Security and Defence: Ethical and Legal Challenges in the Face of Current Conflicts

The peaceful use of space has opened new possibilities for human progress. The first artificial satellite on our planet, Sputnik 1, was put into orbit on October 14, 1957. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) opened for business on October 1, 1958, and since then has been one of the players in the conquest of space. For many years the Agency followed the same process for spacecraft development and operations. That process proved successful for more than 50 years. In 2005, mandated by President George W. Bush on January 14, 2004, NASA completed a successful year of milestones and discoveries starting the implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration, the USA long-term plan for returning astronauts to the Moon to prepare for voyages to other destinations in the solar system. The commercial space market leveled out also in 2005, and SpaceX announced plans to pursue a human-rated commercial space program through the end of the decade. That program would later become the Dragon spacecraft.ⁱIn 2006, NASA announced that the company was one of two selected to provide crew and cargo resupply demonstration contracts to the International Space Station (ISS) under the COTS program.ⁱⁱ Of 52 successful launches worldwide in 2005, about 23 (44%) were commercial launches compared to 19 (36%) in 2004. The situation had changed, and NASA had to adapt to a new environment and the privatization of the space industry. As a matter of fact, in the late 1960s, the US Government invested over 4.5% of the Federal Budget in NASA, and in 2005 the percentage was 0.63% as the US Government had to cut funding for many of NASA projects to reduce the deficit to boost the economy. The privatization of outer space exploration is a matter heavily debated in the international community. This paper will be studying the differences between the traditional NASA program and the more “open” model used today for the Commercial Crew and Cargo programs. Outer space is a neutral territory designated free from the appropriation under international law. Nevertheless, there is an approach towards using the space for defensive purposes that some could consider militarization.

Modern societies are increasingly dependent on space-based services, making the preservation of the peaceful use of the space environment and the protection of critical infrastructure central to peace and security on Earth. New actors, programs, and technologies challenge current arrangements. The increasing weaponization of space, given the vulnerability of satellites, is a serious problem that can only be limited in the longer term by new rules, more transparency, confidence building and standards. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty provides the foundation for future space regulations, but it needs additions through confidence building, arms control and a better implementation of long-accepted standards.

The past decades have been characterized by significant technological developments, which have allowed both the generation of a revolution in military affairs and the emergence of new armed conflict scenarios. Until recently, conflicts between individuals’ societies and states had developed in a fundamental dimension regarding the ends, means, and modes of adversaries linked to geographical environments. With the emergence of cyberspace, these scenarios have changed to virtuality generating challenges to the proper safeguard of Security and Defense. Exposure of sensitive personal information has become one of the most feared weapons. This chapter focuses on a general review of the challenges posed by the emergence of cyberspace scenarios of armed conflict, emphasizing the ethical challenges that emanate from it. These new scenarios have been developing under the model of “anything goes,” and the existence of restrictions on the use of force and the damage caused to the adversary is practically nonexistent. The purpose of this research is to examine these challenges seeking to find opportunities for the construction of public policies in the area of security and defense to strengthen the legitimacy of the States and present the guidelines proposed by the Latin American Development Bank to make more efficient and ethical use of Data and Artificial Intelligence. Chapter presents the research project’s results entitled: Evolutionary Trends of Security and Defense Policies in the Americas; assigned to the Logistics and Military Administration research line, carried out by the research group “Centro de Gravedad.” The research was funded by the Escuela Superior de Guerra “General Rafael Reyes Prieto”.

During the second decade of current century, cybersecurity was consolidated as a priority issue of international security. With this framework, our objective is to identify and explain ten cyberattacks and cyberattacks that occurred in the aforementioned period. Through our analysis, we will highlight the heterogeneity of the cybersecurity field, not only in terms of the form of those incidents and attacks, but also the identity of their perpetrators. At the end of the paper, we will highlight the lack of norms and agreements on the international system, to deal with threats and risk from the fifth domain.

