Annette Idler speaking at Balliol College's Lady Dervorguilla Seminar

Lady Dervorguilla Seminar

'The Convergence of Conflict and Organised Crime' by Dr Annette Idler

23 February 2018, 8.00pm
Middle Common Room, Holywell Manor (no disabled access)

Dr Annette Idler (Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations) will give a talk on ’The Convergence of Conflict and Organised Crime’.

In this talk, Dr Idler unpacks the intricate relationships between armed conflict and transnational organised crime. She demonstrates how tracing illicit supply chains reveal security challenges that are analytical blind spots to conventional frameworks on the ‘crime-conflict nexus’. These challenges include first, the mismatch of local and global perceptions that undermines the perceived legitimacy of governments; second, the persistence of illicit power structures throughout war and peace time; and third, the interconnectedness of multiple forms of organised crime that perpetuate conflict and fuel wider insecurity.

Annette Idler is the Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Centre, Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, and at the Department of Politics and International Relations, and Affiliate at the Latin American Centre, all University of Oxford. She is the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council’s Fellow on International Security and Research Associate at the Graduate Institute Geneva’s Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding. Dr Idler’s work focuses on the interface of conflict, security, transnational organized crime and peacebuilding. Drawing on ethnographic methods in her research, over the past decade, she has conducted extensive fieldwork in and on the war-torn and crisis-affected borderlands of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, including more than 600 interviews with local stakeholders. Her work appeared in journals such as Stability: International Journal of Security and Development and Perspectives on Terrorism and her book Borderland Battles: Violence, Crime, and Governance at the Edges of Colombia’s War  is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. Dr Idler advises governments and international organizations, is a regular expert for media outlets such as Al Jazeera, BBC and the Washington Post, and has published numerous policy briefs. Dr Idler previously worked with UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the German development cooperation. She holds a doctorate from the Department of International Development, University of Oxford, and an MA in International Relations from King’s College London’s Department of War Studies.

CCW in the News: Richard Harknett's Seminar on 'The Distribution of Power in Cyberspace'

Richard Harknett's talk on 'The Distribution of Power in Cyberspace: Adjusting to the new seam of power competition' as part of this term's CCW Tuesday lunchtime seminar series was mentioned in an article about his appearance before the Senate last week.

"Harknett most recently returned from a three-country tour where he spoke on cybersecurity and government topics to the Royal War Studies Society at the Dutch Ministry of Defence, on the “Changing Character of War” at Oxford University and in briefings with the office of the president of Slovenia..." 

Read the full article here: http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/harknett_cybersecurity.html. 

Congratulations to former CCW Visiting Fellow, Doug Delaney, on the release of 'The Imperial Army Project'

Congratulations to former CCW Visiting Fellow, Doug Delaney, whose book, The Imperial Army Project, has been released by Oxford University Press. 

The Imperial Army Project
Britain and the Land Forces of the Dominions and India, 1902-1945

Douglas E. Delaney

• The first major study of the British imperial army project, fostering a greater understanding of how the military system of the British Empire functioned
• Uncovers how a vast military coalition, encompassing multiple countries and systems across five decades worked successfully
• Takes a long-term perspective, from the end of the Edwardian era to the completion of the Second World War
• Explores hitherto-untapped archival collections across six countries to offer fresh insight on how the military establishments of the United Kingdom, India, and the dominions related to each other and worked together

Doug Delaney's book will be available from OUP from 4 March 2018. 

Congratulations to Steve Coulson for publishing his new paper: 'Lanchester Modelling of Intelligence in Combat'

Congratulations to CCW Visiting Research Fellow, Steve Coulson, whose paper on 'Lanchester Modelling of Intelligence in Combat' has just been published online at: https://academic.oup.com/imaman/advance-articles.

The print version of his paper will be released shortly. 

