Today’s Russian Navy taking the asymmetric route – with caveats

DR ROD THORNTON On the day that the UK’s new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, put to sea for the first time in June, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon compared it to what he called the ‘old and dilapidated’ Russian carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov – seen recently operating off Syria. A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman… Read More Today’s Russian Navy taking the asymmetric route – with caveats

Conference Report: Two Day Conference in War and Peace Studies, School of History, University of Leeds, 15-16 June

DR VANDA WILCOX Vanda Wilcox completed a DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2006 before moving to Rome, where she now teaches at John Cabot University. She has published on Italian military leadership, training and battlefield performance as well as the popular experience and memory of the First World War in Italy. A member… Read More Conference Report: Two Day Conference in War and Peace Studies, School of History, University of Leeds, 15-16 June

What Drives the Middlemen? Exploring Involvement in WMD-related Illicit Trade

Dr Daniel Salisbury is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. He completed his PhD at the King’s College London Department of War Studies in 2016. This blogpost draws on research which will be published in the Nonproliferation Review later in the year. As North Korea demonstrated by… Read More What Drives the Middlemen? Exploring Involvement in WMD-related Illicit Trade

No news is good news? The field of security & defence one year after the Brexit referendum

DR BEN KIENZLE On 23 June 2016, the British people voted to leave the European Union (EU). This has been widely seen as one of the most important strategic decisions of the UK in a generation. In the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum, Ellen Hallams and Ben Kienzle have brought together researchers from King’s… Read More No news is good news? The field of security & defence one year after the Brexit referendum

Ukraine’s Military Reform and the Conflict in the East

DR DEBORAH SANDERS One of the key challenges of military reform for any military organisation is the question ‘are we preparing for the right war?’ In my article ‘”The War We Want; The War That We Get”: Ukraine’s Military Reform and the Conflict in the East’, I examine this issue in the context of Ukrainian… Read More Ukraine’s Military Reform and the Conflict in the East

THE RETURN OF GORSHKOV AND THE NEW COLD WAR AT SEA

KEVIN ROWLANDS Commander Kevin Rowlands is a naval officer who was awarded a PhD in 2015 through the Defence Studies Department.  He is the editor of 21st Century Gorshkov, recently published by the US Naval Institute Press.  In the following post he argues the origins of Russia’s current maritime strategy can be traced to the… Read More THE RETURN OF GORSHKOV AND THE NEW COLD WAR AT SEA