The increase in cyber attacks, as well as the mass usage of technology, such as the Internet of Things and M2M connection, together with the millions and millions of personal and organisational data stored in the cloud, put government bodies, organisations and people themselves at constant risk. That is why companies and individuals, given the enormous proliferation of rules, as well as the inclusion of legal entity liability regulations with the intention of reducing risk by forcing the imposition of, in many cases, costly measures, must comply with said rules especially in cyberspace. We call this concept CYBERCOMPLIANCE, and its ultimate goal is to reduce devastating consequences and, in the best-case scenario, eliminate them.

The vertiginous advance of technology has seen the advent of new forms of crime such as hacking, phishing, child grooming, cracking and denial of service, and also the use of computer networks to commit traditional offences such as fraud, harassment, defamation, intimidation, industrial espionage, and child pornography. It is fair to say that today’s society has become a society of risk. Cyberspace has become a haven for criminality and a platform for organised crime. The specific characteristics of information and communication technologies (ICTs) require a new response from the field of criminal law in order to tackle cybercrime. Thus, it is necessary in some situations to advance the punitive barrier (to use the Spanish expression), that is, to bring forward the moment when the conduct is considered an offence; in others, to reformulate certain criminal concepts in order to adapt to the new scenario; and in still others, to create new criminal offences (though related to existing ones) since the new types of criminal activity do not conform to the definitions traditionally used in criminal law. Furthermore, the cross-border nature of these activities means that an efficient response of the system requires the reinforcement of international cooperation mechanisms; the harmonisation of criminal provisions; and the enhancement of effective procedural instruments, even though this may imply a certain renunciation of sovereignty on the part of the States concerned. This is the main purpose of the creation of supranational regulations, represented above all by the Council of Europe Convention on cybercrime (Budapest, 23.11.2001) and Directive 2013/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on attacks against information systems.

As individuals, we are under the make-up power of new technology used by other powers (multinationals, banks, politics-ideologies) because machines have an enormous computing and processing power of information that can be used to direct and control wills. Through the study of big data, and artificial intelligence legal concepts, and their regulation, we can propose juridical considerations as the use of the Dynamogenesis of values and law linked with the Design for Values, HRESIA (Human Rights, Ethical and Social Impact Assessment) model to create spaces of human security and freedom in a future where the power of technology could become one of the state powers. In this paper, drawing on methodologies of Value Sensitive Design and Participatory Design to present a roadmap for proactively engaging societal stakeholders to translate fundamental human rights into context-dependent design requirements through a structured, inclusive, and transparent process.

This chapter provides an analysis of the implications of disinformation for national security. It examines the factors that make open societies particularly vulnerable, the actors that orchestrate disinformation campaigns and their strategic motivations. It also suggests possible ways forward to counter the challenge. It is argued that disinformation campaigns seek to undermine cohesion within democratic societies by sowing doubt, promoting confusion, and fostering division. The erosion of social trust aggravates political polarization, hinders governance, and provides fertile ground for extremisms. The sociopolitical circumstances in several Western societies, already polarized and immersed in the post-truth era, make them particularly predisposed to disinformation. Moreover, when used by states against foreign audiences, disinformation campaigns may aim at diminishing the international competitiveness of rival states, on the one hand, and produce on the other hand more amenable societies that ultimately influence their government’s preferences towards ones more aligned with the disseminator’s interests. Therefore, it is concluded that in the international arena disinformation is employed as a subtle, low-cost alternative to try to achieve gradual relative power gains at the expense of the rivals.

The article discusses problems with choosing rational and socially responsible behaviour when facing danger, fear or threats. This issue is extremely important nowadays, particularly when we witness conflicts and recognize threats (physical, mental, economic, health threats or natural disasters) in the immediate vicinity and cyberspace including mass and social media. Currently any large-scale threat can be created in a matter of hours and it is difficult to distinguish real threats from media-created or virtual ones. All these threats may reduce individual well-being. However, regardless of the source of the conflict or the situation identified as a threat, the reactions and behavioural tendencies of small groups and individuals remain constant. A number of studies have shown that these include role-taking (Standford Experiment), submission to authority (Millgram Experiment), coping processes include succumbing to prejudices, stereotypes, emotions, dichotomising the world, narrowing cognitive schemas or the inability to resist temptation. This article discusses question relevant to security sciences and security studiesⁱ from positive psychology’s perspective: whether it is possible to control or manage individuals and small groups through fear, reducing people's reactions to basic mechanisms of fight or flight response, mental and rational freezing, as well as freezing linked to actions taken or responsibility. The confrontation of contemporary knowledge about human reactions in crisis situations makes us reflect on whether we are really doomed to them? How to deal with them regardless of biological limitations? How to deal with the illusion of twentieth century idealism? What procedures can be used to ensure that engaging in responsible behaviour does not infringe on the freedom of individuals and groups? These questions point to new areas of research and reflection.

