DR DAVID ROBERTS A small Arab Gulf State is not the first place in the Middle East that one might expect to fashion a foreign policy according to Thomas Jefferson’s dictum of the importance of separating church and state. Yet this is what the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is doing. Key leaders in the state… Read More The UAE’s Jeffersonian Foreign Policy
This is the third in a series of posts to come out of the Regional Security Research Centre (RSRC) organised Round Table titled ‘Decoding IS [DAISH] – Retrospect and Prospect’, which took place on 8 February 2016. The Round Table covered issues concerned with the evolution, regional linkages, strategy and tactics, as well as the… Read More Thinking the Unthinkable over ISIL
DR GERAINT HUGHES Military manuals do not often attract readers from outside of the profession of arms, and the publication of the US Army/US Marine Corps’ manual on counter-insurgency (FM3/24) by the University of Chicago Press ten years ago was one of those rare occasions where military doctrine gained an audience beyond the armed forces. FM3/24… Read More Uncertain COINage
This is the third in a series of posts to come out of the Regional Security Research Centre (RSRC) organised Round Table titled ‘Decoding IS [DAISH] – Retrospect and Prospect’, which took place on 8 February 2016. The Round Table covered issues concerned with the evolution, regional linkages, strategy and tactics, as well as the future… Read More Iraq: Shi’a Militias – Partners or Contestants of Iraqi Stability
After a turbulent 2015, members of DSD’s Regional Security Research Centre (@KingsRegSec) look forward to the coming year and examine the issues that they believe will be prominent in 2016, including the US presidential elections, continuing instability across the Middle East and the various coalitions seeking to counter IS, talks between India and Pakistan on… Read More Reasons to (not) be cheerful in 2016…Deadly rivalries in Syria, Iraq and Turkey
After a turbulent 2015, members of DSD’s Regional Security Research Centre (@KingsRegSec) look forward to the coming year and examine the issues that they believe will be prominent in 2016, including the US presidential elections, continuing instability across the Middle East and the various coalitions seeking to counter IS, talks between India and Pakistan on… Read More Reasons to (not) be cheerful in 2016…The Middle East and the Institutionalisation of ‘Least Bad’ Options
DR GERAINT HUGHES Harold Wilson once noted that a week was a long time in politics, and the current Leader of the Opposition may well agree with him. On Sunday 29th November Jeremy Corbyn told the BBC not only that he opposed proposals for Britain to participate in coalition air-strikes against Islamic State (IS) in… Read More The UK Decision on Syria: The Labour Party and Air-Strikes against Islamic State
By DR AMIR M KAMEL On Wednesday 2 December, the British Parliament voted 397 to 223 in favour of extending the air bombing campaign, targeting DAISH (aka Islamic State, IS, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL) from Iraq to include Syrian territory, following a one-day… Read More The UK Decision on Syria: Will air-strikes solve the problem?
By DR AMIR M KAMEL The idea that political differences between two or more actors can be improved through economic means is at the heart of the study of the International Political Economy (IPE). This notion, which is rooted in the Liberal school of thought, sets the foundations for one of the most long lasting… Read More The EU: A Model for Economic Governance?
By DR AMIR M KAMEL The notion that trade leads to peace has been around sinceat least the first century. In the year 100 AD, Plutarch the Greek Philosopher, on the subject of sea trade, noted how the exchange of goods could bring about cooperation and friendship. Since then, the logistics and testing of the… Read More Trade Leads To Peace: Liberals and Realists Agree!
Defence-In-Depth 