Books by Rupert Smith
The Utility of Force
by Rupert Smith
This is the one book I’ve chosen that is actually a visionary work. Rupert Smith was a professional soldier who became Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in NATO. What Smith sees is that making war, or threatening war or the use of force, has increasingly had to encompass the disciplines usually understood in diplomacy, just as diplomacy itself has changed. The world we inhabit now – with questions of WMD, letter bombs and terrorism by the least likely suspects – requires an understanding by diplomats of this interface of war in peacetime societies, and an expectation of soldiers to see beyond their immediate military brief.
The Utility of Force
by Rupert Smith
This book is really the transition from Clausewitz and Walzer to today. He explains that the era of industrial war, of Clausewitzian war, is over, that war is not fought by soldiers against other soldiers any more...There is no distinction any more between combatant and non-combatant – war is amongst the people, against the people. Clausewitzian war reached its apex in World War II.
Interviews where books by Rupert Smith were recommended
The best books on The Thrill of Diplomacy, recommended by Mike Maclay
Former British diplomat Mike Maclay chooses five books on the glamour, the reality and the future of the people trained in the canny art of diplomacy
The best books on War, recommended by Mary Kaldor
The Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics says there is fine line between being a hero and being a murderer – that’s why the Geneva convention matters
