oD support open standards:

About Paul Rogers

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy's international-security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

Articles by Paul Rogers

Friday 3rd February

America, Israel, Iran: signals of war

Paul Rogers, 3 February 2012
A range of military and political developments, from the very rare planned deployment of three huge United States armadas in the Persian Gulf to Israeli fears of Barack Obama’s re-election, is evidence of rising danger around Iran.
Tuesday 31st January

Notes for the openSecurity discussion, Oslo, January 10, 2012

Paul Rogers, 31 January 2012
Thursday 26th January

The Iran complex: why history matters

Paul Rogers, 26 January 2012
A sense of enduring history and more recent experience of bitter conflict inform Iran's nuclear stance. To understand this could be a way to avoid war.
Friday 20th January

The thirty-year war: past, present, future

Paul Rogers, 20 January 2012
The prognosis of a thirty-year war looked outlandish as Saddam's regime toppled, persuasive as Iraq's insurgency erupted - and now less plausible amid American forces' retreat. But two core issues continue to give it life.
Thursday 12th January

Al-Qaida: an open endgame

Paul Rogers, 12 January 2012
There is powerful evidence for the argument that the al-Qaida movement is in decline. But there are other processes at work - including in United States presidential politics - that could yet create a different outcome.
Thursday 5th January

The SWISH Report (20)

Paul Rogers, 5 January 2012
A year of turbulence across a wide arc from AfPak to the Arab world, from Somalia to Nigeria, poses key questions to al-Qaida. The movement again commissions a report from its favoured consultancy, to which openDemocracy has exclusive access.
Thursday 29th December

America, Israel, Iran: a dangerous moment

Paul Rogers, 29 December 2011
The tensions between Washington and Tehran are being further fuelled by naval exercises and discussion of strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. This makes the absence of a direct communications channel all the more worrying.
Thursday 22nd December

America, Israel, Iran: a shifting risk

Paul Rogers, 22 December 2011
A series of developments - in Iraq, the United States and Iran itself - nudges the balance of calculation towards an attack on Tehran. The additional danger is that this could happen by inadvertence.
Thursday 15th December

America, Israel, Iran: war in focus

Paul Rogers, 15 December 2011
The argument in America for war against Iran is often couched in religious-apocalyptic terms. But the decisive element in the end will be strategic and political calculation.
Thursday 8th December

A world in crisis: echo, need, hope

Paul Rogers, 8 December 2011

A fresh awareness of system-failure and resource-constraint draws on the experience and ideas of the 1970s. But this time the vision of radical change is real possibility as well as urgent necessity.

(This article was first published on 1 December 2011)

Thursday 24th November

The crisis and the change-makers

Paul Rogers, 24 November 2011
In the face of the world’s urgent economic and environmental problems, political leadership is failing. But from the ground up, new tools of understanding are emerging to fill the gap and point a way forward.
Thursday 17th November

A world in protest

Paul Rogers, 17 November 2011
The global demonstrations of 2011 both highlight the reality of economic system-failure and reveal its linkage to the crisis of resource constraints. The result is a measure of the scale of change needed over coming decades.
Friday 11th November

Israel vs Iran: the regional blowback

Paul Rogers, 11 November 2011
The prospect of an Israeli military assault on Iran's nuclear assets is growing. The scale and impact of any attack would be far greater than most observers expect.
Thursday 3rd November

Libya: victory, tragedy, legacy

Paul Rogers, 3 November 2011
The western military alliance sees the result of the anti-Gaddafi war as a vindication of its strategy. But the true accounting of Nato’s campaign - including on the ledger of arms companies - tells a different story.
Thursday 27th October

Mad men, nuclear pasts, human futures

Paul Rogers, 27 October 2011
The dismantling of a powerful nuclear bomb closes a chapter of the cold war. But the choices and responsibilities embedded in the story of the B53 make this a 21st-century story too.
Thursday 20th October

A war on Iran: the delusive logic

Paul Rogers, 20 October 2011
The arguments for and against an armed attack on Iran by the United States - or Israel - are sharpening. The increasing tension that surrounds the issue could itself precipitate a conflict that would be far lengthier than its advocates believe.
Thursday 13th October

Iran and America: components of crisis

Paul Rogers, 13 October 2011
Washington's charge that high-level Iranian cadres were planning an attack in the United States signals the real possibility of dangerous confrontation between old adversaries.
Thursday 6th October

Afghanistan, the regional complex

Paul Rogers, 6 October 2011
Afghanistan's war enters its second decade with the Taliban emboldened and the United States enfeebled. But the power-play between Pakistan, India and China is also now central to an assessment of what comes next.
Thursday 29th September

The drone-war blowback

Paul Rogers, 29 September 2011
A greater focus on pilotless armed drones as an instrument of war by the United States and its allies raises questions of political cost as well as law and morality.
Thursday 22nd September

America’s wars: the logic of escalation

Paul Rogers, 22 September 2011
The United States's political-military strategy for drawdown in Afghanistan is in trouble, even as Washington is tempted by increased high-tech military engagement in other theatres of war.
Syndicate content