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The article examines the general situation in the Red Sea region that has developed since the start of regular armed attacks by the Yemeni Houthis on merchant ships there in October 2023. Data is provided on the damage caused by this rebel organization in Yemen to regional and global trade. The author pays special attention to the analysis of the role of the naval forces of Western states in the Red Sea. Since October 2023, the most powerful US Navy grouping in recent decades has been formed there, and after February 19, 2024, warships from EU countries joined it as part of Operation Aspides («Shields» from ancient Greek). Thus, Brussels took a noticeable step as part of its strategy of strengthening geopolitical influence not only in the Middle East, but also on a broader scale, taking into account the importance of the Red Sea routes for world trade, as well as for the regional security system. It is expected that the area of responsibility of this EU naval mission will soon be expanded to include the Persian Gulf and the northern Indian Ocean. Taken together, the author views the situation in the Red Sea as a manifestation of degradation in the security sphere of the Middle East and in the world as a whole.

This dossier focusses on non-European teachers within mission schools in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in the period of colonial control. These teachers were central to the missionary project and helped to disseminate both Christianity and Western knowledge across the globe. Local teachers, alongside other mission assistants and helpers, also helped translate, transmit, and transform both Western and local forms of knowledge and contributed to broader discourse about knowledge, yet the importance of their work has often been overshadowed by the work undertaken in examining missionary elites. This dossier, with its extended introduction and three case studies from Africa, the Danish West Indies, and Bolivia, sheds light on the roles of non-European mission teachers as well as their recruitment and training, their self-representations, and methodological as well as conceptual issues about how information on these often inconspicuous intermediaries of mission education can be retrieved from disparate sources.

Introduction / Raphael Chijioke Njoku and Chima J. Korieh -- All things to all people : Christian missionaries in early nineteenth century South Africa / Roger B. Beck -- The CMS Niger Mission, extra-territorial forces of change, and the expansion of British influence in the Niger Delta during the nineteenth century / Waibinte Wariboko -- Catholicism, Protestantism, and imperial claims in Kabaka's Buganda, 1860-1907 -- Raphael Chijioke Njoku -- Threatening gestures, immoral bodies : the intersection of church, state, and Kongo performance in the Belgian Congo / Yolanda Covington-Ward -- To hang a ladder in the air : talking about African education in Edinburgh in 1910 / Ogbu U. Kalu -- Mission, colonialism, and the supplanting of African religious and medical practices / Jude C. Aguwa -- Conflict and compromise : Christian missions and new formations in colonial Nigeria / Chima J. Korieh -- West Indian Church in West Africa : the Pongas Mission among the Susus and its portrayal of blackness, 1851-1935 / Waibinte Wariboko -- Collaborative landscape : missions, states, and their subjects in the making of northeastern Tanzania's terrain, 1870-1914 / Michael McInneshin -- Anglo-American and European missionary encounters in southern Sudan, 1898-present / Gideon Mailer

Abstract
The aim of this article is to highlight challenges to European integration by raising key concerns and generating debate about potential responses. This discussion is intended to be a starting point for further research and the development of more policy-specific recommendations to tackle these challenges successfully. I begin by explaining the need for a clear and realistic integration mission and then turn to the example of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), one of the most tangible achievements of European integration policy. The EMU also highlights the critical importance of clarity and realism in any approach to integration. My analysis moves next to the challenges that the EU is facing today and considers how the European Commission has evaluated and reacted to these challenges. Finally I propose some key elements of – and make the case for – a constructive practical approach.

In view of the contemporary challenges and threats, European Union's efforts in the area of civil and military capacity building are extremely important. As an international organization having a high impact on third countries, the European Union plays a key role in conflict prevention and crisis response. In external governance EU has two sectoral policies at its disposal: the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). The CFSP is responsible for resolving conflicts and fostering international understanding using diplomacy and giving respect for international rules. The CSDP is responsible for carrying out civilian and military missions as well as for diffusing rules, which affect, in various respects, the improvement of security management in third countries through their incorporation. By adopting today's global approach, both military and civilian, to crisis management and continuing to strengthen its capacity for action and analytical tools, the European Union is becoming a major security vector at international level, and its Common Security and Defense Policy expeditionary missions are the tangible proof.