No one had time for a deliberate aim or time to think…There is no mystery about the outbreak of the First World War.The deterrent failed to deter. This was to be expected sooner or later.A deterrent may work ninety nine times out of a hundred.On the hundredth occasion it produces

Until the end of the Cold War it was largely taken for granted that an effective foreign policy depended crucially on the possession of military power. While diplomacy and other forms of what has become known as “soft power” had a role, it was generally assumed that in the absence

More than 60 years ago the British socialist politician Aneurin Bevan, founder of Britain’s National Health Service, shocked the British political classes by describing Conservatives as “lower than vermin”. Throughout his life, the phrase, for which he refused to apologise, was repeated in virtually every assessment of his career and