I’m just thumbing through The Prince, looking at the great man’s take on psychology. It’s hard to read without thinking of present pickles, that being Machiavelli’s intention, of course. He writes:

A prince who does not understand warfare, as well as the other misfortunes he invites, cannot be respected by his soldiers or place any trust in them.

That reminded me of the Telegraph’s recent article featuring some blunt remarks from Sir Graeme Lamb:

In his speech, Sir Graeme said that politicians and the Civil Service bore “considerable blame” for the decline of the military. He said that the Iraq conflict had “tarnished” Britain’s standing and, until recently, Afghanistan had been “stumbling towards failure”. [...] He warned that the Armed Forces were “clearly in decline” and were increasingly seen as “irrelevant” by the public and politicians.

Mind you, it sounds like he wasn’t convinced that his military colleagues much understand war either. Here’s that quote:

We in uniform, the Armed Forces of this nation, are at fault for failing to recognise the changing character of the threats we face and then to do our duty and to set our store by the defence of this realm: all in all a somewhat damning indictment.

Who does understand war, then? Looks like it’s just us and Sir Graeme. Glad I’m not the person who passed along those remarks. I’d be lying very low indeed if I were. Machiavelli had one or two things to say on that too…

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