Description
This roundtable will address how and why territorial occupations and interventions end. From Ukraine to the West Bank and Afghanistan and beyond, occupations and exit dilemmas permeate contemporary geopolitics. However, the existing literature on territorial conflict rarely scrutinises a pivotal, related question: what makes an intervener withdraw from an occupied territory, or entrench itself within it? This roundtable will address this question. Given the local salience of occupations and interventions, this roundtable focuses primarily (but not exhaustively) on the Middle East, the Israel-Palestine conflict and Russia’s ongoing occupation of parts of Ukraine. It will thus compare diverse cases of occupations, interventions and exits and ask: what commonalities exhibited across each case? Is there a clear pattern of interactions and processes that causes an intervener to end its occupation and withdraw? Why did some interventions and occupations end, whilst others remain stubbornly persistent? What lessons can be learned from interventions that have ended that are pertinent for those that are ongoing today? Each scholar brings a different focus: Israeli foreign policy (Prof. Amnon Aran); Israel’s security and territorial policies (Dr. Rob Geist Pinfold) Russia’s occupation and exit dilemmas (Prof. Caroline Kennedy-Pipe); great power occupations and exits in the Middle East (Dr. Louise Kettle); and how interventions have affected regional security and cooperation (Prof. Louise Fawcett). The above participants are at divergent stages of their careers, spanning full professors, heads of department and early career researchers. Each comes from a different institution; some identify primarily as historians, others as scholars of international relations and international security. The roundtable falls under the purview of the War Studies Working Group and will be chaired by the working group’s co-convenor, Dr. James Rogers.
NB: two of the roundtable’s potential participants have childcare responsibilities on Friday (23 June) and have therefore asked for the roundtable to be held on the 21st or the 22nd. I have informed them that I can make no guarantees but did promise to pass on the request when submitting this roundtable proposal.
