Derek Gregory

Derek Gregory is the Peter Wall Distinguished Professor, University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Publications include The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine(2004) and the forthcoming The Everywhere War.

Supplying war in Afghanistan: the frictions of distance

Pakistan has said NATO's supply convoys can cross the Afghan border so long as America's drones do not. Though the expanded use of cyberwarfare, covert special forces and drones is designed to overcome the frictional problems of waging war from a distance, logistics still matter. The world is not

By Derek Gregory

/ 11 Jun 2012

Lines of descent

To mark one hundred years of aerial bombing, we publish this detailed account of the path that led us from bombing cities, forests and target boxes to putting 'warheads on foreheads' in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Derek Gregory argues that our understanding of bombing has been dominated by political

By Derek Gregory

/ 8 Nov 2011

The American way of bombing?

‘Signature targets’ are ghostly traces of the ‘target signatures’ that once animated the electronic battlefield. Commentators have often drawn comparisons between the wars in Vietnam and in Afghanistan, but if Vietnam was a ‘quagmire’ then the air wars over Afghanistan-Pakistan threaten to create

By Derek Gregory

/ 27 Oct 2011