This research proposes to examine the composition and evolution of the Colombian military’s approach to counter-insurgency since the origins of the internal armed conflict that affects the country. Following the lineaments of strategic theory, it will endeavour to understand how the military came to view the utilisation of armed force, amongst other means, since the beginning of the armed conflict. To construct the Colombian military strategic tradition, it will attempt to identify its value–system, that is, the ideological precepts, motivational patterns and assumptions that throughout the years have influenced the military’s use of the main instruments at its disposal. It will explore how these diverse factors have shaped different understandings of the character of the conflict, views of its political conduct, and of the role and limits of armed force, amongst other issues. This analysis will allow to establish lines of continuity and change in Colombian military thinking. In this respect, the research argues that the formative years of the Colombian strategic tradition during the 1960s, and in particular the influence of counter-insurgency thinking, has been fundamental in shaping the military’s different, and at times conflicting, judgements about the conflict, the nature of their enemies and the limits of armed force during the past 20 years of escalation of violence in Colombia. Overall, the research shows that the inherent tensions visible in Colombian military thinking have undermined the formulation of strategy, that is, the translation of means into political ends.

Scholars have been working on the proliferation question since the detonation of first the atomic bombs in 1945. Yet despite over six decades of fears about the rapid spread of nuclear weapons, only ten states now posses the bomb; and of these only Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea developed their weapons after the Treaty for the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons opened for signature in 1968. Nevertheless, numerous states have clandestinely pursued nuclear weapons despite their treaty obligations and the robustness of the nonproliferation norm. What factors prompt some leaders to pursue nuclear weapons, while the vast majority of others choose to rely on the nonproliferation regime, external guarantees, or a combination of the two, for security? To answer this question this study compares nuclear decisionmaking in one state that chose to proliferate - Iran - and a state that did not - Turkey - from the mid-1950s, when they first showed interest in nuclear energy, to the present. To maximize the total number of observations, the study analyzes every nuclear decision made during this period in an attempt to identify the subjective variables influencing decision-makers in both countries. It will be further argued that nuclear decision-making is multi-causal, owing to different conceptions of similar external inputs. As such, nuclear decision-making is country specific, requiring in-depth research to determine the dynamics of proliferation in different countries to determine the reasons why individual states choose to proliferate, compared to the majority that have embraced nonproliferation.

US engagement and support of non-state armed groups is a regular and accepted facet of US foreign and security policy-making. Such groups are a central aspect of US war-fighting options. However, the US has a problem with non-state armed groups. This problem has nothing to do with whether these groups are effective in securing perceived US interests. Rather, non-state armed groups are a problem for US identity. The US knows that it opposes terrorism and subversive violence. Such methods of warfare are not how the US fights wars. Terrorist violence is a war-fighting method of weak actors and uncivilised groups who have evil intentions. The US is the opposite of such groups - an exemplary conductor of warfare in the defence of noble ideals such as freedom, liberty, and democracy. Where then, do the non-state armed groups that have become so central to US war-fighting fit into the opposition between the US and terrorist violence? How do non-state armed groups, so often associated with terrorism, become part of an “American way of war” which is supposed to oppose terrorist violence? The thesis does not ignore these actors as unproblematic amongst US war-fighting options, or simply cast US engagement and support of non-state armed groups as a simple case of “state terrorism”. Rather, the thesis argues the US engagement and support of non-state armed groups is a complex discursive interaction which manages the tensions between the US need to engage with non-state armed groups and its opposition to terrorism and subversive violence. Working with the conceptual tool of the US “security imaginary”, and applying the Discourse Theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the thesis tracks the discursive emergence of US engagement and support of non-state armed groups in the post-1945 era, which has seen it go from being a marginal and highly covert activity to the prominent tool of US security that it is today. Ultimately, the engagement and support of non-state armed groups has implications for how the US understands its own identity and the supposed “American way of war”.

