Progressive Geographies

Just published by my Warwick colleague Anthony King, Command: The Twenty-First Century General – Cambridge University Press, 2019

In the wake of the troubled campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, military decision-making appears to be in crisis and generals have been subjected to intense and sustained public criticism. Taking these interventions as a starting point, Anthony King examines the transformation of military command in the twenty-first century. Focusing on the army division, King argues that a phenomenon of collective command is developing. In the twentieth century, generals typically directed and led operations personally, monopolising decision-making. They commanded individualistically, even heroically. As operations have expanded in range and scope, decision-making has multiplied and diversified. As a result command is becoming increasingly professionalised and collaborative. Through interviews with many leading generals and vivid ethnographic analysis of divisional headquarters, this book provides a unique insight into the transformation of command in western armies.

• Includes interviews with some of the most prominent generals of the current era (such as James Mattis, David Petraeus and Nick Carter)
• Contains a highly original and detailed ethnography of the divisional headquarters, based on extensive fieldwork
• Includes historical research back to the First World War of both counter-insurgency and conventional operations
• Presents international comparisons of the major western powers (France, Germany, UK and US)

‘A timely study of the transformation of military command from the realm of individual genius to a more collective and participatory style better suited to today’s multifaceted organizations, global distances, and complex environments. King argues that twenty-first century generalship requires not just heroic leadership and tactical brilliance, but the ability to establish networks and empower subordinates in a more collaborative model tuned to the realities of the information age. A controversial argument that is highly recommended reading for military officers and defense policy makers.’ Peter R. Mansoor, author of Surge: My Journey With General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War

‘This book is bound to become a core text on contemporary military command. By focusing on the divisional structure Anthony King is able to chart the move from traditional individualistic and hierarchical approaches to a more professional and collectivist approach. This is done using examples of military success and failure, from Monash to Mattis, and from conventional battles to counterinsurgency.’ Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King’s College London

‘A fascinating study of the evolution of military command over the past century, explaining how and why many of the challenges of command today are different. Highly recommended – not least for twenty-first-century generals and those who aspire to be.’ John Kiszely, Retired Lieutenant General and author of Anatomy of a Campaign. The British Fiasco in Norway, 1940

‘No one gives a better inside view of what goes on in a combat headquarters than Anthony King. His fieldwork in the Afghanistan War is set against the background of heroic generals in the World Wars, the growth of administrative bureaucracy in WWII, and the shift to counterinsurgency midway through the Iraq War. Throughout, King discerns a growing trend to program combat decisons in a collective of headquarters officers. Apart from the usual studies of generals’ strategies and heroism, King shows how generals have actually commanded their divisions in daily action. On a new level of sociological sophistication, King shows the lifeworld of command – the mesh of individual leaders with the organization that enables and constrains them.’ Randall Collins, author of Civil War Two

New Perspectives Vol 3, 2018 – open access here

Post-Truth-Telling in IR
We break new ground in this issue of New Perspectives with an extensive co-edited special section on ‘Post-Truth’ and its relevance for politics and international relations. As Editor-in-Chief, I have been delighted to share the editing duties – and the authorship of the editorial – with Nick Michelsen of Kings College. It’s been a rich and rewarding collaboration that began in a chance conversation back at ISA 2017 in Baltimore, continued with a high-profile roundtable at ISA 2018 in San Francisco, some low-profile drinks at at the wonderful Gordons Wine Bar in London, and now comes to fruition in this issue of the journal. I’m delighted with how this has turned out and to have such a wonderful array of scholarship – and scholars – in the journal. We present post-truth (and its implications) as seen from the various perspectives of Arendtian ethical politics, critical realism, post-universal international justice, trust and the return of agency as well as the history, and future, of IR as a discipline engaged in or disengaged from the (post-truth) world.

This is one of the first extended, multi-perspectival academic engagements with post-truth and as well as showcasing cutting edge thinking on this hot topic, it will make a wonderful teaching resource in and beyond IR.

It is, therefore, my proud duty as editor of the journal to thank Colin Wight, Kjersti Lohne, Ari-Elmeri Hyvönen, Hannah Marshall and Alena Drieschova, Dagmar Rychnovská and Martin Kohut for their stellar contributions to the special section – and to welcome Nick Michelsen to our Associate Editor team on a permanent basis.

David Beer, The Data Gaze (Sage 2018, Society and Space series) is reviewed at LSE Review of Books by Ignas Kalpokas.

It can by now be taken as a given that ‘data’ or, more precisely, ‘big data’ (often even capitalised to reflect its importance), has come to define today’s society. In fact, as David Beer suggests in this book, we are permanently put under ‘the data gaze’ that extracts, analyses and predicts key variables that are taken to define our world in increasingly granular detail, down to the level of the individual. In this timely and important book, Beer aims to shed light not only on how datafied visibility takes place, but also on how it is seen to act because this imaginary is key to the self-legitimation of the data analytics industry. [continues here]