War Studies

In 2017 Qatar was subjected to a blockade by its neighbours, led by Saudi Arabia, which severely restricted its trading and transport links. Two years on the diplomatic crisis has not been resolved. In this podcast, Dr Andreas Krieg of the Defence Studies Department at King's College London discusses the blockade, in particular the ways that narratives were weaponised by Qatar's rivals to justify...

Date of Recording: 25/04/2019 Description: Speaker: Michael Talbot, University of Greenwich When we think of the Ottoman Empire, we tend to think of them as a terrestrial empire. Yet as well as being ‘sultan of the two lands’, the Ottoman sovereign was also ‘ruler of the two seas’. In part, the relative lack of attention paid to Ottoman imperial discourses over water stems from a notion that, foll...

Date of Publication: 26/04/2019 Description: Across the School of Security Studies at KCL, students are given unique opportunities to apply the knowledge and skills that they learn throughout their courses by participating in research projects, conflict simulations, and even journalism. Students of Dr Peter Busch’s BA module ‘New Wars, New Media, New Journalism’ were tasked with producing 5min pod...

Date of Publication: 13/04/2019 Description: This podcast is part of the War Studies New Voices series which showcases emerging research from our PhD community. Emily Brown researches the ways in which torture and prisoner abuse narratives in American popular culture have helped to conceptualise the practice of judicial torture. Since the attacks on US soil on September 11th, 2001, it has become i...

Date of Publication: 16 March 2019 Description: What is the future of security and development in an uncertain world? On the 7th and 8th of March, students from KCL’s Conflict Security and Development (CSD) MA course in the Dept. of War Studies and students from the International Development Department in the School of Global Affairs held the 2019 student-led CSD titled ‘Building Stability: Securi...

Date of Publication: 2/03/2019 Description: What are Extralegal groups in the context of post-conflict societies? How can trade play a role in state building? And how do we define a ‘good’ state? These are just a few questions we discussed with Dr Christine Cheng, Lecturer in the DWS and author of the recent book, Extralegal groups in post-conflict Liberia: How trade makes the state’. In her lates...

Date of publication: 12/02/2019 Description: Researchers and students of war and global security often look to the past to better understand developments in the present. So, how might the history of Nuclear weapons help us understand today’s security challenges?   The advent of nuclear weapons caused a significant shift in the perceived cost of war between great powers due to the sheer power of nu...

Date of Publication: 02/02/2019 Description: In November 2018 The Marjan-Marsh Prize awarded by the Department of War Studies in partnership with the Marsh Christian Trust was presented to Milan Ruzic, President of the Bird Protection and Study Society of Serbia (BPSSS). This award is given annually to someone who has made an invaluable contribution to an area where conflict and conservation overl...

Date of Publication: 19/01/2019 Description: We are going to kick off 2019 by exploring the development of international criminal law and justice, starting from the year 1919. Following the end of the First World War, the Allied nations of Britain, France and Italy agreed to try the former German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II before an international criminal tribunal, while the US stood largely oppose...

Date of Publication: 07/12/2018 Description: The capabilities and the efficiency displayed by Russia’s military during its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its subsequent air campaign over Syria not only surprised the world but also signalled that Russia was once again a significant military actor. This evidence of an apparent Russian military revival, among other recent events, has increased tens...

Date of Publication: 09/11/2018 Description: The impact of the First World War can be observed throughout history and is even felt today as we commemorate the sacrifices made during this devastating war. In light of the end of the First World War Centenary, Kirk Allen met up with Drs. Aimee Fox and Nick Lloyd from the School of Security Studies' Defence Studies Department to discuss the importance...

Date of Recording: 15/10/2018 Description: Three recently retired top military leaders debate key security issues from North Korean brinkmanship to Cross Strait relations and China's rise as a maritime power. Speakers: - Admiral Chen Yeong-Kang, former Chief of Staff of the Republic of China's Navy and former President of the National Defence University - Admiral Tomohasi Takei, International Fell...

