Team Leader: Dr Rowan Allport – Senior Fellow
Our research on security and defence focuses on analysis of Western foreign policy, international security issues and cyber-security. The group maintains a strong regional expertise on the MENA region.
Team Leader: Dr Rowan Allport – Senior Fellow
Our research on security and defence focuses on analysis of Western foreign policy, international security issues and cyber-security. The group maintains a strong regional expertise on the MENA region.
Rowan Allport June 26, 2014 Iraq and Syria, Middle East and North Africa, Security and Defence
The initial step in assessing the potential military response to recent events in Iraq is to seek to understand how the security situation in the country degenerated so quickly. The most obvious and urgent question that needs to be answered is how as few as 800 ISIS militants (out of a total of around 6,000 in Iraq), were able to overrun a garrison of around 25,000 Iraqi troops.
Read More »Julie Lenarz June 18, 2014 Iraq and Syria, Middle East and North Africa, Security and Defence
On Tuesday, the jihadist group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham) launched a long-planned assault on Iraq, seizing control of Mosul, the country’s second largest city, after taking large parts of the central city of Fallujah and nearby Ramadi in December 2013.
Read More »Jacob Campbell June 17, 2014 Middle East and North Africa, Security and Defence
The fall of Mosul, allegedly to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is not the military victory it has been made out to be. For a start, as the New York Times and Agence France-Presse report, ISIS gunmen (who faced an army outnumbering them fifty-to-one) were able to occupy strategic positions around the city only after Iraqi commanders ordered their troops to stand down and retreat.
Read More »Simon Schofield April 3, 2014 Russia and Eurasia, Security and Defence
HIC Interview with Linda Eichler, Vice President of the YEPP ... Here, we present to you our interview with Linda Eicheler currently running as a candidate for the European Parliament. She is the youngest candidate on the list of Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (IRL), the leading conservative party in Estonia.
Read More »Simon Schofield March 20, 2014 Russia and Eurasia, Security and Defence
As reports emerge of a growing sense of unease in Moldova and the Baltic States, the HIC thinks it is critical that we ask what recent events in Crimea signal for the eastern frontiers of Europe as a whole. Here, we present to you our interview with Colm Lauder, currently the Secretary General of Europe's largest political youth organisation, the Youth of the European People's Party (YEPP).
Read More »David Innerhuber March 8, 2014 Europe, Security and Defence
Over the past five decades the Munich Security Conference (MSC) has become the most important independent forum for the exchange of views by international security policy decision-makers. Each year it brings together about 350 senior figures from more than 70 countries around the world to engage in an intensive debate on current and future security challenges.
Read More »Simon Schofield January 21, 2014 Security and Defence
One is struck with an unsettling scenario when watching Skyfall: an unseen invader reaches into your infrastructure from afar and manages to cause untold chaos and carnage whilst sat behind his desk sipping Red Bull. Cyber-terrorism is yet to approach its zenith, but that time is not very far away.
Read More »David Innerhuber January 18, 2014 Asia and Pacific, Security and Defence
In 1405 A.D. the legendary Admiral Zheng He set the sails of his mighty armada for the first time. Over the following decades he went on seven journeys for the Emperors of the Ming dynasty. With up to 300 vessels and 30,000 men he came as far as Burma and India. China was the dominant naval power in the world – until Emperor Zhengtong had the entire fleet burnt down.
Read More »David Innerhuber November 19, 2013 Middle East and North Africa, Security and Defence
In the current round of nuclear talks with Iran, the international community must not be guided by dreams but by reality. Too often, the world has been deceived by the regime in Tehran. The sanctions have to be kept in place.
Read More »Philip Cane and Simon Schofield October 20, 2013 Security and Defence, Sub-Saharan Africa
The attack on Nairobi demonstrated that al Shabaab has peaked and is attempting to reverse its seemingly unstoppable decline.
Read More »