RUSI Membership

[Guzz]

Evening all,

I'm interested to know if anyone on here is a member of RUSI? I'm serving RAF and looking to join to A: broaden my knowledge of current military thinking and B: would like the advantage of having access to the RUSI library to allow wider breadth of research for a masters degree I'm looking to undertake.

If anyone is a member, I'd love to hear your thoughts on why you joined, what membership scheme you are on and if you consider it value for money? Also if you are currently serving is there a scheme for the MoD to fund/partly membership?

Thanks!

Guzz.

[Melchett01]

It's not too bad and you can offset the cost of membership against your annual tax return as an approved professional organisation which removes a bit of the sting of the annual fee.

The website has updates on issues of the moment, often taking a more practical stance and looking at implications whilst the journal is a but more academic in nature and sometimes ever so slightly 'niche' in the topics it chooses to publish.

The library is historically focused with only a minority of the books relating to current issues and theory, so if you're expecting / hoping for access to the latest thinking you might be disappointed - that's where the journal comes in. Where they do stand out is in their lectures. They get some real high flyers; I saw Stu Peach a couple of years back at the Trenchard Lecture and Petraeus has also lectured. A book launch from a Syria watcher with links into the senior elements of the Syrian Opposition and the Vienna Peace Process was particularly interesting and shows how they are able to marry the academic heavyweight side with the current thinking and policy.

Give it a go, if only for a year and if you don't make use of it you can always just let your membership lapse. But before you do check the MOD doesn't have a corporate membership you can access from a MOD computer. I didn't realise until recently but those sorts of corporate subscriptions do exist in MOD - The Economist for example is free via DII - but I can't remember if I saw RUSI on the list. The MOD Library in Main Building might be able to advise, or failing that have a word with Stn/Sqn Int in case they already have an in. Others to consider are Chatham House and IISS in the UK or Brookings and RAND in the US to name a few depending what your Masters is in.

[Guzz]

Thanks Melchett01, that is really helpful. I must admit it was the lectures that caught my eye initially. I didn't realise they had the likes of Petraeus lecturing there. Maybe worth the membership fee alone!

Thanks again.

[Jimlad1]

MOD has corporate membership - as long as you have a MOD email address, you can usually register to attend via this, rather than pay.

[Guzz]

Thanks Jimlad1. I'll look into that!

[Jimlad1]

Ping me a PM if you need a pointer to the links via DII etc.

[Melchett01]

Originally Posted by Jimlad1

MOD has corporate membership - as long as you have a MOD email address, you can usually register to attend via this, rather than pay.

Jimlad, does MOD corporate membership give you full access to the website etc? It strikes me these corporate memberships aren't well known about, and when I did find out about another journal through our Stn library they were reluctant to provide access details. However, I then noticed that just going to the site on a DII terminal was recognised under the MOD membership, but RUSI always seems to ask for a logon. How does it work - does it recognise you are logging on from a MOD machine and does it offer similar access as personal membership? Or does it just enable you to go to the meetings?

[ahwalk01]

I'm not a member of RUSI, but I am one of PONI (Project on Nuclear Issues) - it is free and you still get newsletters and event invites from RUSI etc.

Alex.