Date of publication: 26/10/2018 Description: Since the year 2000, the UN Security Council has adopted 8 resolutions which make up what is known as the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. These resolutions work to promote gender equality and strengthen women’s rights, protections, and participation in mending conflict-torn societies. The first of these historic UNSC resolutions, 1325, provides a pol...

Date of recording: 24/09/2018 Description: On the 24th of September, the Department of War Studies and the Conflict, Security and Development Research Group welcomed Jeff Colgan, Associate Professor at Brown University, for his talk titled, 'Should the US withdraw from the Middle East.' According to Prof. Colgan, ‘over the past 25 years, US foreign policy outcomes in the Middle East have gone from...

Date of publication: 21/09/2018 Description: On 4-6 Sept, the Connections UK wargaming conference, hosted by King’s College London, once again succeeded in bringing together wargaming users, practitioners and academics "to advance and sustain the art, science and application of wargaming." In light of this event, we are once again going to talk wargaming. Despite how it sounds, Wargaming is not ne...

Date of recording: 13/06/2018 Description: On the 13th of June, the School of Security Studies hosted its annual Understanding Complex Conflicts research conference, which showcased some of the research currently underway in the Departments of War Studies and Defence Studies. As the centenary of the First World War is nearing a close, the first panel of this research conference was dedicated to th...

Event recording from 28/02/2018 Since 2015 NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence has developed a successful and long-lasting partnership with the King's Centre for Strategic Communications(KCSC) at King's College London. Based on this rewarding experience, the KCSC and the NATO StratCom COE have been developing new ways to put their cooperation into practice. The book “Fake News: A Ro...

Here at the Department of War Studies, we are particularly concerned with contemporary and historical security challenges – all kinds of war, terrorism and more. What these security challenges have in common is that at the heart of each is some aspect of conflict. So, it is not surprising that international organisations and governments have invested billions of dollars in funding projects in post...

Event recording from 4/12/2017; introductory remarks by Dr Natasha Kuhrt. Professor Sakwa explores how the tension between Russia and the Atlantic community mirrored a fundamental realignment of the international system from the late 1980s onwards. He provides a new analysis of the end of the Cold War and the subsequent failure to create a comprehensive and inclusive peace order in Europe. The end...

What made the transition of hegemonic power from British to American dominance uniquely cooperative and nonviolent? In this podcast, Dr Kori Schake analyses the so-called “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom. One of her main argument is that the transition of hegemonic power between the United Kingdom and the United States was peaceful primarily because both coun...

In this week’s episode, we are bringing you interviews with Professor Vivienne Jabri and Amanda Faber, founder of the Soldiers and Arts Academy, talking about the interface between arts and academia and how the arts can support war veterans. If you would like to watch the live-streamed video of the Remember Dance performance, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/2AjjVAK. UPCOMING EVENTS AT KING’S C...

In light of the recent attacks in the UK, Dr Shiraz Maher and Dr Nina Musgrave comment on the issues of radicalisation and counterterrorism. Dr Maher is a lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and Deputy Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. Dr Nina Musgrave acts as Assistant Director at the Centre for Defence Stud...

Event recording from 6th of June 2017 Inaugural Annual Lecture with Guest Speaker Professor Joseph Nye, with introduction by Dr Neville Bolt, Director of the King's Centre for Strategic Communications. Joseph S. Nye Jr., University Distinguished Service Professor, and former Dean of the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Event recording from 19th of May 2017 Dr Patricia M Lewis is the Research Director, International Security at Chatham House. Her former posts include Deputy Director and Scientist-in-Residence at the Center for Non-proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies; Director of UNIDIR; and Director of VERTIC in London. Dr Lewis served on the 2004-6 WMD Commission chaired by D...

Event recording from 18th of May 2017 Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman has been Professor of War Studies at King's College London since 1982, and Vice-Principal since 2003. He was educated at Whitley Bay Grammar School and the Universities of Manchester, York and Oxford. Before joining King's he held research appointments at Nuffield College Oxford, IISS and the Royal Institute of International Aff...