Insurgency in Iraq: An Historical Perspective

The continuing proliferation of insurgent organizations suggests that insurgency is still widely perceived as an effective means either of achieving power and influence, or of bringing a cause to the notice of an international or national community. The end of European decolonization and the collapse of the Soviet Union together removed the motivational impulse for much conflict between the late 1940s and the late 1980s. However, new ideological, political, and commercial imperatives are now encouraging intrastate conflict and insurgency amid the breakdown of the international bipolar political system and the emergence of identity politics and of many more nonstate actors. This monograph considers the patterns of insurgency in the past by way of establishing how much the conflict in Iraq conforms to previous experience. In particular, the author compares and contrasts Iraq with previous Middle Eastern insurgencies such as those in Palestine, Aden, the Dhofar province of Oman, Algeria, and Lebanon. He suggests that there is much that can be learned from British, French, and Israeli experience.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1756/thumbnail.jp

The Research Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy: A Report from One of the BERA Research Commissions. Final Report

No abstract available

The Research Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy: A Report from One of the BERA Research Commissions. Summary Report

No abstract available

The Planning and Management of 'Policing Behaviour' in an Urban Environment.

The thesis develops from the viewpoint that the most important structure in any Police Organisation is the local Police Station, directly providing a service to the public. It proposes that effective and efficient policing of this type is almost impossible without clear theories and definitions of the police service. This must be followed by a clear analysis of the method by which this policing can be achieved, leading to precisely defined systems of policing. These systems must be designed to achieve measurable objectives within the total resources available. Existing theories of 'demand led' policing problems are then developed by the thesis into the concept of an Extended Reactive Spiral. This involves public demands, the Police System and the external environment. The analysis concludes that to counter the majority of these problems a new police system must be designed. This system must develop and utilise voluntary public assistance as a major preventive resource. Prosocial public behaviour, in the form of 'self policing' is required as a preventive community activity. Three types of police service are described in ascending levels of effectiveness against the problems of the Extended Reactive Spiral. A new 3RD LEVEL or Geographic policing system is developed in detail and tested in a case study at Brixton Police Station between 1983 and 1986. It is concluded that there was significant evidence supporting the effectiveness of police officers influencing public demands in hostile, high demand areas. In addition, evidence suggests that the type of police behaviour required for this effect is directly influenced by the design and processes of the police system involved

Poverty and policy advocacy

No abstract available

Poverty policy and practice themes

No abstract available

Trading on Preconceptions: Why World War I Was Not a Failure of Economic Interdependence

World War I is generally viewed by both advocates and critics of commercial liberal theory as the quintessential example of a failure of economic integration to maintain peace. Yet this consensus relies on both methodologically flawed inference and an incomplete accounting of the antecedents to the war. Crucially, World War I began in a weakly integrated portion of Europe with which highly integrated powers were entangled through the alliance system. Crises among the highly interdependent European powers in the decades leading up to the war were generally resolved without bloodshed. Among the less interdependent powers in Eastern Europe, however, crises regularly escalated to militarized violence. Moreover, the crises leading to the war created increased incentives for the integrated powers to strengthen commitments to their less interdependent partners. In attempting to make these alliances more credible, Western powers shifted foreign policy discretion to the very states that lacked strong economic disincentives to fight. Had globalization pervaded Eastern Europe, or if the rest of Europe had been less locked into events in the east, Europe might have avoided a “Great War.” </jats:p

Apples and pears? A comparison of two sources of national lung cancer audit data in England

In 2014, the method of data collection from NHS trusts in England for the National Lung Cancer Audit (NLCA) was changed from a bespoke dataset called LUCADA (Lung Cancer Data). Under the new contract, data are submitted via the Cancer Outcome and Service Dataset (COSD) system and linked additional cancer registry datasets. In 2014, trusts were given opportunity to submit LUCADA data as well as registry data. 132 NHS trusts submitted LUCADA data, and all 151 trusts submitted COSD data. This transitional year therefore provided the opportunity to compare both datasets for data completeness and reliability. We linked the two datasets at the patient level to assess the completeness of key patient and treatment variables. We also assessed the interdata agreement of these variables using Cohen’s kappa statistic, κ. We identified 26 001 patients in both datasets. Overall, the recording of sex, age, performance status and stage had more than 90% agreement between datasets, but there were more patients with missing performance status in the registry dataset. Although levels of agreement for surgery, chemotherapy and external-beam radiotherapy were high between datasets, the new COSD system identified more instances of active treatment. There seems to be a high agreement of data between the datasets, and the findings suggest that the registry dataset coupled with COSD provides a richer dataset than LUCADA. However, it lagged behind LUCADA in performance status recording, which needs to improve over time

Patient characteristics, treatment and survival in pulmonary carcinoid tumours: an analysis from the UK National Lung Cancer Audit

OBJECTIVES: Pulmonary carcinoid (PC) is a rare tumour with good prognosis following surgical resection. However, little is known regarding patient characteristics and use of other treatments modalities. Our objective was to review patient characteristics, treatment and survival for patients with PC and contrast these results with other forms of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). SETTING: Audit data from UK National Lung Cancer Audit (NLCA) 2008–2013. PARTICIPANTS: 184 906 lung cancer cases were submitted to the NLCA. OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary outcome—survival rates between PC and NSCLC. Secondary outcome—differences in performance status, lung function and treatment modality between PC and NSCLC. RESULTS: PC histology was recorded in 1341 (0.73%) patients and non-carcinoid NSCLC histology in 162 959 (87.4%) cases. 91% of patients with PC had good performance status (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) 0–1), compared with only 53% of NSCLC. 66% of PC had localised disease. Of all PC cases, 77% were treated with surgery, 6.2% received chemotherapy and 3.6% received radiotherapy, with the remainder treated with best supportive care. Overall 1-year and 3-year survival rates for PC were 92% and 84.7%, respectively. In contrast, 1-year and 3-year survival rates for NSCLC were 36.2% and 15.6%, However, 3-year survival for PC markedly decreased with worsening performance status and advanced disease to 23.8% for performance status ECOG 3–4 and 33.6% for stage IV disease. CONCLUSIONS: In contrast to other forms of NSCLC, the majority of patients with PC present with good performance status, preserved lung function and early stage disease amenable to surgical resection. However, 1 in 5 patients with PC has metastatic disease which is associated with poor prognosis, as is poor performance status at presentation. We believe these data will help clinicians provide accurate prognostic predictions stratified according to patient characteristics at presentation, as well as guide future clinical trials