Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

Jair Messias Bolsonaro was the president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023, and he is regarded as one of the most pro-American presidents in Brazilian history. Due to similar political rhetoric, J. Bolsonaro was often compared to Donald John Trump. During his administration, Brazilian foreign policy was orientated towards improving bilateral relations with the USA. In this article, I used neoclassical realism theory to examine the dynamics of Brazil-USA relations during J. Bolsonaro’s presidency and how his ideological proximity to D. Trump affected relations between these two states. I also took into consideration the systemic factor that the USA is the strongest state in the American continents, and from this, I constructed the argument that the USA’s superiority in power against all countries in the Western Hemisphere forced J. Bolsonaro to maintain dialogue even with ideology different Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. administration (2021-2025).

The aim of the text is to verify such changing geopolitics through an increasing (possible) cooperation concerning the United States of America, Taiwan and Lithuania in the fields of politics and security, as well as to point out what China has lost by Lithuania’s withdrawal from cooperation in the format ‘16+1’. The research problem is a diplomatic discussion between Lithuania and China, which has achieved increasing interest from foreign countries. The theoretical basis of the research is post-structural theory and Gustavsson’s model. From this conception, Lithuania accepts and raises its identity as it is, primarily according to a huge and unsafe power.

International migration is a functional component of modern societies, both wealthy and poor. In a way, one can see that migration solves the unequal distribution of people and opportunities. Despite the political pressure to control immigration, almost all changes in politics have broadened the scope of legal immigration to allow for settlement by refugees, farm workers (in case of urbanrural migrations), “illegal” immigrants with long-term residence in the country, and workers in great demand to move around freely. Our main research objective is to demonstrate, using the available data as well as the analysis of the metadata and the research literature, that migration, especially labour migration, has a narrow connection with the issues of national security. Large outflows and inflows of people might bring about security threats linked to organized crime, terrorism and the spread of radical ideas. Moreover, migration is responsible for the brain drain of young and well-educated people who are searching for higher wages and better opportunities abroad depriving their own home country of valuable human capital. Our paper analyses the phenomenon of international migration perceived from the angle of migration culture that goes hand in hand with recent globalization trends all around the world. We come to a solid conclusion that migration policy should be treated as an important element in establishing well-ballanced national security policy in the globalized world. It might be of a particular interest for the migration scholars, labour market economists and stakeholders and policy-makers dealing with the issues of national security, public and migration policies, as well as sustainable economic development.

Barry Buzan’s thought has shaped constructivism and International Security Studies since the 1990s. In this paper, it is argued that ISS does insufficient justice to the case of the Iraqi Kurdish military counterattacks and wider societal mobilization against ISIS. The paper introduces the concepts of spontaneous and semi-spontaneous securitization, where the referent object of securitization is not the nation state or even the Kurdistan Region but the more traditionally defined community and its individual members, plus religiously or ethnically defined groups that are under the protection of the regionally dominant identity community. Worryingly, in Sunni Arab areas such as Mosul, insurrection and semi-spontaneous securitization has been an aspect to how ISIS captured that city. Further theoretical problems such as the securitization of immigration in Buzan’s theoretical framework, are exposed and applied to the case of ISIS and Iraqi Kurdistan. Research for this article took place during on the field visits to Erbil and the KRI in 2016 by the author and his team of HDF General Staff Scientific Research Centre.

In this article, the problem of terrorism is discussed in view of the peculiarities of legal nature. The phenomenon of terrorism is being analyzed by scientists in the political, economic, socio-psychological point of view and more attention is paid to the legal theoretical characteristics of this phenomenon. A more detailed analysis of terrorism in the article shows that use of concept of terrorism, regardless of reasons for this, makes the fight against terrorism an ideological tool, posed together as a growing threat to human rights. Furthermore, this article analyzes the reasons of terrorism and provides tendencies for further development of global terrorism. When there is no clear definition of terrorism and its causal relations are acceptable to all, questions concerning the scope of the fight against terrorism arise. In this case, we cannot be sure that modern democratic countries use the correct definition of terrorism in all cases and do not violate the human rights when fighting against terrorists. Even more doubts about the actions of democratic countries participating actively in fight against terrorism arise. The uncertainty of terrorism concept is being used to conceal violations of the human rights.