DR TRACEY GERMAN The news that the British parliament had sanctioned airstrikes against IS in Syria, and that the first missions had taken place, has been widely reported in Russia. The move is likely to be seen as vindication for Russia’s ongoing operation there: with the French launching airstrikes against Syria at the end of… Read More The UK Decision on Syria: The View From Russia
DR CHRIS TRIPODI It’s genuinely interesting, as an historian, to contemplate the current furore over whether Britain should physically commit itself to taking action against Islamic State forces in Syria. Not because we have greater insight or intellectual authority with respect to the debate at hand, or that we are uniquely qualified to predict what… Read More The UK Decision on Syria: The (F)utility of History
DR GERAINT HUGHES Harold Wilson once noted that a week was a long time in politics, and the current Leader of the Opposition may well agree with him. On Sunday 29th November Jeremy Corbyn told the BBC not only that he opposed proposals for Britain to participate in coalition air-strikes against Islamic State (IS) in… Read More The UK Decision on Syria: The Labour Party and Air-Strikes against Islamic State
By DR AMIR M KAMEL On Wednesday 2 December, the British Parliament voted 397 to 223 in favour of extending the air bombing campaign, targeting DAISH (aka Islamic State, IS, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL) from Iraq to include Syrian territory, following a one-day… Read More The UK Decision on Syria: Will air-strikes solve the problem?
DR DAVID HOUGHTON International Relations (IR) theory is certainly very useful for some things, and in a previous post I pointed out just how important it is. But by now you may have noticed some of its limitations as well. Because most of the ‘big’ theories operate at the systemic or structural level, they don’t… Read More The Indispensable Character of Foreign Policy Theory
DR DAVID WHETHAM The military profession, as with all professions, is defined and governed in large part by its ethic; the rules and behaviours by which its members conduct themselves. Any professional military force, anywhere in the world, sees itself as distinct from a ‘mere’ group of mercenaries or long-term contractors, and that self-identity is… Read More Why Does Ethics Matter for the Military?
PROFESSOR WYN BOWEN The National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) 2015 has brought deterrence back to centre stage for the United Kingdom more than at any other time since the end of the Cold War. The primary context for this in SDSR 2015 is the resurgence of state based threats. This… Read More SDSR and the Return of Deterrence
DR KENNETH PAYNE In a new paper, Kareem Ayoub and I explore how Artificial intelligence will shape strategy. Here, I focus on one important aspect of that: the ability of leaders to control the use of force. Technology is sometimes seen as a threat to the British military’s philosophy of mission command. When it works… Read More Artificial Intelligence versus mission command
DR EDWARD HAMPSHIRE This seems, at first glance, to be a highly unusual defence review: there have been announcements of additional spending – on special-forces and on drones, of the re-creation of lost capabilities with the purchase of maritime patrol aircraft, and of the establishment of two new rapid response brigades, two new Typhoon squadrons,… Read More NSS/SDSR 2015: The 2015 SDSR in context: a very unusual defence review?
DR DAVID MORGAN-OWEN The government’s SDSR 2015 proudly proclaims to be ‘transforming the Royal Navy’s ability to project our influence overseas’ by providing for not only the two Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, but also an increased number of F35s to fly from them. Commissioning both vessels is certainly a bold statement of intent on… Read More NSS/SDSR 2015: A Balanced Fleet: An Historical Perspective
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