Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

With the death of Professor Sir Michael Howard, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) lost not only its president emeritus but the last of its founders and intellectual parents. The foremost military historian of his generation, Sir Michael embodied and epitomised a historical sensibility that informed all his writing. He will forever remain an icon not only for historians, but for all those who acknowledge the indispensability of history and the historical sensibility for any true understanding of present events.

In tribute to Sir Michael and in celebration of his life and work, this Adelphi book collects a selection of his remarks and writings for IISS publications over six decades, as well as previously unprinted material. Through this collection, these works will reach a new generation of readers and be made more accessible to those fortunate enough to have read them already. They illustrate Sir Michael’s role in the Institute’s creation and his abiding presence in its evolving intellectual life, and serve as a historical document, tracing the development of strategic thought and preoccupations from the 1950s to the recent past. In addition to their historical value, Sir Michael’s conclusions retain their immediacy and power. This book is therefore of direct relevance to anyone interested in contemporary events: whether the professional analyst, the student of international relations or the general reader.

‘This wonderful collection, containing pieces written by Sir Michael Howard over 60 years, will be enjoyed by his, and the Institute’s, many friends and admirers. Here will be found many reminders, written with Michael’s customary lucidity, of the big issues of the post-war period as they were seen at the time. In addition to a fascinating interview conducted not long before his death about the origins of the Institute, there are obituaries of many of the key and now too often forgotten figures of those early years.’

— Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King’s College London

‘Sir Michael’s exploration of policy judgement by fusing politics, strategy, history, ethics, and technology in the nuclear age is increasingly relevant in this complex age of artificial intelligence. His interdisciplinary approach continues to be a guide as we work to synthesize and solve the challenges presented by rapid technological advancements. The pieces contained here show both the continued relevance of his work, and his commitment to studying military history properly, in “depth”, in “width”, and in “context”.’

— Dr Yoichi Funabashi, Chairman of Asia Pacific Initiative

Professor Sir Michael Howard’s death in November 2019 left The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) bereft of not only its president emeritus but the last of its founders and intellectual parents. Yet he bequeathed to us a magnificent legacy of scholarship and commentary. In tribute to Sir Michael and in celebration of his life and work, this volume collects a selection of his remarks and writings for IISS publications over six decades.

Combat in the Second World War had already equipped Sir Michael with a first-hand appreciation of conflict’s realities by the time of the conferences and conversations that led to the Institute’s foundation in 1958. His academic specialism, however, lay not in area studies, political science or the emerging field of strategic studies. Rather, it lay in history; initially, in fact, the history of England in the early seventeenth century. While he would go on to re-establish the Department of War Studies at nearby King’s College London, he had believed that early modern England would be the focus of the assistant lectureship that first brought him there in the 1940s. Moreover, at the outset of his career, he was ‘not in the least’ interested in current events, as he said in a 2017 interview published for the first time here. He was – and remained – wary of facile ‘lessons’ derived from the past, remarking in a 1966 book review in Survival that ‘if “history” teaches us anything, it is that men fall into quite as many errors in trying to learn from the past as they do trying to ignore it’.¹ Requesting that historians divine the future, he suggested at an IISS conference some years later, was just as futile: ‘to ask a historian to look into and prescribe for the future is to invite a presentation consisting of as much past history as the author thinks he can get away with and as little prophecy and prescription as he thinks his audience will accept. Historians have seen too many confident prophets fall flat on their faces to lay themselves open to more humiliation than they can help.’²

Yet Sir Michael argued – and demonstrated – that while history ‘provides few answers, it may shape our attitudes, engendering a scepticism, a humility, and an appreciation of the role of the contingent and the unforeseen in human affairs of a kind not always developed by a more positivist approach’.³ His deep and broad historical learning brought with it a historical sensibility: the ability to see the present through the eyes of a historian; to be aware both of history’s contingencies and its recurrent patterns; to be suspicious of immutable ‘laws’ of international relations; to be alive to the power of ideas in human events; and to locate contemporary developments within the longue durée for, as he put it, ‘there is little point in considering where we should be going if we do not first decide where we are starting from’.⁴ This sensibility entails an awareness of the subjective nature of an individual or nation’s historical narrative and its determinative effect on their contemporary actions for, as he observed elsewhere, ‘all we believe about the present depends on what we believe about the past’.⁵

This historical sensibility informed all of Sir Michael’s work. Indeed, he embodied and epitomised it. He will forever remain a titan and exemplar not only for historians, but for all those who acknowledge the indispensability of history and the historical sensibility for any true understanding of present events. His learned, humane and historical approach to the study of strategy and conflict inspires the members and researchers of the Institute who hope to perpetuate his legacy.

The works selected for this volume are intended to serve several purposes. Firstly, it is hoped that they will reach a new generation of readers and be made more accessible to those fortunate enough to have read them already. The book also contains previously unprinted material: a tribute by John Chipman, the Institute’s director-general; and the 2017 interview with Sir Michael.

Secondly, along with the tribute and interview, these articles, chapters, reviews and letters serve to illustrate Sir Michael’s role in our creation and his abiding presence in the Institute’s evolving intellectual life over 60 years. After beginning with a more recent recollection by Sir Michael, the publications are presented in chronological order. They serve as a historical document, tracing the development of strategic thought and preoccupations from the 1950s to the recent past. Yet Sir Michael’s conclusions – whether on the paradoxes of European defence, the Arab-Israeli conflict or the relationship between modernisation and unrest, to name but a few – retain their immediacy and power. Beyond their historical value, these publications are of direct interest to any analyst of contemporary events.

Thirdly, this selection contains a number of obituaries and reminiscences Sir Michael wrote across the years to commemorate the lost colleagues who had played crucial roles in the Institute’s establishment, growth and success. Their character and contributions are preserved in the articles, obituaries and recollections that he has left us. He, and they, serve as inspiration for the IISS to continue our work – not necessarily, as Sir Michael himself remarked in an article reprinted in this volume,⁶ always focused on questions identical to those that occupied our founders, but with the same dedication and seriousness that marked a generation of thinkers who had experienced the horrors of total war at first hand and who understood the consequences of unclear thinking or self-deception.

Finally, these works are intended to demonstrate Sir Michael’s style: lucid, direct and free of obfuscation or opacity. He was often witty; his book reviews show that he could sometimes be biting, especially when it came to those whose own writing or thinking was indirect or vague. To read him is to be in the presence of an erudite and powerful mind. His thinking enriches not only our understanding of the world, but our experience of the world itself.⁷

Notes

1 Michael Howard et al., ‘Book Reviews’, Survival, vol. 8, no. 10, October 1966, p. 334.

2 Michael Howard, ‘Deterrence, Consensus and Reassurance in the Defence of Europe’, in Defence and Consensus: The Domestic Aspects of Western Security: Part III Papers from the IISS 24th Annual Conference, Adelphi Paper, vol. 23, no. 184, 1983, p. 17.

3 Howard et al., ‘Book Reviews’, vol. 8, no. 10, October 1966, p. 334.

4 Howard, ‘Deterrence, Consensus and Reassurance in the Defence of Europe’, p. 17.

5 Michael Howard, The Lessons of History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 13.

6 Michael Howard, ‘The Remaking of Europe’, Survival, vol. 32, no. 2, March–April 1990, p. 106.

7 I am grateful for the advice and suggestions which I solicited from my colleagues during the preparation of this book. In particular, I would like to thank Dana Allin, John Chipman and James Hackett.