The territory has traditionally been one of the main sources of conflict. Since the borders of the states were determined after the Second World War, some of the main problems for security and defense have been determined by the separatist claims of those territories integrated into states from which they aspire to separate. There are cases in which the foreign influence is clear, but others in which the nationalist sentiment explains the desire for disintegration, as is the case in Spain. The territorial configuration of the Spanish State in the 1978 Constitution was an original milestone in the history of constitutionalism at the international level. More than forty years have passed since the approval of the Constitution and there is growing separatist pressure that the State is confronting with sometimes necessarily exceptional legal means. This chapter will try to confront the separatist problem as a source of conflict through an in-depth analysis of the legal and ethical issues involved from a philosophical point of view.

Within the last several decades, military technology has been devising different systems which allow servicemen to perform certain tasks without having to place the human body into jeopardy. Explosive ordnance has been an area of special interest for unmanned systems specialists, but aerial craft is, perhaps, the discipline where evolution has been more prominent. However, there seems to be an ethical dimension to the use of unmanned systems, and establishing what is ethical and what is not poses some serious challenges in itself. We could argue that a State-backed policy is, almost by definition, an ethical one. But if we leave it as that, we would be justifying certain questionable policies. Something else is required.

The problems we are facing due to the global Pandemic caused by the Virus SARS Cov2 and the following Covid 19 have not been equally treated in countries like China, the USA, and some countries of the European Union, and this has had clear consequences on the development of the illness. Neither the lockdowns nor the quarantine periods have been similar in these countries, and this has caused severe problems and conflicts that will be difficult to solve. Moreover, some countries have approached a global issue as an individual one and not a common one, and this has been dramatically reflected in the infection and death rates. To conclude, it has been made clear that the non-global management of vaccines has favored an enormous failure of humanity regarding this severe Pandemic. Also, problems with the ethical issues in the pandemic response will be analyzed.

Currently, more than half of energy used in European Union comes from an import. That makes the EU the biggest importer of primary energy in the world. Approximately 30% of every crucial imported energy carrier such as oil, natural gas, or coal comes from Russia. In the crisis, Russia might cut off these energy carriers supplies for the EU. In response to the 2009 Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute and its consequences for EU countries, on 25th February 2015 European Commission approved documents related to forming an Energy Union. That project aimed to provide energy security, especially for states dependent on energy supplies from only one source. Undoubtedly, energy security is a significant value in the package of values that includes EU security, and in this context, the national security of Poland (RP) and its energy component. However, member states of the EU are not commonly interested in that idea because of different national interests. Some of them maintain positive economic and political relations with Russia.

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on freedom of speech in Spain. It inquires whether the Spanish government and regional governments alike have met their obligation under international law to respect and ensure freedom of speech during the pandemic. The chapter identifies structural problems in the legal protection of freedom of speech in Spain that existed prior to the pandemic and demonstrates how they opened the door for the authorities to impose excessive limits of freedom of speech.

Migrations are positioned as a security issue in a context marked by multidimensionality. One of the derivatives of the extension of the concept of security, which is evident in the case of migration policies, is the process of securitization. This concept, derived from constructivist approaches to international relations and security, particularly the Copenhagen School, explains how the political problems defined by the establishment of public policies end up in the field of security by the speech act of the main actors. In this sense, the theories of securitization are increasingly being studied in political communication research. This proposed chapter aims to measure the presence of security and human drama frames in the Spanish press during two specific migration crises; The crises of the Canary Islands (2020) and Ceuta (2021). We hypothesize that the press has undergone a process of media securitization as it happens in the coverage of armed conflicts. For this, we will resort to text mining and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to study large volumes of information. This proposal, therefore, seeks to have a dual dimension: theoretical and methodological.