The second commentary in our ongoing symposium on Katharine Millars Support the Troops: Military Obligation, Gender, and the Making of Political Community. Pinar Bilgin is a professor of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara. She is the author of The International in Security, Security in the International (Routledge, 2016) and Regional Security in the Middle East: A Critical Perspective, 2^nd ed. (Routledge, 2019). www.pinarbilgin.me

Support has emerged as the new service following a moment of disconnect with the troops in the UK and the US, we learn from Kate Millars book, Support the Troops. How about other parts of the world that apparently experienced no such disconnect? Support the Troops makes no claim to explain what happens outside the US and UK cases. But I wonder if, by missing aspects of the international, were missing a part of the condition of possibility of all this? In what follows, I will consider the international that has allowed for support to emerge as the new service in some parts of the world, even as others continue to serve and support in some other parts of the world.

Millar acknowledges that StT discoursesalmost uniformlyfail to engage with the international in that Iraqi, Pakistani, and Afghan civilians killed by the wars are rarely mentioned (175). But then, inter-state wars do not exhaust the international. The author also considers the colonial background. These states the US, UK, and others with pervasive support the troops practices, notably Canada and Australiaare also unified by their status as colonial states, she notes (177). Indeed, following Tarak Barkawis argument in Soldiers of Empire, colonial military relations have shaped post-colonial military relations. Yet again, post-/colonial relations do not exhaust the international.

The international in Support the Troops can also be located in post-World War II relations between Europe and non-Europe. When I write Europe, I refer to Western Europe and North America as the geographies that are put at the centre by those who are carriers of this particular w...

As the ruling power in Gaza, Hamas has had to balance its governmental responsibilities with its commitment to resistance. It has done so by delegating resistance to other factions and adopting the "unity of fields" strategy.

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 25, 2023 

The problem with the war in Ukraine is that it has been all smoke and mirrors. The Russian objectives of demilitarisation and de-Nazification of Ukraine wore a surreal look. The western narrative that the war is between Russia and Ukraine, where the central issue is the Westphalian principle of national sovereignty, wore thin progressively leaving a void.

There is a realisation today that the war is actually between Russia and NATO and that Ukraine had ceased to be a sovereign country since 2014 when the CIA and sister western agencies Germany, the UK, France, Sweden, etc. installed a puppet regime in Kiev. 

The fog of war is lifting and the battle lines are becoming visible. At an authoritative level, a candid discussion is beginning as regards the endgame. 

Certainly, Russian President Vladimir Putins videoconference with the permanent members of the Security Council in Moscow last Friday and his meeting with Belarus President Belarus Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg on Sunday become the defining moment. The two transcripts stand back-to-back and need to be read together. (here and here) 

There is no question that the two events were carefully choreographed by the Kremlin officials and intended to convey multiple messages. Russia exudes confidence that it has achieved dominance on the battle front having thrashed the Ukrainian military and Kievs counteroffensive moving into the rear view mirror. But Moscow anticipates that the Biden administration may be having an even bigger war plan in mind.   

At the Security council meeting, Putin de-classified the intelligence reports reaching Moscow from various sources indicative of moves to insert into Western Ukraine a Polish expeditionary force. Putin called it a well-organised, equipped regular military unit to be used for operations in Western Ukraine for the subsequent occupation of these territories. 

Indeed, there is a long history of Polish revanchism. Putin, himself a keen student of history, talked at some length about it. He sounded stoical that if the Kiev authorities were to acquiesce with this Polish-American plan, as traitors usually do, thats their business. We will not interfere. 

But, Putin added, Belarus is part of the Union State, and launching an aggression against Belarus w...