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Institute of New Europe Institute of New Europe
  • About
  • Publications
      • Publications

        The primary categories of materials published by the Institute as part of its research and analytical activities.

      • SEE ALL PUBLICATIONS

      • Analyses
        Daily commentary and analysis on international issues provided by our experts and analysts
      • Reports
        Comprehensive thematic studies on international relations and socio-political issues
      • Video
        Recordings of expert debates and series of video podcasts created by our team and experts
      • Maps
        Selection of maps depicting international alliances and foreign visits of key politicians
  • Programmes
      • Programmes

        The main areas of research and publication activities at the Institute with separate teams of experts, functioning under the supervision of the head of a particular programme.

      • WEBSITE OF THE THREE SEAS PROJECT

      • Europe
        Analyses and commentaries on European integration and the place of Europe on the political and economic map of the world
      • Security
        Studies in the field of international and internal security of individual states, with particular emphasis on the role of NATO
      • Indo-Pacific
        An overview of the political and economic situation in the region, the status of the U.S.-China rivalry, and the EU’s policy towards China
      • Three Seas Think Tanks Hub
        Analyses and studies of the Three Seas Initiative, taking into account the perspectives of the participating states
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Jan 18
Africa and Middle East, Analysis, Iraq, Publications, Security, USA

What Really Made the Iraq War Possible? A Constructivist Analysis of the Production of the American National Interest

January 18, 2021

Main points

What Really Made the Iraq War Possible? A Constructivist Analysis of the Production of the American National InterestDownload

– The invasion of Iraq should not be seen only as a peculiar and hideous capture of the state structures performed by various lobbies or external influences. The real reasons for the war have a lot to do with the very foundations of the American political landscape.

– Finding new reasons as to how the war’s casus belli was far from the truth distracts us from analyzing the generic Gramscian modes of thought which enabled doubtful and blatantly false claims to appear to be impartial and objective.

– The American national interest in Iraq was created through justifying that interest. For placing various events in a specific ideological and historical milieu is transformative to how we understand these very events.

Seventeen years after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, there is a widespread consensus that none of the official reasons provided as casus belli for the intervention was grounded in reality. Perhaps, it is this unprecedented deceitfulness — a distinctive feature of the Iraq War — that should be seen as one of the main factors contributing to the perception that it was a unique and transformative event. On the one hand, the false claims of the Bush administration about the nonexistent links between Iraq and al-Qaeda as well as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) rendered visible, more than anything, the consequences of an unchallenged unipolar international system (Ismael and Ismael 2015: 47). On the other hand, the war’s propaganda machine exposed the enormous influence of lobbies on the American foreign policy (Mearsheimer and Walt 2007). While these and many other insights into the political landscape of the United States are undeniably illuminating, they might conceal just as much as they reveal. Analyzing the Third Gulf War through the lens of its uniqueness could produce explanations, placing the history of the invasion into a category of perverse anomalies, almost exogenous to liberal democracies. The risk associated with such analysis is greatly illustrated by the analogous explanations “othering” the Holocaust from the West, obliterating the moral responsibility of the Western modernity (Barkawi and Laffey 2006: 341).In these frameworks, our understanding is necessarily constrained — what matters is a hideous capture of the state structures performed by various lobbies or external influences rather than the state structures themselves. As such, this perspective obscure our understanding of how the very foundations of the American political landscape might be responsible for the invasion of Iraq.

Drawing on the rich studies of the Third Gulf War, this essay argues that the main cause behind the 2003 Iraq War was the creation of an American national interest generating a natural propensity to see Iraq in general and Saddam Hussein’s regime in particular as an enemy. The first section explains the necessity of constructivists explanations in regards to the main causes of the invasion. The second section focuses on the elements influencing the production of the American national interest and foreign policy culture in the lead-up to the Iraq War and links them to the outbreak of the War itself.

Section I. Why constructivism?

