Week: Academic Perspectives

Academic Perspectives

Why the Military is Divided over Britain’s Nuclear Deterrent

Protest against the Trident nuclear program. Image: thealmightyprophetgitboy/Flickr

This article was originally published by The Conversation on 6 July 2015.

One thing was very striking at the recent Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Land Warfare Conference, where current British Army personnel including top brass and Ministry of Defence officials were heavily present. The issue of replacing Trident, the UK’s sea-based nuclear deterrent, was not discussed at all.

This conference was taking place a few months ahead of Conservative plans to renew the deterrent like for like. This was guaranteed by the party’s victory at the general election in May, and has since been reaffirmed by Michael Fallon, the defence secretary.

Yet when it comes to Trident, the British military are “split on this issue as never before”. That was the conclusion of a report by the Nuclear Education Trust and Nuclear Information Service that was published at the end of June. So why the difference in views?

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Why Would the US Spy on its Allies? Because Everyone Does

People in Berlin protesting the NSA surveillance program. Image: Digitale Gesellschaft/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by The Conversation on 24 June, 2015.

The spotlight must be an uncomfortable position for intelligence organisations that would far prefer to remain in the shadows. But since Edward Snowden fled the United States in the summer of 2013, there has been an almost constant drip-feed of stories concerning the operations of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Yet the most recent scoop – originating from Wikileaks – has shown that we would do well to consider these kinds of “revelations” with a little greater care.

At its heart, the claim that the NSA spied on French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Holland, effectively boils down to: “country A spied on country B”. As a piece of news, this surely sits alongside the Pope’s status as a Catholic. What else would we expect a national intelligence gathering agency to do? The fundamental purpose of such organisations is to seek out national advantage, in whatever field – whether it is political, economic, military, or otherwise.

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Federica Mogherini’s First Seven Months in Office: a Balancing Act Between Supranational and Intergovernmental Decision-Making

Federica Mogherini meeting with John Kerry at the headquarters of the E.U. External Action Service in Brussels, Belgium. Image: US Department of State/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by LSE EUROPP, a blog hosted by the London School of Economics, on 24 June, 2015.

At the start of her term as the EU’s High Representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini moved her office to the Berlaymont building, home of the European Commission. This move was part of her proposed strategy of working more closely with the European Parliament and the Commission and as such was an indication that the new EU foreign policy chief was not going to be catering simply to the Member States.

Since the start of her term she has been faced with growing instability both inside and outside Europe, which demand both short-term crisis responses and long-term strategic revisions. To what extent has Mogherini’s strategy of working more closely with the EU institutions in formulating EU foreign policy been prevalent in what she has done so far as the EU’s High Representative?

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South America’s Moves to Liberalise Irregular Migration are in Stark Contrast to the Policies of Europe

Image: steinchen/Pixabay

This article was originally published by USAPP, a blog on American politics and policy run by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Political scientists have long identified a paradox in the immigration policies of wealthy Western countries. Although governments typically condemn irregular migration, assuring their electorates that they are working hard to stem any ‘illegal flows’, they often tolerate the entry and residence of substantial numbers of irregular migrants due to structural labour market demands.

In South America, on the other hand, over the course of the past 15 years many governments have turned away from the previously often openly racist ‘criminalization’ of irregular immigrants and adopted surprisingly liberal discourses of universally welcoming all immigrants, irrespective of their origin and migratory status. Instead of distinguishing between desired ‘legal’ and undesired ‘illegal’ immigrants, South American politicians stress non-discrimination, the universality of migrants’ human rights irrespective of their status.

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Clausewitz in Orbit: Spacepower Theory and Strategic Education

Artistic depiction of an anti-satellite weapon of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Image: Wikimedia

This article was originally published by Defence-In-Depth on June 10, 2015.

The politics of war and peace in space is an overlooked field. Space is a quiet and lonely place in war studies – despite space systems performing critical infrastructure roles in war, peace, politics, economics, and nuclear stability. In the mid-1990s John Sheldon and Colin Gray bemoaned the fact that there is no ‘Mahan for space.’ Neither writer apparently considered the possibility that they had answered their own plea, or in other words, that there is a Mahan for space: it’s Alfred Thayer Mahan. The 19th century navalist is one of a constellation of strategic theorists (such as Clausewitz, Castex, Corbett, to name the most prominent) whose work I am applying to create a spacepower theory intended to inform the diverse strategic problems conflict in this new medium might pose.

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