Why England Needs a First Amendment

Alphen. The Netherlands. 14 February. A democracy without a written constitution is always in peril from political law. Three current controversies underline the extent to which England today faces just such peril: the attempt to deport radical Islamist Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada; the Leveson inquiry into Press standards and ethics; and the February arrest and jailing of a woman for a ‘racist rant’ on a London Underground train – the second such action in a month. What all three issues highlight is a simple, sad truth; precedent in English common law has not only become outdated, but is in danger of destroying liberty itself. England therefore needs a written constitution akin to that of the United States and in particular a First Amendment.

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is short and to the point, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

My hero, American journalist Edward R. Murrow, in a famous CBS television editorial once said of Senator Joseph McCarthy (“the junior Senator from Wisconsin”) and his anti-communist witch-hunt that, “the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind as between the internal and the external threats of communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law”

Let me set all three controversies against the context of Murrow’s warning. First, Abu Qatada is clearly the “very dangerous man” an English judge once cited him to be. And, whilst the European Court of Human Rights is becoming itself ever more politicized and thus falling into disrepute its refusal to permit Britain to deport him to his native Jordan reflects a simple truth; Qatada has never actually faced English justice. He has thus been denied due process, which is the very essence of a civilized state.

Second, there is no question that sections of the English press have behaved in an outrageous and egregious manner. However, any attempt by the state to restrict Press freedom in the name of Press ‘ethics’ is dangerous in the extreme. Respected journalist Trevor Cavanagh writing yesterday of the arrest of ten of his colleagues at The Sun newspaper said, “…in a quite extraordinary assumption of power, police are able to impose conditions not unlike those applied to suspected terrorists. Under the draconian terms of police bail, many journalists are barred from speaking to each other. They are treated like threats to national security. And there is no end in sight to their ordeal. Their alleged crimes? To act as journalists have acted on all newspapers through the ages, unearthing stories that shape our lives, often obstructed by those who prefer to operate behind closed doors”.

Third, no one can doubt that racism exists in England, but the application of a disreputable law is fast becoming dangerous. In 2008 egged on by pressure groups representing ethnic minorities an unelected leftish Labour Government passed draconian race hate laws. Now, I hate racism and all forms of discrimination, not least because it impacts my daily life. However, this odious law is not only threatening freedom of speech, it has for the first time in English jurisprudence created a situation in which there is a presumption of guilt until proven innocent. Moreover, one minority section of society is now deemed to be superior under law to the majority and can thus accuse without fear of redress.

Sadly, so fearful are the Establishment media of being accused of racism they are complicit in the now daily witch-hunts by the ever more extreme pressure groups that feed off the appalling and corrosive political correctness that is so deforming English society. Indeed, legitimate concerns (however crudely expressed) of the English about the massive social and cultural impact of hyper-immigration are being crushed. Their country is changing before their eyes in ways they do not like and politicians are doing nothing to protect them. No wonder a recent survey found that 59% of English people no longer believe the government acts in their interests.

In July former England football captain John Terry will face criminal trial for having allegedly racially abused fellow footballer Anton Ferdinand. There is little chance Mr Terry will face a fair trial. Indeed, he has already been stripped of the England captaincy.  Today, careers and lives are being broken not on the fact of any crime committed but merely on the suspicion of having broken an odious law. 

There was a time when English law could distinguish between the criminal and the stupid. That time is long gone.  . All it needs today is a stupid twitter or someone with a fancy mobile phone and what was once deemed stupidity is now deemed criminal. Sadly, the anti-racist movement which started out as a laudable effort to challenge racism and discrimination is fast becoming the new McCarthyism - the destruction of freedom and justice in the name of freedom and justice.

A week or so ago I had breakfast with one of the most respected and outspoken of Labour Party politicians and put my argument to him. He not only agreed with me but explained why England is in such peril. “Sadly”, he said, “…my colleagues in Parliament no longer believe in democracy”.   In the absence of sound political leadership unelected judges are stepping ever more into the political arena.  A country in which the executive, legislature and law have simultaneously fallen into disrepute is a country that is indeed in grave peril...and that is England today.

Ed Murrow, once said; “We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to associate, to speak and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve”.

Good night and good luck.

