Chapter 5 Course Overview

Introduction

The Dirty Wars module features a number of overlapping components. These are:

  • The core lecture series (term 1) that examines the concept of “dirty war” and the relationship between war and political repression. This is taught by Dr Jack McDonald.
  • Two series of 5 research lectures (term 2) that apply these concepts to contemporary warfare and international security. These are taught by Dr Jack McDonald.
    • Series 1: Interdependence and war - Examining the extent to which Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman’s new interdependence approach can explain troubling areas of contemporary conflict such as remote warfare and proxy wars.
    • Series 2: Digital rights between war and national security - Examining the context collapse between war and domestic security caused by global reliance upon digital communications technologies, and the implications of this for civil and political rights.
  • Three seminar series designed to explore an element of the main course at depth in a specific disciplinary context.
    • Weeks 1-7 - Explaining Secrecy in War, this series examines the issue of secret wars in international politics, providing a means of engaging with different explanations for why states or governments might seek to keep a war secret. Taught by Dr Jack McDonald.
    • Weeks 8-15 - Intelligence ethics and just war theory, this series examines the emergence of the field of intelligence ethics, its interaction with just war theory, and the challenges of defining ethical behaviour in the intelligence world. Taught by Dr Jack McDonald.
    • Weeks 16-22 - “Savage Warfare,” designed and taught by Dr Mark Condos. This series interrogates the ways that Western imperial powers have historically reconciled the realities of colonial conquest and domination with the ideals of the ‘civilizing mission’. In particular, it examines the ways that local populations resisting colonial rule were constructed as ‘uncivilized’, ‘savage’, and ‘fanatical’ in order to legitimize various kinds of brutal violence.

In addition, there is a workshop at the start of term 2 to prepare you for the research essay assessment.

The Core Lecture Series: What Makes a War a ‘Dirty’ War?

This is an 11 lecture series on the concept of “dirty war.” This series with a “toolset” for ways of thinking through what counts as a war, how people and institutions judge/justify wars and warfare in normative terms, and the connection between the two. Please note that the lectures will be about two thirds lecture, and one third small group discussion/full cohort discussion.

Lectures:

  • War and Dirty Wars
  • War and Political Order
  • Restraint in War
  • Human Dignity and Political Community in War and National Security
  • Status in War & Sexual Violence in Conflict
  • Citizenship in War and National Security
  • Political Warfare and Political Repression
  • Strategy and Population Control
  • Identity, Identification, and Intelligence Organisations
  • Torture
  • One-Sided Violence

Research Lecture Series: Interdependent Warfare

The first research lecture series is designed to complement and prepare you for the final evaluation for this module: writing a 5000 word research essay. In this lecture series, I will be explaining and guiding you through one of my research projects that relates to the course. However the point of the research lecture series is that you will be using a substantial portion of your time in class to discuss and debate your own research projects. Unlike lectures in the first term, in some early lectures we will be paying specific attention to the practicalities of designing and conducting a research project in each and every class.

This year’s research lectures extend the original courses’ examination of the relationship between war and political repression by examining the way in which information technologies can collapse these two spheres in the present day. The research lectures will cover contemporary conflicts such as Ukraine and Syria, alongside issues related to digital repression and censorship.

Lectures:

  • Interdependent Warfare
  • Twilight Conflicts
  • Remote Warfare
  • War in a Goldish Bowl
  • The Shock of the Old

Research Lecture Series: War and Digital Rights

In the second half of the second term we will be looking at the applications of the first term’s concepts to contemporary conflicts. Specifically, we will be engaging with the problems of conflict in the digital age, characterised by densely connected communications infrastructures that have significantly reduced the costs of mass communication. A good way of thinking about this is “war in the age of the smartphone.”

In particular, we will be looking at how the development of communications infrastructure collapses context for action in war and national security. The cryptography that enables online banking, and private communications between citizens also serves to protect the communications of terrorists. Efforts to stifle terrorist propaganda on the internet cannot be disconnected from free speech debates and political repression.

Lectures:

  • War and Digital Rights
  • Information Warfare and Disinformation
  • Guns, Smartphones, and Liability to Attack
  • The State/Platform/Copyright Nexus of Repression
  • Exporting Repression

First Seminar Series: Explaining Secrecy in War

This seminar series takes a comparative approach to the topic of secret wars and covert warfare: what explains secrecy in war? The seminar focuses upon two texts, Mariah Zeisberg’s War Powers and Austin Carson’s Secret Wars to examine the relationship between domestic politics and covert or unacknowledged wars. In particular we’ll be focusing upon a set of competing explanations for state behaviour - rationalism, constructivism, and domestic institutions - to consider how and why secrecy features in debates and discussions about the resort to the use of force in international politics.

Seminars:

  • Secrecy in International Security
  • Explaining Secret Wars
  • Presidential Discretion and Secrecy
  • The Emergence of Covert Warfare
  • The Cold War and Korea
  • The Vietnam Wars
  • Legislative Politics and Secret War

Second Seminar Series: Intelligence Ethics

This seminar series examines the relationship between ethics and intelligence, complementing the main course’s focus upon the role of normative constraints in state security organizations. Intelligence ethics is fast-emerging field, and one that speaks to some of the core themes of the course, namely the moral dilemmas facing adversaries in war and conflict. We will use this seminar series to develop a sound understanding of the fundamentals of practical ethics, and explore the particular problems facing intelligence agencies in the contemporary world.

Seminars:

  • Intelligence Ethics
  • Just and Unjust Intelligence
  • Intelligence Harms
  • Privacy and Intelligence
  • Intelligence and Self Defence
  • War and Privacy
  • Immunity to Intelligence Harms

Third Seminar Series: Savage Warfare

In his classic work, Small Wars, Charles Calwell argued that in colonial conflicts ‘regular forces are compelled, whether they like it or not, to conform to the savage method of battle’. Using Calwell, and the recent debates generated by his work as its starting point, this seminar series interrogates the ways that Western imperial powers have historically reconciled the realities of colonial conquest and domination with the ideals of the ‘civilizing mission’. In particular, it examines the ways that local populations resisting colonial rule were constructed as ‘uncivilized’, ‘savage’, and ‘fanatical’ in order to legitimize various kinds of brutal violence. Through an examination of a range of different colonial conflicts from the early nineteenth century through to the period of decolonization in the mid-twentieth century, this series seeks to unravel some of the colonial origins of contemporary modes of counterinsurgency and conquest employed around the globe today. The series will explore these issues using four core themes: 1) the cultural nature of colonial conflicts; 2) the racialized aspects of colonial violence; 3) the use of spectacular violence and ‘terror’ tactics to subdue resistance; and 4) the relationship between law and violence.

Seminars:

  • ‘Savage Warfare’
  • The French Conquest of Algeria
  • The Indian Uprising, 1857
  • The Boxer Rebellion
  • The Herero and Nama Wars
  • The Mau Mau Rebellion
  • The Algerian War of Independence