I recently had reason to dust off my copy of Stanislav Andreski’s 1972 book, Social Sciences As Sorcery (Penguin, 1974), which I last read in 2003, then in the early weeks of a certain pre-doctoral course on the methods…

Many of our UK-based readers will be familiar with the so-called Muslim Patrol videos posted online earlier this month. The videos feature some young Londoners, presumably Muslim, approaching and intimidating passers-by for drinking alcohol or dressing the…

It may be a little odd to post something so extensive on a presentation that I did not even attend, but since the US Army War College has been charitable enough to share the material from its 21stStrategy Conference on YouTube, I was able to catch…

US drone strikes are the new Guantanamo — a focal point for all those railing against America and the excesses of its War on Terror efforts to counter violent extremist (CVE). The arguments against drone strikes against suspected terrorists will be familiar to the…

Last week I attended an event at the New America Foundation where Ryan Evans, Peter Neumann and Ambassador Omar Samad presented the new ICSR report, Talking to the Taliban: Hope over History?. The presentations were short, incisive and clear, and the…

Col Gian Gentile‘s piece on ‘The Death of the Armour Corps‘ for the Small Wars Journal has reignited the discussion of how the US military’s focus on counterinsurgency is crowding out its traditional priorities and capabilities. At this point in the debate, most people recognise…

There is not much to be said about the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ trailer — and the reaction to it in several Muslim-majority countries — that has not already been said. More enlightened commentary has emphasised the right to free speech and…