War Studies

As Shamima Begum appeals the removal of her British citizenship, the question of whether or not she is a ‘victim’ has flooded the press. Was Begum trafficked? Was she groomed? Or did she in fact know exactly what she was doing when she set off to Syria? In this episode of the ‘Breaking Cycles of Conflict’ mini-series, Dr Gina Vale talks about her research into the role of women in IS. She explains how some moved from domestic roles to frontline combat, why the notion of ‘jihadi brides’ can be reductive, and the challenges and risks of reintegrating IS-affiliated women into society. This research is being undertaken as part of a UK aid funded project called XCEPT, which aims to understand the drivers of violent and peaceful behaviour in conflict-affected populations – and to find solutions that support peace. Find out more about XCEPT at xcept-research.org N.B. Since this episode was recorded, Dr Gina Vale has left the XCEPT project and King’s College London. She continues to work on these issues in her current position as Lecturer of Criminology at the University of Southampton.

Trauma interventions in fragile areas can help to break cycles of conflict, because we know that exposure to violence causes trauma, but that trauma can also cause violence. But these interventions are often delivered for only a narrow group of people deemed to be ‘worthy’ of them. In reality, the distinction between victim and perpetrator in conflict-affected populations isn’t quite so clear cut. In this episode of the ‘Breaking Cycles of Conflict’ mini-series, Dr Gina Vale interviews Dr Alison Brettle about her research into trauma interventions. Dr Brettle explains what programmes work best in fragile and conflict-affected areas and why the international donor and policy communities need to broaden their conceptualisation of who should be allowed to participate in interventions. This research is being undertaken as part of a UK aid funded project called XCEPT, which aims to understand the drivers of violent and peaceful behaviour in conflict-affected populations – and to find solutions that support peace. Find out more about XCEPT at xcept-research.org

Are prisons really hotbeds of terrorism? Will the ‘ordinary’ young man entering prison be so influenced by his cell mate that he leaves a terrorist? Or can a spell in these ‘incubators of extremism’ actually have the opposite effect? In the second instalment of this mini-series, we join Dr Craig Larkin and Dr Rajan Basra fresh off the plane from Beirut to talk about their fieldwork out in Lebanon interviewing ex-Islamist prisoners and their families. Interviewed by Dr Nafees Hamid, the pair discuss how historic conflicts, social inequalities, and personal traumas can all lead prisoners to pursue a path towards, or away from, extremism. This research is being undertaken as part of a UK aid funded project called XCEPT, which aims to understand the drivers of violent and peaceful behaviour in conflict-affected populations – and to find solutions that support peace. Find out more about XCEPT at xcept-research.org

What drives one person to violence and another to peace? How does experience of trauma lead to radicalisation? Are there interventions that can help deflect people from trajectories of extremism? These are some of the questions that researchers at the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) programme at King’s College London are trying to answer. In this episode Dr Nafees Hamid and Dr Fiona McEwen introduce the work being done as part of the XCEPT programme at King’s College London and give us a glimpse of what’s to come. Funded by UK aid, XCEPT aims to understand the drivers of violent and peaceful behaviour, and to propose interventions and policies that can bring about peace. Find out more about XCEPT at xcept-research.org

The HMS Derwent arrived in Freetown harbour, Sierra Leone in March 1808, escorting two captured American ships carrying 167 enslaved people. What made them unusual was that their journey was interrupted — they were not simply captives, but “recaptives.” No longer bound for the Americas, these “liberated Africans” were instead bound to the British Empire: one of the first groups of survivors of the Atlantic slave trade to be brought to a British colony under the newly operational Slave Trade Abolition Act of 1807. But what happened to these former slaves as they fell under the “protection” of the British Government? The freedom into which they had been delivered—as they would learn—was not intended to mean anything more than freedom from being legally owned as chattel. Former slaves were expected to repay the debt of their salvation. In this special Black History Month episode of the War Studies Podcast, Dr Maeve Ryan joins us to discuss her new book, which seeks to deepen our understanding of the conceptual origins and implications of British policies to manage and control liberated slaves, and its consequences for British foreign policy and the rest of the world throughout the 19th century. She discusses the series of imperial experiments set up to resettle and integrate former slaves, with extremely variable and frequently tragic results. She examines how liberated slaves were argued over as resources, as labour units to be distributed or as objects of paternalistic concern and contempt, and as instruments in diplomatic confrontations. She also shares how throughout, the liberated people found ways to disrupt and resist refusing to be a blank canvas onto which imperialist goals, ambitions, and fantasies could be imprinted. As such, they presented successive governments and generations of abolitionists with a complex series of moral, political, ideological, and practical challenges. Find out more about Dr Maeve Ryan’s new book: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300251395/humanitarian-governance-and-the-british-antislavery-world-system/ Find out more about the Centre for Grand Strategy Maeve co-directs in the Department of War Studies: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/kcl-centre-for-grand-strategy