Julian Lindley-French

Syria: Tragic Epicentre of the New Great Game

Alphen, the Netherlands. 13 February. Rudyard Kipling’s famous 19th century novel Kim is set against the background of the Great Game, the fight for supremacy over Central Asia between the British and Russian Empires. The book’s hero captures the essence of the struggle with a simple, chilling phrase, “The Great Game is not over until everyone is dead. Not before”. Scroll forward 150 years and the Great Game is alive and well and preying on the people of Syria.

The Great Game is about power and influence and for this most base of strategic reasons the Syrian people can expect no redemption from the world’s great and good. With Damascus having last night “utterly rejected” the latest Arab League peace plan and with it the prospect of a UN-Arab League monitoring mission, the struggle to oust President Assad will be long, bad and bloody complicated as it is by the ambitions of all the great powers both from the Middle East and beyond.

Like many Arab societies destabilising Syria is not difficult. Syria is a ‘mosaic society’ divided into three distinct elements; town, village and tribe. The power of President Assad has been built on a careful system of patronage through the Baath Party and the security services. Indeed, Assad can still count on the support of some 300,000 troops and much of the population in Damascus who have done relatively well under the regime. Moreover, the opposition, such as it is comprises of many different and differing groups that find it hard to coalesce around a single leader. Sadly, in what is now a prolonged civil war outside powers are taking sides as they pursue their own regional-strategic and strategic ambitions at a moment that will shape the twenty-first century.

Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the key neighbouring powers. Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been locked in a Cold War for regional-strategic supremacy. There is clear evidence that Mohammed Ali Jafari, the Chief Commander of the elite Iranian Al-Quds Force is in Syria both helping to co-ordinate the regime’s operations and supplying weapons and tactics. The prize for Tehran is clear; enhanced Iranian influence over Syria would further strengthen Iranian influence over Lebanon thus driving a wedge between Israel, Turkey and in time Saudi Arabia. With Iranian President Ahmadinejad about to announce “great nuclear achievements” Iranian activity in Syria is part of Tehran’s much wider strategic ambitions that quite clearly take the region ever closer to war. If war comes, and it is far closer than people think,  soon-to-be nuclear Iran and already nuclear Israel will be pitted against each other, with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States forced to choose between them. It would be a war that could re-write the map of the Middle East forever...and much of the world beyond.

In such circumstances, Turkey will not be able to stand idly by. Indeed, of all the powers both in the region and beyond it is Ankara which seems to have the clearest strategic picture of what is going on and what it could mean. Turkey is thus doing all it can to keep this struggle focussed on the future governance of Syria whilst fully aware of the wider forces at work. If Turkey gets involved in a wider war triggered by the Syrian civil war then NATO will inevitably become involved.  Then what?

But here is the crunch; much of the wider struggle implicit in Syria is a function of the West’s retreat from central Asia and the Middle East. The obsession in the West with solving the current budget crisis over a short parliamentary cycle, rather than over a longer strategic cycle, is now destabilising the wider world. With massive defence cuts the high-profile centre of such efforts European security in particular is fast becoming detached from world security to the detriment of both.  The West's strategic ambition and unity of purpose is being fatally undermined and with it all elements of statecraft.  In Europe's backyard Syria is in the front-line of the most profound of power shifts as the West’s stabilising influence is critically reduced just at the moment when the Arab Spring, and Iran’s regional-strategic ambitions are turning the entire region into a powder keg of competing ambitions and dangerous technologies. Indeed, it is the artificially-accelerated self-decline of the West that is making this crisis so dangerous and turning Syria’s civil war into a proxy war.

This is exactly how Beijing and Moscow see it. Forget the false claim to principle made on Saturday by Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin. Moscow has no interest in early elections in Syria. Russia, like China, is playing the Great Game, as they both move to seize an opportunity to push the West out of the Middle East and strengthen their respective strategic and commercial interests and influence in this critical region. To listen to Ambassador Churkin speak about Syria and the Middle East is eerily reminiscent of the Cold War. Long live the new Soviet Union.

In an ideal world the United Nations would be in the lead to find a solution. However, not only have China and Russia effectively and cynically blocked effective UN mediation, but UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon is simply not up to the job. There was a time when the UN Secretary-General was the world’s top diplomat. For all the failings of the UN Dag Hammarskjöld, U Thant, and even Kofi Annan, had real influence. Sadly, Mr Moon is being eclipsed by events, not shaping them. The failure of the UN will not only hasten the descent into the new balance of power implicit in the Syrian struggle but provide the field upon which the Great Game is to be played, thus setting the terms of reference of international relations in the twenty-first century.

