War Studies Research

Originally set up by graduate students at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, the Afghanistan Studies Group (ASG) aims to provide a forum for cross-disciplinary discussion and debate on topics relating to Afghan affairs. In particular it seeks to explore issues that improve the opportunity for dialogue and understanding between Afghan people and the international community.

ASG’s objectives are:

• To provide a cross-disciplinary research forum for the discussion of topics that improve understanding of Afghan history, culture, politics, and society
• To engage in respectful dialogue taking account of a variety of opinions and perspectives on the past, present, and future of Afghanistan and Afghan affairs
• To provide the opportunity for greater understanding and to improve the quality of debate surrounding these topics by prompting dialogue between varied communities.

ASG aims to pursue these objectives through online discussion forums, by publishing articles by respected academics, journalists, students and writers, and by hosting events at the group’s host institution, King’s College London, Department of War Studies.

The Africa Research Group aims to provide a hub for Africanist research within the War Studies Group. It brings together staff and research students working on a variety of themes but united by their regional focus on the African continent.Through its activities, the Group creates a forum for dialogue and debate for both scholars and practitioners wishing to exchange ideas and expertise in the field of African affairs. It also supports the development of postgraduate research by providing a space for discussion of works in progress.

In addition to ad hoc meetings formulated around members’ research activities, the Group runs two seminar series: ‘Africa in the News’ lunchtime discussions and an evening seminar programme with guest speakers. The group also operates a mailing list to share information about African studies events with interested parties.

The ASWRG is the prime forum of intellectual exchange and debate within the War Studies Group for scholars, young academics and postgraduate students interested in the study of Asia broadly defined. Members of the group conduct research on a variety of aspects pertaining to the military history, strategic thinking, national defence and security policies, regional and sub-regional multilateral institutions of an area that stretches from Iran and Afghanistan to Japan, from Mongolia to Australia.

The ASWRG sets itself at the forefront of the debates on some of the seminal questions that will inform the security policy-making process of developed countries in the West in years to come. To this end, it aims to:

• Expand the understanding of students as well as civilian and military professionals on the strategic, military and cultural issues concerning Asian security and warfare from both historical and contemporary perspectives;
• Explore avenues of research analysing differences and similarities among different sub-regional contexts such as Central and South Asia, the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia;
• Establish an international research network on Asian security and warfare, acting as a ‘pole of attraction’ for current and perspective students, academics from within and outside the college, and practitioners who wish to pursue the study and/or the research projects on Asian themes;
• Enhance the scholarly and wider debates at both the individual and group levels through the dissemination of high quality work in the form of lectures, seminar and conference presentations, articles and books.

The Centre for Defence Studies (CDS) engages in research at the highest level on British, European and international defence and security issues. CDS was established at King's College in 1990, with a grant from the UK Ministry of Defence but is now fully independent.

In addition to research our mission is to:

• Promote interdisciplinary approaches to security and defence policy research.
• Distribute research and expertise through formal academic channels.
• Work with UK and other governments and international organisations.
• Conduct corporate policy research in relevant areas.
• Maintain a high public profile by interacting with the media.

Our principal areas of research interest are:

• UK defence and security policy;
• European defence and security;
• Defence management and organisation;
• Defence industry and procurement;
• Regional security and new security challenges.

CDS operates in three distinct, but overlapping research areas: Academic, Public Policy and Corporate Consultancy. CDS has an international staff of academic policy researchers, practitioners, associates and visiting fellows. 

The King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) is a joint initiative of the Institute of Psychiatry and the Department of War Studies at King's College London.

The 'flagship' study for the Centre is a prospective investigation of the physical and psychological health of a random sample of UK service personnel, some of whom took part in Op TELIC (the war in Iraq) and others that did not; these form a comparison group. As well as answering immediate questions, this is also the platform for a longer-term study of a cohort looking at physical, social and psychological aspects of military service in the 21st Century (study referred to as Military Health & Wellbeing).

The centre draws on the experience of a multidisciplinary team with a wide range of research portfolios. The aim of the centre is to produce relevant scientific research at the highest level. The centre offers an MSc in War and Psychiatry.

The Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS) seeks to generate new knowledge and understanding of the intersections between science, technology and security.

The Centre is multi-disciplinary in its approach, bringing together scientific experts with specialists in politics, international relations and history. In addition to academic staff, the CSSS involves Masters and Postgraduate research students, as well as visiting fellows and associates drawn from the academic, government and business sectors.

The Centre organises conferences and runs a regular seminar series where internal and external speakers address issues related to science and security.

