Strategic Instincts published by Dominic Johnson

Dr Dominic Johnson’s latest book, Strategic Instincts: The Adaptive Advantages of Cognitive Biases in International Politics was published today by Princeton University Press.

A widespread assumption in political science and international relations is that cognitive biases—quirks of the brain we all share as human beings—are detrimental and responsible for policy failures, disasters, and wars. In Strategic Instincts, Dominic Johnson challenges this assumption, explaining that these nonrational behaviours can actually support favourable results in international politics and contribute to political and strategic success. By studying past examples, he considers the ways that cognitive biases act as “strategic instincts,” lending a competitive edge in policy decisions, especially under conditions of unpredictability and imperfect information.

Drawing from evolutionary theory and behavioural sciences, Johnson looks at three influential cognitive biases—overconfidence, the fundamental attribution error, and in-group/out-group bias. He then examines the advantageous as well as the detrimental effects of these biases through historical case studies of the American Revolution, the Munich Crisis, and the Pacific campaign in World War II. He acknowledges the dark side of biases—when confidence becomes hubris, when attribution errors become paranoia, and when group bias becomes prejudice. Ultimately, Johnson makes a case for a more nuanced understanding of the causes and consequences of cognitive biases and argues that in the complex world of international relations, strategic instincts can, in the right context, guide better performance.

Strategic Instincts shows how an evolutionary perspective can offer the crucial next step in bringing psychological insights to bear on foundational questions in international politics.

Sovereignty and Illicit Social Order published by Christopher Lilyblad

Former CCW Visiting Research Fellow, Christopher Lilyblad, has published his first book, Sovereignty and Illicit Social Order. The book was published on 9 July 2020 with Routledge and is available as ebook or hardback.

Sovereignty and Illicit Social Order: Global Modernity, Local Agony
Contesting conventional assumptions of the modern nation-state, this book challenges us to rethink the segmentation of the political realm and its underlying economic and social processes.

Cognizant of the historical context of systemic change, Lilyblad reconstructs how illicit social order arises from agonistic competition over territory, authority, and institutions. Immersive empirical investigation traces this bottom-up process in local conflict zones, detailing how spontaneous configurations of violence, socioeconomic resources, and legitimacy transcend the divide between public and private. Ultimately, the analytical vantage of global governance assesses the sobering implications for sovereignty to more accurately reflect the world we have, not the one we may want.

By showing how these inherently local illicit social orders develop apart from – not below – the state within a global anarchic society, this book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars, including political scientists, economists, sociologists, geographers, as well as researchers in interdisciplinary fields such as International Development, International Political Economy, and Global Governance.

Illicit Flows in Armed Conflict - Annette Idler published in World Politics

Dr Annette Idler has published an article with World Politics, Volume 72, Issue 3, July 2020.

The Logic of Illicit Flows in Armed Conflict: Explaining Variation in Violent Nonstate Group Interactions in Colombia

Why is there variation in how violent nonstate groups interact in armed conflict? Where armed conflict and organized crime converge in unstable regions worldwide, these groups sometimes enter cooperative arrangements with opposing groups. Within the same unstable setting, violent nonstate groups forge stable, long-term relations with each other in some regions, engage in unstable, short-term arrangements in others, and dispute each other elsewhere. Even though such paradoxical arrangements have intensified and perpetuated war, extant theories on group interactions that focus on territory and motivations overlook their concurrent character. Challenging the literature that focuses on conflict dynamics alone, the author argues that the spatial distribution of illicit flows influences how these interactions vary. By mapping cocaine supply chain networks, the author shows that long-term arrangements prevail at production sites, whereas short-term arrangements cluster at trafficking nodes. The article demonstrates through process tracing how the logic of illicit flows produces variation in the groups’ cooperative arrangements. This multiyear, multisited study includes over six hundred interviews in and about Colombia’s remote, war-torn borderlands.

Vice-Chancellor's Award for Annette Idler

Dr Annette Idler has won a Vice-Chancellor’s Award for her CONPEACE and Conflict Platform projects

The Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation Awards recognise and celebrate high-quality research-led innovation at all levels. The range of projects, products, and models which were submitted to the awards are a testament to the excellence of the innovation taking place across the University of Oxford.

Dr Annette Idler leads an interdisciplinary 18-people-team that brings together ethnographic fieldwork with quantitative analysis, complexity science, visualization techniques, visual arts, and historical tracing to provide evidence-based guidance on the directions and pace of change in conflict.

