By Dr David Whetham I have written here before about why the subject of ethics is so important for professional militaries. Globally, there is a growing acknowledgment that military ethics and a genuine, deep appreciation of human rights issues is a crucial component of the education of every service member, wherever they may serve. There… Read More King’s Centre for Military Ethics
DR WARREN CHIN This post summarised some of the evidence Dr Chin gave to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee on the British Army and SDSR 15 in October. A recording of the session is available here. SDSR 15 acknowledged the increased threat posed by Russia to NATO and made clear its intention to deter any future Russian… Read More The British Army’s role in defending NATO’s Eastern Border
By Dr. David B. Roberts This post is based on an article published in the December/January issue of Survival, authored by David B Roberts and Emile Hokayem. The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE – have spent over $1 trillion on defence procurement since… Read More The War in Yemen
By Dr Andreas Krieg This piece is a peek into my new book project that I am pursuing together with my colleague Dr Jean Marc Rickli. The book is called Surrogate Warfare – A Mode of War for the 21st Century and conceptually explores the dynamics of externalizing the burden of warfare to surrogates. The Arab… Read More Surrogate War and the Illusion of State-Centrism
PROF GREG KENNEDY In recent months there have been two manifestations of a worrying trend that has been observable in British foreign policy making for nearly three decades now. The trend is a decaying of accountability for foreign policy making in the upper levels of government, combined with a policy making strategic culture that is… Read More Back to Reality: British Foreign Policy and Strategy in the Post-BREXIT Era
WHITNEY GRESPIN On November 8 – the second Tuesday of November – I found myself in Anchorage, Alaska watching the poll counts climb state by state while the minutes passed. As polls closed and states on TV monitors lit up as either blue or red, ebullient celebration or quiet resignation crossed the faces of those… Read More Watching the Start of a New American Era from the Edge of the World
DR BLEDDYN E. BOWEN As students of the Defence Studies Department grapple with strategic theory this winter, a useful way to begin is to consider the purpose of strategic theory and the work of ‘that dead Prussian’. One perspective on this issue is that we are engaging with why reaching decisions in war is difficult… Read More It’s about reaching the decision, not victory: strategic theory and the difficulty of taking action
Hanna Smyth (with Adam Luptak & Louis Halewood) – War Time co-organisers, Globalising and Localising the Great War, University of Oxford. The 9th conference of the International Society for First World War Studies was held at the University of Oxford on 9-11 November. Each year a different theme is chosen (such as ‘Landscapes’ and ‘Other… Read More Conference Report: International Society for First World War Studies conference, ‘War Time’
This is the third in a series of posts drawn from an event to mark the 60th anniversary of the Suez Crisis which the Defence Studies Department Strategy and Defence Policy Research Centre hosted on November 7th, 2016. Recordings of the papers will be posted shortly to the Department soundcloud. DR KATE UTTING From a British… Read More The Significance of Suez 1956: A Reference Point and Turning Point?
This is the second in a series of posts drawn from an event to mark the 60th anniversary of the Suez Crisis which the Defence Studies Department Strategy and Defence Policy Research Centre hosted on November 7th, 2016. Recordings of the papers will be posted shortly to the Department soundcloud. By Dr Tim Benbow The Suez… Read More SUEZ SIXTY YEARS ON: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ROYAL NAVY
Defence-In-Depth 