Milton's army: The white house press corps

White House reporters follow a path constructed by presidential advisers that they hope will lead them to fulfill goals set by their news organizations. White House officials ration them facilities for work, access to newsworthy people, and reportable information in amounts that depend on the importance to the President of the type of media they work in, the status of their particular news organization, and the staff's respect for the influence and competence of a particular individual. In this context, several constraints that affect White House reporting are discussed here: those placed on reporters by their organizations; by the way their type of media covers the White House; by their relations with each other; and by their concepts of what they are required to do. The framework for this discussion and analysis is a classification by type of media and news organizations that assign journalists to the White House. Of the resulting six categories, the first three have the most structural and organizational influence and are given the most attention. The special status, unique history, and influence of photographers at the White House require that they be treated separately.     

The Irish republican army: An assessment of sectarianism

Although the Irish Republican Army (IRA) has been active for more than 25 years, interpretations of the motivation of the IRA are varied. For some, it is a sectarian organization engaged in a tit‐for‐tat campaign with Protestant paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. For others, it is a guerrilla army waging a military campaign against the British presence in Northern Ireland. This article assesses the degree to which the IRA was or was not engaged in sectarian activity between July 1969 and December 1993. Although the Irish Republican Army killed more than 340 Protestant civilians in this time period, this examination suggests that the IRA, in general, was not a sectarian organization.     

Invading Europe: The British army and its preparations for the Normandy campaign, 1942-44

Some scholars claim that collective security always fails. This article analyses a case where it succeeded. When Belgians rebelled against Dutch rule in the early 1830s, all five great powers agreed no fewer than four times to threaten or to use force against one or both sides. Why? Drawing extensively on diplomatic correspondence from Austrian, German and Russian archives, I show that the Concert of Europe functioned as a security regime, helping the powers to agree. Great power consensus broke down when Britain and France imposed a peace settlement on the Dutch in 1832. Yet the Belgian case—like Iraq's 1991 expulsion from Kuwait—shows that collective security can sometimes succeed against cross-border aggression.     

Invading Europe: The British army and its preparations for the Normandy campaign, 1942-44

The combat capability of 2nd British Army during the Normandy campaign has been much deprecated. This article tries to shed new light on these criticisms by examining three neglected aspects of the army's preparations for the campaign. It examines how the army was created from formations drawn from both Home Forces and 8th Army; it explores how its formations were trained in Britain before D-Day; it considers how senior commanders were selected to lead the army; and finally it demonstrates how athese issues had a significant influence on the combat capability of British troops in Normandy.     

Unity in the face of threat? Exploring the empirical relationship between strategic threat perceptions and public support for a common European army in Germany

ABSTRACT

Perceptions of threat from Russia’s military activities in Ukraine and President Trump’s critical attitude towards NATO have put the idea of a common European army on the agenda of European politics. Do these strategic threat perceptions also influence public support for the creation of a common European army? Previous research has largely overlooked strategic threat perceptions as individual-level determinants of public support for a common European army. This article explores the empirical relationship between strategic threat perceptions and support for a common European army at the individual level of analysis with representative German survey data from 2018. The multivariate analysis shows that perceiving Russia’s military activities in Ukraine as a threat to Germany’s security, and U.S. foreign and security policy as a threat to the cohesion of NATO significantly increases support for the creation of a common European army, even when the influence of numerous other determinants is controlled for. The findings highlight the importance of considering strategic threat perceptions in future analyses of public opinion on European defence cooperation and integration.