Changing Character of War

Professor Anthony King gives a talk for the Changing Character of War seminar series. Command has long been a major concern for military historians and security studies scholars. Focusing on the divisional headquarters and specifically on staff procedure, the 'decision point', this paper analyses the transformation of command in the 21st century. It claims that in contrast to the 20th century, when forces institutionalised a relatively individualised system of command, command in the 21st century has become a highly professionalised and collectivise practice. Specifically, through devices like the Decision Point, staff play an increasingly important role in structuring and directing the decision-making process.

Professor Anthony King is Professor in War Studies at the University of Warwick. He specialises in the study of the war and the armed forces and is particularly interested in the question of small unit cohesion. His most recent publications include The Combat Soldier: Infantry Tactics and Cohesion in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries (Oxford, 2013) and (ed.) Frontline: Combat and Cohesion in the Twenty-first Century (Oxford, 2015).

Dr Richard Connolly gives a talk for the Changing Character of War seminar series. After Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014, Western powers and their allies responded by imposing sanctions on key sectors of the Russian economy. Richard Connolly, author of a forthcoming book on the subject, will discuss the impact of sanctions on targeted sectors, and how the response by policy-makers has shaped the development of political economy in Russia since 2014. Based on his findings, he will also consider how new US sanctions are likely to affect the Russian economy and how the Russian policy elite is likely to respond.

Dr Richard Connolly is director of the Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies at the University Birmingham and Senior Lecturer in political economy. His research and teaching are principally concerned with the political economy of Russia and Eurasia.

'Limited War' is one of the terms making a frequent appearance in the strategic studies, international relations, and military history realms over the last 70 years. What does 'Limited War' mean? When do we know we are in one? What unique problems arise when waging one? What are the problems with ending them? And what should states do to secure a lasting peace? Distinguished Vienna Diplomatic Academy Fulbright Professor Donald Stoker discusses these issues and others by drawing upon what he has learned researching the subject for his forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press.

Donald Stoker, PhD, was Professor of Strategy and Policy for the US Naval War College’s Monterey Program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, from 1999 until 2017. The author or editor of eight books, his Carl von Clausewitz: His Life and Work (Oxford University Press, 2014), is on the British Army professional reading list. His The Grand Design: Strategy and the US Civil War, 1861-1865 (Oxford University Press, 2010), won the prestigious Fletcher Pratt award, was a Main Selection of the History Book Club, and is on the US Army Chief of Staff’s reading list. In 2016, he was a Fellow of the Changing Character of War Programme at the University of Oxford’s Pembroke College. He is currently writing a book on limited war for Cambridge University Press and is the Fulbright Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, Austria.

This event was part-sponsored by the US-UK Fulbright Commission

This seminar will not only offer a core foundation in the concept of deterrence, from a practitioner's perspective, but explore its utility and application to present day conflict scenarios in Europe, in particular the case of Russia and NATO. In the United States national security and policy discourse has notably shifted away from low intensity conflict and back to the threat from peer and near-peer competitors. With great power competition and confrontation back at the center of policy discussions, there is a revived interest in the subject of conventional and nuclear deterrence, along with managing alliance politics. While interest in the subject of deterrence and compellence has risen sharply, after decades of counter insurgency and stability operations against adversaries with no escalation dynamics, knowledge of the subject is at an all time institutional low in modern day military establishments.

Mr. Michael Kofman is a Senior Research Scientist at CNA Corporation and a Fellow at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C. Mr. Kofman directs the Russia Studies Program at CNA, where he specializes in the Russian armed forces and security issues in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Kofman's other affiliations include a fellowship at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and as a Senior Editor on War on the Rocks.

Mary Kaldor discussing her pioneering work on the concept of new wars and global civil society. Her work on the practical implementation of human security has directly influenced European and national politics. Mary Kaldor is Professor of Global Governance, Director of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science and CEO of the Department for International Development (DFID) funded Conflict Research Programme. Her books include; The Baroque Arsenal, New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Her most recent book is International Law and New Wars co-authored with Christine Chinkin. She was a founder and co-chair of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, a member of the International Independent Commission on Kosovo and convenor of the Human Security Study Group, which reported to Javier Solana and now to Federica Mogherini.

