In this New Voices in Global Security Studies seminar, Lieutenant Colonel James Chandler and Rodrigo Pereira explore issues relating to the role of information operations and joint commands to military campaigns, with a particular focus on the UK military.

Information operations are of increasing importance to the conduct of military campaigns. Using interviews with retired and serving military personnel and an analysis of over 6000 pages of official documents from the Iraq War (2003-2009), Lt Col Chandler explores the planning and execution of British information operations during Operation TELIC and offers an assessment of how information operations can be a meaningful component of future British military campaigns.

Rodrigo Pereira offers a comparative case study of the role of permanent operational-level Joint Commands. He will compare the case of Brazil, where issues of bureaucracy influence the ability of the Joint Commander to act in a timely manner, with the permanent-based Operational-level Joint Commands of the UK, the US and Canada. Drawing on theories of jointness and military innovation, Rodrigo Pereira argues that threat perception in the international arena, the involvement of civilian political elites with national defence matters and the existence of a joint culture within the armed forces are relevant causal factors to the instalment of Joint Commands on a permanent basis.

Speakers:

Lieutenant Colonel James Chandler

Lt Col Chandler is a serving British Army officer with operational experience in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. As well as a graduate of the UK's Advanced Command & Staff College he has also been a Chief of the General Staff Academic Fellow on three occasions.

He completed an MPhil in International Relations at Cambridge in 2008-09, was the Army's inaugural Visiting Fellow at Chatham House in 2015 and has just completed a full-time PhD with King's College London (2018-22). He has served as Head of the Research Unit with 77th Brigade and recently returned from Baghdad where he was Chief of Strategic Communications for the Combined Joint Taskforce - Operation Inherent Resolve.

Rodrigo Albuquerque Pereira

Rodrigo is a Visiting Research Student at the Defence Studies Department and a PhD candidate at the Brazilian Air Force University’s Aerospace Sciences Postgraduation Program, with a research grant from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.

He holds a MA in Aerospace Sciences and currently works as an Air Force Parliamentary Advisor at the Brazilian Congress. He’s been serving in the Brazilian Air Force since the year 2000 and holds an OF-3 rank. Rodrigo is also qualified as a Flight Safety Officer and as a Search and Rescue Mission Coordinator.

New Voices in Global Security