There's a bit of a debate currently about whether the Coalition in Afghanistan should continue to invest in counter-narcotics work in the country. The problem...
Charlie Edwards
Charlie Edwards is Director of National Security and Resilience Studies at the Royal United Services Institute. Prior to RUSI he was a Research Leader at the RAND Corporation focusing on Defence and Security where he conducted research and analysis on a broad range of subject areas including: the evaluation and implementation of counter-violent extremism programmes in Europe and Africa, UK cyber strategy, European emergency management, and the role of the internet in the process of radicalisation. He has undertaken fieldwork in Iraq, Somalia, and the wider Horn of Africa region.
#NSA: Issues for Congress 16th January 2001
From a Congressional Research Service Report for Congress published pre 9/11. NSA: Issues for Congress: by Richard A. Best, Jr On reaching that watershed...
Introducing the new Conflict, Stability and Security Fund
There's some interesting stuff in the latest Spending Round, including the new Conflict, Stability and Security Fund which looks rather interesting (not least...
No hero
From today’s FT: Having violated his secrecy contracts, Mr Snowden has broken serious laws and should face the music. What he disclosed to The Guardian and...
The Home Secretary’s foreign policy
Earlier this year the British Home Secretary made an unfamiliar journey to Afghanistan. Theresa May’s visit to Kabul focused on the future of terrorism and...
Monday’s* Map: A String of Chinese Pearls
From The Economist: "China’s port strategy is mainly motivated by commercial impulses. It is natural that a country of its clout has a global shipping and...
Is Britain the organised crime capital of Europe?
Last summer Philip Stephens, the FT's chief political commentator, wrote the following The High Court is witnessing an expensive legal battle between Oleg...
Generation Change
Over on his Middle East Blog , Marc Lynch asks whether the Iraq war will change how scholars study the Middle East. It's a question he has been pondering for...
Global Leaders on Facebook
Spotted in The Atlantic h/t Ryan G. And others are joining in too... see RFE's This Week on Facebook
Female force keeps Diyala secure in Iraq
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4dEyhSjTZ8[/youtube]
The Monday Map
How to dismantle a nuclear bomb
Some knowledge of physics is, apparently, essential... more here
Britain’s place in the world? Drifting… obviously
Yesterday William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, gave a speech in London setting out what British foreign policy might look like under a Conservative...
Polls apart
Interesting. 55 per cent of Chatham House members (and, one assumes, visitors to the website) believe the conflict in Afghanistan will become 'another Vietnam'.
Great Expectations
Andrew Mitchell, Shadow International Development Secretary on BBC News earlier : We will have a national security council under a Conservative government...
International Alert DG Dan Smith ‘connecting the dots’
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN-VeeE-FVc[/youtube]
Afghanistan: What the leaders think
184 service personnel have died in Afghanistan since 2001. The tragic deaths of eight men who died last week in a single 24-hour period has brought the...
The green shoots of reform?
Following on from Alex's post on DFID's new white paper , the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced that it will be kicking off a root and branch review of...
Two trade scenarios from the UK Government’s horizon scanning centre
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x4yMn44aJc[/youtube]
Former CIA officer – WTF?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HtSb7kwTFE[/youtube]
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Let’s make climate a culture war!
If the politics of climate change end up polarised, is that so bad? No – it’s disastrous. Or so I’ve long thought. Look at the US – where climate is even more polarised than abortion. Result: decades of flip flopping. Ambition under Clinton; reversal...
Big Elephants and Small Islands: getting beyond the New Aid Orthodoxy
Official development assistance (ODA) – or aid – is a small but conspicuous pillar of the international order, and its frailties are being exposed by COVID as surely as those of the other foundations of this order. The assumptions underpinning aid and its management...
Uncertainty and Humanitarian Action: What Donald Rumsfeld can teach us
Since its onset, one striking feature of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has been the narrative power of its novelty. This global narrative depicts COVID-19 pushing humanity towards a ‘historical divide’ of BC and AC (before and after COVID-19), where unknown,...