The focus of this presentation is on post-ISIS Syria and Iraq, Iranian ascendancy in the region, and the reaction of the US, UK and their allies in the region. It also considers prospects for Saudi Arabian reform and leadership of the Arab world. Jonathan Paris is a London-based analyst with interests in counter-radicalization, international security and global trends in a wide range of regions including South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, China and Europe. He was a Middle East Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York from 1995-2000. Since moving to London in June 2001, he has prepared studies for the US government on the future of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Muslims in Europe, China, and China in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is the author of several articles and two monographs, Prospects for Pakistan and Prospects for Iran. Mr. Paris is a graduate of Yale University (BA in Comparative Political and Economic Systems) and Stanford Law School. He is a native of Cleveland, Ohio.

This seminar is concerned with the broad issues raised by the UN’s long-running mission in the DRC and what it tells us about the deeper challenges facing the UN as it continues to grapple with civil war and protection crises in different parts of Africa. In November 2012, the city of Goma in eastern Congo, whose population had recently swollen to nearly 1 million following the influx of refugees fleeing fighting and mass atrocities in neighbouring territory, fell to a Rwanda-backed armed group, the Mouvement du 23 mars (M-23). Some 1,500 UN peacekeepers were based in the city when it was overrun. The fall of Goma, more than a decade after the first arrival of blue helmets in the DRC and eerily reminiscent of earlier protection crises facing the organisation, cruelly exposed the bankruptcy of UN efforts to protect civilians and bring stability to the country. Responding to what was seen as humiliating ‘moment of truth’, the Security Council decided, in March 2013, to strengthen the UN mission with the creation of a Force Intervention Brigade (FIB), entrusting it with a mandate “to carry out targeted offensive operations … in a robust, highly mobile and versatile manner”. The Council insisted that such operations would, in principle, be directed against all armed groups in eastern DRC. The establishment of the FIB was described by the then Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, as a “milestone” in the evolution of UN peacekeeping. That view was widely shared and, in many quarters, warmly welcomed as evidence of a wholly different approach to the use of force and the protection of civilians by UN forces operating in conditions of civil war.

The presentation examines the actual record of the FIB and draws wider lessons from its experience. It is concerned, in particular, with the broader issues raised by the UN’s long-running mission in the DRC: to wit, what it tells us about the political economy of conflict in the DRC and, more generally, the dynamics of contemporary civil wars; about the inherent challenges of third-party intervention and the use of force in civil-war like situations; and, finally, about the deeper challenges facing the UN as it continues to grapple with civil war and protection crises in different parts of Africa.

Mats Berdal is Professor of Security and Development at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.

In this provocative seminar, Dr Sean McFate, author, novelist and expert in foreign policy and national security strategy, looks at the neglected area of the economics of war.

Soft war tactics, including cyber-warfare and economic sanctions, propaganda and non-violent resistance are of increasing importance but largely unexplored in just war theory. This talk illuminates this neglected aspect of international conflict. Just war theory focuses primarily on bodily harm, such as killing, maiming, and torture, while other harms are often largely overlooked. At the same time, contemporary international conflicts increasingly involve the use of unarmed tactics, employing 'softer' alternatives or supplements to kinetic power that have not been sufficiently addressed by the ethics of war or international law. Soft war tactics include cyber-warfare and economic sanctions, media warfare, and propaganda, as well as non-violent resistance as it plays out in civil disobedience, boycotts, and 'lawfare.' While the just war tradition has much to say about 'hard' war - bullets, bombs, and bayonets - it is virtually silent on the subject of 'soft' war. This talk illuminates this neglected aspect of international conflict.

Michael L. Gross is Professor of Political Science and Head of the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa, Israel. He has published widely in medical ethics, military ethics military medical ethics and related questions of medicine and national security.

Is de-radicalisation of former terrorists helpful or even possible? This presentation explores the processes involved in leaving social movements or disengaging from terrorist activities. This presentation explores the processes involved in leaving social movements or disengaging from terrorist activities by providing an analysis of transformation away from politically motivated violence towards a civilian non-military role as part of the wider Northern Irish peace process amongst Loyalist and Republican paramilitary groups. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed to gain an understanding of participant accounts of leaving violence behind and disengaging from terrorism. Analysis of the interview transcripts revealed the interplay of individual, organization and societal level processes in incentivizing and obstructing disengagement from politically motivated violence. The findings resonate with other case studies exploring the processes involved in disengagement from political violence among other terror groupings across the globe. The results are discussed in relation to a number of topics, including the implementation DDR in post-conflict societies, the dynamic role of collective identity in the engagement in and disengagement from politically motivated violence, the role of prison in shaping disengagement from politically motivated violence and whether the de-radicalization of former combatants is helpful or indeed possible.

Neil Ferguson is Professor of Political Psychology at Liverpool Hope University and a Visiting Research Fellow to the Changing Character of War Programme at Pembroke College, Oxford.