Many theories of international relations (IR) struggle to provide a coherent account of the 2003 Iraq War (Aydin 2016: 114). As Iraq did not pose any significant threat to the U.S. (Ismael and Ismael 2015: 50), reconciling the invasion with the American national interest might seem impossible. This is a sentiment shared by many top-level American officials and its great manifestation can be found in the words of Richard N. Haass, a close advisor to the former Secretary of State Colin Powell: “I can’t explain the strategic obsession with Iraq — why it rose to the top of people’s priority list. I just can’t explain why so many people thought this was so important to do” (Haass in Hassan 2015: 66). Explaining the invasion through the use of traditional notions of interest becomes particularly problematic in the context of a largely unchanged distribution of power. This was an issue emphasized by many realists scholars arguing against the intervention, who pointed out that there is no reason to believe deterrence ceased to work with Hussein’s regime, as his power, if anything, only decreased (Gregory 2014: 182). While realism, liberalism and other mainstream approaches in IR meaningfully differ in their assessment of the Iraq War, none of them offers a persuasive account of the invasion without disconnecting the conceptualization of interest from the outside environment. Although the American foreign policy towards Iraq went through a massive transformation in the years preceding the intervention, there is very little evidence that a comparable change happened in regards to the material international environment, expected to be determinant for the understanding of national interests in mainstream IR theories. But this problem is explicitly addressed by constructivism which argues that “ideas constitute those ostensibly ‘material’ causes in the first place” (Wendt 1999: 94). As such, constructivism is a particularly apt theoretical inspiration because it promises to explain how the notions of national interest and power might change over time, while other theories push us to use fixed and restrictive categories. Constructivists — such as Jutta Weldes — do not make a distinction between the existence of national interests and ways in which these interests are legitimated. As these interests do not exist in a vacuum but rather come into being in historically-conditioned and biased representations, “the production of national interest is thus simultaneously the creation of consent” (Weldes 1996: 303). In this context, the arbitrary connection between the War on Terror and the invasion created by the Bush administration cannot be ignored as an inconsequential manifestation of the American propaganda machine but rather treated as a relationship that becomes constitutive of the U.S. national interest. The salience of this reformulation becomes significant if we contrast it with other explanations which assume the existence of interest prior to its formulation. For instance, Raymond Hinnebusch — representing complex realism — argues that the involvement in Iraq cannot be understood in terms of the American national interest, but it becomes more intelligible when the interests of the neo-conservative ruling class are included in the analysis (2007: 16). In so far as this is a valuable perspective, it still assumes the interests of these ruling classes to exist in separation from their legitimation. While it might be largely uncontroversial to claim that people tied to the oil industry have vested interests in policies which promote their profit, it is less clear why the interests of neo-conservatives are intrinsically tied to pro-Israeli policies. Being attentive to the social construction of interests becomes even more critical when it comes to the public perceptions of the American interests in Iraq. When one tries to analyze why the consent for the intervention was ultimately created, it should not suffice to assert the American propaganda was particularly effective. As outlined above, this perspective creates an analytically problematic tendency to overestimate agency of the Bush administration and underestimate the background in which the producers of consent operated. As Weldes argues, it is important to recognize that the shared meanings attached to national interests have hegemonic properties (1996: 304). At the very superficial level, this might be observed in the salience of nuclear taboo — special norms making the use of nuclear weapons unacceptable (Tannenwald 2008) — for the effectiveness of Bush’s claims about Iraq’s WMDs. More importantly, this insight is critical to demonstrate the very reasons as to why Iraq was targeted in the first place. It is only analyzing these generic Gramscian modes of thought that makes various claims appear to be impartial and objective, which can accommodate for the unprecedented successes of the American propaganda in the lead-up to the Iraq War.

Section II. What was the conception of national interest that made the Iraq War possible?

The real reasons for the Iraq War are nowhere to be found in the propaganda created to justify it. Nonetheless, this does not mean we should discount it, for there are important elements of this propaganda, which can highlight the very conceptualization of national interests responsible for making the Iraq War possible. One of these elements is seeing intervention as a decisive historical moment. This is best illustrated by neoconservatives — Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol — who argued that the invasion “will shape the contours of the emerging world order, perhaps for decades to come” (Kagan and Kristol in Ismael and Ismael 2015: 45). The belief that the Iraq War is somewhat intrinsically tied and historically important to the American national interest can be explained and analyzed in two regards. Firstly, the perception of the Iraq War as an element of the ideological and historical milieu of the War on Terror and the clash of civilizations. Secondly, the portrayal of Iraqis in general and Hussein’s regime in particular, creating the vision of an intervention as feasible and inevitable.

