DR TRACEY GERMAN On December 31st 2015, while most of the world was focused on plans to welcome in the new year, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled an updated National Security Strategy (NSS). While it builds on some long-running themes in Russia’s foreign and security policy, it also makes it clear that Moscow has a… Read More In with the Old: Russia’s New National Security Strategy
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…Russia: coming in from the cold?
ROBERT SEELY Russia’s intervention in the morass of Syria’s civil war was as dramatic as it was sudden. To date, much of the Western punditry has been pondering the question, what is Russia’s aim? Is it to attack IS, support Assad or challenge the West? Is it sending a message to global audiences of Russia’s… Read More Russian Messaging and Intention in Syria: Perception Through Strategic Culture?
DR DAVID B ROBERTS An outline of a modus vivendi with Russia is required if there is to be any progress in the fight against Da’esh. Otherwise, the vaunted 70,000 strong ‘moderate’ forces will continue to be attacked by Russia. Indeed, their bombing campaign to date has been almost exclusively focused on forces other than… Read More The UK Decision on Syria: The Only Solution Is a Political Solution
DR TRACEY GERMAN The news that the British parliament had sanctioned airstrikes against IS in Syria, and that the first missions had taken place, has been widely reported in Russia. The move is likely to be seen as vindication for Russia’s ongoing operation there: with the French launching airstrikes against Syria at the end of… Read More The UK Decision on Syria: The View From Russia
PROFESSOR WYN BOWEN The National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) 2015 has brought deterrence back to centre stage for the United Kingdom more than at any other time since the end of the Cold War. The primary context for this in SDSR 2015 is the resurgence of state based threats. This… Read More SDSR and the Return of Deterrence
ROBERT SEELY Over 18 months into Russia’s not-so-very-proxy, proxy war in Ukraine, there remains a thriving and fascinating debate over the tools of conflict that Russia uses, how one describes those tools and where Russia’s next ‘target’ may be. I was asked to respond to Rod Thornton’s recent blog on Russia. In his excellent piece,… Read More RUSSIA HYBRID WAR – A RESPONSE
DR ROD THORNTON This is a reduced version of an article by the same author in the Aug-Sept edition of the Royal United Services Institute Journal, entitled, ‘The Changing Nature of Modern Warfare: Responding to Russian Information Warfare’. The way in which Russia seized Crimea and created chaos in eastern Ukraine in 2014 brought to world attention… Read More RUSSIAN HYBRID WARFARE
by Dr ROD THORNTON There has been much sabre-rattling by Moscow recently. Russian military activity has increased markedly since the Maidan events in Ukraine in early 2014. Russian troops initially massed on Ukraine’s borders in what was ostensibly a scheduled military exercise, but which was also clearly a means of applying psychological pressure on Kiev.… Read More ‘The Russians are coming!’ Well, not just yet…
This is the fourth 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 the implications of the crisis in Ukraine for EU-Russian relations. Later posts will explore implications for conventional… Read More From Brussels with love? The European Union in conflict with Russia
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