Iran and the International Community: In the Shadow of Iraq
The international community is struggling to contain the regional and international ramifications of the stand-off with Iran over its nuclear programme.
Extremist Islam and Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq
Recent conflicts have highlighted how religion and identity are central to security issues. The question remains as to what extent individual conflict zones are facets of a wider, transnational war which pits the ‘West’ against al Qaeda?
Understanding the Human Terrain in Warfare: A Clash of Moralities
Proof of concept programs are, by their very nature, cutting edge experiments funded to enhance the efficiency and morality of the warfare the U.S. Army is charged with conducting. It is unreasonable to assume that these programs will come out of the box perfect.
From Absence to Absence: The Visual Culture of The ‘War on Terror’
Throughout the last decade, news photography has re-presented the ‘war on terror’, in the form of military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, in ways consistent with military strategy. Much photojournalism exists within and reproduces an ‘eternal present’, obscuring the frames that narrow its perspective, rendering casualties and context as absent.
Iran Continues to Outmaneuver the United States in Iraq
Iran has outmaneuvered the United States in Iraq at every turn. It has done this through its tremendous foresight as to the direction Iraq was heading at different moments, as well as its keen understanding of its American adversary. These past successes have, in turn, given Iran the upper-hand vis-à-vis the United States as Washington and Tehran battle to define the future of Iraq.
Tortured Ideas: a response to Harvey Sapolsky
IR – SO, WHO IS IT FOR? It is often said that the study of International Relations is either for the world’s people or for national politics. This cliché usefully explains the chasm between Harvey Sapolsky and myself. And anyone reading his Blogs and my own will recognise that we […]
PROFESSOR VALE’S IMPORTANT LESSON
Professor Peter Vale’s provocative piece on “The Responsibility of IR Scholars” deserves comment which I suspect many e-IR readers will provide. Let me offer mine in this blog. I must say that I would hardly claim to be an IR Scholar as I was trained in political economy and government […]
The Poisoned Chalice of Foreign Imposed Regime Change
When the USA overthrew the Taliban in 2001 and Saddam Hussein in 2003, many hoped that America could repeat its great foreign policy successes of neutralizing Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan following World War II. Overthrowing the former permanently moved extraordinarily grave threats to international stability.
George W. Bush: DECISION POINTS
Hauntingly, it seems that the Bush years will never go away. Combined, the wars have already cost a trillion dollars and both meters continue to run. Bush created new entitlements at home and abroad, and then cut the taxes needed to support them. On his watch the economy went into a lingering, deep recession and the government’s budget shifted from substantial surpluses to deficits that soar beyond likely redemption
Inside the Anglo-Saxon War Machine
Barack Obama and Gordon Brown were both reluctant warriors, boxed in by their respective military forces. Afghanistan was a war they both inherited, and at first underestimated, defining their position on it more by contrast to Iraq than on its merits. They realised soon enough that it was going badly. Casualties and costs were rising, the progress on development was stalling since 2001 and being overtaken by corruption, and public support at home was ebbing away