The Iraq War as a proxy war

All the irrationalities of the Iraq War appear to be more intelligible if we take a look at the American propaganda at its best. The famous “one percent doctrine” of Dick Cheney — urging the U.S. to intervene even if there is only one percent chance of Iraq’s possessing WMDs (Suskind 2006) — seems much more rational if, in fact, there is something more about the Iraq War than the invasion itself. Tarak Barkawi eloquently argues that Americans believed there is “something more” precisely because the Iraq War was a part of a larger phenomenon influencing how the American national interests and state identity are defined — the War on Terror. Placing various events in a specific ideological and historical milieu is transformative to how we understand these very events. Barkawi argues that the War on Terror is akin to the Cold War, “when no amount of explaining that Third World conflicts had their own local sources or that they had systemic sources other than U.S.-Soviet confrontation (such as decolonization or the world economy) would serve to convince hawks in the United States that U.S. prestige and credibility were not at stake in Angola, or Indonesia, or Timbuktu” (2006: 498). In this understanding, the Iraq War could be seen as a proxy war in the wider conflict. Conflating Hussein and his loyalists (enemies in a peripheral war) with terrorists (enemies of a greater war) allows treating them as such. This is not to be underestimated as such classification changes the boundaries of acceptable interactions whereby “any other strategy than ‘no appeasing of terror’ appears irrational” (Barkawi 2006: 501). As the discursive modes of the War on Terror are characterized by the Orientalist narratives of the clash of civilizations (Adib-Moghaddam 2011), the belligerents in different “episodes” of the War on Terror are seen as homogenous. The greatest manifestation of this might be seen in popular culture in general and military video games in particular. In the analysis of the latter, Johan Höglund points out that the player’s enemies in popular shooters are frequently placed in the Middle East but there is very little description of their motivations or historical backgrounds, to the extent that “sometimes the games take place in an imaginary locale such as ‘Zekistan’” (2008). It should not come as a surprise that the U.S. national interest was easily tied to the intervention in Iraq if the enemies in the War on Terror are popularly believed to have no specific properties other than their ascriptive characteristics of ethnicity and religion. Another manifestation of this homogenization was visible in the first days after the invasion, when regular Iraqi troops became designated to be terrorists by the U.S. Department of State in spite of its own definitions (Gregory 2004: 103). It is only when it does not matter whether American enemies come from Iraq or “Zekistan” that the Iraq War might be legitimated as in the U.S. national interest. As such, it is the enmeshment of the Anglo-American invasion in the narratives of the War of Terror that made its connection to the U.S. national interest plausible.

The Iraq War as a possible war

In so far as the discussed conceptualization of the American national interest creates a natural propensity to see all regimes in the Middle East as enemies, it should be acknowledged that Iraq was uniquely vulnerable to become an “episode” of the War on Terror. The obvious explanation is that the intervention itself was — or, at the very least, was expected to be — beneficial to its orchestrators in the form of profits connected to oil and other economic sources (Al-Ali 2014: 10). While appreciating the importance of these motivating factors, it is also important to briefly analyze what made the whole process of creating an enemy uniquely feasible. One of the reasons can be found in the previous war with Iraq in 1991, which left Hussein’s regime in power. Perceived as a failure of the U.S. foreign policy (Ricks 2006: 5), Iraq became a site of particular importance to Americans. Arguably, there was no better place to assert a “full spectrum dominance” as a part of the new U.S. grand strategy (Hinnebusch 2007: 9) than in Iraq where it was very blatantly questioned in 1991. Given the narratives associated with the War on Terror are intimately linked with the symbolism of humiliation (Callahan 2006: 399), their deployment becomes easier when there is, indeed, some evidence for humiliation.

