Acknowledgements

Like most books, this monograph is ultimately the product of many hands, some of them unwitting. It has its origins in the year I spent from 1993/94 at the Centre for Defence Studies, at King’s College. During this time, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity, in Europe and South Africa, to bring some of my personal experience to bear on the problems of other countries undergoing defence transformation. The Centre were subsequently kind enough to keep me informally on their books, and to allow and encourage me to address these issues at conferences and in training courses in different parts of the world. Back in the Ministry of Defence, my job subsequently took me to a number of countries, mostly in Asia, where the problems of defence transformation were being grappled with, and where the experience of the United Kingdom was often in demand.

I benefited enormously from all these formal and informal contacts, but space prevents me from thanking those (even if I could remember them all) who contributed ideas, recollections and observations in conversations in conference halls and government departments, in restaurants and hotels, in bars and in cars, often at improbable hours of the day or night. However, I should thank two groups of people. One includes of all those (mostly students) who told me, in different places and at different times, that I really ought to write this down. After much thought, I decided that I should. So I did.

The second group includes those who have helped directly, either by giving me live audiences to practice on, or by commenting on the manuscript, or both. At King’s College, Professor Michael Clarke, Executive Director of CDS, and Dr Chris Smith, Head of the North-South Programme, gave me many opportunities to road-test the ideas in this book, as well as commenting very helpfully on parts of it. Dr Beatrice Heuser of the Department of War Studies offered me the repeated use of her students as sounding boards, as well as commenting on the work as it progressed. In South Africa, I have been honoured to be associated with the Defence Management Programme of the School of Public and Development Management at Wits University since its inception, and Dr Gavin Cawthra, now Director of P&DM, and Dr Rocky Williams are probably more responsible for the existence of this book than anyone else. Their professional encouragement, as well as their personal kindness and hospitality have been unstinting and outstanding.

Finally, I should stress that the opinions in this book are mine alone, and not those of the British government, or any part of it.
 

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