Adrian Weale

The Case for Intervention

Can Intervention Work?

By

W W Norton 236pp £14.99 order from our bookshop

A War of Choice: The British in Iraq 2003–9

By

Jonathan Cape 431pp £20 order from our bookshop

Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan

By

Yale University Press 308pp £20 order from our bookshop

When I went to Sandhurst in 1985, there was a palpable feeling among us officer cadets that we had missed out on the only chance we would ever have to fight in a real war with shooting. The Falklands conflict had taken place three years earlier and many of the training staff at the Academy had participated; we hung on their words like starstruck teenagers. For most of us, future prospects revolved around maintaining deterrence against the Soviets, enlivened by occasional tours in Northern Ireland. But we were wrong. As Gerald Knaus points out in his essay in Can Intervention Work? : ‘The last two decades have been an age of intervention.’

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • From the Archive: Martyn Bedford on Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' ,
    • In 'Silenced Voices' reports the ongoing story of the human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been… ,
    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    Follow Us