Conclusion

The question about the main causes of the Third Gulf War is the one that needs to account for a number of different actors motivated by a variety of factors. As such, constructivist explanations can be successfully applied to Hussein’s regime, the leadership of invading countries and many other relevant parties. While all those actors played a significant role in the lead-up to the Iraq War, it seems impossible to imagine the invasion without the discourse of the War on Terror. It is this discourse and some Iraqi-specific factors that enabled the conceptualization and legitimation of the U.S. national interest in the ways conducive to the outbreak of the war. As such, this should be seen as the main cause of the Third Gulf War.

Bibliography

Adib-Moghaddam, A. (2011). A Metahistory of the Clash of Civilisations. New York: Oxford University Press.

Al-Ali, Z. (2014). The Struggle for Iraq’s Future. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Aydin, A. (2016). Realist, Liberal and Constructivist Approaches to War on Terror in Iraq. Journal of Turkish Studies, 11 (Volume 11 Issue 2), pp. 113-113.

Barkawi, T. and Laffey, M. (2006). The Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies. Review of International Studies, 32 (2), pp. 329-352.

Barkawi, T., (2006). “Common Enemies”: The United States, Israel and the World Crisis. In: R. Thakur and W. Singh Sidhu, ed., The Iraq Crisis and World Order: Structural, Institutional and Normative Challenges. New York: United Nations University Press.

Callahan, W. (2006). War, Shame, and Time: Pastoral Governance and National Identity in England and America. International Studies Quarterly, 50 (2), pp. 395-419.

Gregory, D. (2004). The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq. Oxford: Blackwell.

Haddad, F. (2011). Sectarianism In Iraq. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hassan, O. (2015). Constructivist-Institutionalism and the Invasion of Iraq: Crisis, Learning and the National Interest. Horizons in Humanities and Social Sciences: An International Refereed Journal, 1 (1).

Hinnebusch, R. (2007). The American invasion of Iraq. Causes and Consequences. Perceptions, 12 (1), pp. 9-27.

Höglund, J. (2020). Electronic Empire: Orientalism Revisited in the Military Shooter. Game Studies, 8 (1).

Ismael, T. and Ismael, J. (2015). Iraq In The Twenty-First Century. Regime Change And The Making Of A Failed State. New York: Routledge.

Mearsheimer, J. and Walt, S. (2007). The Israel Lobby And US Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ricks, T. (2006). Fiasco. New York: The Penguin Press.

Suskind, R. (2007). The One Percent Doctrine. New York [etc.]: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.

Tannenwald, N. (2008). The Nuclear Taboo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Weldes, J. (1996). Constructing National Interests. European Journal of International Relations, 2 (3), pp. 275-318.

Wendt, A. (1999). Social Theory Of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Przemysław Stolarski Przemysław Stolarski.eDbating and public speaking coach who works with young people at two of London's top secondary schools - Westminster School and Saint Paul's Girls' School. He uses his knowledge of education, critical thinking and argumentation to look creatively at some of the world's most pressing issues, particularly the rise of nationalism and events in the Middle East. He also studies international relations and social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London).

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Przemysław Stolarski Przemysław Stolarski.eDbating and public speaking coach who works with young people at two of London's top secondary schools - Westminster School and Saint Paul's Girls' School. He uses his knowledge of education, critical thinking and argumentation to look creatively at some of the world's most pressing issues, particularly the rise of nationalism and events in the Middle East. He also studies international relations and social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London).
Program Europa tworzą:

Marcin Chruściel

Dyrektor programu. Absolwent studiów doktoranckich z zakresu nauk o polityce na Uniwersytecie Wrocławskim, magister stosunków międzynarodowych i europeistyki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Prezes Zarządu Instytutu Nowej Europy.

dr Artur Bartoszewicz

Przewodniczący Rady Programowej Instytutu Nowej Europy. Doktor nauk ekonomicznych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej. Ekspert w dziedzinie polityki publicznej, w tym m. in. strategii państwa i gospodarki.