This thesis is concerned primarily with the use of law and courts as strategic assets in insurgency. Its subject is ‘lawfare’. Recent discourse on insurgency and counterinsurgency has focussed on ‘population-centred’ activities-the idea of the ‘people’ as a ‘prize’. An indispensible ingredient of any effective government is the ability to adjudicate – usually by a judiciary. At the heart of many insurgencies (not all), is the realisation that the ability to decide disputes and enforce those decisions bolsters legitimacy. The perceived ability to do this is important to the narrative of the insurgency. Counterinsurgents (incumbents) have often concentrated on the security aspect of courts and ‘justice’. This can work where there is no competitive system in operation in the operational area. This was so during supposedly successful operations by the British in the 1950s. Even in such cases there is the potential for what is termed here ‘rupture’ and ‘disruptive litigation’ where incumbent courts may be used to blunt both operational effectiveness and even the legitimacy of incumbent rule. When insurgents set up competing justice systems within their own communities, provided that these are seen as ‘fair’, they may be highly effective. Indeed some insurgencies, sometimes with causes rooted in the vital matter of land, have levered their ability to adjudicate and enforce into power. The role of courts goes well beyond land however, as the cases of the Irish War of Independence (in Western Europe), and the Afghan Taliban (in so-called ‘ungoverned space’) have demonstrated. Often knowledgable colonial incumbents ruled through delegated authority in so-called ‘ungoverned’ (or ’differently governed’) space. They were acutely aware of the importance of ‘lawfare’. Whilst the applicability of lessons drawn from those experiences should not be overstated, they should not be ignored. A brief study of the west’s efforts areas of Afghanistan demonstrates some of these factors. Attempts to impose an alien system there ask the quesion 'who really is the insurgent'?

This thesis explores the issue of the utility of junior partners in coalition warfare in the post-Cold War era. It begins with the observation that the International Relations and strategic studies literatures are surprisingly under-developed on the issue of coalition leader and the junior partners. This thesis challenges the conventional wisdom about coalition-building in the post-Cold War era. It argues that there are two distinct, albeit mutually reinforcing, casual paths to utility: the first is the standing of a state participating to the intervention, the second is the combination of integration and quality to its armed forces. In order to establish this result, the thesis adopts a mixed-method approach, combining a crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) conducted on 2014 cases with detailed case studies of twelve states participating in four multinational military interventions after the Cold War. This core finding has two major consequences. First, in coalition warfare, the more is not necessarily the merrier. There is no linear relation between a junior partner’s participation to an intervention, and an increase of the legitimacy and/or military effectiveness of the said intervention. For the utility of a junior partner to be established, the conditions of standing and/or the combination of integration and quality must be met. Second, it is very rare to have a clear trade-off between military and political utility. In most cases, the two causal mechanisms leading to utility are simultaneous. These findings have important consequences for both research on alliances and policy-making.

The thesis is divided into three main sections i) Introduction ii) Text iii) Critical Notes and Glossary. The frontispiece shows the title page of the Anglo-Norman MS translation of Vegetius' De re militari. i) Introduction: In the opening two chapters, the historical setting of the translation is examined. First, the background to the writing in the fourth century of the original Latin text is established, and an outline is given of the substance of the text; then a study is made of the Vegetian tradition in France from the later years of the thirteenth century to the present day. The manuscript, its date and its authorship are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. Then the value of the French text as a translation is discussed. The sixth and longest chapter examines the language of the translation, noting points of divergence from Continental French which generally fit into the pattern of Anglo-Norman usage. A short chapter is given over to outlining the plan followed in establishing the text of this edition. The Notes to the Introduction conclude this part of the thesis. ii) Text: The text is basically that of Add.MS.1. of the Marlay Collection of the Fizwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This is a unique manuscript. Corrections and emendations, which have been kept to a bare minimum, are shown in the footnotes. iii) Critical Notes and Glossary The Critical Notes are designed to amplify and clarify the text. Extensive reference is made to the Latin original, and many difficult or obscure passages are translated into English. The Notes are followed by a Select Glossary and an Index of Proper Names. Two appendices list the various manuscripts of the mediaeval French translations of Vegetius, together with certain additional Latin manuscripts of the De re militari. The volume ends with a list of the principal works consulted in the preparation of this thesis.

