The reason and motivation behind researching and writing the book is presented, along with a description of the individual chapter content. A series of research questions are posed, with the intended purpose and role of bringing together the diverse content and analysis that is presented across the chapters.

There are different generations of information warfare that evolve with technological, (geo)political and economic changes occuring in society. They are a ’convenient’ means of covert and indirect engagement with another actor in international relations while exposing oneself to the minimum of risk and accountability. It is linked to the popularized international relations concept of hybrid warfare.

This chapter identifies the notion of the International as the core concept of the inter- (nation) state system, which had so far defined the disciplinary knowledge of IR. It argues that Euro-centricity of the disciplinary knowledge of IR is closely connected to this inter-state-centred notion, which had become ‘a-colonial’ and ‘apolitical’, and that an historical unearthing of its neglected colonial legacies is crucial for globalizing this knowledge. The chapter, therefore, pays an attention to neglected imperial polities, and suggests two ways for retrieving them. First, it suggests the framing of inter-imperial/inter-colonial, which could capture complex lateral relationships across diverse forms of imperial polities, and which had otherwise been missed by the framing of inter-national. Second, it locates colonial policy studies in the genealogy of IR in Japan, and suggests its ambiguous legacy for the disciplinary knowledge of IR after World War II in Japan, and possibly beyond.

The goal of detecting future events has several implications and two of them are explored in this chapter. First, the objective of detecting future events means that whoever poses a threat has to be targeted and if the threat is posed by a number of individuals that increases over time, enmity is extended to those individuals. This is true even if they act in the name of a terrorist group that did not exist when the conflict started. From a legal perspective, this practice is facilitated by the uncertainties related to the temporal delineation of conflicts. Second, the objective of addressing future threats entails to act against individuals who are not presently perpetrating hostile acts. This practice requires that the traditional interpretation of direct participation in hostilities be subjected to a temporal change. Instead of suspending the protection of civilians solely when ‒ and only for such time as ‒ they engage in acts that reach a certain threshold of harm, targeting enemies because of the threat they pose for the future means extending direct participation in hostilities not only to preparatory acts, but also to signs revealing membership to an enemy group. This shift is facilitated by the insufficiently defined notion of “continuous combat function.”

In his seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Frantz Fanon develops a micro-sociology of colonial society. He characterizes the latter as a world divided in two, one for the colonizers and one for the colonized. In many former colonies such enforced racial or ethnic segregation has become a thing of the past. Yet, the socio-spatial arrangements described by Fanon re-emerge in contemporary zones of conflict, where they are recreated as security measures intended to separate the protagonists of international peace and development from the threats posed by contentious local populations. Based on ethnographic field research in Kabul in 2015, this contribution analytically pursues these structural resemblances. The aim, however, is not to make a (cheap) argument about the neo-colonial character of global humanitarianism, but to investigate the significance of this particular presence of the past for a sociology of world society.

Armed conflict not only concerns kinetic elements in a physical contest, but also a parallel competition for information dominance to influence and persuade audiences. Information Operations and Influence Activity are used to motivate and justify military operations, because warfare is a highly political and politicised activity that requires representation and interpretation to justify beginning or continuing wars.

The book concludes with situating the EAEU legal order within the indicia developed in Chapter 1 demonstrating whether and how these are fulfilled for the autonomous legal order to emerge. There are certainly some manifestations thereof, such as the Court’s move to recognize and incorporate the discourse of major doctrines relevant for legal order autonomy. Nevertheless, it has troubles demonstrating some of the indicia, and the power struggle between the Member States and EAEU institutions has resulted in limitations, particularly running the risk of misapplication of Union law and fragmentation of the legal system, as well as endangering the ability of the legal order for self-maintenance. While this leads to ‘fragile autonomy’, there are embedded premises, which can help in overcoming this, if such a desire prevails. The book spells out some concrete ways to do so.

This chapter introduces military sexual violence (MSV) as an international problem. It outlines the core research question of the book and situates the book and topic within wider debates.

This chapter considers the function of consent in respect of the international laws on force and intervention, specifically in relation to so-called solicited actions undertaken by so-called third states. How ‘consent’ is implicated in the normative design of both force and intervention is explored by means of an historical assessment that takes on the cognate ideas of coercion and dictatorial interference. The chapter then moves to unpack the ambitions of and limitations for consent set forth more broadly within public international law, principally by analysing three resolutions of the Institut de droit international (IDI): on insurrection, on civil war, and on military assistance. The chapter also undertakes a detailed examination of the significance and mechanics of the operation of consent in other laws of the ius ad bellum (collective self-defence, counter-intervention, pro-democratic intervention, UN Security Council authorisation), quite apart from its role in governing the lawfulness of the practice of solicited action itself.

Chapter 6 is devoted to the functioning of the EAEU Court and its ability to fulfil its aim of ensuring uniform application of EAEU law, and eventual aptitude to ensure the formation and continued existence of the autonomous legal order. The Court relies significantly on EU case-law as its main source of inspiration, making references to it and at times adopting similar doctrines. Some basic judicial remedies available in the EAEU are similar to those in the EU, however the focus is on the remedies that are absent while of paramount importance for legal order autonomy. Thus, the chapter reviews the special case of preliminary ruling as a mechanism ensuring uniform application and interpretation of law throughout the organization, and in the absence thereof, looks for a substitute. It reviews some other limitations that the Court has suffered and explores the reasons for that, including the analysis of some highly controversial decisions of the Court. It also addresses the issue of exclusive jurisdiction of the Court. It is argued that these challenges are the hardest to overcome. Nevertheless, it is demonstrated that there are ways out and that certain treaty-imposed limitations are virtually impossible to uphold in practice.

This chapter outlines the main theoretical contributions of the book and introduces military exceptionalism and institutional gaslighting as key concepts.