Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Coming out in paper back at the end of January
In choosing your weapons Hurd is referring to the Castlereagh-Canning duel at the beginning of the 19th century, which he uses as a symbol of the duel between principle and realpolitik…You can choose which side of the camp you come from, but if you’re sensible, whichever side of the camp you come from, you’ll end up in the same place – of sensible policy.
What about the Douglas Hurd book, Choose Your Weapons?
This is a more recent book, and to some extent it’s a continuation of the Kissinger theme. In choosing your weapons he’s referring to the Castlereagh-Canning duel at the beginning of the 19th century, which he uses as a symbol of the duel between principle and realpolitik. Castlereagh is the realpolitik specialist – the Machiavelli, the Metternich, the Kissinger. Canning is the man of principle, the Woodrow Wilson in the argument. Hurd then takes that all the way through to the post-millennium age – you have to choose whether you think principle comes first, or circumstance comes first. And as always with Douglas Hurd – and that’s the cleverness of the book – he says (or at least implies) that there doesn’t need to be a hard choice between those two; there is a balance you can strike. Both are important: if you do one without the other, you will make bad mistakes, but if you understand the nature of the power of principle and the power of events and relate the two, and keep both in contact with each other, you’ll come out with a sensible set of policies – and you will be able to implement those policies in the real world without falling over precipices. So what he’s really saying in Choose your Weapons is, you can choose which side of the camp you come from, but if you’re sensible, whichever side of the camp you come from, you’ll end up in the same place – of sensible policy.
One of the Amazon reviews said it was a real page-turner. Is it a very engaging read?
It’s not a dramatic read, because he’s not that sort of writer, but as a writer of novels he has a good ear for anecdote. He tells plenty of lovely stories in the diplomatic arena. The clarity of what he is saying comes through particularly strongly at the end.
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Jeremy Greenstock joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1969 and served in the British embassies in Washington DC, Paris, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. He was United Kingdom Ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2004 where he attended over 150 meetings of the United Nations Security Council. From 2001 to 2003, he was Chairman of the Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee. In September 2003, Greenstock was appointed the UK’s Special Representative for Iraq. He has stated publicly that British and American leaders had known since 1998 that Saddam Hussein had no nuclear or chemical weapons capabilities or programmes.
