By DR AMIR M KAMEL In July 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany) and Iran, and hailed as a landmark agreement. The JCPOA is concerned with the alleviation of sanctions levied against Tehran in return for the scaling back of… Read More DID US SANCTIONS SUCCEED IN BRINGING IRAN TO THE TABLE?
This post is based on a paper presented at an event organised by the Defence Culture and Languages Centre (DCLC) and King’s College London’s Regional Security Research Centre (RSRC), titled ‘Regional Study Day: North Africa’, which took place on 21 October 2015. By DR AMIR M KAMEL After four years since Libya first experienced its own… Read More LIBYA: SOME CONTEXT BEHIND THE ONGOING UNREST
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
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 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
By DR AMIR M KAMEL The idea that political differences between two or more actors can be improved through economic means is at the heart of the study of the International Political Economy (IPE). This notion, which is rooted in the Liberal school of thought, sets the foundations for one of the most long lasting… Read More The EU: A Model for Economic Governance?
DR CHRIS TUCK Previous Defence-in-Depth blogs have covered ‘forgotten battles’: this blog addresses the consequences of a forgotten war: the undeclared war fought between Britain and Indonesia from 1963-66, termed by the Indonesians Konfrontasi (Confrontation). Small wars often have large consequences, even if those consequences do not always impinge on western consciousness. In Jakarta, fifty… Read More The Act of Killing
by DR DAVID P HOUGHTON As a student or even a scholar, you may be wondering why we study theory at all. Surely we can get along quite happily without abstract discussions, academic digressions and high-sounding jargon? What do these have to do with understanding? Academics in particular often sound like they are deliberately intending… Read More WHY THEORY?
DR DAVID P HOUGHTON One of the most troubling concepts to appear on the scene in recent years is Joseph Nye’s much-popularized notion of ‘soft power’. Without a doubt, there is something rather vague that one can conveniently label soft power, defined as ‘the power to attract’. All nations have an appeal to someone, and… Read More The Worrying Talk About ‘Soft Power’
By DR AMIR M KAMEL The notion that trade leads to peace has been around sinceat least the first century. In the year 100 AD, Plutarch the Greek Philosopher, on the subject of sea trade, noted how the exchange of goods could bring about cooperation and friendship. Since then, the logistics and testing of the… Read More Trade Leads To Peace: Liberals and Realists Agree!
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