ROBERT SEELY Over 18 months into Russia’s not-so-very-proxy, proxy war in Ukraine, there remains a thriving and fascinating debate over the tools of conflict that Russia uses, how one describes those tools and where Russia’s next ‘target’ may be. I was asked to respond to Rod Thornton’s recent blog on Russia. In his excellent piece,… Read More RUSSIA HYBRID WAR – A RESPONSE
DR FRANCESCO MILAN On Sunday November 1st, Turkey will hold the second general election this year. This comes after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) failed to find an agreement with opposing parties to form a coalition government, having previously fallen short of obtaining enough votes to secure its own parliamentary majority in the… Read More SECURITISING TURKEY’S NOVEMBER ELECTIONS
PROF. GREG KENNEDY The election of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s eldest son Justin to the Prime Ministership is a sad outcome for a number of reasons. Firstly, despite the majority of Canadians believing they have a moral and ethical superiority, obtained through universal healthcare and gun-control, they have shown politically that they are… Read More OOOOHH Canada, Really?
DR DAVID MORGAN-OWEN Last week the Culture Secretary announced the government’s plans for the centenary commemorations of the Battle of Jutland. In addition to remembering the sacrifice of those sailors who lost their lives in the Battle itself, he described the anniversary as an opportunity to remember ‘the pivotal role that the Royal Navy played… Read More Commemorating the First World War at Sea
DR CHRIS TRIPODI I recently had the privilege of accompanying the Commander Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (COMARRC) and his senior HQ staff to Sicily. The purpose of my presence, and that of my esteemed colleague Dr Niall Barr, was to act as an historical advisor on the annual COMARRC staff ride. This five day exercise… Read More Holidays in the Sun
PROFESSOR HARSH V. PANT Every September, a host of global political leaders descend on New York for the United Nations General Assembly’s annual summit and every year there are one or two leaders whose visits are highly anticipated. If last year it was the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was visiting the US for… Read More China’s Rise Tests India’s Non-Alignment
DR CINDY MAY Nearly every major International Relations journal has recently forecasted the United States’ decline. Washington’s limited role in NATO airstrikes in Libya and President Obama’s restrained foreign policy are cited as evidence of American demise. The decline perspective (summarised here, here and here) maintains that “foreign policy failures, most notably the Iraq conflict, have… Read More American Decline and The Middle East: The Role of Isolationism
DR JONATHAN FENNELL In my last post, I explored the relationship between the performance of British Second Army in Northwest Europe, 1944 to 1945, and three variables – levels of morale, the weight of firepower used, and the operational level approach employed. The blog concluded that there was a weak correlation between these variables and… Read More Strategy and Combat Effectiveness
DR ROD THORNTON This is a reduced version of an article by the same author in the Aug-Sept edition of the Royal United Services Institute Journal, entitled, ‘The Changing Nature of Modern Warfare: Responding to Russian Information Warfare’. The way in which Russia seized Crimea and created chaos in eastern Ukraine in 2014 brought to world attention… Read More RUSSIAN HYBRID WARFARE
This is the third in a series of posts from a recent research symposium organised by Dr Ellen Hallams on ‘The Reconfiguration of American Primacy in World Politics: Domestic and International Challenges.’ In this piece, Dr David Houghton discusses the role of domestic factors in shaping current and future US foreign policy. DR DAVID HOUGHTON Domestic impediments to US… Read More Domestic Challenges to US Primacy?
Defence-In-Depth 