Michał Banasiak

Specjalizuje się w relacjach sportu i polityki. Autor analiz, komentarzy i wywiadów z zakresu dyplomacji sportowej i polityki międzynarodowej. Były dziennikarz Polsat News i wysłannik redakcji zagranicznej Telewizji Polskiej.

Maciej Pawłowski

Ekspert ds. migracji, gospodarki i polityki państw basenu Morza Śródziemnego. W latach 2018-2020 Analityk PISM ds. Południowej Europy. Autor publikacji w polskiej i zagranicznej prasie na temat Hiszpanii, Włoch, Grecji, Egiptu i państw Magrebu. Od września 2020 r. mieszka w północnej Afryce (Egipt, Algieria).

Jędrzej Błaszczak

Absolwent studiów prawniczych Uniwersytetu Śląskiego w Katowicach. Jego zainteresowania badawcze koncentrują się na Inicjatywie Trójmorza i polityce w Bułgarii. Doświadczenie zdobywał w European Foundation of Human Rights w Wilnie, Center for the Study of Democracy w Sofii i polskich placówkach dyplomatycznych w Teheranie i Tbilisi.

Program Bezpieczeństwo tworzą:

dr Aleksander Olech

Dyrektor programu. Wykładowca na Baltic Defence College, absolwent Europejskiej Akademii Dyplomacji oraz Akademii Sztuki Wojennej. Jego główne zainteresowania badawcze to terroryzm, bezpieczeństwo w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej oraz rola NATO i UE w środowisku zagrożeń hybrydowych.

dr Agnieszka Rogozińska

Członek Rady Programowej Instytutu Nowej Europy. Doktor nauk społecznych w dyscyplinie nauki o polityce. Zainteresowania badawcze koncentruje na problematyce bezpieczeństwa euroatlantyckiego, instytucjonalnym wymiarze bezpieczeństwa i współczesnych zagrożeniach.

Aleksy Borówka

Doktorant na Wydziale Nauk Społecznych Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, Przewodniczący Krajowej Reprezentacji Doktorantów w kadencji 2020. Autor kilkunastu prac naukowych, poświęconych naukom o bezpieczeństwie, naukom o polityce i administracji oraz stosunkom międzynarodowym. Laureat I, II oraz III Międzynarodowej Olimpiady Geopolitycznej.

Karolina Siekierka

Absolwentka Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego na kierunku stosunki międzynarodowe, specjalizacji Bezpieczeństwo i Studia Strategiczne. Jej zainteresowania badawcze obejmują politykę zagraniczną i wewnętrzną Francji, prawa człowieka oraz konflikty zbrojne.

Stanisław Waszczykowski

Podoficer rezerwy, student studiów magisterskich na kierunku Bezpieczeństwo Międzynarodowe i Dyplomacja na Akademii Sztuki Wojennej, były praktykant w BBN. Jego zainteresowania badawcze obejmują m.in. operacje pokojowe ONZ oraz bezpieczeństwo Ukrainy.

Leon Pińczak

Student studiów drugiego stopnia na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim na kierunku stosunki międzynarodowe. Dziennikarz polskojęzycznej redakcji Biełsatu. Zawodowo zajmuje się obszarem postsowieckim, rosyjską polityką wewnętrzną i doktrynami FR. Biegle włada językiem rosyjskim.

Program Indo-Pacyfik tworzą:

Łukasz Kobierski

Dyrektor programu. Współzałożyciel INE oraz prezes zarządu w latach 2019-2021. Stypendysta szkoleń z zakresu bezpieczeństwa na Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security w Waszyngtonie, ekspert od stosunków międzynarodowych. Absolwent Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego oraz Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika. Wiceprezes Zarządu INE.

dr Joanna Siekiera

Prawnik międzynarodowy, doktor nauk społecznych, adiunkt na Wydziale Prawa Uniwersytetu w Bergen w Norwegii. Była stypendystką rządu Nowej Zelandii na Uniwersytecie Victorii w Wellington, niemieckiego Institute of Cultural Diplomacy, a także francuskiego Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques.

