answer this research question in order to draw a conclusion on the affect of the EEAS on the cooperation and coordination of the MS with and within the CFSP in security and defence matters. Coherence within the EU’s foreign policy is an issue that its leaders have emphasized on developing for more than four decades. The introduction of the EEAS through the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 is perceived to enhance the cooperation and coordination of the MS with and within the CFSP, as well as coordinate the actions of the MS outside the boundaries of the EU. By conducting a multiple case study, in this thesis I compare how the most powerful MS: the UK, France, and Germany, interacted with and within the CFSP in the 2003 Iraq War, and the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Relatedly, a qualitative content analysis approach is applied in order to uncover all relevant information from the primary and secondary literature concerning the two cases. In contrast to most of the previous studies conducted on this topic, I combine and apply the theoretical perspectives of liberal institutionalism and social constructivism in order to explain and explore the phenomenon under investigation. Conclusively, this thesis suggests that the coherence of the CFSP on the vertical dimension in security and defence matters has not been affected in any way after the EEAS has been implemented in the CFSP. This is due to the inherent characteristic of the MS of always prioritizing their national interests, determined by their value-based normative ideas gained through social interaction, before a collective, effective, and coherent CFSP in defence and security terms.

In 1989 the United States choose, after years of conflict, to carry out a military intervention in Panama, to remove Manuel Noriega, convicted for drug dealing and for threatening the lives of the Americans living in Panama. The aim of this study is to examine whether George H. W Bush’s arguments for the military intervention comply with the principles of the just war. The method chosen for this study is a qualitative literature study, based primarily on secondary data. It is a case study with two complementing theories, the theory of the just war and the world system theory. The result showed that the American intervention both can be justified and unjustified following the principles of the Just War Theory. The World system Theory shows typical signs for a relationship between USA and Panama, built on economic, political and military control.

Dans un contexte où le terrorisme est de plus en plus présent au sein des conflits civils, les opérations de paix des Nations Unies sont régulièrement déployées au côté de forces de contreterrorisme. Ces derniers manquent généralement d’efficacité dans leur mission en attisant le terrorisme plutôt que de le réduire. Dans ces conditions, en général, les opérations de paix coopèrent avec ces forces de lutte contre le terrorisme ce qui influence leur efficacité dans la mise en œuvre de leur mandat. Au Mali, depuis 2013, la MINUSMA est déployée en parallèle des forces françaises (l’opération Serval puis Barkhane) et d’une force de contreterrorisme créé par les pays du Sahel. Elle coopère avec elles dans la limite de leurs mandats respectifs. La mission doit ainsi faire face à de nouveaux défis dus à un environnement sécuritaire plus complexe, un manque de ressource pour faire face au terrorisme et une coopération avec le local compliqué à mettre en œuvre. Dans ce sens, l’efficacité de la MINUSMA est largement amoindrie par sa coopération avec les interventions militaires de lutte contre le terrorisme. / In a context where terrorism is increasingly present in civil conflicts, United Nations peace operations are regularly deployed alongside counterterrorism forces. The latter are generally ineffective in their mission by fueling terrorism rather than reducing it. Under these conditions, in general, peace operations cooperate with these counterterrorism forces, which influences their effectiveness in the implementation of their mandate. In Mali, since 2013, MINUSMA has been deployed alongside French forces (Operation Serval then Barkhane) and a counterterrorism force created by Sahel countries and cooperating with them within the limits of their respective mandates. The mission must therefore face new challenges due to a more complex security environment, a lack of resources to deal with terrorism and cooperation with the locals which is difficult to implement. In this sense, the effectiveness of MINUSMA is greatly diminished by its cooperation with military interventions that combat terrorism.

Sweden's decision to participate in Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in Iraq 2015 appears to be a paradox in the perspective of the new defence policy which emphasises an increased national defence capacity. The Swedish Armed Forces is expected to increase both its national capacity and its international commitments despite personnel and economical limitations?Besides this paradox the Swedish decision to participate in a US-lead operation appears to be a deviant case in several perspectives which has not been investigated by previous research. The Swedish Parliament decision is made in a security environment tinged by Russian aggression against Ukraine. At the same time the domestic situation is framed by a weak minority government which relies on unorthodox political agreements to survive. Despite its weak position the government abandons traditional practise like the operation´s legal framework, the processing of the government bill etc.The purpose of this thesis is to explain why Sweden seems to seek broader international military cooperation and deepening its international commitments when there is an increased need for national defence capacity-building.When Swedish security and sovereignty is threatened, directly by Russian aggression and indirectly by weakened international institutions it is a rational choice to seek broader and deeper cooperation with other partners. OIR is hereby a unique opportunity to an operational cooperation with the only state that alone can counteract Russian aggression in the Baltic region, USA.By a decision-making process with the ability to apprehend both foreign policy and defence policy ends the political opposition abandons ideological stands and political benefits enabling the parliament decision.

