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| 1 |
ID:
144180
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| Summary/Abstract |
Significant new investment in defence and security announced in the 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review has sent positive signals about the future of the UK’s role in the world. However, argues Malcolm Chalmers, further reform and flexibility will be needed if the UK is to remain an important security player in the international arena.
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| 2 |
ID:
144184
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since mid-2013 AMISOM has undergone a series of strategic reviews aimed at strengthening the mission, and since early 2014 it has conducted four major operations aimed at taking the fight to Al-Shabaab. Although these operations have enjoyed some successes, AMISOM continued to confront four major challenges that badly hindered its ability to achieve its mandated tasks. Paul D Williams explores these challenges – both internal and external to AMISOM – and argues that AMISOM cannot be expected to implement a successful exit strategy unless these issues are addressed.
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| 3 |
ID:
144188
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| Summary/Abstract |
The toppling of the statue of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's central square, the explosion of the 1,500-year-old stone Buddhas in a remote valley in central Afghanistan, and the recent demolition of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, Syria. Such striking visual images symbolise the power of the victor laying waste to the culture of the vanquished; such suppression of art and culture is often one of the first acts of an insurgent or invading army.
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| 4 |
ID:
144186
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| Summary/Abstract |
The UK appears to be making a cautious return to international policing after a decade of following an approach best described as ‘muddling through’. Recent reforms and new co-ordinating structures seek to improve coherence and promote the British model of policing abroad. These are timely initiatives as international policing is also under review at the UN. Yet what is missing – argue Stephanie Blair and Maureen Brown – is a clear, pragmatic, realistic and holistic UK government strategy for international policing and law enforcement that would provide a sense of purpose, ambition and direction, and deliver coherence across UK domestic and international security objectives.
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| 5 |
ID:
144182
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| Summary/Abstract |
Faced with the prospect of its adversaries mitigating its long-held superiority in sophisticated weapons systems, the US announced in 2014 that it was about to embark on a ‘third offset strategy’ in order to maintain its military-technology edge. In its quest to harness new technologies and operational concepts however, the third offset strategy is likely to raise important questions for Europe and NATO. Daniel Fiott addresses some of the major issues at hand related to alliance politics in NATO and some of the potential defence-industrial effects.
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| 6 |
ID:
144185
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| Summary/Abstract |
From uncertain beginnings, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has grown, over almost ten years, into the regional organisation's largest peace-support operation. Bolstered by a multilayered mission architecture through which the UN and bilateral donors provide financial, logistical and technical support, it has achieved important gains against the jihadi Islamist organisation Al-Shabaab. The apparent viability of these partnerships has seen AMISOM hailed as a successful model of collaboration between regional and international structures. Peter Albrecht and Cathy Haenlein examine a less-studied dimension of this model, namely the intersection of these arrangements with the structural fragmentation that has increasingly come to define the mission.
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| 7 |
ID:
144187
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| Summary/Abstract |
The recent history of the Middle East is marked by military influence (both direct and indirect) over governance. Lebanon, however, has followed a different trajectory: although it was ruled by army commander General Fuad Shihab between 1958 and 1970, this represented a mediated solution to civil unrest. Here, Eduardo W Aboultaif analyses how the army has helped to preserve stability during periods of crisis, in the 1950s and 2000s, by remaining neutral towards those confessional groups struggling for power – the hallmark of what became known as Shihabism. When it failed to do so in 1975, Aboultaif argues, the armed forces fractured along religious faultlines and the country descended into a vicious, protracted conflict.
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| 8 |
ID:
144183
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| Summary/Abstract |
The value of the university armed service units to the UK armed forces is not often subject to scrutiny. Drawing on a research study of the units and their importance to a number of different constituencies, Rachel Woodward, K Neil Jenkings and Alison J Williams assess both the tangible and intangible benefits to the military’s relationship with civil society.
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| 9 |
ID:
144181
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| Summary/Abstract |
As the global momentum towards the acceptance of women in ground close combat (GCC) continues to grow, the US decided in December 2015 to open all GCC roles to women without exception – a controversial and, some say, politically motivated decision. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is under political pressure to accept women in GCC, but has indicated it will give proper consideration to the Big Data generated by the numerically more significant US experience. In this article, Fitriani, Randolf G S Cooper and Ron Matthews argue that the MoD’s quest for more data is part of a sincere effort to place the debate squarely within the realm of investigative research rather than gender theory. They contextualise the MoD’s decision while establishing a framework to demonstrate that denying GCC roles to British women would be seen as running counter to international trends.
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