Browsing by Author "Cleary, Laura"

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    Alternative explanation of North Korea's survival: successful application of smart power
    (2017-02-24) Shin, D. W.; Cleary, Laura
    The original contribution of this study is to demonstrate how North Korea survives by using smart power. The existing literature has offered partial explanations, but many have lost their explanatory power over time and there seems to be no definitive answer to explain how North Korea survives. This multi-case study was designed to explore how the North uses smart power by examining its provocations from the Korean War to August 2015. The rationale for this study is to increase understanding of Pyongyang’s behavior and offer recommendations to bring long-term stability to the Korean Peninsula. This study purposefully began with the Korean War because it was assumed that, without understanding the origin of North Korean provocations, it would be difficult to provide the proper temporal context for other provocations. This study reveals that Kim Il-sung and his guerrillas consolidated power and established totalitarian rule dominated by his Juche ideology (self-reliance). Subsequently, they waged a long war of reunification from 1948 to the 1980s. Although Kim’s smart power attempts failed to achieve his principal aim of reunification, when Beijing and Moscow abandoned him in the early 1990s he focused on regime survival. He bolstered his weak hand by playing the nuclear card to buy more time to ensure the hereditary succession by his son Kim Jong-il, who defied predictions he would not survive and proclaimed Songun (military-first) to deal with the changing international environment. He demonstrated his own skill by exploiting Seoul’s Sunshine Policy and successfully negotiating three nuclear agreements with the U.S. After his death, Kim Jong-un waged a reign of terror to consolidate power and manufactured crises to bolster his legitimacy and demonstrate his leadership. He also invoked his grandfather’s anti-Japanese legacy and the Byungjin policy (simultaneous development of nuclear weapons and the economy) to legitimize his rule. The evidence shows he is rational and that offers opportunities to resolve the North Korea issue.
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    Open source intelligence (OSINT): a contemporary intelligence lifeline
    (2011-10-25) Gibson, S. D.; Cleary, Laura
    Traditionally, intelligence has been distinguished from all other forms of information working by its secrecy.Secret intelligence is about the acquisition of information from entities that do not wish that information to be acquired and,ideally,never know that it has. However, the transformation in information and communication technology(ICT)over the last two decades challenges this conventionally held perception of intelligence in one critical aspect: that information can increasingly be acquired legally in the public domain-‘open source intelligence’(OSINT). The intelligence community has recognised this phenomenon by formally creating discrete open source exploitation systems within extant intelligence institutions. Indeed,the exploitation of open source of information is reckoned by many intelligence practitioners to constitute 80 percent or more of final intelligence product. Yet,the resource committed to, and status of, open source exploitation belies that figure. This research derives a model of the high order factors describing the operational contribution of open source exploitation to the broader intelligence function: context; utility; cross-check; communication; focus; surge; and analysis. Such a model is useful in three related ways: first, in determining appropriate tasking for the intelligence function as a whole; second, as a basis for optimum intelligence resource allocation; and third, as defining objectives for specifically open source policy and doctrine. Additionally, the research details core capabilities, resources, and political arguments necessary for successful open source exploitation. Significant drivers shape the contemporary context in which nation-state intelligence functions operate: globalisation; risk society; and changing societal expectation. The contemporary transformation in ICT percolates each of them. Understanding this context is crucial to the intelligence community. Implicitly, these drivers shape intelligence, and the relationship intelligence manages between knowledge and power within politics,in order to optimise decision-making. Because open source exploitation obtains from this context, it is better placed than closed to understand it.Thus, at a contextual level,this thesis further argues that the potential knowledge derived from open source exploitation not only has a unique contribution by comparison to closed, but that it can also usefully direct power towards determination of the appropriate objectives upon which any decisions should be made at all.
