In this great interview from New Books in National Security, Omar Ashour, author of How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt, talks to host Jeffrey Bristol about his work.
They discuss the origin of Ashour’s study and how ISIS franchises spread. The interview also explores the potential threats of ISIS as an international terrorist organisation and why it grew as quickly as it did. They also look ahead to what the future might hold for ISIS.
Find out more about the interview over on New Books Network, or listen below:
Lily Hamourtziadou, "The Ethics of Remote Warfare" (University of Wales Press, 2024) – New Books in National Security
Can there be purely defensive or moral wars? In response to this question and others like it, this book offers unique insights into twenty-first-century warfare through the lenses of realism, militarism, and just war theory. This book challenges its readers to consider war from different perspectives and to reevaluate their views on the morality of war.Ethical approaches to war require that we don’t value only the lives of ‘our’ people, as realism asserts; that we don’t enforce our sense of justice with weapons, as militarism demands; that force is used only in self-defense, based on the principles of just war theory. Lily Hamourtziadou explores the issue of civilian harm in war, questioning whether the use of so-called precision weapons—celebrated for minimizing risks to soldiers and civilians—and the rapidly developing technology of lethal autonomous weapons are increasing rather than decreasing civilian harm. In engaging with these questions, The Ethics of Remote Warfare (University of Wales Press, 2024) highlights the need for new accountability mechanisms that reflect a sense of legal and moral justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
- Lily Hamourtziadou, "The Ethics of Remote Warfare" (University of Wales Press, 2024)
- Constant Willem Hijzen, "Roots of Counterterrorism: Contemporary Wisdom from Dutch Intelligence" (Oxford UP, 2024)
- Elizabeth N. Saunders, "The Insiders' Game: How Elites Make War and Peace" (Princeton UP, 2024)
- Jeffrey P. Rogg, "The Spy and the State: The History of American Intelligence" (Oxford UP, 2025)
- NATO, the Indo-Pacific, and the Future of Burden-Sharing: A Conversation with Brian Blankenship
About the Author
Omar Ashour is an Associate Professor of Security and Military Studies and the Founding Chair of the Critical Security Studies Programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He is the author of How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) as well as the editor of Bullets to Ballots: Collective De-Radicalisation of Armed Movements (Edinburgh University Press, 2021).
