DR GERAINT HUGHES Concepts of grand strategy generally stress the requirement of governments to outline clear strategic goals, and to ensure that all elements of national power are co-ordinated by ministers and senior officials (civil service and military) to achieve them. In recent history, one state achieved the apparent success of devising a ‘total’ strategy… Read More ‘TOTAL NATIONAL STRATEGY’: A CAUTIONARY TALE
Dr. Emmanuel Karagiannis During 2015-2016, ISIS cells and ISIS-inspired lone wolves launched a series of terrorist attacks against European cities. On 13 November 2015, a group of ISIS assailants launched coordinated attacks on civilian targets in central Paris. They killed 132 people and injured 352. It appears that there were three teams of nine gunmen. Three… Read More Were the Attacks in Paris and Brussels an Intelligence Failure?
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 KATE UTTING In the past information, influence or non-kinetic psychological aspects of conflict had a supporting function to the physical, kinetic aspects; today it is seen as central. Militaries have done ‘influence’ for years, but there is a dominant view that in the current information environment all actions, deeds and words are scrutinised in… Read More Palestine 1945-48: the Information Campaign and the Limits of Influence
DR DAVID ROBERTS On 14 December 2015, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince and Defence Minister, Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, called a press conference and announced the formation of a new thirty-four nation-strong Islamic military alliance that would be dedicated to countering the threat of terrorism around the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.… Read More Saudi Arabia and its anti-terror alliance
This is the second 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. Subsequent posts will come out on Wednesdays and will cover topics such as the motivations for joining IS and the… Read More The Political, Religious, and Everyday Allure of Islamic State’s Utopianism
by DR GERAINT HUGHES As a tactic, terrorism is as perennial as warfare itself, but it was during the 1970s that international terrorist groups began to be seen by the Western powers as a global problem. Atrocities such as the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics massacre in September 1972, and… Read More THE WAR ON TERRORISM: FORTY YEARS AGO
Defence-In-Depth 