Abstract: While the utility of intelligence as force multiplier during warfare is widely accepted there have been few attempts to quantify its benefits. In this paper Lanchester combat models are developed to understand how superiority in intelligence can compensate for an inferior force ratio and how the time for one side to defeat the other is affected by the use of intelligence. It is found that intelligence does act as a force multiplier; however, its utility to compensate for inferior force ratio is less than commonly appreciated, proportional to the square root of the relative advantage in intelligence. Similarly, the time to defeat is proportional to the inverse of the square root of the relative advantage in intelligence, so that greatly increasing one side’s superiority in intelligence only produces a modest decrease in the time to defeat. The Lanchester combat models are extended to a hyperbolic system of partial differential equation (PDE) to investigate how intelligence influences manoeuvre warfare. These suggest that high tempo attacking operations are less sensitive to the effects of intelligence than slower operations.

'The Great War and the Middle East' nominated for Military History Monthly Book of the Year

Rob Johnson's The Great War and the Middle East (OUP, 2016) has been nominated for the Military History Monthly book of the year. 

Voting takes place online at www.military-history.org/awards and will stay open until 5 February 2018, with winners to be announced at Senate House in London on 23 February. If you enjoyed Rob's book, do give him your vote.

Chief of the Defence Staff’s Strategy Forum: UK Defence Space Strategy

The Changing Character of War Centre was delighted to host the Chief of the Defence Staff’s Strategy Forum on Tuesday 28 November 2017. Held in the Harold Lee Room at Pembroke College, the conference addressed the theme of ‘UK Defence Space Strategy’. In addition to the many attendees from the Ministry of Defence, the presentations and discussions saw the participation of personnel from both British and foreign armed forces, the UK and European space agencies, private sector organisations, and academic institutions.

Upon arrival, the audience were welcomed with an introductory speech by General Sir Gordon Messenger, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. This was followed by opening addresses by Will Jessett, Director of Strategic Planning at the Ministry of Defence, and Professor Fred Lamb from the University of Illinois. Professor Lamb examined the risks in developing ways of interfering with, damaging, or disabling space assets, instead emphasising “machine learning, … [and] cooperative relationships with many advanced countries, to build resiliency.”

Mr Jessett and Professor Lamb were joined in a panel discussion by Dr Rajeswari Pillari Rajagopalan, from the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), and Carissa Christensen, founder and CEO of Bryce Space. Dr Rajagopalan discussed the challenges in space defence for India, with key implications for the UK as a strong partner and ally, especially concerning international agreement in space. Moreover, Ms Christensen provided a wide range of insights on the growing role of private sector enterprise in the space domain.

Finally, the event involved four syndicate discussion sessions, providing a seminar-style focus, in which all of the conference attendees took part. Each session addressed a specific question concerning contemporary space security, with an aim to provide Ministry of Defence policy makers with options regarding the opportunities, risks and solutions available for formulating the Ends, Ways and Means of a UK Defence Space Strategy. 

The Changing Character of War Centre would like to thank General Sir Gordon Messenger, the speakers, and all the participants for a thought-provoking and valuable day.

Christmas at CCW

The CCW Office has been decked for the season.

Conference Report: ‘Britain’s Defence Policy: Alliance, Coalitions, and Partnerships’

On September 12th, in partnership with the Norwegian Ministry of Defence and the Ax:Son Johnson Foundation, the Changing Character of War Centre was pleased to host the conference ‘Britain’s Defence Policy: Alliance, Coalitions, and Partnerships’. The event was structured as a series of presentations and debate sessions, chaired by Dr Rob Johnson, Director at CCW, and Professor Janne Haaland Matlary, Head of the International Politics section at the University of Oslo and adjunct professor at the Norwegian Command and Staff College. Aimed at the composition of an edited volume due to be published next year, the seminars brought together a diverse range of panellists from the universities of Oxford, Exeter and Oslo, the United States’ National Security Council, NATO, École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, the Norwegian Staff College, the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies, and both the UK and Norwegian Armed Forces.

            The discussions were divided into four main categories, each pertinent to the formulation of contemporary British strategy: British Strategic Thinking about Britain’s Role; the ‘Special Relationship’ and Britain’s NATO role; French, German and EU Policy; and Britain’s Leading Role in Northern Europe. These sessions spurred in-depth debate, confronting a broad range of issues from the UK’s new aircraft carriers to the evolving state of NATO. Overall, this marked the critical need - in the midst of on-going Brexit negotiations, an unpredictable Trump administration, and instances of Russian aggression in Europe - not only to clarify the position for Whitehall policy-makers, but also to further investigate foreign perspectives of British strategy.