Michael C. Davies Among the more interesting aspects of the debates over victory in war is that most scholars, when discussing the topic, assert that it stands amongst the most “misunderstood” aspects of modern war and warfare. They will contend that “little attention” has been paid to it, or that there has been a “paucity”… Read More The Gates of War, Just Not of Victory
ROB GEIST PINFOLD Dr. Rob Geist Pinfold is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Haifa and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London The research area of territorial withdrawal continues to polarise scholars. Theorists are irreconcilably divided regarding questions of agency: is withdrawal primarily affected by the global… Read More Territorial Withdrawal as Multilateral Bargaining: Revisiting Israel’s ‘Unilateral’ Withdrawals from Gaza and Southern Lebanon
PROF ANDREW DORMAN, PROF MATTHEW UTTLEY, MS ARMIDA VAN RIJ, & DR BENEDICT WILKINSON If 2017 was the ‘Year of the Royal Navy (RN)’ then presumably 2018 is the de facto year of the Royal Air Force (RAF) as it celebrates 100 years since its formation on 1st April 1918. For the RN, 2017 proved more… Read More 2018 – will the year of the Royal Air Force be any better than 2017 was for the Royal Navy?
PROF ANDREW DORMAN, PROF MATTHEW UTTLEY, MS ARMIDA VAN RIJ The House of Commons Defence Committee (HCDC) has recently released a report emotively entitled ‘Sunset for the Royal Marines?’ The report followed on from the HCDC’s rapid inquiry into the future of the UK’s amphibious capability in the wake of a series of press reports… Read More Amphibiosity, the Royal Marines and the Defence Debate in the UK
PROF ANDREW DORMAN*, PROF MATTHEW UTTLEY, & DR BENEDICT WILKINSON In December 2017, General Sir Nicholas Carter, Chief of the General Staff (CGS) exchanged ‘Letters to the Editor’ in The Times with Frank Ledwidge, one of our King’s Department of War Studies colleagues.[1] At issue was the size of the senior officer corps compared to… Read More The Defence Review and the Military High Command: Do changes in personnel numbers suggest that the armed forces are capable of modernising themselves?
DR BEN KIENZLE Each summer, members of the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London offer literature suggestions for the following academic year. Given the UK’s game-changing decision to leave the European Union (EU), this year’s first ‘summer reading’ post takes on the nearly impossible task of suggesting three key readings on the security &… Read More What to read on Brexit, security & defence
DR BEN KIENZLE and DR INEZ VON WEITERSHAUSEN This post originally appeared on the LSE’s Brexit Blog – a multidisciplinary, evidence-based blog run by the London School of Economics and Political Science. Follow the LSE’s Brexit blog on Twitter @lsebrexitvote Foreign policy, security or defence are traditionally considered matters of ‘high politics’, i.e. areas over which… Read More Brexit has given an impetus to reshape Europe’s foreign, security and defence policies
Professor Matthew Uttley & Dr. Benedict Wilkinson In one of his more exasperated moments, Sherlock Holmes turns to his long-term companion, Dr. Watson and chides him for his impatience, saying ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.’ Strong words they may be, but wise ones… Read More A Capital Mistake: Evidence and Defence in the Brexit Debates
DR TIM BENBOW British strategy and defence policy face a number of challenges over the coming 12 months. Some of these require close cooperation with allies, notably devising a common response to an increasingly assertive Russia whilst also formulating a workable approach to the Syria conflict (and the problems associated with it such as migration)… Read More Challenges for British Strategy and Defence Policy in 2016
Dr David Jordan When the Prime Minister sat down in the House of Commons after concluding his presentation of the 2015 SDSR, he may have allowed himself a smile of satisfaction at the largely positive response it received, and not just from his own back-benchers. This may have become a grin by the time the… Read More Back to the Future? British Air Power and Two Defence Reviews 2010-15
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