The Great Game is not over until everyone is dead. Not before.

Julian Lindley-French

The Falklands: Don't Even Think About it Argentina

Rolle, Switzerland.  8 February.  Strange week - a bouncy week – England, Germany and now back here in Switzerland on the frozen shores of the magisterial Lake Geneva.  Cold or what?  There is a local wind here called ‘la Bise’ which blows directly off the Swiss Alps and drops onto the lake that is less breeze and more arctic chainsaw.  In between I was mugged at Antwerp Central Station losing my computer and iPod during an attack by four, fine upstanding members of Belgium’s diverse society. Naturally, none of the people around me lifted a finger.  What a sad society Europe is becoming.

Déjà vu all over again?  Last night I watched a rather bizarre, rambling speech by Argentine President Cristina Kirchner to which if there was a point seemed to be a re-asserting of Argentina’s ridiculous claim over the Falkland Islands.  Apparently she is to make a formal complaint to the United Nations citing Britain for “militarizing” the South Atlantic, following the deployment of the brand-new destroyer HMS Dauntless, together with an equally brand-new nuclear submarine…and Prince William, in the face of Argentina’s deliberate ratcheting up of tensions. 

April 2 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Falklands War, which defined my early life and that of many Britons.  Some 3000 British and Argentinian soldiers, sailors and airmen perished in a two month war that should never have been fought but which on 14 June was decisively won by Britain with the surrender of “…all Argentine forces together with their impedimentia” to Commander, Land Forces, South Atlantic.  In spite of the heroic efforts of Argentine pilots in particular the Argentines were taught a profound lesson about how to fight a war.  Britain’s victory also led to the fall of an evil military junta in Buenos Aires that had killed thousands of its own citizens.  So, why on earth are we here again?

Kirchner seems to be falling into the same trap as her incompetent predecessors.  So, to assist Madame President to clear her befuddled mind here are the facts of the matter.  First, Buenos Aires is 1183 nautical miles or 1905 kilometres from Port Stanley, the capital of the Falklands.  This is not far short of the distance between London and Moscow.  Even at the closest point Argentina is 437 miles or 704 kilometres from the Falklands.  Second, there have been British settlers on the Falklands since 1833.  This is before Argentina ever existed and before that date no-one had lived permanently on the islands.  Today’s population of 3000 islanders far from being the ‘transplanted population’ Argentina claims is indigenous to the Islands.  Third, Mrs. Kirchner might like to pointedly ignore the existence of the Islanders, preferring instead to suggest the Falklands is a colonial “anachronism”.  In fact the Falkland Islands are a dependent territory of Britain with the Islanders enjoying full rights to and of self-determination.  It is the Islanders who control their own status and they choose to be British. 

What seems to be at the heart of Mrs. Kirchner’s ‘fantasy’ are the natural resources that the waters around the Falklands could yield.  Under international law it is the right of the Falkland Islanders to decide the future of those resources – neither Britain nor Argentina.

So, where is this going? Argentina has managed to corral other Latin American countries into banning from their ports ships flying the Falkland Islands flag.  If that is the case then Falkland Island vessels will be re-flagged with British flags.  If British ships are then banned from Latin American ports then ships from Latin American ports will be banned from European ports.  If Argentina also succeeds in blocking the air link between the Falklands and Chile then such flights will be deemed as flying between Britain and Chile.   If those flights are blocked all Argentine and indeed Chilean flights to Europe could well find themselves blocked.

Ironically, what seems to have prompted this latest and blatant piece of Argentinian sabre-rattling has been the withdrawal from service last year of the Royal Navy’s erstwhile flagship, the aircraft-carrier HMS Ark Royal.  Thirty years ago the Argentinian junta was prompted to invade the islands by the 1981 withdrawal of the previous HMS Ark Royal.  Mrs. Kirchner seems to be making the same mistake having convinced herself that Britain is far weaker than is actually the case.  If Argentina even thinks about military action the Argentine armed forces will be taught the same lesson by today’s British armed forces as their forebears back in 1982.  So, let us not go there.

