As teaching at the Joint Services Command and Staff College begins again at the outset of a new academic year, the final post of this series reveals what members of the Defence Studies Department have been reading over the summer. Dr. David Morgan-Owen This summer I have been enjoying John Bew’s book Realpolitik: A History. The book is an ambitious attempt… Read More Summer Reading #5
This post forms part of a series where members of the Defence Studies Department share their thoughts on the books they are reading this summer. This post is by DR AMIR M KAMEL see more of his posts here, here and here. The book: Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the US-Egyptian Alliance has provided for an… Read More DSD Summer Reading #4
In this series members of the Defence Studies Department share the books they are reading this summer. Click here for part I and part II. Dr Avinash Paliwal Vinay Sitapati, Half Lion: How P V Narasimha Rao Transformed India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2016) This political biography of India’s largely discredited, but immensely transformational prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao,… Read More DSD Summer Reading #3
In this series members of the Defence Studies Department share the books they are reading this summer. This instalment is from a recent addition to the Department, Dr Aimée Fox-Godden. You can read more posts from Aimée here and here. While the redrafting and reading of my own forthcoming monograph has dominated my summer vacation, I have managed to carve… Read More DSD Summer Reading #2
In this series members of the Defence Studies Department share the books they are reading this summer. First off is Dr Chris Tripodi. You can read more posts from Chris here, here and here. I intended to get some reading done over the summer break and set an objective of five particular books – John Buckley’s… Read More DSD Summer Reading #1
DR JEFF MICHAELS In the vast majority of cases, scenarios of future war have rarely come to pass as originally envisioned. At least two inter-related reasons can account for this. First, due to the incredibly large number of variables to consider – geopolitical, technical, human, etc. – it is simply impossible to calculate how they… Read More General Sir John Hackett’s The Third World War: Or, How to Think about a Future War with Russia Today
DR CHRIS TRIPODI Chilcot’s exhaustive enquiry into the origins, undertaking, and consequences of the Iraq war has been published. In turn, this (rather less than) exhaustive analysis of certain of its conclusions seeks to explore two of the critical components of the faulty pre war decision-making process as identified by the report. It will propose… Read More Chilcot: The Lessons of Iraq vs The Reality of Interventions
DR TRACEY GERMAN The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit in Warsaw, which took place 8-9 July 2016, focused on the continuing threat to Euro-Atlantic security from Russia, leading to an emphasis on deterrence and a strengthening of the alliance’s defence posture, moving away from its previous posture of reassurance. The summit’s final communiqué was… Read More NATO’s Warsaw Summit and Russia: deterrence or provocation?
DR GERAINT HUGHES On the night of Friday 15th July 2016 elements of the Turkish armed forces attempted to overthrow the democratically-elected – but increasingly authoritarian – government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After a bloody night of fighting in Ankara and Istanbul, and at least 290 deaths, this attempted coup d’etat was decisively crushed… Read More How do Military Coups Fail?
BILL PARK Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is illiberal and autocratic. He has little respect for the rule of law or the autonomy of institutions. He was content to allow lawyers and police officials who were alleged supporters of the cleric Fethullah Gulen to pursue, beginning in 2008, and eventually imprison military and other so-called… Read More Turkey: It’s the lust for power, stupid
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