This thesis seeks to analyse and explain Libya’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability and the factors that ultimately influenced Qaddafi’s regime to dismantle the nuclear weapons programme. Driven by the core motive to deter external threats to its security and the desire to become a regional power, Libya for over three decades sought to acquire nuclear weapons, but failed to obtain them ‘off the shelf’. From the 1970s until 2003, Libya sought to acquire key elements of nuclear components. After many years Qaddafi transformed his foreign and security policies, which for several decades had resulted in rogue behaviour on the part of the state machine. This transformation applied to the ideological motivations that had generated the regime’s aggressive approach in the realm of international relations. Focusing on the Libyan case study, in three different periods has allowed the key factors influencing Libya’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability and simultaneously its decision to denuclearise, to be unravelled. The empirical findings demonstrate that external and internal pressure provides a satisfactory explanation for the reorientation of Libya’s policies. This thesis confirms that Qaddafi’s regime dismantlement of its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 was influenced by the domestic factors such as public pressure, and external factors such as stringent economic sanctions, international isolation and the very genuine threat of military action. This in turn reflected the fact that the Libyan case can be better explained from a realistic point of view. Indeed, the study found that the reaction of the Libyan government was not a response to the regional and international norms, but it was rather a consequence of domestic and external pressure. By arguing this, denuclearisation occurs when regimes comes under internal and external pressure, particularly from powerful actors by using coercion tools such as international isolation, economic sanctions and threat of military action. This thesis contributes to broader theoretical debates surrounding non-proliferation and denuclearisation. This study concludes that states can give up their nuclear weapons programmes under certain internal and external factors.

This thesis asks why some ethnic insurgencies in Myanmar have de-escalated since 2011, while others re-escalated concurrently. It investigates this puzzle by zooming into the country’s most important ethnic armies: the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO). Findings from nine months of ethnographically-informed field research in the Kachin and Karen borderlands reveal that internal contestations within both movements have driven their respective conflict and negotiation strategies with the state. These intramural conflicts were sparked in the context of changing political economies in the country’s borderlands that enabled the enrichment of individual rebel leaders but eroded their authority within their movements. The original contribution of this thesis is two-fold: Theoretically, the thesis contributes to the emerging literature on the internal dimensions of rebel groups by moving away from the prevalent focus on rebel elites and rationaldecision making. Instead, it conceptualises insurgency as a social process between differently situated elite and non-elite actors, grounding itself within relational sociology. This appreciates how social dynamics - including figurational interdependencies, reciprocal power relations, and embodied practices - develop a momentum of their own in driving political violence. In doing so, it is suggested that the emergence and erosion of leadership authority in rebel groups depends on whether elites address their grassroots’ claim to recognition, enabling the latter to develop and maintain self-perceived positive social identities through affiliation to the insurgent collective. Empirically, the thesis contributes to a better understanding of one of the world’s longest ongoing but least researched civil wars by presenting original findings on its most important rebel groups, particularly with regards to the often uneasy relations between rebel elites and their grassroots and the ways in which internal contestation drives their strategies. Its findings also have implications for policy in so far as they highlight the pitfalls of counterinsurgency and peacebuilding approaches that aim at fragmenting rebel movements and/or privilege the material interests of elites over issues surrounding recognition and identity that – as this thesis shows – are underpinning ethnonational insurgencies.

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This thesis explores the complexities and processes involved in minority groups' negotiations with the state over the terms of their belonging in the national polity. It is based on fieldwork among the Banwaon, a non-Muslim minority group in the southern Philippines, not previously described in the literature. In the context of on-going insurgency and counter-insurgency operations, the Banwaon are divided: One leader called the katangkawan has become a paramilitary organiser supporting the state‘s counter-insurgency program. Other Banwaon leaders of the Tagdumahan association assert political autonomy from the state. The thesis follows the latter, and their responses to the katangkawan. Almost all Banwaon are implicated in illegal logging. Given timber‘s value as a commodity, Banwaon tenure rules have evolved so that landowners also own the timber standing thereon. However, the katangkawan proposed to have the entire Banwaon ancestral territory titled, invoking a state law recognizing ancestral land ownership. The Tagdumahan responded adversely to this project, because of its implication in counter-insurgency and the katangkawan‟s role in it. The impact of counter-insurgency on the Banwaon is explored. The response of a Banwaon community occupied by the military suggests a pattern of sedentarisation in response to the state‘s growing control of the surrounding forests. A second community suffered from threats from a death-squad allegedly controlled by the katangkawan. Village leaders had difficulty addressing this problem because of the way the katangkawan blurs the line between state and Banwaon society. Electoral politics as a response to threats is also examined. The thesis uses Rosaldo‘s notion of ‗cultural citizenship‘ (2003) in its analysis, to provide a platform for dialogue with Scott‘s characterisation of state-minority relations (2009). Finally, two particular factors are explored: The complexity of the dynamics governing the Tagdumahan‘s attempt to maintain autonomy, and state laws on ancestral land titling.