The European Union has declared that its ESDP has an initial operational capability.  It has put new institutional structures in place to manage the political aspects of security and defence policy and the member states have pledged a range of military capabilities, which the EU may call upon to undertake a range of crisis management operations - the Petersberg tasks.  However, there are a number of significant challenges that need to be overcome for the ESDP to become a fully operational and credible policy.  These challenges are institutional, political, financial and military.  However, the critical aspect, yet to be significantly enhanced, for a fully operational ESDP is actual military capability. Without investing in a number of critical military capabilities, ESDP risks falling short of the expectations set out at Cologne, Helsinki and beyond. The thesis moves beyond simply describing these shortfalls towards making an assessment of the progress made in the four years since ESDP was launched.  This progress is measured at the national level, by examining the defence policies and military capabilities of a range of six EU states to assess their value to ESDP, and at the EU level by detailing the combined progress towards reaching a fully operational ESDP.  Signs of convergence within these defence policies are required if a ‘common; EU policy is to be realised.  There also needs to be development of a strategic concept, a requirement for an effective ESDP that is not yet acknowledged by the states.  The influence of the US is also critical.  While, the US supports improved military capabilities, it does so without acknowledging a parallel increase in decision-making and responsibility for the EU in international security. There needs to be clearer and more effective leadership in ESDP to overcome these challenges, particularly the military ones.  If the EU does not make sacrifices and provide the resources required for ESDP, it will have created a policy without substance and its credibility as an international actor will be severely damaged.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Mikhail Tsypkin, Douglas Porch. Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-76). Also available online.

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2006. / Political Science Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Bibliography: pages 45-55. / Eleven gravity cores from the continental margin off Eire and Land's End (SW England) were examined and found to document the major trends of the Late Pleistocene climate. Several stratigraphic indicators; - carbonate content, sediment texture, grain size, composition, nature of terrigenous components, ice-rafted debris and foraminiferal diversity were examined and show that the glacial history of the study area can be closely correlated with the palaeoclimatic evolution of the adjacent European shelf. Sediments deposited during Late Pleistocene glacial conditions show the following characteristics when compared to the surface sediments deposited under Holocene interglacial conditions: an increase in the quantity of ice-rafted debris and percentage of mica, and a notable increase in the degree of frosting and pitting of the quartz grains. Overall grain size was finer resulting in a silty sediment package. Sedimentologically the cores fall into two groups (1 and 2). The major difference being that Group 1 (located on the Pendragon Escarpment) received increased quantities of fine silts from a 'shelf spill-over' mechanism operating on the Fastnet and Western Approaches Basins, during glacial regressions. All sediment samples displayed polymodal characteristics reflecting the interaction of several different physical processes e.g. ice-rafting, contour currents etc. Striking variations in the populations of planktonic foraminifera were noted, alternating between Arctic and Sub-Arctic assemblages, reflecting the waxing and waning of glacial activity. The coccolith-carbonate minima correlate with the Arctic-fauna maxima and the ¹⁸O/¹⁶O maxima of the oxygen-isotope curves. Foraminiferal-test analysis (ratio of whole foraminifera fragmented foraminifera) revealed that no correlation existed with any of the other parameters analysed. However, the cores were severely affected by the presence of bottom currents which were strong enough to remove the fragmented tests. Parallellaminated contourites and evidence of erosion were noted in all cores. Ten cores penetrated sediments deposited during the last glacial maximum of 20,000 B.P - 18,000 B.P. near the 75cm depth mark (Core 1865 was too short to reach such sediments). However sediments reflecting the 11,000 B.P glacial readvance, detected at around the 25cm mark, were not as clearly represented. Bioturbation has smoothed the climatic record throughout the lengths of these cores and has also suppressed the high-frequency oscillations (<10³ B.P).

Thesis. 1978. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science. / Vita. / Bibliography: p. 333-347. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science, 1982. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 217-223. / by Frances Luellen Stephenson Hotchkiss. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 1980. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science. / Bibliography: leaves 206-211. / by Alexander N. Shor. / Ph.D.

This thesis reviews archaeological material, medieval literature, place-names and palaeoenvironmental data cited in explorations of the early Viking Age North Atlantic area, and proposes a reassessment of chronology for the earliest settlement of Iceland. After analysing previous scholarship and discussing the problems inherent in study of early North Atlantic settlement, it is suggested that a multi-disciplinary approach is needed and can be articulated (by drawing upon Karl Popper’s ideas) to foster a fruitful conversation between disciplines. This methodology for engaging with multi-disciplinary materials is then presented. Three sections follow, tackling in turn three areas of Viking Age scholarship that have caused difficulty and frustration in the past: the toponymy of Hebridean Pap-islands (Chapter Three); the chronology of carve construction, occupation and human-environmental interactions at Seljaland in southern Iceland (Chapters Four, Five, Six, and Seven); and the İrland et mikla tradition of medieval literature, including discussion of the views of the largely forgotten nineteenth-century scholar Eugène Beauvois (Chapter Eight). Couched in a Popperian methodology, the new archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research that forms the bulk of the thesis is integrated with small-scale studies of place-names and medieval literature. Tephronchronology plays a large part in the Seljaland section. Chapter Six, for instance, introduces the tephra contours technique for study of past environments. The thesis concludes with a new proposal for the first settlement of Iceland and its connections to Atlantic Scotland, arrived at by considering the archaeological and tephra deposits at Seljaland, in conjunction with art-historical, toponymic and literary material. The thesis proposes that southern Iceland’s Seljaland caves were built c. AD 800 – earlier than the traditional Norse foundation of settlement on the island – and that cross sculpture in these caves suggests a connection with Gaelic monasticism found across the Scottish islands in this period.

Observations of wind speed and direction, air and sea temperature, and solar radiation were obtained from an array of buoys in JASIN. The observations were analyzed to show spatial and temporal variability. Spectra of wind speed and air and sea temperature were computed to illustrate the distribution of variance over periods ranging from 3.5 minutes to 40 days. When plotted on log-log graphs the spectral estimates generally decrease with increasing frequency with slopes between -3/2 and -2. Spectra of air and sea temperature have a peak at the diurnal frequency. When plotted in variance-preserving form, the spectrum of wind speed is consistent with a spectral gap and is qualitatively similar to other observations of low frequency spectra. On the basis of a cross-correlation analysis, it appears that mesoscale eddies propagated with the mean wind speed except during frontal passages. Based on the cross-correlation between wind speed and air temperature, there is evidence of horizontal roll vortices or organized convection. / Graduation date: 1980