This briefing examines how choices made throughout the anti-IS campaign have contributed to several of the factors that are currently destabilising the Iraqi security sector. Read more
This report is a first attempt to evaluate the gaps between contemporary strategies and activities in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Read more
This report is a first attempt to identify some of the factors that have helped or hindered the UK’s current approach to remote warfare. Read more
By downplaying the benefits of opening UKSF to external scrutiny, the UK government places itself at a strategic disadvantage that devalues lessons learned exercises that could otherwise be incorporated into improving future military effectiveness. Read more
Several commentators have argued that the 2013 Syria vote was a marker of parliamentary pacifism and a symbol of the perils of democratising the decision to use force. This briefing uses the transcript of the debate and recent interviews to assess the validity of these claims. Read more
The last month has seen dramatic upheavals among the key personnel within the Trump administration tasked with advising the president on foreign affairs and national security policy. Trump has sought a wider range of policy options on Iran and North Korea and he is now likely to get them from a more hawkish team, increasing the possibility of new US regime change operations. This briefing compares current events to the rise of the Neo-Conservative agenda in 1997-2002. Read more
20 March 2018 will mark the 15th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Despite President Trump’s confident assertions that the Islamic State is defeated there and in Syria, if ORG’s predictions from before that invasion continue to hold true, we may be only half-way through a generational struggle. Indeed, dispersal of combatants from Iraq and Syria means that this is becoming an increasingly globalised war in which the West is ill-equipped to prevail. Read more
North Korea and Russia may be the focus of contemporary Western fears of imminent nuclear-armed conflict but development and deployment of “useable” nuclear weapons has been a constant throughout the atomic age and by all nuclear-armed states. Read more
This is the second briefing in a series by the Remote Warfare Programme which will bring together experts to discuss important aspects of remote warfare to provide some conceptual clarity.This briefing by VERTIC attends to cyberwar, a subject that has grabbed the attention, and imagination, of publics, media, civil society and academics alike. Read more
This briefing by Liam Walpole explores the origins of the War Powers Convention and parliament’s role in scrutinising the UK government’s use of lethal force over the last decade. Read more
This report by Libya specialist Alison Pargeter elicits Libyan views on international operations in Libya and analyses the possible effects of such operations on Libya's longer-term stability. Through interviews with a diverse section of Libyan society, the research paints a detailed picture of how international intervention, both covert and overt, is perceived by Libyans Read more
As the UK commences negotiations on leaving the EU, juggles challenges to its own union, confronts a new wave of DIY terrorist attacks, and launches Europe’s largest ever warship, the need for a “strategic” National Security Strategy has never been greater. Read more
It is possible that the Trump administration's signal of readiness to tolerate Assad encouraged the Syrian government to barge ahead for more military gain and to use gas against its own citizens. Read more
Remote Control’s latest report tracks the UK’s secretive but growing military commitments abroad by analysing the rise in the use of drones for targeted killing, the use of Special Forces, and the provision of capabilities such as intelligence and embedded troops to allied forces. Read more
The recent statement from the UK’s new Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation that the terrorist threat to the country is at its highest level since the 1970s raises at least three crucial questions that this briefing seeks to answer. Read more
The first part of this briefing will expand on two good reasons why it is in the interests of the UK government and people to embark upon a full assessment of its central relationship with the US under a Trump presidency. Read more
Since the onset of the conflict in Ukraine in 2014, Oxford Research Group has worked to understand what drives the greatest tensions in European security for a generation, not least Russia’s own perception of its place and interests in Europe and the wider world. Read more
This article by ORG’s founder and patron, Scilla Elworthy, is based on a keynote address given to the “Making Deterrence work in the Twenty-first Century” forum held at Merton College, Oxford, 15 July 2015, hosted by the Ministry of Defence’s Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) and the University of Oxford Changing Character of War Programme Read more
This briefing sets out five things that we now know about the SDSR and ten things we do not yet know. Read more