HANNA SMYTH Hanna Smyth is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford with the Globalising and Localising the Great War research network. Her research examines how Imperial War Graves Commission sites represented, reinforced, and performed different aspects of identity for South Africa, India, Canada, & Australia in France and Belgium between 1917-1938. She earned her MA in… Read More The New National Army Museum: A Review
DR DAVID MORGAN-OWEN This post originally appeared on The Wavell Room – a new blog to encourage the discussion of thinking within the British armed forces. Follow the Wavell room on Twitter @wavellroom The long-await report of Sir John Chilcot’s commission on the Iraq War is feeding a dangerous illusion in the British Armed Forces: that… Read More The British Army & the Chilcot Report: Strategy isn’t the answer
This is one in a series of occasional posts from scholars outside of the Defence Studies Department. If you would be interested to contribute to this series please contact the editors: Dr Amir Kamel and Dr David Morgan-Owen. DR MATTHEW FORD Dr Matthew Ford is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex. His book Weapon of… Read More Beyond Effectiveness on the Battlefield: reframing Military Innovation in terms of time, networks and power
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
This is the first in a series of posts drawn from an event to mark the 60th anniversary of the Suez Crisis which the Defence Studies Department Strategy and Defence Policy Research Centre hosted on November 7th, 2016. Recordings of the papers will be posted shortly to the Department soundcloud. DR GERAINT HUGHES An analysis… Read More SUEZ SIXTY YEARS ON: THE LAND WAR
DR ANDREW STEWART The last few years have witnessed a feverish period of remembering Britain’s military and the battles it and others fought during the Great War (what I recall increasingly vaguely as having been referred to at school more commonly as the First World War). A centenary is a historical marker worthy of reflection,… Read More The First Victory…
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 TIM BENBOW Sometimes academics are confronted by arguments with which we disagree, vehemently. Most have something to be said for them or, at the very least, it is possible to appreciate where those proposing it are coming from and why they might believe it. There are exceptions, which deserve nothing other than a good… Read More The Dunkirk evacuation and the German ‘halt’ order
This is the second in a series of posts by members of the First World War Research Group and select guest contributors to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. DR AIMÉE FOX-GODDEN With the hundredth anniversary of the Somme campaign now upon us, it is both appropriate and understandable that attention is focused on the forces… Read More Somme learning: Interpreting and adapting the lessons of the Somme campaign in the ‘sideshow’ theatres
This is the first in a series of posts by members of the First World War Research Group and select guest contributors to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. PROF ROBIN PRIOR Robin Prior is Visiting Professorial Fellow at the School of History and Politics at the University of Adelaide. He is the… Read More THE SOMME- The British Battle
Defence-In-Depth 