Public lecture by Dr. Emile Simpson, Harvard University Society of Fellows

Public lecture by Dr. Emile Simpson, Harvard University Society of Fellows

In this lecture, Emile Simpson will challenge the orthodox view of the ideal form of civil-military relations that liberal democracies should follow in contemporary conflict. This orthodox view claims that the boundary between ‘policy’ and ‘operational’ matters in the context of armed conflict demarcates two exclusive domains: policy makers should stay out of operational matters; conversely, operational actors should stay out of policy making. However, in contemporary conflicts such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria where the political-military boundary is blurred on the ground, the strict division this model suggests no longer makes sense. The result of the west’s failure to reform this outdated model of civil-military relations in these types of conflict, it will be argued, is a lethargic strategic process that has not served us well.

Dr. Emile Simpson is a Research Fellow at the Harvard University Society of Fellows. He was formerly a British Army Officer, and completed three tours of duty in Afghanistan in that role. He is the author of War From the Ground Up: Twenty-First-Century Combat as Politics, and is also a columnist at Foreign Policy magazine

The event will be chaired by Assistant Professor Anne Roelsgaard Obling (Department of Organization). It is hosted by CBS Public-Private Law Enforcement and Armed Forces (LEAF) Cluster and the Velux Foundation project ‘Office as a Vocation’.

Time and Date
Thursday June 7 2018
14.00-15.30 pm

Location
Copenhagen Business School
Kilevej 14A
2000 Frederiksberg
Room K.4.74

Please register to seminar.ioa@cbs.dk no later than June 4