The Invisible Hand of Military Merger: Organisational Culture in Kurdistan

Verena Gruber Civil wars have been an increasingly frequent occurrence since 1989. The most significant difference to “regular”, inter-state conflicts is that in civil wars solutions to both war and peace must be found within the confinement of predetermined geographical borders. Separatism is rarely a solution, because the international community currently stresses sovereign territory as… Read More The Invisible Hand of Military Merger: Organisational Culture in Kurdistan

TURKEY’S KURDISH PROBLEM(S), THE KURDS’ TURKISH PROBLEM(S), AND THE CRISES IN THE MIDDLE EAST (Part 2)

BY BILL PARK This is the second of a two-part series on the topic. The first of which was posted week on the Defence-in-Depth blog. Turkey’s transborder Kurdish problem There can be little doubt that both Ankara and Turkey’s Kurdish nationalists have been influenced by developments in Syria. Many of Turkey’s Kurds are inspired by… Read More TURKEY’S KURDISH PROBLEM(S), THE KURDS’ TURKISH PROBLEM(S), AND THE CRISES IN THE MIDDLE EAST (Part 2)

TURKEY’S KURDISH PROBLEM(S), THE KURDS’ TURKISH PROBLEM(S), AND THE CRISES IN THE MIDDLE EAST (PART 1)

BY BILL PARK This is the first of a two-part series on the topic. The second of which will be posted next week on the Defence-in-Depth blog. Turkey’s very own Kurdish problem Turkey’s AKP government’s attempts to seek a resolution to the country’s domestic Kurdish problem had by the second half of 2015 deteriorated into… Read More TURKEY’S KURDISH PROBLEM(S), THE KURDS’ TURKISH PROBLEM(S), AND THE CRISES IN THE MIDDLE EAST (PART 1)

ISLAMIC STATE AND TURKEY’S ‘PRECIOUS LONELINESS’

This is the fifth in a series of posts to come out of the ‘Rise of the Islamic State (IS): Ideology, Strategy, and Implications’ roundtable organized by Regional Security Research Centre on 4 February 2015.  An audio recording of this roundtable can be listen to or downloaded from the Defence Studies Department’s SoundCloud page. by… Read More ISLAMIC STATE AND TURKEY’S ‘PRECIOUS LONELINESS’

The Kurds as Proxies against the Islamic State

This is the fourth in a series of posts to come out of the ‘Rise of the Islamic State (IS): Ideology, Strategy, and Implications’ roundtable organized by Regional Security Research Centre on 4 February 2015. An audio recording of this roundtable can be listen to or downloaded from the Defence Studies Department’s SoundCloud page. by… Read More The Kurds as Proxies against the Islamic State

The war against the Islamic State and the plight of Iraqi Kurdistan

  by BILL PARK The 10th June fall of Mosul to the irregular forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), now calling itself the ‘Islamic State’, accompanied as it was by the total collapse of the lavishly equipped and US-trained Iraqi army, presented both threat and opportunity to the Kurdistan Regional Government… Read More The war against the Islamic State and the plight of Iraqi Kurdistan