British Generals In Blair's Wars.

• Author: Steadman, Hugh
• Position: Book review

BRITISH GENERALS IN BLAIR'S WARS

Editors: Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron and Hew Strachan

Published by: Ashgate, Farnham, 2013, 346pp, $39.27 (pb).

This short review can do scant justice to this exceptionally interesting edited volume of 26 contributors, including first-hand accounts and commentaries, by a selection of those who held senior positions in the recent campaigns fought under the premiership of Tony Blair. No one has yet discredited Bismarck's adage about politics being the art of the possible. This book documents the way in which Britain's political leadership's demanded the impossible of its military and of how the latter have striven to adjust to the daunting situations in which, as a consequence, they have found themselves. Major-General Jonathan Bailey's initial chapter, 'The Political Context: Why We Went to War and the Mismatch of Ends, Ways and Means', provides an excellent insight into how abuse of the British Cabinet system of government helped further the march of folly. (When General Bailey retired in 2005 he was director general development and doctrine.) The book deals initially with the 'successful' and minor campaigns in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone, all of which helped build Blair's confidence to the point at which he decided to embroil his country in the spectacularly 'unsuccessful' major interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two latter campaigns provide the main emphasis of the book, both in regard to the conduct of operations and to the many lessons currently being drawn from them.

Multiple themes emerge from the individual commentaries. These start with the political failure at the outset to define any clear vision of success (other than to impress the all-important American leadership with the staunchness and competence of their British ally). As one contributor points out, there can be no clearer indication of this failure than the 2014 date set by the Cameron government for the final British withdrawal from Afghanistan, clearly chosen on the basis of the limits of his electorate's patience rather than on the achievement of any military or political definition of success.

Contribution after contribution draws attention to significant failures of adaptation to dramatically changed circumstances. Salient among these was the failure of the British military, flying in the face of an ever decreasing share of the national budget, to abandon its preparation for a hot war on the north German...