Mrs. Kirchner last night called upon David Cameron to “give peace a chance”.   It is not Britain that is creating this crisis or winding up the rhetoric.  The only threat to the peace of the South Atlantic comes from Buenos Aires, not London or Port Stanley.  So, be careful, Mrs. Kirchner, Britain will defend to the end the right of the Islanders to self-determine their own allegiances and their own future.  Any attempts to interfere in that will be met with robust diplomacy and if necessary force.

It is your call, Mrs. Kirchner. However, if I can offer you a piece of humble advice, wind down the aggressive language and end once and for all your country’s absurd claim to the Falkland Islands.  You cannot win this struggle so do not start it.

The Falkland Islands. Don’t even think about it Argentina.

Julian Lindley-French      

Cameron's Munich?

Alphen, The Netherlands. 31 January. Is this David Cameron’s Munich? It is not without historical irony that the only other country to stand with Britain over the Fiscal Compact at yesterday's EU Summit was the Czech Republic which Chamberlain sold out to Hitler at Munich in 1938.  Last night Martin Callanan, the leader of British Conservatives in the European Parliament accused the Prime Minister of “appeasement”. Other Tory Euro-sceptics have accused Cameron of a “retreat” from his 9 December stand when he refused to permit other EU member-states to use the European Court of Justice to enforce the new Fiscal Compact so beloved of Chancellor Merkel.

2012 is not 1938 and on the face of it a mechanism for enforcing greater fiscal discipline amongst the Eurozone members based on stringent austerity is something over which Britain and Germany should be able to agree. The problem is that Cameron seems to have got nothing in return for his ‘adjustment’ which is either shabby politicking, bad negotiating or both. Concessions are never offered in EU negotiations without something in return. London claims that it has secured German ‘assurances’ that Berlin will not press ahead with any new financial services tax. I spoke this morning to my Berlin contacts and as far as they are concerned Berlin has given no such ‘assurances’. Neville Chamberlain of course infamously returned from Munich with ‘assurances’.

However, Britain should have concerns and at the very least Cameron must understand the wider implications of yesterday’s concession should the new Compact ever become a ratified treaty (big if). A precedent has now been established whereby the powers of a German-led EU can now be dramatically increased without the need for a new treaty agreed by all EU member-states. In principle this means that ‘pioneer groups’ can press ahead in all areas of EU ‘competence’, such as defence with a precedent now established for the bypassing of national vetoes.

Cameron also appears to have accepted the principle of a Britain politically subordinate to Germany and France when they choose to act in the guise of the EU. He has partly justified this on Germany’s “fierce” determination to push through the Compact. Since when did German “fierceness” define British policy? If that is indeed the case then London has changed its position not out of pragmatism or principle, but out of weakness.

What all of this reveals is the lack of a Cameron political strategy for Europe other than to keep his increasingly wretched coalition together. What is he actually trying to achieve in Europe? His belief that Britain can influence the single market from outside the Eurozone is dangerous folly. Fiscal Union will sooner or later close the political space that Britain has hitherto occupied. At some point Britain will have to decide; join the Euro (or its survivor currency) or leave the EU. The alternative is more taxation without representation.

The trouble is that whilst Cameron is usually tactically savvy he is strategically crass. Even on 9 December he sold his stand as being solely to safeguard Britain’s financial industry when the political principles at stake and upon which he should have stood were far, far bigger. He simply does not see the bigger picture. Consequently, there is a danger that even if there is a back-room ‘deal’ with Germany it will be seen by other Europeans as the abandonment of all political principle in the face of German pressure; the worst kind of wobbly weakness.

Publicly Cameron places much emphasis on legal redress. Foreign Secretary William Hague said over the weekend that, “If the use of the EU treaties at any point threatens Britain's fundamental rights under the EU treaties, or damages our vital interests such as the single market, then we would have to take action about that, including legal action”. This morning I went to the web-site of the same European Court of Justice (ECJ) who will be charged with ensuring fair play. Page 86 of the 2010 Annual Report should make for sober reading in Whitehall’s shabby corridors. Under the heading “Actions for Failure of a Member State to Fulfil its Obligations 2006-2010” it shows the UK in breach 21 times, Germany in breach 54 times and France in breach 63 times. Unless the ECJ really places justice above politics (which would be a first) some will be more equal before European law than others.