Paweł Paszak

Absolwent stosunków międzynarodowych (spec. Wschodnioazjatycka) na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim oraz stypendysta University of Kent (W. Brytania) i Hainan University (ChRL). Doktorant UW i Akademii Sztuki Wojennej. Jego zainteresowania badawcze obejmują politykę zagraniczną ChRL oraz strategiczną rywalizację Chiny-USA.

Jakub Graca

Magister stosunków międzynarodowych na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim; studiował także filologię orientalną (specjalność: arabistyka). Analityk Centrum Inicjatyw Międzynarodowych (Warszawa) oraz Instytutu Nowej Europy. Zainteresowania badawcze: Stany Zjednoczone (z naciskiem na politykę zagraniczną), relacje transatlantyckie.

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Absolwent filologii dalekowschodniej ze specjalnością chińską na Uniwersytecie Wrocławskim oraz student kierunku double degree China and International Relations na Aalborg University oraz University of International Relations (国际关系学院) w Pekinie. Jego zainteresowania naukowe to relacje polityczne i gospodarcze UE-ChRL oraz dyplomacja.

The programme's team:

Marcin Chruściel

Programme director. Graduate of PhD studies in Political Science at the University of Wroclaw and Master studies in International Relations at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. President of the Management Board at the Institute of New Europe.

PhD Artur Bartoszewicz

Chairman of the Institute's Programme Board. Doctor of Economic Sciences at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics. Expert in the field of public policy, including state and economic strategies. Expert at the National Centre for Research and Development and the Digital Poland Projects Centre.

Michał Banasiak

He specializes in relationship of sports and politics. Author of analysis, comments and interviews in the field of sports diplomacy and international politics. Former Polsat News and Polish Television’s foreign desk journalist.

Maciej Pawłowski

Expert on migration, economics and politics of Mediterranean countries. In the period of 2018-2020 PISM Analyst on Southern Europe. Author of various articles in Polish and foreign press about Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt and Maghreb countries. Since September 2020 lives in North Africa (Egypt, Algeria).

Jędrzej Błaszczak

Graduate of Law at the University of Silesia. His research interests focus on the Three Seas Initiative and politics in Bulgaria. He acquired experience at the European Foundation of Human Rights in Vilnius, the Center for the Study of Democracy in Sofia, and in Polish embassies in Tehran and Tbilisi.

PhD Aleksander Olech

Programme director. Visiting lecturer at the Baltic Defence College, graduate of the European Academy of Diplomacy and War Studies University. His main research interests include terrorism, international cooperation for security in Eastern Europe and the role of NATO and the EU with regard to hybrid threats.

PhD Agnieszka Rogozińska

Member of the Institute's Programme Board. Doctor of Social Sciences in the discipline of Political Science. Editorial secretary of the academic journals "Politics & Security" and "Independence: journal devoted to Poland's recent history". Her research interests focus on security issues.

Aleksy Borówka

PhD candidate at the Faculty of Social Sciences in the University of Wroclaw, the President of the Polish National Associations of PhD Candidates in 2020. The author of dozen of scientific papers, concerning security studies, political science, administration, international relations. Laureate of the I, II and III International Geopolitical Olympiad.

Karolina Siekierka

Graduate of International Relations specializing in Security and Strategic Studies at University of Warsaw. Erasmus student at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1) and the Institut d’Etudes Politique de Paris (Sciences Po Paris). Her research areas include human rights, climate change and armed conflicts.

Stanisław Waszczykowski

Reserve non-commissioned officer. Master's degree student in International Security and Diplomacy at the War Studies University in Warsaw, former trainee at the National Security Bureau. His research interests include issues related to UN peacekeeping operations and the security of Ukraine.

Leon Pińczak

A second-degree student at the University of Warsaw, majoring in international relations. A journalist of the Polish language edition of Belsat. Interested in the post-Soviet area, with a particular focus on Russian internal politics and Russian doctrines - foreign, defense and information-cybernetic.