Members of the Centre conduct scholarly and policy-relevant research on many areas, including:

• Weapons proliferation,
• Non-proliferation,
• Verification and disarmament,
• Space security
• Mass effect terrorism including the CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) dimension.

A significant emphasis is placed on engaging on these issues with security practitioners in governments and international organisations, and the wider dissemination of research findings through engagement with the media.

The Centre for International Relations is engaged in research on philosophical, theoretical, and conceptual developments in Politics and International Relations, with a particular focus on questions relating to war and the political, practices of security and the politics of fear, liberalism and the politics of exception, governmentality and biopolitical war, the postcolonial condition and political subjectivity, the ethics of war, and human rights. Members of CIR draw primarily on critical social and political thought, with particular reference to continental philosophy, feminism, and postcolonial perspectives.

The Department of War Studies hosts a wide range of research, policy, advisory, teaching and training activities relating to conflict, security and development and which enable it to serve as a true bridge between academic scholarship and real world decision-making in these fields. To this end, areas of current research include, inter alia, the political economy of civil wars; humanitarian aid and armed conflict; contemporary warfare in Africa; the United Nations and civil violence; children and armed conflict; rethinking ‘state collapse’ and the international administration of war-torn territories. Although the geographical focus covered by members of the Group is wide, Africa stands out as an area of special research interest and expertise. Developments in Iraq and Afghanistan have also been given special attention by members of the Group.

These activities are managed by two different units: Conflict, Security and Development Research Group and Conflict, Security and Development Group. The two units collaborate closely on the Department’s teaching and publication activities.

In a world of diminishing resources and growing demand the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) is focused on promoting our understanding of how our use of energy and resources affects International Relations, including political as well as military conflicts. EUCERS therefore is located at the Department of War Studies at Kings College London.
EUCERS is determined to contribute to these questions and to point out possible solutions to a core problem of modern economies, societies and international relations.

For more information about EUCERS and it's activities, please visit the website at: http://www.eucers.eu/

Funded by the European Research Council, FORESIGHT aims to understand under what conditions warnings about the escalation of violent conflict are noticed by policy makers and acted upon.

Objectives:

• To identify and evaluate the underlying factors shaping the production, communication and perception of early warning.
• To identify and evaluate the factors, which influence whether early warnings are taken seriously by the aforementioned political actors.
• To develop performance indicators for early warning production, communication and perception.
• To compare the findings regarding the impact of forecasts on conflict prevention with the insights of the broader literature regarding preventive action in other policy areas.

The History of Warfare Group brings together researchers whose individual expertise ranges from the ancient to the modern world. Its distinguishing feature is a strong commitment to advanced archival research that combines established historical methods with innovative approaches to the past drawn from the social sciences and other humanities disciplines.

Members of the Group, including a thriving cohort of postgraduate research students, organise and participate in regular and ad hoc research seminars, including the Military History and International History seminars, both held at the University of London's Institute of Historical Research.

Research within the Group focuses on the origins, conduct and consequences of modern wars; strategic theory and war planning; land, sea and air warfare in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the history of intelligence and espionage in peace and war; the history of international relations, with a special emphasis on the international history of the era of the two world wars and the Cold War; the relationship between armed forces and the rise of the modern state; armaments policy, arms races, and the cultural and social history of weapons technology.

The Insurgency Research Group (IRG) was established in 2007 in response to the revival of interest in insurgency and counter-insurgency in the military and government. The group's membership is primarily within the War Studies Group but also includes members of the Development, Doctrine and Concepts Centre (Shrivenham), the Land Warfare Centre (Warminster), Oxford University, Reading University and Birmingham University.

Members of the group are engaged in research on strategic communication and information warfare, the development of effects-based approaches to operational planning, insurgency and counter-insurgency in Iraq, European Military Transformation, air power and intelligence in counter-insurgency warfare, the 'Virtual Insurgent', strategic theory and insurgency.

The IRG supports a vibrant cohort of research students engaged in work on innovation/decision making processes of state bureaucracies and insurgency cell structures, military effectiveness in complex irregular warfare, Al Qaeda's strategic communication, a tactical and operational military history of Hezbollah, leadership and the evolution of the British Army's approach to Small Wars, 1945-75, and COIN operations in South Asia. The group has been closely involved with the development of UK thinking on doctrinal development.

This research group provides a platform for strengthened networking among staff members and PhD students of the Departments of Defence and War Studies working in the field of intelligence, broadly defined. It brings together researchers whose individual expertise ranges from the history of military and civilian intelligence to more contemporary intelligence issues, such as intelligence oversight, privatisation and international liaison.

