‘New Voices in Global Security’ is a collaborative blog series between the School of Security Studies, King’s College London, and International Affairs. In this post, Jesse Crane-Seeber traces the rise of the fetishized special forces operative in US popular culture and its role in making making continual war palatable to the American public.

My current work, in completing a manuscript entitled ‘Fetishizing the Tactical’, seeks to build on post-structural, queer, and feminist psychoanalytic theories to ask, why is war so sexy in the United States?

I began this research curious about how the US continues to maintain the possibility of…

‘New Voices in Global Security’ is a collaborative blog series between the School of Security Studies, King’s College London, and International Affairs. In this post, Sarah Perret investigates the political impacts of the ostensibly technical elements of EU border policy.

Since the early 2000’s, following implementation of the Lisbon Agenda, the European Union has developed common Research and Development (R&D) funding programmes, as part of the European Research Area. One of the main focuses of this investment of billions of euros has been on border security and digital development of data gathering, circulation and analysis ‘for a safer Europe’. Part…

‘New Voices in Global Security’ is a collaborative blog series between the School of Security Studies, King’s College London, and International Affairs. In this post, Lyndon Burford investigates blockchain’s potential for verifying nuclear disarmament.

New and maturing technologies are often seen as possible drivers of conflict, not least in the context of rising nuclear risks. In 2019, for example, the UK House of Lords Select Committee on International Relations concluded, “The risk of the use of nuclear weapons has increased, in the context of rising inter-state competition, a more multipolar world, and the development of new capabilities and technologies.” In…

‘New Voices in Global Security’ is a collaborative blog series between the School of Security Studies, King’s College London, and International Affairs. In this post, Abigail Grace proposes a new approach to understanding China’s relations.

China’s political leadership believes the international order is at the precipice of a significant transition. In October 2017, at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 19th Party Congress, President Xi Jinping stated, ‘It is clear that major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics demands the construction of a new type of international relations,’ boldly calling for the creation of an original, Chinese-driven model of diplomacy. The October…

‘New Voices in Global Security’ is a collaborative blog series between the School of Security Studies, King’s College London, and International Affairs. In this post, Dr Hillary Briffa assesses how small states have responded to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been referred to by many names — some scientific, some far more emotionally charged. One which stands out, however, was bestowed by pop icon Madonna in an (understandable) rant about the virus from her (less understandable) bathtub, in a social media post on 22 March 2020. ‘It’s the great equaliser,’ she mused, sitting naked in her rose petal-strewn tub.

It…

Postcolonial and Black feminist scholars have long cautioned against dangerous proximities between the politics of sexual violence and the advancement of racist, nationalist and imperial agendas. These cautions bore out across contexts as diverse as the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh in Delhi in December 2012, and the sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve in Cologne in 2015. While mass mobilizations following both attacks occasioned important reform and reinvigorated feminist commitments to addressing sexual violence, they equally served to justify the expansion of the state’s disciplinary power. …

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a vital source of income for millions of people in the Global South. With simple, labour-intensive means and a low level of mechanization, artisanal and small-scale miners extract minerals from deposits that are often unsuitable for industrial mining. However, the largely informal industry has been a double-edged sword for many countries. Constituting a vital lifeline as well as a strategy for poverty alleviation and livelihood diversification in rural communities, ASM has also been associated with armed conflict, organized crime, human rights violations, corruption, and environmental destruction. …

On 1 February 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi and her party the National League for Democracy (NLD) should have been opening Myanmar’s first parliamentary sitting of the newly elected government. Instead the country awoke to news of early morning raids in Naypyidaw, the nation’s capital. The NLD leaders, including Daw Suu, found themselves once again under military arrest as the Commander-in-Chief General Min Aung Hlaing declared a state of emergency. For long-time observers of the politics of Myanmar the sense of déjà vu was palpable, but what are the implications of Myanmar’s newest military coup d’état?

What just happened?

In the early hours…