DR TIM BENBOW This time last year, the editors of Defence-in-Depth asked me in my capacity as Director of the DSD Strategy and Defence Policy Research Centre to look forward to the year ahead. I used the opportunity to consider the challenges facing British strategy and defence policy in 2016. I mentioned Russia and the linked… Read More Looking ahead to 2017: ‘Brexit’ and Britain’s role in the world
DR BLEDDYN BOWEN This post is based aspects of a forthcoming paper presented at the ISA Annual Convention 2017 in Baltimore, MD. Ten years ago, on 11th January 2007, a road-mobile SC-19 Chinese antisatellite (ASAT) weapons test renewed interest, debate, and occasional polemic hysteria, in the role of space weapons in international security and Sino-US… Read More China’s space weapons test ten years on: Behemoth pulls the peasants’ plough
By Dr Rod Thornton Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently repeated his country’s long-held territorial claim to Mosul and the whole of northern Iraq. Such a claim is based on the belief prevalent in Turkey that this area had, as territory of the Ottoman empire, been illegally seized by the British in November 1918… Read More Erdogan and the National Pact: the fallout today from the British Army’s seizing of Mosul in 1918
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
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