The Strategic Studies Unit of the ACRPS held fourth annual conference “Security and Strategic Studies: The State of the Field” on 18-20 February 2023. The conference welcomed leading scholars and expert practitioners to examine the state of the major debates, issue areas, latest research, and policy impacts within the different subfields of Security and Strategic Studies. This involves mapping the field of Security Studies, broadly and critically defined; the subfields of Energy, Environmental, and Human Security; War, Warfare and Defence Studies; Terrorism and Insurgency Studies; Civil-Military Relations; Intelligence Studies; and International Security Studies. Other topics discussed by the participants included the innovative use of wargaming and interactive simulations as an educational tool in Security and Defence Studies, the war in Ukraine, hybrid warfare, and urban combat. In addition to the theoretical and conceptual discussions, the conference papers include country case studies, which examine the Arab Gulf countries, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Serbia, Albania, Turkey, Egypt, China and Iran.
The event began with opening remarks from Abdelwahab al-Affendi, President of the DI, who welcomed the participants and attendees, referring to the current relevance of the topic given the lack of environmental, health and human security in a number of regions, alluding also to the state of emergency that followed the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. al-Affendi introduced the problems and topics that are up for discussion during the conference. He pointed out that the security studies field has been significantly securitized in recent years, even in liberal contexts, associating the concept with combatting terrorism in a way that limits the comprehensive meaning of security.
The first session was a Keynote Panel featuring interventions by three leading researchers in the field of security and strategic studies. Bahgat Korany, Professor of International Relations and Political Economy at the American University in Cairo, presented “Security Studies and Arab Multi-Layered Security Threats: Toward CSS 2”. He sought, through his lecture, to broaden the boundaries of the study of human security in the Arab context. Jeroen Gunning, Professor of Middle East Politics and Conflict Studies at Kings College in London, presented “Critical Security Studies and Decolonization”, through which he looked at the potential of the "decolonial project", understood as the ensemble of global, pluriversal attempts at breaking out of the colonial matrix of power and working towards decoloniality. Omar Ashour, Director of the SSU, finished off the panel with “Security and Strategic Studies: Doha's Contribution”. He explored how Doha’s contributions to the discipline continue to meet the educational and professional needs of specialized graduate students as well as the security and defence community in the region and beyond, thus constituting a solid foundation for the Doha School of critical security and strategic studies.
The first panel “Security Studies: Mapping a Rising Field” was chaired by Haidar Saeed. Sidahmed Goudjili presented “From Traditional to Critical: The Evolution of Security Studies Field”, followed by Muhanad Seloom, who presented his paper “Intelligence Studies in the Arab World: State of the Field” and concluded by Imad Mansour who spoke on “Common Grounds in Studies on Regional Orders and Regional Rivalries”. After lunch, the second panel, “Energy, Environmental and Human Security”, was chaired by: Hamid Ali. Gawdat Bahgat began with his paper on “Gulf States and Energy Transition”, followed by Abdulkarim Ekzayez, who presented “Health Security in the Arab World: Conceptual Framing, Practical Applications, and Future Agenda”, and concluded by Bill Wieninger, who discussed “Energy Security, Complexity, and an Insecure World”.
The conference's second day began with a lecture by Rex Brynen, a professor at McGill University in Montreal, titled “Wargaming as a Methodological Tool in Security Studies for Analysis and Education” and chaired by Bassel Salloukh, Head of the Politics and International Relations Programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI). Brynen argued that wargaming and other serious games can be a valuable tool for better understanding a broad array of strategic challenges, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of strategic gaming as a methodology, highlighting basic approaches and considerations, and identifying additional resources for security studies scholars and practitioners.
Panel 3 of the conference, titled “War, Warfare, and Defence Studies”, was chaired by Mohamad Hamas Elmasry, Chair of the Media Studies Programme at the DI, and featured four presenters. Stathis Kalyvas, Gladstone Professor of Government at the University of Oxford, presented a paper entitled “The Logic of Substitution in Political Violence” that discussed reconceptualizing the full spectrum of political violence. The panel’s other speakers addressed strategic issues related to the war in Ukraine, with Jacek Bartosiak presenting his paper titled “Military Transformations and the Future of Strategy: Lessons from Ukraine”, followed by Maria Zolkina’s study, “Public Resilience as a Factor of National Security in the Times of War: The Case of Ukraine in 2014-2022”. Petro Burkovskyi concluded the panel by presenting “Ukrainian Volunteer Military Units: From Underdogs to Masters of Modern Warfare”.
