Saturday 18 February 2023, the Strategic Studies Unit of the ACRPS launched the first session of its three-day fourth annual conference “Security and Strategic Studies: The State of the Field”. The conference is welcoming 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 to be discussed by the participants include 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 conference will also reflect on the contributions of the ACRPS and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI) to the field of Security and Strategic Studies, constituting a solid foundation for the Doha School of Critical Security and Strategic Studies with its research, teaching, and applied dimensions.

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 will continue until Monday, 20 February 2023, at the ACRPS in Doha. Every panel is also being livestreamed on ACRPS social media, with live translation available in Arabic and English.