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SUMMARY:ISIS and the battle for the heart of the Middle East: Towards a no
 n-state theory of war - Michael David Clark\, Royal Military Academy Sandh
 urst
DTSTART:20170314T131000Z
DTEND:20170314T140000Z
UID:TALK70144@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Julius Weitzdörfer
DESCRIPTION:The Islamic State (ISIS) has usurped the government in swathes
  of eastern Syria and western Iraq. It is engaged in a brutal war against 
 an array of state and non-state actors\, many of which are also in conflic
 t with one another. There are many theories that seek to explain why and h
 ow states go to war. We can use these extant theories to understand the wh
 ys and wherefores of state behaviour in the case of the war against ISIS\,
  and much excellent scholarship has been conducted in this regard. However
 \, it is far from clear that we can apply them to the war between non-stat
 e actors that is arguably the more important part of this particular confl
 ict. Do the extant theories of war help us understand why and how non-stat
 e actors go to war? If they do not\, how can we adapt them in order to syn
 thesise an approach with more explanatory power? This paper seeks to test 
 extant theories of war to the case study of the ongoing conflict involving
  the Islamic State. This is a particularly pertinent case study as many th
 e central protagonists are non-states\, and indeed the war itself is again
 st a non-state actor. The paper specifically dismisses the role of state a
 ctors in this conflict in order to focus attention on the drivers and fact
 ors at play in non-state wars\; this is a theoretical assumption rather th
 an a statement of reality. However\, in viewing the conflict through a len
 s that is blind to the state\, the paper aims to help us understand the co
 nflict in a novel way\, as well as to reveal the contributions that differ
 ent theoretical approaches can make and the potential ways in which these 
 can be combined to synthesise a non-state theory of war.\n\nDr Michael Dav
 id Clark is a lecturer in the department of Defence and International Affa
 irs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He gained his PhD in Politics
  and International Studies from Darwin College\, Cambridge\, in 2016. His 
 doctoral research addressed the formulation of foreign policy in Hezbollah
  and the Sadrist Movement and built on prior work in the same field undert
 aken as part of his MSc at Bristol and MRes at Exeter. Michael's current r
 esearch focuses on the application of IR theory and theories of war to arm
 ed non-state actors\, particularly in the case of the war against the Isla
 mic State. He is the author of a forthcoming monograph with Cambridge Univ
 ersity Press.
LOCATION:The Richard King Room\, Darwin College
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