エピソード

  • Filip Kovacevic, "KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

    Filip Kovacevic, "KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
    2025/12/25
    KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union (University of Toronto Press, 2025) offers a first-ever glimpse into the mysterious and long-ignored world and work of Soviet spies- and counterspies-turned-writers. Once out of active service, many former spies have turned to writing spy fiction. They drop the dagger and pick up the pen. Some are very successful, like James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming or the novelists John Le Carré and Graham Greene. Their Soviet counterparts have rarely been afforded the same attention or examination. Drawing on materials from KGB archives and Soviet publications long out of print, KGB Literati offers the first-ever account of spy fiction written, frequently with institutional support, by Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence officers. Spy fiction can give insights into the operational workings of clandestine agencies and the personal dimensions of secret service work. By analysing the literary output of KGB spies and counterspies, the book shows that for the KGB, this type of intervention into Soviet popular culture was a crucial component of their overall counterintelligence strategy. These texts played an instrumental role in the Soviet state’s efforts to neutralize and counter Western cultural influences on the Soviet population. Dr. Filip Kovacevic’s research is of great relevance today, given that a large segment of the Russian ruling elite is still composed of former KGB officers, including Russian president Vladimir Putin. KGB Literati illuminates the deep-seated KGB myths, values, aspirations, and fears that continue to have a profound impact on the foreign and domestic policies of the Russian Federation. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
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    52 分
  • Samuel Helfont, "The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    Samuel Helfont, "The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2025)
    2025/12/24
    American wars in Iraq were a defining feature of global politics for almost thirty years. The Gulf War of 1991, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the campaign against the Islamic State beginning in 2014 each had their own logic. Each occurrence was a distinct conflict; however they must not only be considered in isolation. The United States spent the 1990s trying but failing to implement the Gulf War's cease fire agreement. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, American leaders decided to settle the open-ended aftermath of the Gulf War by launching the Iraq War of 2003. The Iraq War unleashed resistance, civil war, insurgency and eventually the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Thus, following the Gulf War, each war was fought to finish the previous conflict. The Iraq Wars, therefore, are perhaps best understood as a chain of events.Academics, journalists, statesmen, and soldiers have produced many library shelves of books on the Iraq Wars. Yet, no short, easily digestible volume exists to synthesize this vast literature of both English and Arabic sources. The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Dr. Samuel Helfont covers this series of important conflicts as a whole, in a highly succinct and uniquely readable way. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
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    1 時間 2 分
  • Erik Lin-Greenberg, "The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft" (Cornell UP, 2025)

    Erik Lin-Greenberg, "The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft" (Cornell UP, 2025)
    2025/12/19
    In The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft (Cornell UP, 2025), Erik Lin-Greenberg shows that drones are rewriting the rules of international security, but not in ways one would expect. Emerging technologies like drones are often believed to increase the likelihood of crises and war. By lowering the potential risks and human costs of military operations, they encourage decision-makers to deploy military force. Yet, as Lin-Greenberg contends, operations involving drones are, in fact, less likely to evolve into broader, more intense conflicts than similar operations involving traditionally crewed assets. Even as drones increase the frequency of conflict, the decreased costs of their operations reduce the likelihood of conflict escalation. Leveraging diverse types of evidence from original wargames, survey experiments, and cases of US and Israeli drone operations, Lin-Greenberg explores how drone operations lower risks of escalation. First, they enable states to gather more or better intelligence that may avert or reduce the chances of high-stakes conflict. Second, drone attacks are less likely to affront a target state's honor and therefore less likely to provoke aggressive responses. Lastly, leaders are less likely to take escalatory actions when drones are attacked than they are with incidents involving inhabited assets. Lin-Greenberg's findings prove conclusively that drones are far less destabilizing than commonly argued. Drones add rungs to the proverbial "escalation ladder" and, in doing so, have brought about a fundamental change—a revolution—in the character of statecraft. With the use of unmanned technologies set to grow in the coming years, The Remote Revolution is a critical examination of their possibilities and politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
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    25 分
  • Julian Schmid, "Marvel, DC and US Security: The Superhero Genre and Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

    Julian Schmid, "Marvel, DC and US Security: The Superhero Genre and Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
    2025/12/12
    Marvel, DC and US Security: The Superhero Genre and Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century (Edinburgh UP, 2025) by Dr. Julian Schmid considers how the long-standing superhero genre has been reinvigorated in the twenty-first century as an interlocutor of security and surveillance discourses following the events of ‘9/11’. While superheroes have a long cultural history, Dr. Schmid argues that their contemporary representations in Hollywood films and TV shows create and deepen specific discourses on security, terrorism and violence. He shows how the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe, in particular, are important artefacts that can help us to understand how these discourses are popularised and ultimately normalised.The book offers a rich account of the emergence of superheroes against the backdrop of America’s history since its founding in 1776 and their rise to popularity through comic books since the 1930s. Analysing the connections between superheroes, foreign policy and security from ‘9/11’ to the present, it demonstrates the significance of superheroes for the construction of heroism and security in contemporary times.  This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
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    45 分
  • Magda Long et. al., "Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention (Georgetown UP, 2025)

