Rod Thornton and Marina Miron, both of Defence Studies Department, King’s College London Currently, the focus of Western militaries tends to be on how to best counter sub-threshold (‘hybrid’) warfare and how best to conduct, in US terms, multi-domain operations or, in UK thinking, multi-domain integration. Where the Russian military is concerned, however, the stated… Read More Russian Military Latest: The ‘priority’ emphasis on nuclear weapons (Part One – ICBMs)

Dr Jasper Humphreys, Director of Programmes, Marjan Centre for the Study of Conflict and the Environment, Department of War Studies, King’s College London While one can debate whether climate-change and war are currently locked in a dialectical dead-end or observe Geoffrey Parker’s unwillingness to nail down the connection between climate-change and conflict in his Global… Read More Climate-change and War (Part Two): Atmospheric Intervention

Rod Thornton and Marina Miron, Defence Studies Department, King’s College London Late last month, a Pentagon report accused the UAE of providing financial support to Wagner, the Russian private military company (PMC) operating in Libya. For such a public denunciation to be made by the United States of an ally – the UAE – speaks… Read More What is Russia’s interest in Libya? From regional influence to hunting NATO submarines

Dr Jasper Humphreys, Director of Programmes, Marjan Centre for the Study of Conflict and the Environment, Department of War Studies, King’s College London It’s taken for granted that politicians stretch, twist and bowdlerise the connection between the word ’war’ with their ‘hot button’ topic, and climate-change is no exception. War-like rhetoric pulsed through a recent… Read More Climate-change and War (part one): Tilting at ‘Straw Men’

Marina Miron and Rod Thornton, both of Defence Studies Department, King’s College London The Russian military has been very active in Syria over the last few weeks. It has been conducting air and ballistic-missile strikes against Turkish-backed militant groups around Idlib. This activity can be seen as more fall-out from the recent conflict between Azerbaijan… Read More Russia’s ‘revenge’ after Nagorno-Karabakh: Reprisals in Syria for Turkey’s support of Azerbaijan

Ken Payne, Defence Studies Department, King’s College London Military leadership has some distinctive and enduring features, some of which look set to be challenged by the increasing adoption of autonomous systems, including AI weapons. When the British Chief of the Defence Staff speculates about an army of 30,000 robots, it’s probably a good time to… Read More Leadership in an age of Artificial Intelligence

Rod Thornton and Marina Miron This is the first in a regular series looking at news of the Russian military that comes predominantly from a review of the Russian media. There has been a series of confrontations in recent months between Russian and US naval vessels. While nothing serious has resulted from these clashes, they… Read More Russian Military Latest: Another Russia-US naval confrontation

Professor Greg Kennedy, Director, Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies The announcement of the biggest investment in the United Kingdom’s Armed Forces in almost forty years by Prime Minister Boris Johnson has prompted much speculation about what the Royal Navy will be able to do with this new-found largesse. While many knowledgeable observers of the… Read More New Money for the Royal Navy: So What?

Dr Helen McCartney, Reader, Defence Studies Department, King’s College London Remembrance is a political act. In public discussions surrounding Extinction Rebellion’s recent cenotaph protest, it has been suggested by the Royal British Legion (among others) that Armistice Day is ‘not for political protest’.  This view ignores the fact that remembrance is inherently political. It marks… Read More Extinction Rebellion and the politics of remembrance

Dr Christian Tripodi, Senior Lecturer, Defence Studies Department I don’t do irony. It’s far too knowing and indeed far too clever. Which is rather ironic as the title of my new book The Unknown Enemy: Counterinsurgency and the Illusion of Control suggests a thoroughly intentional nod to irony. Why so? Because in a book about… Read More The Unknown Enemy