PS21 update week ending Nov 11

As always, many thanks for joining us on the PS21 journey. We had a couple of great events coming up in London over the next couple weeks, with some exciting plans for New York and Washington DC as well.

Many thanks to all who came to our joint US election drinks with Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. So far it was, of course, something of a rerun of our Brexit night drinks – right down to the surprise result that left a fair number of attendees with their heads in their hands. Interesting times indeed. For my take on the election results, here’s my latest column for Reuters.

A couple of other interesting pieces on PS21 in the last week, one on China and international food security and the other how militant group Hamas is increasingly seen as a model for others. A reminder that those who would like to write can contact our editor.

Needless to say,

Peter Apps, Executive Director

UPCOMING EVENTS

Twenty-first Century Peacebuilding from Northern Ireland to Syria

Monday November 14, 6pm War Studies Meeting Room, K6.07 Kings College London

According to the Global Peace Index, there are only 10 countries in the world in 2016 which can be considered free from conflict. The ongoing crisis in Gaza; worsening conflicts in the Middle East; the international stand-off in Ukraine and the lack of a solution to the refugee crisis are some examples of the contributing factors that have made the world less peaceful in 2016 than it was in 2015.

Drawing on the lessons learnt in the Northern Ireland peace process, our speakers will assess 21st centruy peacebuilding strategies in the context of 21st century conflicts. Do we haev the tools to tackle some of these seemingly intractable situations? What have we learnt and what have we not learnt? Our speakers will look at conflict resolution and peace building strategies, contextualised in 21st century examples.

Dr Gordon Clubb is a Lecturer in International Security at the University of Leeds and is the director of the Terrorism and Political Violence Association. He has published on former combatants in Northern Ireland and the disengagement and de-radicalisation of terrorist movements.

Dr. Anastasia Voronkova is Research Fellow for Armed Conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Editor of the IISS’s new annual publication, the Armed Conflict Survey. Anastasia holds a PhD in comparative conflict studies from Queen Mary, University of London. She has extensive fieldwork experience in Northern Ireland and the South Caucasus. Her research interests include comparative conflict resolution, communication strategies and rhetoric of non-state armed groups, the political economy of armed conflicts, security and terrorism.

Prior to joining IISS she held teaching positions at University College London and Queen Mary University of London.

Haid Haid is a Syrian columnist and researcher who focuses on security policies, conflict resolution, Kurdish and Islamist movements. Prior to that, he was a programme manager on Syria and Iraq at the Heinrich Böll Stiftung-Middle East Office in Beirut. He also worked as a senior community services-protection assistant at UNHCR- Damascus office. He has a BA in Sociology, a post graduate diploma in counseling, an MA in social development and has just completed another MA in conflict resolution at King’s College.

Moderator: Professor Joe Maiolo is the Deputy Head of the Department of War Studies, Director of the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War, and Professor of International History. He is an editor of The Journal of Strategic Studies, and co-editor of The Strategy Reader, a member of the editorial board for Intelligence & National Security, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

He is currently a Visiting Research Professor at the Norwegian Defence Intelligence School, Oslo.

This event is being run in partnership with the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War at KCL.

Please sign up here.

Lessons from the War in Yemen

Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 630 p.m. Development House, Leonard Street, EC2

Of all the conflicts in which the West is found itself a player in the last decade, Yemen has proved one of the most enduring and complex. What was once the scene of a Western-backed attempt to prop up an unpopular local leader and fight Al Qaeda is now a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. As we head towards a new US administration and perhaps even more uncertain in Europe, PS21 and the Remote Warfare Project pull together a uniquely qualified panel with a wide range of experience in the country to discuss its lessons and what might happen next.

Peter Apps [moderator] – executive director, PS21 and global affairs columnist, Thomson Reuters

Baraa Shihan – Yemeni human rights activist

Iain Smailes – retired British Army officer and former defense attache, Yemen

Emily Knowles – Project Manager, Remote Control, a monitoring group specializing in the use of special forces, drones and other not always accountable forms of warfare