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Simon Ball

Death to Order: A Conversation with Simon Ball

Death to Order: A Conversation with Simon Ball

Assassination rarely achieves its aims, the academic maintains, but it endures as a useful tool to shape behaviour the international stage.
Simon Ball

Hello Simon. Your book, Death to Order, suggests that assassination is as much about signalling as it is about elimination. How important is the message sent by a killing compared to the actual removal of a target? It depends on the kind of assassination campaign. The...

Has 2026 Changed the World of Assassination?

Has 2026 Changed the World of Assassination?

A timely inquiry proposes that assassination today remains a fixture of statecraft as recent targeted killings continue to pervade the geopolitical sphere but rarely deliver clear strategic success.
Simon Ball

States have already pushed assassination even further to the fore since the publication of Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination in the summer of 2025. However, if we look underneath the headlines, then the trends which had been well established for over a...