This study focuses on the similarities and differences between Russian and Anglo-Saxon strategic narratives in relation to the interventions in Syria 2015 and Libya 2011. The aim is to investigate the imitation theory further as it has been described by Krastev and Holmes (2019) and if it is possible to claim that the Russian regime has used imitated strategic narratives from the United States and the United Kingdom as a soft power tool in the Syrian intervention. By using narrative analysis, 12 speeches made by Putin, Medvedev, Lavrov, Camron, and Obama have been analyzed in order to find similarities and differences between Anglo-Saxon and Russian strategic narratives in connection to interventions in countries affected by the Arabic Spring. The results show indication of imitation from the Russian side regarding themes such as the United Nations and people’s right to choose their own governanc

Russian government justified the war with Georgia by a set of normatively-legislative arguments. Intervention in Georgia was in accordance to those arguments legitimate. This rationalization proved to be invalid. Main goal of this diploma thesis was therefore to find Russian motives for the war with Georgia. Our hypothesis was that the reaction to Georgian military operation in South Ossetia was a result of a certain dilemma in Russian government. We used two methodological concepts introduced in the book of Graham T. Allison "Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis" for the analysis. The first model, "rational actor", presumes that countries act in the international relations always rationally. "Rational actor" showed that Russian reaction was a result of the rational choice - Russia evaluated military confrontation with Georgia as the most advantageous alternative. The governments' behavior is in accordance to the second model, "organizational process", always limited by behavior of their parts - organizations. The second model revealed that the Russian reaction was result of activated programs, whose character led to massive military action. Our analysis showed that the model which fits better in the case of finding motives of Russian government for the intervention in Georgia...

This Master's thesis deals with the emerging international norm Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in French Foreign Policy between 2008 and 2013. Responsibility to Protect was created in 2001 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty and endorsed by the UN World Summit in 2005. It has changed the understanding of state sovereignty in international relations by emphasizing the responsibility component of sovereignty. It gives priority to the security of individuals. France has been an active agenda-setter in the field of human protection norms in the 1980s and 1990s and it has showed a supportive approach towards R2P. The thesis examines whether the conceptualization of R2P in current French foreign policy is coherent with this tradition. The research is based on the concepts of ethical foreign policy and alternative national interest. The analysis of strategic documents setting the priorities of French foreign policy between 2008 and 2013 as well as an examination of the three military interventions based on R2P (Libya, Côte d'Ivoire and Central African Republic) in which France played an active role have shown that in the France's foreign policy is based on moral principles which it upholds in strategic documents. In practice ethical foreign policy also prevails over...

The United States has always been a very prominent user of hard power and has in most of its existence wielded a great amount of it, seen by their long military history. Another power the United States has a vast amount of is soft power, begging the question how this power has been utilized in the past, to for example create public support for military intervention. As soft powers impact on global security is immense, seen by the Ukraine-Russia war, recognizing how it has been used to justify military intervention in the past, and how it is used now. The importance of this effect and study is tremendous as it displays how a country can justify wars and influence public opinion and could possibly be used to identify a country in the process of trying to replicate the effect. The thesis proposes that there exist 2 effects known as culturally moulding and culturally swaying, which when used properly can affect the public opinion to a certain extent, which likely has been used to influence public opinion in the U.S on the 2 military interventions discussed. This subject falls in the line of security and power studies, wherein the main concept will be Joseph S. Nye’s concept of hard, soft and smart power, and it will be a qualitative study. The study will examine public opinion on military interventions and view them from a soft power perspective and consider why specifically these interventions were seen as justified. The delimitations to this study will be to keep the study to America, though there are plenty of other examples, and keep the case study to 2 military interventions, Afghanistan and Taiwan.