OxBlog

# Posted 2:53 PM by Taylor Owen

SETTLING IN, OXBLOG STYLE: Perhaps it’s appropriate for my first ‘official’ Oxblog post to flog an article out today. It’s in Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly and titled ‘Sense and Symbolism: Europe Takes On Human Security.’

Porter, I hope you are suitably tickled that it leads with a Churchill quote, "The human tragedy reaches its climax in the fact that after all the exertions and sacrifices of hundreds of millions of people and of the victories of the Righteous Cause, we have still not found Peace or Security.”

While military policy is far from my expertise, the article looks at recent EU flirtations with the concept of Human Security, which is the focus of much of my academic work. Haven’t discussed the concept yet here, but as the Patricks both know, I can’t go too long without hard selling my definition of the concept and the overall utility of broader conceptualizations of security, so it shouldn’t be long until it rears it's ugly (read, soft Canadian/Euro) head in this forum.

Anyways, my co-author on this piece, Peter Liotta, is an expert on US counterinsurgency strategy so is forcing me to think more and more in this direction. We have another piece out imminently in the The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and IR, which I’ll pass on when out.

And now back to your regular programing...

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Comments:

"to flog" in the sense of "to sell" or "to assault"? "Takes On": is that a verbal phrase, and if so does it mean "fights" -as in "Frasier takes on Ali" - or does it mean something likes "takes aboard"? Or, does it use "takes" in the sense of "perspective" i.e does it refer to European perspectives on blah, blah. Put otherwise, would your field gain in clarity if people wrote in decent English?

# posted by

dearieme : 6:22 PM

By 'decent,' I think dearieme means 'not Commonwealth.' A running theme among the American commentators, scouring the internet ceaselessly from their homes for a stray 'u'.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:20 PM