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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Ah, far too few in politics or the military seem to read The Prince and The Discourses, or those that have are afraid to admit it. I recall Michael Semple arguing that anyone wishing to understand Afghanistan should read Machiavelli, and suggesting that Karzai understands The Prince very well.
His writings are interesting (someday I have to track down Mandragola) but in my opinion his career is more interesting still. Also there are a few areas that are a bit dated, such as debating whether or not to build fortresses and towers.
After watching the Service Chiefs on Newsnight the other week I was left with the distinct impression that they were only interested in defending their portion of the status quo – pretty much wanting to keep the state of play developed from the cold war. As a member of the private sector it was astounding to me that under the current financial apocalypse, no one on that program made any mention of cost effectiveness. This is ludicrous. The MOD has mismanaged their financial commitments to the degree that they deserve to have their toys taken away. And how in God’s name did we end up with one civil servant for every two persons in uniform?
Fire the entire MOD and get a private consultancy in to run the department with senior NCO’s and only officers returned from active deployment to act as military advisors – at a minimum they could effectively count the beans and get a grasp of the front line requirements, and I know from experience that there would be a new dawn in the cost and time effectiveness of military procurement.
Granted that this is a rather reactionary post, but the departments financial mismanagement justly deserves a damning assessment.
Skimmer – that’s right, we could hire in some of those Enron fellas. Or, if they’re a bit busy, perhaps we could go for the sort of expertise in financial management that got RBS where it is today….
Ah, the private sector… Anyway, surely the optimal solution is to put academics in charge. We’re cheap, and soon to be available in large numbers.
That would certainly make “publish or perish” a bit more interesting…