round,” he wrote. He also says in the poem that most things may never happen, and the greatest threat of my lifetime, our lifetimes, that of the Cold War mutating into World War Three, was avoided. But the point of the cartography of threats above is that some of these events might happen, and in particularly malign and simultaneous combinations. If you accept that, two things stand out: firstly, even with the instinct to intervene curbed, the world and its woes will not ignore these shores, nor is domestic security guaranteed; secondly, finding ways to avert such threats, and/or the resilience to withstand them if they happen, is a costly business, requiring a serious slice of Gross Domestic Product, even if we find ways of keeping the defence spending proportion below 2%, which is too low given current commitments and aspirations. If I was a William Le Queux style thriller writer, I would have a crack at all this in novel form. I am not, so I won’t – this, at least, you have been spared! Thank you very much. ©Professor The Lord Hennessy 2012
round,” he wrote. He also says in the poem that most things may never happen, and the greatest threat of my lifetime, our lifetimes, that of the Cold War mutating into World War Three, was avoided. But the point of the cartography of threats above is that some of these events might happen, and in particularly malign and simultaneous combinations. If you accept that, two things stand out: firstly, even with the instinct to intervene curbed, the world and its woes will not ignore these shores, nor is domestic security guaranteed; secondly, finding ways to avert such threats, and/or the resilience to withstand them if they happen, is a costly business, requiring a serious slice of Gross Domestic Product, even if we find ways of keeping the defence spending proportion below 2%, which is too low given current commitments and aspirations. If I was a William Le Queux style thriller writer, I would have a crack at all this in novel form. I am not, so I won’t – this, at least, you have been spared! Thank you very much. ©Professor The Lord Hennessy 2012
26oct11peterhennessy_coldrulesfornationalsecurity.docx