Through a variety of joint events and internal debates about ongoing intelligence-related research in the Departments, as well as talks by external speakers, the group creates an inspiring atmosphere in which to discuss key topics in the field of intelligence. The group also runs a mailing list.

Though recognising the strong inter-disciplinary currents in the Department of War Studies and the study of International Relations as a field, the International Political Sociology Group however observe the need to open up the discipline of IR to sociological traditions which have long been sidelined in the analysis of IR.

The group responds to the need for a political sociology of the ‘problems’ identified by the ‘international’ and to think sociologically about politics and IR. Such an inter-disciplinary approach will blur the distinction between inside and outside, between society and state and between life within sovereign nations and life within a system of sovereign nations; distinctions which have enabled the belief that society and IR work in different realms with different rules, thus allowing what people do in practices of government to go unexplored through a sociological lens.

The International Political Sociology group will focus on relational methodology and the need to draw theoretical and methodological resources from arenas as varied as International Law and Political Science all the way to Geography and Critical Criminology. The group will refuse the traditional essentialist epistemology and limitations of International Relations, complete with its diktat of rational choice theory and attempt to engage with trans-disciplinary methods and a common dialogue across varied narrative streams.

It was established in 2001 and has been named in honour of the founding father of naval history, Professor Sir John Knox Laughton (1830-1915), who taught at the College between 1885 and 1914 and before that at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. This initiative builds on a tradition of excellence in the subject going back over a century, and demonstrates King's leadership in the field.

It is the aim of this unit to further naval history through academic leadership, teaching, research, publication and administrative activities. The unit teaches naval history within the broader context of War Studies to undergraduate, postgraduate and research students. To enable the best research students to come to King's a number of scholarships are available. Further information is available from the Postgraduate Programme Officer.

The unit supports a broad range of academic activity in naval history, from individual staff research projects, through collaborative ventures and lectures to international conferences.

The Marjan Centre for the Study of Conflict and Conservation is named after a lion who lived in Kabul Zoo because the survival of Marjan at the heart of conflict symbolises the two elements central to the work of The Marjan Centre: conflict and biodiversity.

Today violent conflict is ‘everywhere’: often there is no ‘front’ or ‘rear’ as ‘anywhere’ can be a location for violence. For governments the disruption to the supply of natural resources vital to the nation’s well-being can accelerate security issues, while other threats that range from the environment like climate change across to resource extraction, population change, food security, and the illegal ‘harvesting’ of fauna and flora, also pose direct threats to the conservation of biodiversity as well as national security.

The critical loss of biodiversity for humans needing access to a wide range of natural resources was highlighted by a UN report which noted that eighteen out of thirty five conflicts recorded since 2000 involved natural resources as a driver. Additional ‘drivers’ of conflict are changes in climate and population, food security and destruction of ecosystems from which the effects can be felt for a long time.

To understand these threats helps to create a sustainable future and support the transition from conflict to post-conflict planning which includes animal welfare in conflict zones. More specifically The Marjan Centre is developing Ecological Development as a post-conflict methodology and tool to create social resilience.

This is a group led by PhD students which aims to promote the study of and raise awareness on the issue of Private Military and Security Companies. It promotes a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of PMSCs, including topics such as ethics/morality, defence policy, humanitarian intervention, multi-level governance, security governance, international humanitarian law, civil military relations, and security sector reform. Members meet regularly for informal discussions and organise public lectures with guest speakers from academia, industry and policy-making.

The Russian and Eurasian Security Research Group provides a framework for research activities, workshops and seminars, and contributes to research training and professional development for postgraduate students in both research and taught programmes at the Department of War Studies. In addition, the Group seeks to develop a network of relevant experts and policy-makers interested in the area, and intends to provide independent analysis to relevant government agencies.

The Russian and Eurasian Security Research Group brings together researchers with interests in the field of security, foreign policy and international relations across Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, The Caucaus, Central Asia and the Baltic States. The Group aims to provide a forum for discussion among researchers and academics with particular research interests in this area, across a wide range of disciplines.

The War Crimes Research Group (WCRG) is based in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. It brings together researchers across a number of disciplines and encourages a range of approaches to the study of war crimes and war.

The core aims and objectives of the group are to provide a forum for debate on issues related to war crimes prosecution and transitional justice mechanisms, to contribute to the development of research and writing on issues related to war crimes and war, to encourage dialogue between, on the one hand, academics and researchers and on the other, practitioners and policy-makers, and to contribute to research training and the professional development of postgraduate research and taught MA students.