For information on the Changing Character of Conflict Platform: https://conflictplatform.ox.ac.uk/

Call for Papers: LASA 2021

CONPEACE – From Conflict Actors to Architects of Peace

LASA 2021 | Vancouver, Canada | Hybrid Congress
26 – 29 May 2021

Panel title: Changing Security Landscapes at the Margins – Bridging the Centre-Periphery Gap
Session type: Double panel
Panel organisers: Annette Idler, Markus Hochmüller, Dáire McGill: CONPEACE, University of Oxford

Abstract: For most of the post-Cold War period, Latin American security studies have focused predominantly on violence, crime, and conflict in the political centres of the region’s states. Aiming to overcome this bias (and balance the ‘urbanisation’ of the security research agenda), recent scholarship has given more attention to (in)security in the state’s margins. This double panel, organised by the University of Oxford’s CONPEACE Programme, builds upon this ‘periphery turn’ in Latin American security studies. It aims to advance theory-building from the margins by bridging the centre-periphery divide, shifting from state-centred towards local, transnational, and human-centred analytical perspectives, and providing more analytical weight to marginalised spaces and people. The double panel brings together an interdisciplinary group of early-career and established security scholars working in and on some of the most peripheral areas in South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America. Participants present original empirical work on conflict, crime, violence, order-making, and governance in the margins, and provide novel analytical, conceptual, and theoretical perspectives that will advance this emerging field of study.

Submission:
Submission deadline for paper title, abstract (max. 250 words), and short bio: 16th August 2020

Please send your submission to: Markus Hochmüller (markus.hochmuller@pmb.ox.ac.uk) and Dáire McGill (daire.mcgill@pmb.ox.ac.uk)

We will notify interested presenters of their paper’s acceptance by 24th August 2020.

For further information on CONPEACE – From Conflict Actors to Architects of Peace please visit; https://conpeace.ccw.ox.ac.uk/

‘Naval Minewarfare' - New book from Capt Chris O'Flaherty

A new book on ‘Naval Minewarfare: Politics to Practicalities’ has been published by CCW former Visiting Research Fellow, Captain Chris O’Flaherty Royal Navy.  Selected by the journal ‘Naval Review’ as their Book of the Quarter for Summer 2020, this detailed and comprehensive work examines the recent history of naval mining and naval mine countermeasures, focussed on the 24 naval mining events since World War II. Using evidence from these events since 1945, in which over 18,400 mines were laid sinking or seriously damaging over 100 ships (including 44 warships), it draws out the strategic and operational considerations affecting the success or failure of modern naval mining events. 

 

COVID-19 in Colombia and Venezuela

Dr Annette Idler and Dr Markus Hochmüller have published two new pieces on COVID-19-related issues in Colombia and Venezuela.

“COVID-19 in Colombia’s Borderlands and the Western Hemisphere: Adding Instability to a Double Crisis” appears in the Journal of Latin American Geography. “ In Colombia’s borderlands, the COVID-19 pandemic adds a third dimension to the double crisis of continued insecurity rooted in Colombia’s ongoing armed conflict and the humanitarian emergency triggered by Venezuelan mass migration. Exacerbated through the border effect, the Colombian government’s border closure and armed groups seeking to capitalize on growing uncertainty pose a severe risk to the country’s peace agreement, regional stability, and hemispheric security.

Idler and Hochmüller have also written for The Conversation, with their article "Venezuelan migrants face crime, conflict and coronavirus at Colombia’s closed border" being published on 5th June.

The Psychic Slaves of the Internet published by Thomas Flichy

CCW Associate, Thomas Flichy as published a new book, The Psychic Slaves of the Internet.

The Psychic Slaves of the Internet
The magnetism exerted by the Internet on our brains should not be attributed to the alleged technical genius of Californian computer scientists. In reality, the power of magnetization of the screens on our mind is due to the rational exploitation of the discoveries made on animal and human conditioning since the second half of the 19th century. It is indeed the intelligent exploitation of the classics that has allowed social engineering to radically divert our attention from what it was programmed for: to identify imminent dangers in order to protect the group or the tribe, to focus in a sustainable manner on an object, to enter into communication with others by listening to the multiple languages ​​of the body or to scrutinize the mysteries situated beyond the rapid flow of earthly life. Whether we like it or not, the global internet is thriving on the reductio ad bestiam of mankind. We will therefore be treated with as much respect as Pavlov's dog, John Watson's rat or Frédéric Skinner's pigeon. However, a huge improvement has been made since the interwar period: the Internet being constantly supplied by our personal tastes, its social engineers can happily direct us to the websites and virtual spaces revealing our part of animality. The deprivation of the classics relating to the conditioning of animals and men is therefore at the root of our psychic slavery. This has been carefully orchestrated by an academic engineering, depriving students from the only intellectual tools allowing them to grow: silent reading and disputatio, to replace them with ideological conditioning and of hyperspecialization. The empty box created, fed by research centres where counterfeiters meticulously construct truncated sciences finds itself the natural ally of digital education.

.

Lawrence of Arabia on War - Out now

Dr Rob Johnson’s latest book, Lawrence of Arabia on War: The campaign in the Desert 1916–18, was been published today with Osprey.

One hundred years ago, Captain Lawrence and an unlikely band of Arab irregulars captured the strategic port of Aqaba after an epic journey through waterless tracts of desert. Their attacks on railways during the Great War are well known and have become the stuff of legend, but while Lawrence himself has been the subject of fascinating biographies, as well as an award-winning film, the context of his war in the desert, and his ideas on war itself, are less well-known.

