DR ANDREW GAWTHORPE A new book from Evan Thomas reminds us – as if we needed it – of the peculiarities of President Richard Nixon. Brilliant, reclusive, and disturbed, Nixon ought to defy caricature even though he has often been the subject of it. His foreign policy partnership with Henry Kissinger reflected this. By marginalizing… Read More Nixon the Nation-Builder? Strategic Understanding in the Vietnam War
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
This is the second in a series of posts from members of the Defence Studies Department’s Regional Security Research Centre, focusing on Russia and the implications of its increasingly assertive posture on the international stage. This post examines NATO’s response to recent Russian actions, particularly in Ukraine. It will be followed subsequent Mondays with posts… Read More Russia and NATO: A New Cold War?
From the Archives is a new regular feature on Defence-in-Depth. Archives are the lifeblood of historians. Papers, correspondence, diaries and journals constitute the primary material on which historical analysis is based. This feature is designed to fulfill two objectives. Our authors have selected an archive that has yielded an important find and will explain how… Read More From the Archives: Locating NATO’s ‘Surreal’ Mission
by PROF WYN BOWEN, DR DAVID JORDAN & DR KATE UTTING The reflections of ‘Cold War warriors’ provided prescient insights into the wider application of deterrence during a recent Witness Seminar organised by the Defence Studies Department and the Institute for Contemporary British History at the Institute of Historical Research. The term ‘deterrence’ is often… Read More Reflections on Deterrence and the Lessons of History
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