Weekly Reading List 15-22 April

Once again, this weekly reading list starts from Syria and the military intervention of US, France and the UK in the region.

In this regard, I have read an interesting piece by Betcy Jose on What is Happening to the Non-Intervention Norm? In her piece, she convincingly argues how the chemical weapons taboo is quite strong and how it weakens the non-intervention norm established in the U.N. Chart.

On Trump's foreign policy, I suggest the piece of Aaron Stein on “The adults in the room need to take Trump seriously on Syria”, in which he assess the contradictory Trump staff's strategy for Syria. In his words, “the United States has, since Trump took office, articulated a contradictory policy for winding down the fight against the Islamic State (ISIL) and ensuring the group cannot reconstitute in the Iraqi-Syrian border area. The contradictions in that policy are finally becoming clear” Moreover, he argues that the US administration needs to take seriously middle-ground options on Syria, instead of choosing between binary choices. This imply that his national security staff has to follow Trump's strategy, but also they have to take “deliberate and uncomfortable steps to protect US interests”.

How it is possible to do this without running the risk of being fired is still a mystery for me.

From the military point of view, it is important to understand under what conditions do states choose to use only air power. Through a remarkable empirical work on a database on the use of air power during crises between 1908 and 2006, Susan Hannah Allen and Carla Martinez Marchain show that “air-only campaigns are more frequently used by wealthy states against militarily weaker opponents. Contrary to popular perception about the cost sensitivity of democracies, regime type is not a critical factor in the decision to use air power, once wealth and military capability are taken into account”.

Always on Syria, I read a provocative article by Leila Al Shami on “The anti-imperialism of idiots” in which she strongly criticizes some leftist groups who, in order to counter the US imperialism, are supporting a war criminal like Assad. It is an important article, which highlights the contradictions of those who oppose and those who are in favor of a Western military intervention in Syria.

KOREA

These are important weeks for the Korean peninsula. My colleagues here at the VUB Institute of European Studies are doing a great job of reporting what's going on through the KF-VUB Korea Chair. Ramon Pacheco Pardo writes that this meeting will be crucial for the stability of the region and it has firmly put Seoul - and Moon in particular - in the driver's seat of the Korean Peninsula affairs.

IRAN

Members of the Parliament of France, Germany and the UK wrote an article in the NY Times, criticizing the choice of Trump and his administration to threatened to pull out from the Iran deal.

MILITARY STUFFS

First of all, I have read a very interesting piece on "Logistics and the art of command". This is a topic that I like a lot and I think I will start to do research on how logistics shapes strategic and tactical decision-making in the near future.

Another very interesting issue is how to drive defence innovation. This article provides a good basis for understanding how a new idea develops in this area.

The White House has finally released its new arms transfer policy. You can find it here. I am currently writing an op-ed and a paper to analyze this initiative and its repercussion on the European defence-industrial panorama.

EUROPEAN DEFENCE

One of the top European security and defence experts, Sven Biscop, analyses how Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the Coordinated Annual Review on Defense (CARD) and the European Defense Fund (EDF) could be real game-changing initiatives for greater cooperation in this field

About EU initiatives, the Chief Executive of the European Defense Agency, Jorge Domecq, explains in detail what the are the latest developments to strengthen EU defence cooperation. The Agency is in a unique institutional position, being an intergovernmental agency at the service of Member States while, at the same time, implementing defence-related EU programmes on behalf of the European Commission.

Concerning European Security, the international response to the Skripal poisoning carries an important lesson for the future of the value of strong EU-NATO co-operation, writes Sir David Omand

Finally some scattered things, which are worth noting:

I have read on Foreign Policy how the Chinese Communist Party is setting up cells at universities across the United States — and using them to spy on Chinese students.

For those who are passionate of international history, in this academic paper on Systems and Boundaries in International History, the author argues that international history should distinguish itself from global and transnational history by drawing clear yet open disciplinary boundaries.