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
Between 2004-2015 Britain engaged in capacity building operations across Yemen’s police, military, and intelligence agencies. This briefing seeks to provide a critical review of these efforts, their successes, and the causes of their ultimate failure, in order to identify lessons for future training and assistance missions. 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
This report examines the political and legal implications of working with local partners to wage remote warfare. Read more
Our work focusses on areas where the military is responding to conflict and instability. Breaking out of a cycle of violence requires military interventions that contribute to the conditions needed for lasting peace settlements. Otherwise, as we see too often, warfare exists to serve itself, with catastrophic consequences. We work closely with partners in military, government, parliamentary and expert communities to help build effective, accountable and sustainable approaches to defence and security.
This means analysing and understanding the contemporary defence environment. We have seen long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan decrease the risk appetite for military intervention among politicians, parliaments, and publics. When combined with major developments in military technology and an increasing focus on counter-terrorism, this creates an incentive for the British government to take a remote approach to warfare. This involves supporting local groups – who are now doing the bulk of the frontline fighting against terrorist groups – in an attempt to counter threats without putting large numbers of British boots on the ground. The effectiveness of this approach has been under-explored, and efforts to study it are complicated by a lack of government transparency.
In order to fill this gap, we commission and conduct research on the opportunities, risks and costs of remote warfare. By engaging with a broad range of experts in troop-contributing countries as well as on the ground in conflict zones we make sure that our research and policy recommendations are robust, fair, and applicable to contemporary priorities and challenges. This means tailoring our work for the policy-makers, military decision-makers, and parliamentarians that have the power and the responsibility to improve defence and security policy.
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
Between 2004-2015 Britain engaged in capacity building operations across Yemen’s police, military, and intelligence agencies. This briefing seeks to provide a critical review of these efforts, their successes, and the causes of their ultimate failure, in order to identify lessons for future training and assistance missions.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
This report examines the political and legal implications of working with local partners to wage remote warfare.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 Remote Warfare Programme covers the latest developments in defence and security in WestminsterRead more
Emily Knowles and Abigail Watson have contributed an article to Agile Warrior Quarterly, the British Army’s intellectual examination of current and emerging threat and opportunities for land capability.Read more
This report makes the case for introducing some form of external oversight of UKSF, and examines allied experiences of legislative scrutiny. It then outlines two different models of parliamentary committee oversight that might be appropriate policy options for the UK.Read more
This briefing will show how, amid a new global security environment shared by state and non-state actors, the market for force has developed into a strategic partner for the state in both the Western and non-Western world.Read more
This primer explains what presence, relations and obligations the UK military has in Asia-Pacific, defined here as the largely maritime region between Hawaii, New Zealand and the Asian mainland.Read more
Drawing upon a number of interviews conducted with serving and former UK and EU military personnel and round-table material, this briefing by Emily Knowles examines the international involvement in military operations to counter Al-Shabaab.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 report by Open Briefing examines the effectiveness of the use of remote warfare by the Nigerian government, its regional allies and Western states to counter the threat of Boko Haram.Read more
Recent reports suggest that UK special forces could have been left “understaffed” for years, and efforts to rectify this appear flawed. This adds to building questions about whether the current level of oversight is sufficient to protect our special forces.Read more
This briefing paper provides an overview of a central, but often overlooked, instrument of US remote warfare: security cooperation. In the briefing, security cooperation is defined as Department of Defense-managed programmes to train, equip and advise foreign security forces to fight alongside, or as surrogates for, American ‘boots on the ground’.Read more
Special Forces have long captured people’s imaginations. Books, films, video games and news outlets propagate an image of heroism and mysticism – only added to by governments’ reticence to discuss their operations. The impact of this is that, while almost everyone knows or thinks they know what Special Forces are, few really know what they do.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 LibyansRead more
This new briefing is based on off-the-record military interviews with both international and local Afghan troops between February and March 2017.Read more
If the government continues to refuse comment on most of its counterterrorism activity abroad it will struggle to win what is increasingly a war of narratives and the strategic use of (dis)information.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
This Airwars study for the Remote Control Project explores transparency and accountability issues within the US-led Coalition. It is based partly on in-depth briefings from senior officials from four sample belligerents (the US, Canada, the UK and Denmark) – and in part on two years of extensive Airwars modelling of the war against ISIL.Read more
This briefing by Emily Knowles examines the extent of the UK’s involvement in the current crisis in Yemen.Read more
As the situation in Yemen quickly spirals into a humanitarian disaster, the UK must clarify its role in the conflict.Read more