Łukasz Kobierski

Programme director. Deputy President of the Management Board. Scholarship holder at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security in Washington and an expert in the field of international relations. Graduate of the University of Warsaw and the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

PhD Joanna Siekiera

International lawyer, Doctor of social sciences, postdoctor at the Faculty of Law, University of Bergen, Norway. She was a scholarship holder of the New Zealand government at the Victoria University of Wellington, Institute of Cultural Diplomacy in Germany, Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques in France.

Paweł Paszak

Graduate of International Relations (specialisation in East Asian Studies) from the University of Warsaw and scholarship holder at the University of Kent (UK) and Hainan University (China). PhD candidate at the University of Warsaw and the War Studies University. His research areas include the foreign policy of China and the strategic rivalry between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific.

Jakub Graca

Master of International Relations at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He also studied Arabic therein. An analyst at the Center for International Initiatives (Warsaw) and the Institute of New Europe. Research interests: United States (mainly foreign policy), transatlantic relations.

Patryk Szczotka

A graduate of Far Eastern Philology with a specialization in China Studies at the University of Wroclaw and a student of a double degree “China and International Relations” at Aalborg University and University of International Relations (国际关系学院) in Beijing. His research interests include EU-China political and economic relations, as well as diplomacy.

Three Seas Think Tanks Hub is a platform of cooperation among different think tanks based in 3SI member countries. Their common goal is to strengthen public debate and understanding of the Three Seas region seen from the political, economic and security perspective. The project aims at exchanging ideas, research and publications on the region’s potential and challenges.

Members

The Baltic Security Foundation (Latvia)

The BSF promotes the security and defense of the Baltic Sea region. It gathers security experts from the region and beyond, provides a platform for discussion and research, promotes solutions that lead to stronger regional security in the military and other areas.

The Institute for Politics and Society (Czech Republic)

The Institute analyses important economic, political, and social areas that affect today’s society. The mission of the Institute is to cultivate the Czech political and public sphere through professional and open discussion.

Nézöpont Institute (Hungary)

The Institute aims at improving Hungarian public life and public discourse by providing real data, facts and opinions based on those. Its primary focus points are Hungarian youth, media policy and Central European cooperation.

The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (Austria)

The wiiw is one of the principal centres for research on Central, East and Southeast Europe with 50 years of experience. Over the years, the Institute has broadened its expertise, increasing its regional coverage – to European integration, the countries of Wider Europe and selected issues of the global economy.

The International Institute for Peace (Austria)

The Institute strives to address the most topical issues of the day and promote dialogue, public engagement, and a common understanding to ensure a holistic approach to conflict resolution and a durable peace. The IIP functions as a platform to promote peace and non-violent conflict resolution across the world.

The Institute for Regional and International Studies (Bulgaria)

The IRIS initiates, develops and implements civic strategies for democratic politics at the national, regional and international level. The Institute promotes the values of democracy, civil society, freedom and respect for law and assists the process of deepening Bulgarian integration in NATO and the EU.

The European Institute of Romania

EIR is a public institution whose mission is to provide expertise in the field of European Affairs to the public administration, the business community, the social partners and the civil society. EIR’s activity is focused on four key domains: research, training, communication, translation of the EHRC case-law.

The Institute of New Europe (Poland)

The Institute is an advisory and analytical non-governmental organisation active in the fields of international politics, international security and economics. The Institute supports policy-makers by providing them with expert opinions, as well as creating a platform for academics, publicists, and commentators to exchange ideas.

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Latest publications

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  • The IGNIS Mission and #AstroSlawosz. Summary of the Polish flight into space.
    by Krzysztof Karwowski
    July 15, 2025
  • Russia Affairs Review June 2025
    by Ksawery Stawiński
    July 12, 2025
  • Security Dilemma and Regional Stability. Ballistic Missiles and Defense Integration in the Middle East
    by Mehran Atashjameh
    July 12, 2025

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Financed with funds from the National Freedom Institute - Center for Civil Society Development under the Governmental Civil Society Organisations Development Programme for 2018-2030.

Sfinansowano ze środków Narodowego Instytutu Wolności – Centrum Rozwoju Społeczeństwa Obywatelskiego w ramach Rządowego Programu Rozwoju Organizacji Obywatelskich na lata 2018-2030.



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