فصلنامه آفاق امنیت
پیاپی 44 (پاییز 1398)

Understanding the context of priority and the security of the movements are essential issues requiring serious consideration. The nature of the Lebanese Islamic resistance and its special security situation, an outstanding achievement, have been deeply considered by Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah. This issue has been regarded as a goal and an indicator in this study. This research is intended to investigate the achievements of Lebanese movement as the main concern. Employing a mixed method, including quantitative and qualitative methods, this research has tried to answer the question. The achievements are explained in the qualitative phase and the effects are investigated in the quantitative phase. The qualitative section is based on thematic analysis, and the quantitative part, including data collection, is carried out through questionnaires, for the analysis of which statistical techniques of Spearman correlation coefficient, simple linear regression test (two-dimensional) and multiple regression test, step-by-step analysis have been employed. The findings of the qualitative results of this research have been summarized and described in the form of tables including basic themes and organizer themes. Five main themes including superiority of spiritual factors, strong structure, superiority of intelligence and security, playing a regional role, and making use of the support of a regional power were identified.  These five components are the most important security achievements. Moreover, the quantitative effect of each of these components on the resistance axis have been assessed and the results of each are presented.

Auditory monitoring is one of the most obvious manifestations of interference in people’s privacy. Due to the importance of people's privacy in all human societies at different times and geography influenced by different cultures and ideologies, the criminal policymaking of all countries have always contained a chapter regarding this issue to systematize several types of monitoring. Because of the very nature of auditory and visual observations, the legislative system of countries cannot prohibit them totally because they are involved in the detection of crime in important and fundamental areas, to which the states are authorized to monitor. Yet, there is the issue of individual privacy the interference in which must be prohibited by law. The main question of this study contains the issue of the authorized and unauthorized fields of audio surveillance in the case law of Iran, and that, how the Iranian juridical-oriented law and the American exclusively security-oriented law affect the evolutionary process of the two countries' legislative policy. This study is aimed at developing a comparative study in the field of security and creating dominance on the performance of the opponent side in this regard. The present study is a comparative study conducted through descriptive-analytical method. To summarize, legislative policies of Iran and America in the field of monitoring followed similar approaches in regard with the issue of monitoring until September 11 when the Patriotic Law was passed for the so-called security and antiterrorism measures. This security-oriented policy followed a quite reverse policy and the privacy of individuals all over the globe was seriously challenged. However, due to the prohibition of jurisprudence and Sharia, no change took place in the Iranian policy.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is equipped with various sources of soft power, including culture, history, civilization, Persian language, people-orientation characteristics, political and social participation of the people, and the like. In order to improve Iran's capabilities, these resources must be identified, and efforts must be made to convert them into soft power. Different groups of the people have to work together in order to achieve this great goal. Women, containing half of the population, can play important roles in this regard. Through content analysis, this research is intended to find out the importance of the roles of women in strengthening the soft power of the Islamic Republic of Iran from the point of view of Imam Khamenei. Having identified the social characteristics of soft power, Imam Khamenei's written statements and speeches regarding this issue were reviewed. The research is based on content analysis method, and to extract the concepts and an analysis of the texts and speeches of Imam Khamenei is conducted by referring to various and documented sources. By reviewing the material, the researchers ultimately selected 48 lectures and correspondence as the content relating to the concept of soft power resulting in the identification of 244 codes in the first phase. In the next phase, these codes were classified into 24 main concepts and six main categories, including the unit of family, moral society, social capital, social security, social unity and cohesion, and the national morale. The findings indicated that, based on Imam Khamenei’s views, women can play important roles in strengthening the soft power of the Islamic Republic of Iran by taking measures such as consolidating the foundation of the family, educating the next generation, countering cultural aggression, supporting the Islamic lifestyle, promoting national morale, helping resistive economy, consuming Iranian goods, education, activities in Basij and the like.

Iran has always suffered from an unpleasant experience in its relations with the England. The United Kingdom always regulates its relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran through three approaches: European, British-American (Anglo-American), and English. Given the tensions and differences between Iran and the United States over the past three decades and the lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries, and due to the close and special ties between England and America, the Anglo-American influence on the England’s policy toward Iran has been considerable. This research employs a mixed method including trend analysis and scenario writing with the aim of studying the future of the British influence on the Islamic Republic of Iran on the horizon of 2025. To this end, we have studied the influence of this country since the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1978, and the events, incidents and interactions between Iran and England in the years since then. The British influence in Iran through a security approach based on economic, political, religious and cultural-social axes in the same period were criticized and the significance of these four components was investigated. Finally, based on investigations related to Iran's security environment from 2017 to 2025, several major scenarios were designed, including optimistic, neutral and outlook in the form of opportunities and challenges to change in Iran's strategic environment, change in Iran's strategic regional environment, conflict management models and interactive patterns in terms of British influence in Iran.

New information and communication technologies have changed the functions and nature of many contemporary social and political phenomena. Investigations on the formation and activities of terrorist groups indicate that their functions and nature have fundamentally changed. At present, transnational terrorist groups are regarded as new actors in the international arena. After the event of September 11 attacks, their roles have become deeper. The question of what factors have played the most important roles in this regard, have attracted the attention of the scholars of international relations. Hence, this research is intended to investigate the influence of new information and communication technologies in changing the nature of terrorist groups. The role of social media, as a central factor in this transformation, seems to be very significant. Through studying Daesh and Al-Qaeda extremist groups, this research investigates how social media has affected the nature of terrorist groups in three aspects of changes including identity changes (from single nationality to multi-nationality), formal changes (from covert to overt), and structural changes (from hierarchical to network). This is a descriptive-analytical research following causal method whose data are collected through library method.

Domestic, regional and global changes in recent years have generated new conditions for the Saudi government, which has pushed its foreign policy toward alignment with regional countries, particularly, making a close covert relation with the Zionist regime.  Given this fact, the present study is intended to investigate the reasons and the context that have caused this approach in Saudi foreign policy. This study is conducted through descriptive-analytical method using Randall Schuler's theory of balance of interests in the theoretical framework of neoclassical realism. The main finding of the research indicated that this was affected by the emergence of a new generation of government elites in Saudi Arabia, as the mediator variable, having specific priorities and perceptions in policymaking influenced by four variables of elites’ integration, elites’ consensus, social integration, and social cohesion, and the vulnerabilities of the state, as a the structural internal dependent variable. Furthermore, Iran's increasing regional influence along with changes in US foreign policy, as a structural independent variables, has normalized the relations between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime, the independent variable, to achieve security and the goals and to have bilateral interests.