M.L.R. Smith
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On Efficacy: A Beginner’s Guide to Strategic Theory Open
Strategy is a popular but frequently misunderstood and mis-used term. When broken down to its fundamental however, the term strategy is all about the attempt to be effective. What this entails in practice is more complicated than it sounds…
Blowin’ in the Wind? The Musical Response to the War on Terror Open
Popular music was the most immediate way in which the cultural response to 9/11 manifested itself. Initially music offered a way of mourning and coping with grief. As the United States moved toward the invasion of Iraq, pop music also bega…
Setting the Strategic Cat among the Policy Pigeons: The Problems and Paradoxes of Western Intervention Strategy Open
In theory, the idea of strategy is easy to comprehend but in practice it is a hard taskmaster because it often involves calculations of political values that are rarely amenable to the kind of rationalistic application of “expert” opinion …
<i>Agon</i>ising choices: Tragedy and International Relations – a tragic vision of humanitarian intervention in the Bosnian War Open
Tragedy is one of the oldest metaphorical lenses of International Relations. The tragic vision of politics, from Thucydides to contemporary realist theorists, lies at the core of classical realism. However, it is striking how rarely the co…
Theorizing Territorial Withdrawal: The Need to Think Strategically Open
This article examines what factors cause states to withdraw from foreign territorial interventions. Scholarly analyses of withdrawal are rare, whilst within the broader research area of territorial conflict, studies are often dichotomized …
Coca, Clausewitz, and Colombia: The Inadequacy of Micro-level Studies in Explaining FARC Violence Against Civilians During the Colombian Civil War Open
Studies of micro-level violence make various claims to universality: namely, that there are patterns of violence in civil wars that are observable across time and space. The analysis of rebel violence against civilians constitutes one of t…
Iconoclasm and strategic thought: Islamic State and cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria Open
This paper analyses the way in which Islamic State manages cultural heritage sites under its control. Drawing on three different case studies – Sufi, Shi’a and Sunni heritage sites, Palmyra and Mosul – it examines the manner in which the l…
The Political Economy of the Provos: Inside the Finances of the Provisional IRA—A Revision Open
Few academically rigorous accounts exist of the financial activities that sustained the rise of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) during the Northern Ireland Troubles. Through a sustained methodology this study seeks to challeng…