Marwa Farag, Associate Professor at DI’s School of Public Administration and Development Economics chaired the conference’s fourth panel, “Terrorism and Insurgency Studies”. Aaron Y. Zelin, Richard Borow Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, presented the first paper, “From Terrorism and Insurgency to CT and COIN: The Taliban’s Fight Against the Islamic State’s Khurasan Province”. Next, Charlotte Heath-Kelly, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, discussed “The Case for Critical Terrorism Studies: Revisited”, followed by Kumar Ramakrishna, Professor of National Security Studies at Nanyang Technological University, who presented a contrasting perspective through his paper, “The Case against Critical Terrorism Studies: Revisited”. Marzena Zakowska, Associate Professor of National Security at the War Studies University in Warsaw, concluded the panel with her paper on “Hybrid Warfare and State-Sponsored Insurgencies: The Case of Eastern Ukraine”.
Panel 5, the final session of the day, was devoted to “Civil-Military Relations” and chaired by Sidahmed Goudjili, Assistant Professor in the Critical Security Studies Program at the DI. Abdel-Fattah Mady, Head of the Unit of State and Political Systems Studies at the ACRPS, opened the session with his paper “The State of the Subfield of Civil-Military Relations”, followed by Risa Brooks, Allis Chalmers Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, who presented “Understanding Variation in Civil-Military Relations in the Arab World”. Next, Ilir Kalemaj, Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of New York in Tirana, discussed his paper on “Serbian-Albanian Civil and Military Relations as Precursors to Solve the Western Balkan Conundrum”. Malath Alagha, a lecturer at the Joaan Bin Jassem Academy for Defence Studies, concluded the day’s proceedings with his paper, “The Democratization of Civil-Military Relations and its Impact on the Development of the Defence Industry in Turkey (2002-2022)”.
The third day began with a lecture by Anthony King, Professor and Chair of War Studies at the University of Warwick, titled “Warfare in the 21st Century: Urban Battles in Ukraine” and chaired by ACRPS researcher Aicha Elbasri. King addressed three main questions: what are the reasons for the rise of urban insurgencies over the past three decades, what has caused the confrontations between Ukrainian and Russian forces in urban areas, and how can the various battles between the two be analysed?
ACRPS researcher Ayat Hamdan chaired the conference’s sixth panel, “Intelligence Studies”, which included four presenters. Peter Jackson, Chair in Global Security at the University of Glasgow, opened the panel with “The Past, Present, and Future of Intelligence Studies”, followed by Owen Sirrs, Adjunct Professor of Security Studies at the University of Montana, who discussed his paper titled “Intelligence Studies in the Arab World: The Case of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate”. Next, Gordon Akrap, Assistant Professor of Information Science at the University of Zagreb, presented “Intelligence and Hybrid Threats: Interdependence and Intertwining”. Ghazi Al-Assaf, Associate Professor of Defence Economics at Joaan Bin Jassim Academy for Defence Studies, concluded the panel with his paper, “Economic and Financial Intelligence: The Role of Early Warning Systems in Predicting the Financial Crises”.
The seventh and final panel, “International Security”, featured four contributors and was chaired by Beverly Milton-Edwards, Senior Advisor in the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, Visiting Fellow at Magdalene College, the University of Cambridge, opened the panel presenting a paper titled “A Nuclear Moment”, followed by Tomasz Smura, Director of Research Office at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation, who discussed “Modernization of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army: An Impact on International Security”. Tony Lawrence, Head of the Defence Policy and Strategy Programme at the International Centre for Defence and Security in Tallinn, Estonia proceeded to discuss his paper titled “Military Assistance and War Outcomes: Russia’s War in Ukraine, after which Mahjoob Zweiri, Director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, concluded the panel with a paper titled “Iran and New Regional Security Dynamics”.
Strategic Studies Unit Conference