That said, given the dangers of a catastrophic Euro collapse Cameron’s ‘pragmatic scepticism’ should for the moment be given the benefit of the doubt. However, he must be held to account when he says he will be watching developments “like a hawk’’. Time and again I have heard British Prime Ministers cover retreat with such empty rhetoric. The dangers of a Eurozone collapse are very real and radical action is indeed needed, but not at the cost of turning the Union into an Imperium and Britain into a satellite of Germany.

Sadly, the most worrying of precedents is that henceforth Realpolitik will be the currency of change in the EU and much of it driven by German domestic opinion.

Is this Cameron’s Munich? No, not yet…but it could become so.

Julian Lindley-French

Deterring Iran: The Return to American Statecraft

Alphen, the Netherlands. 27 January. On the tomb of Tamburlaine, King of Persia, there is a dread inscription, “When I rise, the world will tremble”. Faced with Tehran’s seeming determination to develop nuclear weapons the march towards confrontation this week quickened. After threats from Iran to close the oil-vital Straits of Hormuz an American aircraft carrier was joined in the Gulf by British and French warships. Sabres are rattling. The EU placed a ban on all new oil contracts with Iran and froze the assets of the Iranian Central Bank. Whilst not overtly supporting US and EU moves the Chinese Ambassador to London signalled Beijing’s concern that should Iran not develop nuclear weapons. And, on 29th January, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) will arrive in Iran “to resolve all outstanding substantive issues”.

So, war is imminent. No. Forget the pattern of the last fifteen years. There will be no sudden missile strikes just yet. Deterring Iran will take a lot more than old-fashioned sabre-rattling or Cruise compulsion. Now is the time for the five elements of good old-fashioned American statecraft: the formal and clear enunciation of reasoned and reasonable goals upon which to construct a political coalition; the legitimisation of those goals through the United Nations Security Council, including the use of “all necessary means” if Iran does not comply; the formalisation of process via a grouping that will include the major global and regional players; the crafting of a clear set of criteria for the application of all elements of coercion on the spectrum from diplomatic to military action; and the building of a popular coalition through effective strategic communications, much of it via social media.

However, America is of itself insufficient to prevail. The unipolar moment has truly passed. Hard though it is to believe Europeans must also re-learn the art of strategic statecraft lost in the daily haggle that is the EU. Indeed, whilst the EU may have notched up its sanctions regime, there is little or no appetite amongst European allies to move beyond that. After ten years of Afghanistan and Iraq Europe is retreating behind the thin walls of a rhetorical fortress. Even the most pressing of dangers are unlikely to shift the focus from not-saving the Euro with only Britain and France to any meaningful extent still left in the military business.

The US is moving away from a terrorism-related, global policing mission creep back to a much more traditional strategy of strike and punish. Fortress Europe/Strike America is in essence a new strategic modesty driven by precipitous economic decline and reinforced by the rise of China and others onto the world stage no longer willing to accept Western liberal criteria as the basis for global security governance. Threaten military action too soon and America will find itself isolated. Act too late and the world will have changed for the immeasurably worse. Iran does pose a strategic threat.

However, for credible pressure to be built on Tehran whilst agreement within the West is the sine qua non such a ‘plan’ (I cannot stand ‘road-map’ as they never go anywhere) must also be worked up with an unlikely coalition including China, India, Russia and critically the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. Israel’s critical stake can of course only be uttered in hushed Washington corridors, but managing Tel Aviv will for obvious reasons be critical to American statecraft.

In short, Iran is the first real test of a new world order in which institutions such as the United Nations whilst important to the legitimisation of all attempts to coerce Iran to desist will be secondary to the great power politics that is driving systemic change. In that context Europe must decide if it still in the game or merely the powerless led. There is a world beyond the Euro.

The alternative is stark. Iran will get the ‘bomb’ steering a course through the wide gap that today exists in credible and effective global security governance. If Iran succeeds then the world will be very different from the instant Tehran announces its membership of the nuclear club. Indeed, it is hard to see either Israel or Saudi Arabia accepting such a step change in Iran’s power. The old rationalism of mutually-assured destruction that suffused the Cold War will have little place in the Middle East. The clock is very clearly ticking towards conflict.

To many Americans this call for American statecraft will sound European, woolly and messy, but it is simply reality; the consequence of the world in which the West must now enact its strategic business - patient politics of give-and-take. For, as Christopher Marlowe writes in his epic Tamburlaine the Great, “Wilt thou have war, then shake the blade; if peace, restore it to my hands again, And I will sheathe it, and confirm the same”.