Over the winter of 2019 in India, 519 riots took place causing mass casualties and deaths. This in part was a reaction to the introduction of the Citizenship Amendments Act (CAA), government legislation that enabled non-Muslim immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh to become Indian citizens. The exclusion of Muslims was seen by many as a fundamental challenge to principles of secularism enshrined in the Indian Constitution, resulting in violent altercations between protestors, the police and Hindu nationalists. Yet, this was not the only cause. Far removed from CAA agitations, political violence in a variety of forms was waged across India and their neighbouring countries. 75 years since the Partition of the India, we speak to Dr Adnan Naseemullah, Reader in International Politics in the Department of War Studies, to explore the roots of political violence across India, Pakistan and Bangledesh. Discussing his new book, ‘Patchwork States: The Historical Roots of Subnational Conflict and Competition in South Asia’, he argues that the enduring differences in state capacity and state-society relations, built during the colonial period, continue to shape patterns of political violence across the Indian subcontinent. In bridging the gap between the past and present, he asks us to think critically about the legacy of colonial rule and the state in modern-day conflicts, while keeping in mind that history is not determinative.

The Western Front, that cauldron of war, a bubbling, fermenting experiment in killing that changed the world. The Western Front would become synonymous with stalemate and mass slaughter, with indecisive, attritional struggles, amid a tortured landscape of barbed wire and mud. All the commanders of the First World War, whether leading the British, French or German, struggled in this maelstrom. Yet, for years the 'Generals' have been characterised as ‘donkeys’ or ‘butchers’: unfeeling military aristocrats fighting the wrong kind of war, unable to adapt or change to the new realities unfolding on the battlefield. In this episode, Professor of Modern Warfare in the Defence Studies Department, Nick Lloyd, counters this prevailing narrative, to provide a much more complex and nuanced understanding of these men, trying to cope with a war that had shattered their lives as much as any other. Discussing his book, The Western Front: A History of the First World War, he shares how the truth about the Generals’ performance was a much messier picture than we might imagine, of trial and error, success and failure, with each promising development followed by an equally effective counter-measure from the enemy. He explores how their efforts to overcome the challenge of trench warfare led to innovation, new technology and ultimately the dawn of modern warfare. And how these men were human beings with families – some of whom would be terribly damaged by the battles they themselves directed. In so doing he asks us to follow these men on their command journey, consider their successes and failures and ask ourselves if we would fare any better in their place. Find out more about Professor Lloyd’s book: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308121/the-western-front-by-lloyd-nick/9780241347195 Watch his book launch on the War Studies YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhJnEXDTU8

Globally, there are very few women in leadership positions in healthcare and peacebuilding in areas of armed conflict – but why is this the case? Why are women a key part of healthcare & peacebuilding? What barriers do women face in accessing leadership roles? And what can we do to tackle this? In this episode, we speak with a team of researchers about their recently published policy brief, ‘An untapped potential: Women’s leadership in health in conflict and peacebuilding’. They give vital insight into some of the biggest issues facing women and peacebuilding, and highlight the emerging relationship between women’s leadership, healthcare, and peace in conflict-affected settings.

Why did the United States become involved in Vietnam? To combat communism, evidently. But just how did a Southeast Asian French colony already devastated by two wars become an existential threat? The Vietnam war is one of the most studied diplomatic and security conundrums of international history, political science, international relations and statecraft. Yet less is known about the actual origins of this conflict, which was the continuation of a French colonial conflict. In this episode Dr Pablo de Orellana, Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of War Studies, discusses his book the 'Road to Vietnam', which explores how the United States was persuaded to stake its diplomatic and economic might to support France's war to retain it's colony in Indochina, after which the French withdrew in 1954 and it became an American burden. Focusing on the diplomatic texts of France, Vietnam the USA and UK during this period, he traces the evolutions of the descriptions and narratives of the peoples and countries implicated, and how this produced understandings of the war, its participants and their motives.

“Empty stomachs have no ears…” These were the words of a poacher in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, when asked why he continued to destroy wildlife in a local forest. It reveals what we often forget: that the degradation of biodiversity doesn't happen in a vacuum. So how are global security, development and conservation related? In what ways do conflict and its many secondary effects, bring grave risks for biodiversity? And how can we start seeing action on climate and wildlife as a fundamental part of the post-conflict peacebuilding process? This special episode for London Climate Action Week sees Dr Richard Milburn, Visiting Research Associate in the Department of War Studies, answer these questions and more. He gives important insight into some of the biggest issues around climate, conservation and security, including ways to protect wildlife during conflict, post-conflict environmental recovery, and how we can fundamentally challenge our thinking on climate change, including why we should all become conservation entrepreneurs. You can find out more about Richard’s work, including his innovative environmental action game here: https://www.tunzagames.com and the conservation organisation his work supports here: https://www.polepolefoundation.org