Mark Phythian

Although the United States and Britain maintained a public stance of neutrality in the Iran-Iraq war, Mark Phythian demonstrates that the governments encouraged and facilitated the illegal supply of weapons to Iraq, and to a lesser extent Iran, in order to tilt the war in Baghdad's favor. The objectives of the covert policy agenda were: to keep Iran and Iraq at war so neither country could dominate oil supply or threaten the lower Gulf states, to promote domestic industries and trade, and to secure intelligence information. While the United States and other countries believed they were exploiting Iraq for their own purposes, the strategy backfired and the policy instead fueled the very conflict it was intended to contain, fortified Saddam Hussein's power, and led to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War. This disquieting look at the duplicity of the American and British governments and their covert role in arming Iraq provides important lessons for reshaping both foreign policy and arms export policy to control the dangerous proliferation of weapons in regions throughout the world.

Containing essays by some of the key theorists in the field from the US, UK and Canada, this volume assesses the role and utility of theory in intelligence studies.

"Over a decade on from the terrorist attacks of 9/11, intelligence continues to be of central importance to the contemporary world. Today there is a growing awareness of the importance of intelligence, and an increasing investment in it, as individuals, groups, organizations and states all seek timely and actionable information in order to increase their sense of security.

This edited volume addresses the key issues of ethics, war and international relations in the post-9/11 world. There is a lively debate in contemporary international relations concerning the relationship between statist obligations to one's own political community and cosmopolitan duties to distant others. This volume contributes to this debate by investigating aspects of the ethics of national military and security and intelligence policies in the post-9/11 environment. The discursive transformation of national militaries into 'forces for good' became normalized as the Cold War subsided. While the number of humanitarian military interventions and operations rose considerably in the immediate post-Cold War period, the advent of the 'war on terror' raised questions about exactly what we mean by ethical behaviour in terms of military and security policies. This volume interrogates this key question via a focus that is both distinctive and illuminating - on national military ethics; femininities, masculinities and difference; and intelligence ethics. The key objectives are to demonstrate the important linkages between areas of international relations that are all too often treated in isolation from one another, and to investigate the growing tension between cosmopolitan and communitarian conceptions of intelligence and security and the use of armed force. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, ethics, gender studies, intelligence studies, and international relations in general. -- Product Description.