The Author: Dr Regeena Kingsley

 

Dr Regeena Kingsley has a PhD in Defence & Strategic Studies (2014) from Massey University, New Zealand, entitled:

“Fighting against Allies: An Examination of “National Caveats” within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Campaign in Afghanistan & their Impact on ISAF Operational Effectiveness, 2002-2012″ 

http://mro.massey.ac.nz/xmlui/handle/10179/6984

This ground-breaking research is the first attempt to examine and analyse in-depth the issue of government-imposed national caveats and their effects within multinational operations in an academic capacity.

The doctoral research focuses on:

(1) national caveats as restrictive devices imposed by governments to constrain the movements and activities of their military forces and contained within the body of Rules of Engagement issued to deploying military contingents;

(2) the alarming habit of national governments to regularly impose these national caveats on their armed forces whenever they contribute national forces to international security missions;

(3) the extent of the “caveat problem” within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan over the period of a decade of war from 2002-2012; and

(4) the tangible impact of a wide array of caveat restraints imposed on ISAF national contingents on ISAF operational effectiveness over the same period, both in terms of security operations conducted by security forces within Afghanistan, and the ISAF counter-insurgency mission as a whole. 

Due to security concerns, the research was embargoed and only released publicly in December 2015, a year after the cessation of the ISAF Operation in December 2014.

This blog is intended to provide the most important and interesting information and analysis contained within this doctoral thesis, relating to this dire and under-researched issue of national caveat constraints within multinational security operations. 

 

*In addition to her PhD, Dr Kingsley also holds a MA in International Relations (2007), a BA(Hons) in International Relations (2003), and a BA with a triple major in Political Science (International Relations), European Studies with French Language, and German Studies with German Language (2002) from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. In addition, she holds a CertArts in Media Studies & Communications (2000) from Massey University, Palmerston North, and has completed additional studies there in Spanish Language, Third World Developmental Studies, Military Technology, the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), and Terrorism, Insurgency & Transnational Crime.  

Dr Kingsley has worked as a 100-, 300- and 700-level Lecturer in International Relations at International Pacific College in 2008, writing and teaching three papers respectively on Political Science, War & Peace in the 20th and Early 21st Centuries, and Foreign Policy in the Information Age, in addition to supervising postgraduate IR research theses and essays.  She holds an international Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Certificate from Trinity College London (2008), towards furthering spoken and written English as an important, global, common means of communication and understanding (‘lingua franca’), among multilingual peoples from diverse nations.

Dr Kingsley also worked as an Assistant Lecturer in Defence & Strategic Studies at the Centre for Defence & Security Studies (CDSS) at Massey University during 2008-2009, and simultaneously as a Lecturer, Essay Marker and Panel Examiner in International Relations and Command Studies at the New Zealand Defence Force’s Command & Staff College (CSC). The latter was established for the training and academic education of New Zealand and international officers of various ranks and ages, drawn from all three NZDF Army, Navy and Air Force military branches, in addition to domestic security intelligence and customs agents, and is located at Trentham Military Camp in Wellington. 

She is a realist, independent, free-thinking Doctor in Defence & Strategic Studies, with a strong background in International Relations, who has no official or unofficial affiliations with any national government in the world, including her own in her native country of New Zealand.  She does not receive or accept financial help, assistance, scholarship support or donations from any government, university, organisation, business, institute, church, charity or entity in existence, and is not influenced in any way by external forces outside  her very own personal beliefs, values, thoughts, research, analysis, deductions, conclusions and ideas.

Dr Kingsley researches, analyses, thinks and writes by herself, and her work is solely and entirely her own.  

 

 

Other Research:

*International Relations:

‘French-American Relations under the Microscope: A Study of the Core Political, Economic and Cultural Differences that Influence the French-American Relationship Today & the Role of this Divergence in the Occurrence of the 2003 Iraq Crisis’ (thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of a Bachelor of Arts with Honours (BAHons) in International Relations, at Victoria University of Wellington, 2003).

PDF: RKingsley, BA(Hons) IR Thesis, French-American Relations Under the Microscope (2003)

‘New Zealand & Australia: Divergence in International Relations, With Reference to the Howard & Clark Governments, 1996/1999 – 2007’ (thesis submitted in fulfilment of a Master of Arts (MA) in International Relations, at Victoria  University of Wellington, 2007).

PDF: RKingsley, MA IR Thesis, New Zealand & Australia – Divergence in International Relations (2007)

*European Studies:

‘New Zealand & the Social Implications of the First World War’ (mini-thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of a Bachelor of Arts with Honours (BA(Hons)) in International Relations, at Victoria University of Wellington, 2003).

PDF: RKingsley, BA(Hons) EURO Thesis, New Zealand & the Social Implications of the First World War (2003)