This new title offers a high-paced evaluation of T. E. Lawrence ‘of Arabia' and the British military operations in the Near East, revising and adding to conventional narratives in order to tell the full story of this influential figure, as well as the Ottoman-Turkish perspective, and the Arabs' position, within the context of the war. It is also a study of warfare and the manner in which Lawrence and others made their assessments of what was changing, what was distinctive, and what was unique to the desert environment. This book sets Lawrence in context, examines the peace settlement he participated in, and describes how Lawrence's legacy has informed and inspired those partnering and mentoring local forces to the present day.

The title is now available to order as hardback or ebook. You can also buy the audiobook, read by the author.

Gendering the border effect - Article by Annette Idler and Julia Zulver

Annette Idler and Julia Zulver, working on the CONPEACE project, have authored a paper on “Gendering the border effect: the double impact of Colombian insecurity and the Venezuelan refugee crisis”

In the Colombian–Venezuelan borderlands, the reconfiguration of armed group presence and mass migration create and reinforce conditions of high violence and risk. Against this backdrop, we ask: What are the gendered security implications of the double crisis in the borderlands? Based on fieldwork in four regions along the border, this article argues that the border effect is gendered; the very factors that coalesce to produce this effect exacerbate existing gendered power dynamics, particularly as these relate to gender-based violence. Accordingly, this article demonstrates the specific ways in which the border – as a facilitator, deterrent, magnet and/or disguise – reinforces experiences of gendered insecurity in this region. The article finishes by outlining the implications for other international borderland settings.

The article appears in Third World Quarterly.

The Double Crisis in the Colombian Borderlands

This brief from the CONPEACE team is the result of the cross-stakeholder forum "The Double Crisis in the Colombian Borderlands: Addressing the Humanitarian-Security Nexus"  hosted in February 2020 at the Canadian Embassy to Colombia in Bogotá. 

This was a dialogue space between representatives from the Colombian government, academia, international organisations, and civil society around the migrant and refugee crisis, and the peace deal implementation in borderland areas. 

Melissa Skorka quoted in article on the Taliban

Melissa Skorka, a Research Associate at CCW, has been quoted in a CNN article on Sirajuddin Haqqani and the Taliban.

“What the New York Times didn't tell readers about its Taliban op-ed is shocking” is a criticism of the op-ed by Haqqani, described as the “deputy leader of the Taliban”, published in the New York Times last week.

Melissa has also written directly to the New York Times, with her letter published on the 26 February.

Melissa L. Skorka has cmpleted her DPhil with CCW. Melissa arrived at CCW after a decade of serving as an advisor and practitioner, specializing in international security with an emphasis on U.S. foreign policy, violent non-state actors, natural resource conflict, and governance institutions in Central Asia and Africa.

Melissa has published a pair of articles on Haqqani recently:

The Era of Armed Non-state Actors - Risks of Global Chaos by Michael von der Schulenburg

The Era of Armed Non-state Actors - Risks of Global Chaos

by Michael von der Schulenburg

Michael von der Schulenburg has written a short article for CCW’s Changing Character of Conflict Platform blog.

Michael is a former UN Assistant Secretary General (for Political Affairs); in 2018 he held a Visiting Research Fellowship with CCW.

Interests, Ethics and Rules - New report from Rob Johnson

Interests, Ethics and Rules: Renewing UK Intervention Policy

Published: Tuesday 11th February 2020

Paul Cornish, Nigel Biggar, Robert Johnson and Gareth Stansfield

Intervention is regaining its place in the national strategic debate in the UK and elsewhere. Sophisticated and urgent questions are once again being asked of governments, international organisations, political and military strategists and civil society; questions which deserve a considered response.

Commissioned by the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, Interests, Ethics and Rules: Renewing UK Intervention Policy is an invitation to think closely and constructively about the circumstances in which the UK national interest might become engaged in some natural or man-made crisis around the world, and what that engagement would imply in organisational, decision-making and practical terms.

Prepared by academic experts in the field of international security and the use of armed force, the report acknowledges that intervention has been, and remains, a deeply contested concept, on political, diplomatic, moral, legal and strategic grounds. The authors argue, nevertheless, that intervention operations could reasonably be undertaken on humanitarian grounds or for ‘systemic’ reasons, in order to maintain the rules-based international system. Intervention can cover a wide range of possibilities, from non-military to military. And when military forces are involved in intervention operations, their posture can vary from unarmed (e.g. supporting the provision of aid and logistics in a benign environment) to armed (e.g. for purposes of force protection and mission security in an uncertain environment) to full spectrum or ‘war fighting’ military operations against armed and violent adversaries. Whatever the cause, rationale, type and intensity of an intervention operation, it is also a highly complex undertaking. The decision to intervene should be the result of a sophisticated assessment and decision-making process and requires political, strategic, organisational and logistic support at every stage.