    Magda Long et. al., "Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention (Georgetown UP, 2025)
    2025/12/09
    Covert action is generally understood as unacknowledged interference by one state in the affairs of another state or non-state actor to affect change. This definition, inspired from the US approach, dominates the debate in intelligence policy and scholarship and provides a prism through which most observers (mis)understand this form of secret statecraft. Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention (Georgetown UP, 2025) moves the intelligence studies and analysis of covert action beyond the Anglosphere. It provides a truly global analysis of covert operations, comparing different states' histories and approaches, acrid five continents. In doing so, it produces a more holistic understanding of the variation in covert action traditions across states and cultures over time. Several key themes emerge from the book. It pays particular attention to the language of covert operations, to the euphemisms used, and to the efforts (where present) to protect decision-makers. Different states, the book show, adopt covert operations for different reasons. Some do not distinguish between domestic and foreign realms. Signalling, strengthening regimes, eliminating real and perceived threats all feature as rationales for covert operations. Similarly, the methods of covert operations vary, from more direct interventions to creating the conditions for others to act. While making clear that all states (democracies and authoritarian regimes) conduct covert operations, the volume highlights differences in the degree of institutionalisation and legalisation of covert operations. It also highlights how different degrees of risk-aversion and the alertness of public opinion can influence policymakers. The volume brings together an international group of distinguished scholars to examine the history of covert action in twenty countries. Such a breadth and depth of expertise will serve as a foundational study for scholars, students, and policymakers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
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    1 時間 2 分
  • Nina Wilén, "Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    Nina Wilén, "Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences" (Oxford UP, 2025)
    2025/11/25
    The Sahel has become a focal point of international security interventions, with external actors providing extensive security force assistance (SFA) to local military, police, and paramilitary forces. Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences (Oxford UP, 2025) by Dr. Nina Wilen critically examines the rationale, implementation, and consequences of these efforts (2012-2024). With unique access to both military operations and strategy-making in European capitals, the author provides an innovative methodological approach, exclusive material, and a comprehensive perspective. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, including participant observation of military operations and over 100 interviews with policymakers, military personnel, and security practitioners across the Sahel and Europe,this book offers an unprecedented analysis of how SFA has shaped local security dynamics and broader geopolitical competition. The book argues that SFA in the Sahel is driven not just by regional security threats, such as insurgency, violent extremism, and transnational crime, but also by external actors' strategic interests. Through a comparative analysis of bilateral (France, U.S.) and multilateral (EU, UN) initiatives, it demonstrates how SFA has been framed as the primary policy tool to manage instability. Securitizing the Sahel offers both theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding SFA in fragile states. It challenges prevailing frameworks, provides critical insights for policymakers, and highlights the unintended consequences of militarized external assistance in the Sahel and beyond. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
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    52 分
  • Radio ReOrient 13.5: “What Is Wrong with Countering Violent Extremism?,” with John Holmwood, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan

    Radio ReOrient 13.5: “What Is Wrong with Countering Violent Extremism?,” with John Holmwood, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan
    2025/11/14
    In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan spoke with Professor John Holmwood about the UK’s Prevent policy, part of the Counter Terror Strategy concerned with radicalisation. We discussed the trajectory of Prevent from its beginnings where it focussed on community cohesion, to changes between 2011 and 2015 after the Trojan Horse Scandal in Birmingham, to the recent review by William Shawcross in 2023. Professor Holmwood is an emeritus professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham, whose work has focussed on colonialism, modern social theory, religion and schooling. With Therese O’Toole he wrote the book ‘Countering Extremism in British Schools? The Truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair’ and he has worked with the organisation Prevent Watch, a community initiative supporting those affected by Prevent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
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    1 時間 6 分
  • John Jackson, "Special Advocates in the Adversarial System" (Routledge, 2020)

    John Jackson, "Special Advocates in the Adversarial System" (Routledge, 2020)
    2025/11/14
    Special Advocates in the Adversarial System (Routledge, 2020) uncovers the little known phenomenon of Special Advocates who represent the best interests of an excluded party in closed trials. Professor John Jackson's empirical analysis draws into question the commitment of legal-systems to long-held principles of adversarial justice, due process and even human rights protections in trials that relate to immigration, national security, civil and criminal proceedings. In its comparative approach, the book tackles issues of accountability and the ethical concerns surrounding the appointment and prevalence of the special advocate system. This book will shock lawyers and scholars alike and is an important contribution to considerations of the administration of justice. Professor John Jackson is an Emeritus Professor of Comparative Criminal Law and Procedure at The University of Nottingham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
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    1 時間 13 分