DR TIM BENBOW The question most often asked by students when I have given lectures or accompanied staff rides on D-Day is, where were the aircraft carriers? There does seem to be a puzzle here. By summer 1944, carriers were the central capability of the modern fleet and had repeatedly proved their value in supporting… Read More Absent Friends? British naval aviation and D-Day
Miss Whitney Grespin As the U.S. and allied forces attempted to draw down from the major conventional ground engagements of the past decade throughout the Obama Administration, the nature of U.S. foreign military engagement and related contracting requirements adjusted accordingly. Improving, expanding, and strengthening international security assistance partnerships, with a particular focus on building partner… Read More Boots Off the Ground: The Use of Contractors to Train Foreign Militaries by the U.S. Government
DR DAVID MORGAN-OWEN The role of history in the education of modern militaries is a topic which has been under debate almost continuously for centuries. Whilst it is common knowledge that many of the military leaders and thinkers who continue to be venerated in the halls of service academies the world over prioritised the study… Read More Conference Report: McMullen Naval History Symposium 2017
DR DAVID WHETHAM is Reader in Military Ethics and Director of the King’s Centre for Military Ethics. Editorial note: This article contains content some readers may find upsetting. In the latest volume to come out in the book series from the European Chapter of the International Society for Military Ethics, I write about the… Read More Coalitions and Ethical Relativism: Challenges for Those on the Ground
DR NICHOLAS MICHELSEN is Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies, and Director of Research in the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications (KCSC). Strategic Communications is a term of art which can refer to a range of activities, including International Public Relations, Public Diplomacy, nation branding, psychological operations, and counter-subversion or counter-extremism activities. Clearly,… Read More Strategic Communication in an Era of ‘Fake News’
This post is part of a week of cross-posting between Defence-in-Depth and Imperial Entanglements, the blog of an AHRC funded funded project in the Hispanic Studies Department of Warwick University. DR ANNA BRINKMAN Alliances between maritime Empires in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were rarely harmonious; but only a few hold the distinction, of… Read More THE RELUCTANT ALLY: ANGLO-SPANISH SLAVE TRADE NEGOTIATIONS 1820-1821
This post is part of a week of cross-posting between Defence-in-Depth and Imperial Entanglements, the blog of an AHRC funded funded project in the Hispanic Studies Department of Warwick University. DR HUW J DAVIES The experience of warfare in different geographies and climates, and against and alongside different cultures and societies profoundly affected its practice. Britain’s… Read More RECONSTRUCTING EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MILITARY KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS: THE USE AND ABUSE OF ARCHIVAL SOURCES
This post is part of a week of cross-posting between Defence-in-Depth and Imperial Entanglements, the blog of an AHRC funded funded project in the Hispanic Studies Department of Warwick University. DR ANNA BRINKMAN When war opened between Britain and France in 1756, Spain declared itself to be neutral. The relationship between Britain and Spain during the… Read More CO-DEPENDENT EMPIRES DURING THE SEVEN YEARS WAR: STRATEGY, SPANISH NEUTRALITY, AND LAW
DR BLEDDYN E BOWEN Nuclear strategy has often been caricatured as the eccentric uncle – or mad (social) scientist – of the fields of Strategic Studies and International Relations, one whose relevance is waning in a post-Cold War world. Yet the failure to contain North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, and ongoing proliferation elsewhere, shows the… Read More North Korean Nukes: A view from a millennial scholar
Editorial Note: On 22-23 June 2017, the Second World War Research Group held its annual conference on the theme of ‘When East meets West: The Second World War in Global Perspective’. Over the coming weeks, we will be posting entries written by some of the conference’s presenters. DR FABIO DE NINNO Dr Fabio De Ninno… Read More The Italian Navy and Japan: Strategy and Hopes, 1937-1942
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