Julian Lindley-French

Be Britain Still to Britain True

Alphen, the Netherlands. 25 January. Tonight is Burns Night, beloved of patriotic Scots the world over as they commemorate the 1759 birth of one of Scotland’s most famous sons, the poet Robert Burns. It is for this reason the Scottish First Minister and romantic separatist Alex Salmond has chosen today to outline his plans to hold a 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, the seven hundredth anniversary of the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn. If Salmond has his way he will endeavour as much as is possible to limit the referendum to those who agree with his plans to dismember the United Kingdom, thus denying all expat Scots the right to a vote. Salmond also avoids the irony of citing the Bard; Burns was no Scottish nationalist. As the Bard wrote, “Be Britain still to Britain true, Amang oursels united; For never but by British hands, Maun British wrangs be righted”. As for Bannockburn, it was indeed a decisive 'Scottish’ victory over the English and Welsh and for a time victory strengthened King Robert.  However, Salmond's concept of medieval Scotland is pure romantic fiction. Nice story though.

Julian Lindley-French

The Oxford Handbook of War

Alphen, The Netherlands, 23 January. Have you ever had a Roadrunner/Coyote moment? I step onto my stairs and the next thing I know I am horizontal, paddling furiously to deny gravity and then with a thunderous crash discover that Sir Isaac Newton may have had a point and that I really should have concentrated more in physics lessons. I crash down back first and then bounce down the stairs step by step to the bottom. “Oh, bother (or a word to that effect)” I think. “Something is clearly not right”.

What a strange week. My new Oxford mega-book comes out...and I fall down the stairs. The two are not necessarily connected. Cracked ribs and huge bruises with my reputation for being accident-prone reinforced utterly with my Dutch wife. Being a man it was of course not my fault, but rather the result of a serious design fault in the stairs. As I write this I am laid out on my sofa.  I can move but don't make me larf!

My timing as ever was impeccable.  I was about to leave for London to attend a high-level meeting with senior NATO officials to discuss the future of the Alliance. Naturally, my enforced absence means that NATO is now doomed. Oh well.

So, humour me awhile as I share a moment of pride. The Oxford Handbook of War is unique. It is my fourth book and my second for Oxford University, my alma mater. It has taken five years to research, plan, structure, prepare, write and edit. It is certainly no 'pot boiler' being almost 600 pages in length over some 45 chapters and considers war in all its forms – strategic, historical, political, military, social and economic.

The Handbook has been a joint collaboration with my old friend and co-conspirator Professor Yves Boyer of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Who says the English and French never get on? ‘Research’ of course occasioned many hours sipping excellent French wine in Yves’s wonderful home overlooking the Loire Valley. Yes, I suffer for my art. Vive, l’entente intellectuelle!

In preparing the Handbook we have been supported by over forty leading thinkers, policy-makers and practitioners from across the globe - Brazil, China, Europe, India and the United States. Indeed, the Handbook is graced by chapters from the British and Dutch Chiefs of Defence Staff, as well as a former US Ambassador to NATO and NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. Why did we set out on such an ambitious project? Well, the reason shines through every page; to prevent war through the better understanding of it.

The Handbook has also been nominated for the prestigious Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, my second book to be so honoured. The book is also a gift to the Netherlands Defence Academy where I have had the honour to be the Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy for the past few years. I hope they notice.

So that’s the plug. Now, let me offer those of you contemplating writing such a book a few words of advice. You do not write a book, you live it. Indeed, a book is rather like a movie in that it needs a cast of many to happen. And, like a movie a book needs commitment heart and soul over many years before that special day when you holds it in your hands.  One other thing; you will not become a millionaire.

The active support of an excellent publisher is vital.  In this case the support of my publisher Oxford University Press has been invaluable, particularly the utterly professional Dominic Byatt, Elizabeth Suffling and team.

So, if you want to understand war then I humbly recommend a copy of the Oxford Handbook of War because as Plato once so poignantly put it, “only the dead have seen the end of war”. Sadly, there is nothing I can see of this world that convinces me otherwise. There is no glory in war, but sometimes it must be fought.

So, forgive this moment of self-satisfaction. And don’t worry, it will not go to my head – pride after all has come AFTER a fall.

As for the film rights – I see Russell Crowe playing me...or maybe Jeremy Irons.

Julian Lindley-French