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    Tourism in an unstable and complex world? Searching for relevant a political risk paradigm and model for tourism organisations
    (2009-11-25T18:35:59Z) Piekarz, M J; Cleary, Laura
    This work has a single aim, focusing on developing a political risk model relevant for tourism organisations, which are operating in an increasingly complex and turbulent international environment. It pays particular attention to the language of risk (how risks are articulated and described), the culture of risk (how risks are viewed), and the risk process (how they are analysed and assessed). The work critically evaluates a variety of methods that can be utilised to scan, analyse and assess political hazards and risks. It finds that many of the existing methods of political and country risk assessment are limited and not sufficiently contextualised to the needs of the tourism industry. Whilst many models can have an attractive façade of using positivistic methods to calculate political risks, in practice these are fraught with problems. The study also highlights a more complex relationship between tourism and political instability, whereby tourism can be characterised as much by its robustness, as its sensitivity. A model is developed which primarily adapts a systems theory approach, whereby a language, culture and practical process is developed through which the analysis of various factors and indicators can take place. The approach adopted has a number of stages, which vary in the amount of data necessary for the analysis and assessment of political risks. The model begins by utilising existing travel advice databases, moving onto an analysis of the frequency of past events, then to the nature of the political system itself, finishing with an analysis and assessment of more complex input factors and indicators which relate to notions of causation. One of the more provocative features of the model is the argument that it is more than possible to make an assessment of the risks that the political environment can pose to a tourism organisation, without necessarily understanding theories of causation.
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    Transforming defence in Ghana's Fourth Republic
    (2018-03) Salihu, Naila; Cleary, Laura
    Armed forces play an instrumental role in maintaining stability in West Africa, yet they have also been a major destabilizing actor due to their role in frequent coup d’etats and human rights abuse. Ghana’s armed forces in particular, has a colonial and authoritarian history. It therefore requires change to align with the political transition of the country. The thesis seeks to answers to the question; has Ghana’ process of defence transformation contributed to healthier civil-military relations and consolidation of democracy in the Fourth Republic? David Chuter’s Guide to Defence Transformation and Rebecca Schiff’s Concordance Theory of civil-military relations provide a dual framework of analyses of developmensa in Ghana’s defence sector since 1992. A qualitative approach to research design, data gathering and analysis was used to establish that Ghana’s defence sector has undergone transformational chance which has been organically driven by the political, social-economic and security conditions of the country. Ghana Armed Forces in particular, has gradually undergone cultural, human, organizational and political transformation. These relative changes have contributed to a politico-military concordance that has helped sustain the Fourth Republic. Successes or otherwise of the reforms are very much dependent on commitment to change by both political authorities and the military hierarchy. There is agreement between military and political elites on key variables; social composition of the officer corps, recruitment, political decision-makiing process and military style. There have been some changes where the state and its security and defence institutions are no longer seen as agents of fear and repression. Nonetheless, the citizenry are not factored into the defence decision-making process. The opening up of the political space has provided opportunities for civil society actors and media to begin to show interest in engaging the military. Ghana has made satisfactory progress in bringing the defence sector in time with the current democratic dispensation. Yet, there is the need for the Ghana to do more by initiating more holistic defence transformation process to effectively transform the armed forces and other defence management and oversight institutions.
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    Written evidence into the use of Improvised Explosive Devices and their impact on the Humanitarian Space. Report to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Explosive Weapons
    (2017-08-24) Cleary, Laura; Johnson, Steve; McAteer, Daniel; Turns, David; Wilkinson, Edith
    This report constitutes Cranfield’s School of Defence and Security response to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons’ call for written evidence (dated 11 December 2015) into the use of Improvised Explosive Devices and their impact on the Humanitarian Space. The APPG expressed interest in three questions: - What are the main groups using IEDs that operate around the globe today and what types of IEDs do they employ? - What challenges do state governments and law enforcement agencies face in effectively monitoring and restricting the sale of dual use precursor materials used in making IEDs and the knowledge exchange between groups? - The level and extent of humanitarian harm caused by IEDs around the world?