Biography

Title: Foreign military aid as the ouroboros?: Assessing the relationship between external militaristic intervention and violence in intrastate conflicts.

Supervisors:

Prof. Marie Breen-Smyth

Dr Jack Holland

My research focuses on methodological approaches to the measure of conflict intensity, the nature of military assistance as intervention and how this affects state behaviour.

My central hypothesis is that military assistance to states in the midst of civil conflict can institutionalize violence as a means of conflict resolution by encouraging states to seek total monopoly on use of force as a priority before dealing with structural grievances behind conflict. Military assistance programs have been an established part of western intervention strategies for many years and this study hopes to assess their efficacy on a normative basis by questioning whether they achieve the typical stated aim in regards the populations concerned; namely to help recipient states increase their levels peace  and stability.

An important part of the study is too look at methodological approaches to understanding the central metric, how do intervening states measure whether violence is being successfully reduced by this strategy? If this is not an important aspect of the strategy then what are the central aims of the policy and how does it affect the recipient state’s behaviour in regards to the security of its population?

I believe these are important questions to ask at a time when the world is becoming more concerned about the nature of proxy engagement in civil conflicts by major powers. Syria has become a terrible battleground in the complex geopolitics of the middle east with many states supplying arms to different parties in pursuit of a host of competing goals. There is a danger that, as we increasingly discuss the likelihood of ‘resource wars’ as the next frontier in conflict, military assistance programs may become an ever more central currency in the projection of power by states, as indeed it was during the cold war, and it is important we understand the possible fallout for populations.

Research Interests

Conflict measurement methodologies, peace research/conflict resolution strategies, political economy of armed conflict, arms sales, US foreign policy.

Publications

Working Papers: The political appropriation of casualties in threat construction: the case of US drone strikes in Pakistan (with Wali Aslam)

Conference Presentations: Hitting the Target? How New Capabilities Are Shaping Contemporary International Intervention. (Centre for International Intervention, July 2012)

Teaching

Teaching Subjects: Contemporary International History, Introduction to Political and Social Theory, International Relations Theory, Security Studies

Awards

Graduate Teaching Assistant Scholarship, University of Surrey 2011-14.