by Dr GERAINT HUGHES My last post on Defence-in-Depth described a battlefield tour of Oman, studying the Dhofar conflict waged between insurgents and the Sultanate from the mid-1960s to late 1975. Thanks to the declassification of British government archives under the 30 Year Rule we now have greater knowledge of the covert operations conducted during… Read More The Secret War in South Yemen, 1972-75
In a recent post, Dr Nick Lloyd described 1915 as the ‘forgotten year‘ of the First World War. To correct this, in occasional posts throughout 2015 members of the First World War Research Group based in the Defence Studies Department will examine unknown or forgotten aspects of the war during 1915. by Dr DAVID MORGAN-OWEN… Read More The Turning Point of the First World War, 1915
This is the sixth and final post in a series of posts to come out of the ‘Rise of the Islamic State (IS): Ideology, Strategy, and Implications’ roundtable organized by Regional Security Research Centre on 4 February 2015. An audio recording of this roundtable can be listen to or downloaded from the Defence Studies Department’s… Read More Iran’s Response to DAISH: It’s all about the Revolution
This is the fifth in a series of posts to come out of the ‘Rise of the Islamic State (IS): Ideology, Strategy, and Implications’ roundtable organized by Regional Security Research Centre on 4 February 2015. An audio recording of this roundtable can be listen to or downloaded from the Defence Studies Department’s SoundCloud page. by… Read More ISLAMIC STATE AND TURKEY’S ‘PRECIOUS LONELINESS’
This is the fourth in a series of posts to come out of the ‘Rise of the Islamic State (IS): Ideology, Strategy, and Implications’ roundtable organized by Regional Security Research Centre on 4 February 2015. An audio recording of this roundtable can be listen to or downloaded from the Defence Studies Department’s SoundCloud page. by… Read More The Kurds as Proxies against the Islamic State
This is a response to a previous Defence-in-Depth post by Dr Chris Tuck entitled “Lidl Heart: Cut Price Strategy and the Perils of Influence”. by EWAN LAWSON Aside from having the cleverest title of a Defence-in-Depth blog so far, Lidl Heart: Cut Price Strategy and the Perils of Influence says much about the challenge of being… Read More ‘Lidl Heart II’: Thinking about the challenges of Influence
This is the third in a series of posts to come out of the ‘Rise of the Islamic State (IS): Ideology, Strategy, and Implications’ roundtable organized by Regional Security Research Centre on 4 February 2015. Subsequent posts will come out on Wednesdays and will cover topics such as the responses by the Kurds, Turkey, and… Read More Migrating to the Land of Jihad: Why European Muslims fight in Syria
This is the second in a series of posts to come out of the ‘Rise of the Islamic State (IS): Ideology, Strategy, and Implications’ roundtable organized by Regional Security Research Centre on 4 February 2015. Subsequent posts will come out on Wednesdays and will cover topics such as the motivations for joining IS and the… Read More The Political, Religious, and Everyday Allure of Islamic State’s Utopianism
by Dr DAVID ROBERTS On 23 January 2015, King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud died and his half-brother, Salman bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud, in a smooth transition, became king. This was the sixth succession in Saudi Arabia since it formally became ‘Saudi’ Arabia in 1932 under King Abdul-Aziz al-Saud (d.1953). So far, each Saudi ruler has been… Read More Grappling with the Implications of Saudi Arabia’s Transition
This is the first in a series of posts to come out of the ‘Rise of the Islamic State (IS): Ideology, Strategy, and Implications’ roundtable organized by Regional Security Research Centre on 4 February 2015. Subsequent posts will come out on Wednesdays and will cover topics such as the motivations for joining IS and the… Read More CALIPHATE, STATEHOOD, AND GOVERNANCE IN ISLAMIC POLITICAL THINKING: HISTORICAL ROOTS, CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE
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