DUNCAN REDFORD Dr Duncan Redford is a naval historian who is working on the relationship between the Royal Navy and 19th/20th century British national identity. This post originally appeared on History & Policy in 2017 and is reproduced with permission. Will Brexit lead to a naval renaissance for the British? Britain is leaving the European Union. The EU… Read More Brexit and the case for a naval policy renaissance
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 TIM BENBOW The Royal Navy pioneered the use of air power at sea, from bases ashore and from aircraft carriers, during the First World War. It lost this lead during the interwar period due to a range of factors including limited spending on defence and an unclear national strategy, exacerbated by the Navy losing… Read More British naval aviation in World War II: Escort Carriers
DR RICHARD HAMMOND Formulating grand strategy is an extraordinarily complex issue for a state. To understand the process, you have to assess not just that state’s own interests and the variety of external factors exerting influence on them, but also their perception of these influences. This was certainly the case for Britain during the interwar… Read More Italian Influences on British Imperial Defence & Grand Strategy, 1935-43
DR TIM BENBOW The question most often asked by students when I have given lectures or accompanied staff rides on D-Day is, where were the aircraft carriers? There does seem to be a puzzle here. By summer 1944, carriers were the central capability of the modern fleet and had repeatedly proved their value in supporting… Read More Absent Friends? British naval aviation and D-Day
KEVIN ROWLANDS Commander Kevin Rowlands is a naval officer who was awarded a PhD in 2015 through the Defence Studies Department. He is the editor of 21st Century Gorshkov, recently published by the US Naval Institute Press. In the following post he argues the origins of Russia’s current maritime strategy can be traced to the… Read More THE RETURN OF GORSHKOV AND THE NEW COLD WAR AT SEA
Professor Andrew M Dorman and Professor Matthew R H Uttley Centre for British Defence and Security Studies As we entered 2017 the Ministry of Defence earmarked 2017 as the ‘year of the Royal Navy (RN)’. In the press release that accompanied the announcement key milestones for 2017 were highlighted, including the new aircraft carrier HMS… Read More 2017 – the Year of the Royal Navy: time to get real?
LOUIS HALEWOOD Louis is a current DPhil student at the University of Oxford. He holds an MA in History from the University of Calgary. Louis is co-organiser of the upcoming ‘Economic Warfare and the Sea’ Conference, to be held at All SoulS College in July 2017. A recording of the talk this post is drawn from is… Read More Sea Power, Alliances, and Diplomacy: British Naval Supremacy in the Great War Era
This is the second 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. By Dr Tim Benbow The Suez… Read More SUEZ SIXTY YEARS ON: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ROYAL NAVY
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