EDITORIAL NOTE
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18359/ries.1868

DRA. DIANA PATRICIA ARIAS HENAO
Editor
PhD in International Relations
revistafaries@unimilitar.edu.co

In this issue, the lector will find a diversity of topics related with security in the international system, concerning internal as well as foreign matters. These articles evidence the transversal nature of the international relations field. The texts making up this issue have been grouped into two topic sections: Security, Geopolitics, and International Threats and Transversal Issues of the Contemporaneous International System.

Security, Geopolitics, and International Threats

In the first topic section, we present the following articles:

Changes and opportunities of Economic Globalization, an article empirically analyzing the main elements of the current economic globalization process: commercial liberalization, the flow of direct foreign investment, and capital mobilization, in order to propose critical tools for both positive and negative features to which national societies are subjected, the proceedings implemented by local governments, and, in turn, the transcendence of the integration to international institutions to narrow the gap between rich and poor countries.

The Geopolitics of the Chinese Reform considers the challenges of such foreign politics in the regional geopolitical order of Asia by means of the study of recent happenings, particularly, the territorial disputes in China’s South Sea; also, it is examined the regional pressure which promotes new paths in China’s geopolitical projections, as the New Silk Route and the deepening of the cooperation with Russia. In addition, the exogenous factor represented by the USA in the Pacific Asia is considered, through the so-called Lasting Peace, generating dramatic changes due to the constant increase in the Chinese economy and in military expenses. The consequence is a challenge to other Asian regional powers as India and Japan to counteract the Chinese influence in the region, while China enjoys the effective participation of other partners as Malaysia and the Philippines proposing a multidirectional attitude towards the East and West of its national borders.

Security Practices in America during the post-Cold War (1992-2010): Regional Complexes or Pluralistic Security Communities? shows the way the new security regionalism in America during the post-Cold War period does not offer enough compared empirical evidence in order to identify the existence of Regional Security Complexes (RSC) or Pluralistic Security Communities (PSC). These security practices are analyzed using two indicators: militarized inter-state disputes – by means of descriptive statistics and econometric models – and the persistence of the conflict hypothesis in programmatic instruments of defense – through content analysis. The conclusion is that the most appropriate approach is allowed by the RSC, due to the persistence of the threat and the use of force as security practice. The primacy of the American agenda in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean implies the presence of a RSC centered on its power projection and worldwide influence, while in South America there is a standard RSC. At the sub-regional level, Central America and the Andean zone constitute sub-complexes, whereas in the Southern extreme of the continent the occurrence is that of a pluralistic community.

Drug Trafficking and the Challenge to Security in the Triple Andean Borderline qualitatively showcases the way drug trafficking is the main manifestation of organized crime in that area of vulnerable border lines, where river and terrestrial routes are not controlled, resulting in main highways for the transportation of drugs from Bolivia and Peru to Chile and transforming it into a strategic zone, one that historically has been subjected to the classical paradigm of security and has witnessed persistent territorial disputes since the 1800s. The issue is presented from a territorial perspective, from the contents of the new agenda for international security and as a threat to security both nationally and subnationally.

Chile and the Korean War. An Episode of the Chilean Foreign Politics explains by means of documentary analysis of files, diplomatic sources and other secondary ones, and within the context of the Cold War, the position assumed by Chile as a consequence of the influence of actors over Latin America. The war between Eastern and Western nations was similar to a political temptation for Chile when it comes to military alliances, possible de-attaching it from Washington. The results evidenced a strategy full of variables, as the economic and diplomatic predominance, subjected to strategic logics for Hemispheric Security alliances.

Transversal Issues of the Contemporaneous International System

In the second topic section of the first issue for 2017 we present: International Relations, Technological Politics, Development, and Proliferation: Analysis of the Argentinian Case covers half a century of Gaucho spatial technology, an intense capital-oriented one, and considered as sensitive by central countries dominating the contextualization of semi-peripheral and peripheral territories. This technology implies important levels of industrialization, but military power as well. In here, it is explained the way the discipline of International Relations works from technological politics, portraying the main results of this transversal and supra-national field.

Transitional Justice: The Key to a Negotiated Solution to the Armed Conflict in Colombia highlights the pertinence of peaceful conflict resolution mechanisms, delimiting the concept of transitional justice from the necessity of the reconstruction of societies affected by violence, with the aim of facilitating the transition from war scenarios to contexts of peace, democratic restoration, and respect for human rights. Colombia has developed novel mechanism of transitional justice that have achieved their consolidation as key instruments for the construction of peace in the country as, without them, a concerted solution to the internal armed conflict cannot be visualized; these must resolve the critical dilemma between forgiveness and punishment.

Interventionism and Environment: the Brazilian Amazon Case qualitatively debates the concepts regarding the internationalization of the Amazonian region and the sovereignty of States in the environmental scope. Pondering about it from the Southern perspective, but also considering the Northern position, the article confronts the approaches of developed countries and developing ones in relation with international relations. The divergent notions of sovereignty and environmental responsibility of States are identified as the principal obstacle.

International Hiking and Kidnappings in the Mexican Borderline, 1997-2016 comments on the positive and increasing tendency of tourism to the Aztec territory, placing it in the top 10 of most preferred travel destinations worldwide. Nevertheless, the reception of international hikers in the border territory has been drastically reduced. Such negative tendency, although initiated after the 9/11 terrorists attacks, has deepened due to the increase of kidnappings registered in border states. This negative tendency is analyzed by means of a Vector Auto-Regressive Structural Model which also takes the American GPD into consideration. The results obtained are coherent with the tourism theory, stating growths in the American economy cause the contrary effect.

Lastly, Colombian Foreign Politics 2010-2014: A Turn Towards Autonomy? identifies non-traditional proceedings of the Colombian foreign politics as the diversification of commercial partners, the active participation in multilateral institutions, and a central role in the region’s difficult issues, pretending to achieve a certain autonomy without directly challenging the US. This is a kind of soft law, and the article’s conceptual framework explains autonomy within the International Relations scope, offering a reconstruction of the evolution of the Colombian foreign politics under the concept of Respice Polum.

With this, we hope to be fulfilling the expectations of our dear and faithful readers, covering the traditional field of the classical school war as well as the horizontalization of the international system, where plenty of transversal issues arise and there is a mutation towards asymmetrical intra-state disputes highly affected by exogenous factors; these sustain, adapt, and develop them within a world stage with a legal façade, but resorting to functional although illegal elements.