Devil’s Advocation of the Day

by Jack McDonald 20 April 2012

Earlier this year I had a lively discussion with a BA student regarding the video of marines urinating over the dead bodies of their dead opponents. The argument boiled down to the questions of whether we need to understand their mindset prior to judging their actions, or whether we need or should even attempt to [...]

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The Tyranny of Cousins and the Death of Difference: Breivik, NeoTribalism, and The New Totalitarianism

by The Faceless Bureaucrat 20 April 2012

The Web was supposed to kill distance.  I think it kills difference.  And that is far more significant. In reading the comment left by Syrynx regarding Dave Betz’s thought-provoking piece, I started thinking about the order of action proposed by Reinbold: Find your tribe. Decide what you believe. Rally them around you. Like Syrynx, I found that [...]

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Babies and Insurgencies: Refining the COIN’dinista Zeitgeist*

by Jill Sargent Russell 19 April 2012

[*I cannot take credit for the phrase, but I think it is a brilliant display of the agility for which the English language is famous. James Nicoll’s quote sums up this attribute best: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We [...]

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Europe’s big problem is that Breivik is not the alpha or omega of terrorism but squarely in the middle of a readily apparent trend to the worse

by David Betz 18 April 2012

In Norway the trial of Anders Breivik who killed 77 people last summer has begun. Over the last couple of days he has been giving testimony in his defence arguing that he was acting for the good with a ‘preventive attack against state traitors‘ who themselves were guilty of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Nordic [...]

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Exhumed and abused: the sorry fate of the Malayan Emergency

by David Ucko 18 April 2012

The Malayan Emergency is back in the news – again. And once again, bloggers and pundits are invoking this British campaign from the 1950s to say something new about the wars of today. If one were to anthropomorphize the campaign, one would have to feel sorry for the Malayan Emergency: buried only to be repeatedly exhumed [...]

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Generalissimo Grice versus the Mouse Insurgents

by Francis Grice 18 April 2012

A wise man once said ‘Remember it’s just a blog. Have fun’. In the light of these sage words, I give you the parody saga of Generalissimo Grice versus the Mouse Insurgents. My wife and I recently moved into a new territory (rented a new flat). Like many occupying powers, we decided to take over the [...]

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Deterrence Beyond the State

by Thomas Rid 18 April 2012

Contemporary Security Policy has a special issue out on ‘the future of deterrence,’ masterfully put together by our colleague John Stone, who wrote about conventional deterrence. The entire issue is somewhat King’s-dominated, with additional contributions by Tim Stevens on deterrence in cyberspace, John Gearson on deterring terrorism, and Olivier Schmitt, unrelated to the special issue’s [...]

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Oops, Minister

by Jack McDonald 18 April 2012

To round up the morning’s press revelations of FCO document destruction chronicling the worst bits of Malaya, Kenya and the Diego Garcia thingamyjig, let’s cast our eyes back to Yes, Minister: Bernard: Shall I file it? Hacker: Shall you file it? Shred it! Bernard: Shred it? Hacker: No one must ever be able to find [...]

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Missilliness: What Would Reagan Do?

by Heather Williams 17 April 2012

Kim Jong Un just makes it too easy: a baby-faced heir following in the footsteps of his father by acting like a petulant child in the geopolitical sandbox. North Korea’s recent missile activity only strengthens the impression that it is amateur hour in Pyongyang. Rather than counting down to the next nuclear test, we should [...]

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Competing?

by Rob Dover 16 April 2012

Does the UK have a competitive stance? Do we know who our competitors are? Do we know how to disaggregate the interests of – for example – investors from ‘national interest’? Is it conceptually possible to do so? I was reminded of the seminal European studies thesis by the late and great Alan Milward (the [...]

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