Michael Quinlan (1992 , p 160) recognized that focusing on the specific content of the UK’s defence programme following a defence review is of far less value than studying the reasons why the related decisions were made in the first place. In line with his thinking, this chapter concentrates less on the ‘what’ and more on the ‘why’ of defence review decision making. In doing so, it balances academic commentary on the process of defence reviews from the last 75 years with the views and observations from recent practitioners. These inputs from senior officials
Between 2021 and 2031, the UK government is set to spend over £230 billion on its military. Who decides how to use these funds, and how can we be sure that the UK’s armed forces can meet the threats of tomorrow?
This book provides the answers to these crucial questions. Concentrating on decisions taken below the political level, it uncovers the factors that underpin the translation of strategic direction into military capability. In a series of interviews, over 30 top admirals, generals and air marshals give their own views on the procurement and maintenance of the nation’s current and future military capability. Their unrivalled professional knowledge and experience affords a fascinating insight into the higher management of national defence.
This book explores civil-military relations in Asia. With chapters on individual countries in the region, it provides a comprehensive account of the range of contemporary Asian practices under conditions of abridged democracy, soft authoritarianism or complete totalitarianism.
Through its analysis, the book argues that civil-military relations in Asia ought to be examined under the concept of ‘Asian military evolutions.’ It demonstrates that while Asian militaries have tried to incorporate standard, western-derived frameworks of civil-military relations, it has been necessary to adapt such frameworks to suit local circumstances. The book reveals how this has in turn led to creative fusions and novel changes in making civil-military relations an asset to furthering national security objectives.
This timely analysis of security in Europe identifies the factors that enable and hinder the creation of networks of defence cooperation across the continent.
Going beyond regional arrangements established by NATO and the European Union, the book considers the sub-regional level by focusing on bilateral and minilateral defence collaborations. It provides a new conceptual framework to assess the rationales, leadership and the complex dynamics within these alliances, and highlights how they shape and interact with NATO and EU initiatives.
Post 9/11, the imposition of policies of counter-terrorism has seen the erosion of support for fundamental human rights. Simultaneously, Muslim communities in European cities have become a focus for state and local policy, leading to a fixation with policies of social cohesion.
This book offers a unique research-based contribution to the debate around community cohesion and counter-terrorism policies in Britain. Through privileged access to the senior management and staff of five metropolitan authorities it reveals the contradictions between these policies as they are implemented in tandem at the local level.
A robust critique of contemporary policy, this book is for all academics, policy makers and practitioners concerned with the management of ethnic diversity.
‘Being more like America again and less like Europe is the heart of the UK model of capitalism … [but] there are many respects in which Britain remains unlike America despite its strong appeal to the British political class ...’
In 'After Brexit' Andrew Gamble sets out the economic models and external relationships that Britain has pursued since the Second World War and examines the choices it now faces as it adjusts to life outside of the European Union.
This volume brings together this essay with some of Andrew Gamble’s most important and influential writings on British politics and political economy from the last forty years. They reflect on many of the issues that animate British politics, from the relative decline of the economy and the reshaping of the welfare state to the transformation of the Conservative and Labour parties and the changing constitutional order with the devolution of power to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The volume is introduced by the author and includes his notes on each of the essays as well as an epilogue, which considers their original context and what has changed since. Taken together, the essays in this volume are testament to the acuity of one of Britain’s foremost political thinkers and provide rich insight into debates and ideas that continue to influence British politics and Britain’s place in the world.
A companion volume of Andrew Gamble’s essays, The Western Ideology and Other Essays, focusing on political ideas and ideologies, is also available from Bristol University Press.
This volume brings together international experts to provide fresh perspectives on geopolitical concerns in the South China Sea.
The book considers the interests and security strategies of each of the nations with a claim to ownership and jurisdiction in the Sea. Examining contexts including the region’s natural resources and China’s behaviour, the book also assesses the motivations and approaches of other states in Asia and further afield.
This is an accessible, even-handed and comprehensive examination of current and future rivalries and challenges in one of the most strategically important and militarized maritime regions of the world.
The defeat of Donald Trump in November 2020 followed by the attack on the US Congress on 6th January 2021 represented a tipping point moment in the history of the American republic. Divided at home and facing a world sceptical of American claims to be the ‘indispensable nation’ in world politics, it is clear that the next few years will be decisive ones for the United States. But how did the US, which was riding high only 30 years ago, arrive at this critical point? And will it lead to the fall of what many would claim has been one of the most successful empires of modern times?
In this volume, Michael Cox, a leading scholar of American foreign policy, outlines the ways in which five very different American Presidents – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden – have addressed the complex legacies left them by their predecessors while dealing with the longer-term problems of running an empire under increasing stress. In so doing, he sets out a framework for thinking critically about US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War without ever losing sight of the biggest question of all: can America continue to shape world affairs or is it now facing long-term decline?
What does it mean to be secure in the 21st century?
Mark Beeson argues that some of the most influential ideas about national and even global security reflect untenable, anachronistic strategic views that are simply no longer appropriate for contemporary international circumstances.
At a time when climate change poses an existential threat to the continuation of life itself, Beeson argues that there is an urgent need to rethink security priorities while we still can. Providing an explanation of the failures and dangers of the conventional wisdom, he outlines the case for a new approach that takes issues like environmental and human security seriously.
Analysing social change has too often been characterized by parochialism, either a Eurocentrism that projects European experience outwards or a disciplinary narrowness that ignores insights from other academic disciplines. This book moves beyond these limits to develop a global perspective on social change.
The book provincializes Europe in order to analyse European modernity as the product of global developments and brings together renowned scholars from international relations, history and sociology in the search for common understandings. In so doing, it provides a range of promising theoretical approaches, analytical takes and substantive research areas that offer new vistas for understanding change on a global scale.
