This reading list examines how states and militaries have experienced the changing character of conflict in recent history. The articles included look at the impact of new technologies, international legal debates around the conduct and legitimacy of warfare, peacekeeping operations and the role of non-state actors in conflicts around the world.
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c) To what extent is our understanding of war distorted by a western lens?
d) What has feminism got to say on war?
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e) To what extent has the EU learned the right lessons?
f) Has the EU developed capable forces?
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e) How significant is Russian (dis)information in the war in Ukraine?
f) What has been the impact of Russia's disinformation campaign?
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a) What is the relationship between the UN’s zero-tolerance policy on peacekeeper sexual exploitation and conservative moral values?
b) How can we address the gendered coloniality of peacekeeping efforts?
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a) How do nuclear ethics and just war theory interact?
b) To what extent are humanitarian approaches effective in challenging conventional approaches to nuclear conflict?
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a) Should reconciliation be the primary goal of those attempting to mediate conflict?
b) What factors are most significant in determining the effectiveness of mediation efforts?
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a) Are we finally looking at true networked military forces?
b) To what extent will Special Forces always represent an exception to military innovation?
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a) Will the increasing reduction in the size of military forces mitigate against urban warfare?
b) Does the urban environment inevitably favour the defender?
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a) What role does social media play in information warfare?
b) How should we understand diasporas in relation to armed conflict?
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a) What are the features and implications of the 'civilianization' of war in the 21st century?
b) How does the targeting of civilian infrastructure in war complicate humanitarian relief efforts?
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a) What is the 'Chinese revolution in military affairs'?
b) What does this case study reveal about the role of intellectual communities in transforming military strategy?
a) How does social media influence civilian engagement with warfare?
b) How has the proliferation of online audio-visual content affected the relationship between war and culture?
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a) How will new technologies affect the character of war?
b) Can and should certain technologies be banned from warfare?
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a) Will we ever see war outlawed?
b) Can war be constrained?
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a) Will future conflicts take place in the 'grey zone'?
b) Why would states engage in covert action?
Snapshot from history
In September 1939 France declared war on Germany in response to the latter’s invasion of Poland. A few months later, French officials under Marshal Philippe Pétain negotiated an armistice and accepted the semi-occupation of their country by Nazi forces. This defeat came in the wake of a searing German offensive which pursued ‘blitzkrieg’ tactics to overwhelm the French defences along the ‘Maginot line’. Just two months before the conflict began, senior French General Maxime Weygand visited Chatham House to lecture on the defensive arrangements of the French military.
a) What assumptions were made about the defensibility of France at the outset of the Second World War?
b) What does this article reveal about the modernisation of warfare in the interwar period?
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