Entries by Henry Jackson Society

Russia’s Syria diktat

In a few weeks the Syrian civil war will reach another grim milestone. In March it will be five years since that war began. Back then, in 2011, the uprising against the dictatorship of the Assad dynasty seemed as though it could herald a moment of hope. Indeed the whole region appeared to be showing […]

Trivialising The Holocaust

Perhaps the only thing worse than knowing no history at all is to know only one piece of it. The coinciding this week of Holocaust Memorial Day with the ongoing European migration crisis provided a fine example of this. In a matter of days the European media seized on a number of stories that suggested that Europe was […]

‘Choosing Sharia’

One of the parts of HJS that we are proudest of is our extraordinary programme of events which run every week in the heart of Westminster. For members of the public and members of the Houses of Parliament these events provide a terrific facility for bringing voices and ideas into the heart of our democracy which may otherwise not […]

The Tragedy of Sangin

At the year’s end there could hardly be a more resonant or tragic story than the loss of the Afghan town of Sangin to the Taliban.  Contrary to the media’s many critics, the news cycle, like human nature, favours good news stories.  It favours things getting steadily better, whether that is medical advances or political […]

The Dangers of Distraction

Every day’s news now is about distraction.  What is the latest outrageous thing somebody has said?  What is the latest outrageous thing somebody has done?  Something happens and everybody is forced into having an opinion about it. Yet all the while real things go on in the real world often unnoticed.  The situation in Afghanistan […]

Searching for a Syria Endgame Strategy

Anyone needing to be reminded of the unintended consequences of military intervention might consider this week a tutorial. Anyone could foresee a certain complexity in the skies above Syria, but the direction from which that complexity comes is nevertheless always surprising. The lack of unity in international action in Syria was obviously, and long before […]

“We Will Conquer Your Rome”: A Study of Islamic State Terror Plots in the West

The Islamic State (IS) presently controls significant amounts of land throughout Iraq and Syria. However, its ambitions are not restricted to this territory. Within days of announcing its ‘Caliphate’, the self-appointed ‘Caliph’ Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi vowed that IS would eventually “conquer Rome”. IS precursor groups and the individuals which have trained alongside them have displayed […]

The Consequences of ‘Checking Out’: America’s absent strategy as Syria collapses

The Syrian conflict has taken many unpredictable turns over its terrible four years. But the developments this week are some of the most concerning so far. Syria has always been not only a domestic civil war but also a place where regional powers have struggled with each other to promote and prop up their own […]

Europe’s Refugee Crisis — Fixing the Cause, Not the Symptoms

The most extraordinary aspect of the refugee crisis gripping Europe’s newspapers right now is that everyone is fixated on the symptom of the problem – mass migration – rather than the cause. While economic migration has always been a pull factor for those leaving the developing world for the developed, this has been exacerbated by […]

A Flawed Deal: How the Iran Deal Threatens Britain’s Security

This latest policy paper by Centre for the New Middle East at the Henry Jackson Society, A Flawed Deal: An Assessment Of The Iranian Nuclear Agreement, undertakes one of the most comprehensive and exhaustive assessments of the Iran agreement to date. The centre’s study reveals the key nuclear and non-nuclear flaws of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action […]