This book examines the British army from 1945 until 1971, when Britain completed the withdrawal of most military units from their role “east of Suez.” As the author notes in his introduction, this is a subject that has been largely ignored in histories of postwar Britain and even in general histories of the British army. Studies of British defense policy have tended to focus on issues relating to the nuclear deterrent or to the examination of specific events or controversies. Popular accounts of army life tend to focus on high-profile regiments such as the Special Air Service and the Parachute Regiment or exotica such as the Ghurkhas, or they relate to the social aspects of service in the National Service (i.e., conscript) army of the 1940s and 1950s. Remarkably, for example, there is no scholarly history of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). The aim of this book is to provide a narrative history that bridges these gaps and that places the history of the British army within the wider context of British strategic activity by focusing on its ability to achieve the tasks that it was set by successive governments. David French is well placed to do this, having already established a reputation as a leading historian of the British army in the twentieth century. Rather sensibly, he notes that the main purpose of armies is to prepare for and to fight wars, and this is what he focuses on in this book. Thus, his primary focus is on the combat capability and performance of the army. He notes that revisionist historians have helped to reevaluate the performance of the British army in two world wars and his aim is to do the same for the postwar army. French borrows from current British military doctrine the notion that fighting power consists of three key elements: the physical (the means to fight), the moral (the will to fight), and the conceptual (how to fight), and he uses these as a guide to his analysis.

The book examines the twin tracks of British policy where the army was forced to maintain a major force (the BAOR) in Germany while also meeting the needs of expeditionary operations and insurgencies beyond Europe. French ably charts the associated challenges and compromises, asserting that, contrary to popular belief, at the conceptual level the army adapted reasonably well to the challenges posed by the possibility of conventional war in Europe but that this was undermined by material deficiencies resulting in an overreliance on the early use of tactical nuclear weapons that ran contrary to NATO's declared strategy of flexible response. Traditional accounts usually give the army credit for developing an approach to counterinsurgency that was humane, insofar as it emphasized the minimum use of force, the avoidance of civilian casualties, and an emphasis on hearts and minds, and that was also uniquely successful. French challenges such assumptions, noting the frequent and deliberate use of coercion against civilian populations and a rather equivocal record of success. Similarly, army preparation for expeditionary operations is identified as haphazard at best, constrained by the ever present shortage of manpower and resources.

Ultimately, French concludes, the British created what John Lewis Gaddis characterized (in the case of the Soviet army) as a Potemkin army, one that had an outwardly impressive façade but that had very limited war-fighting capability. For a time, sufficient resources were scrapped together to meet European and overseas commitments and, on occasion, to meet the demand for operations overseas, but there were many failures to accompany the successes, and ultimately the entire system proved to be unsustainable. Ironically, Potemkinism did not undermine the political value of the BAOR, which contributed toward the stability of the NATO alliance and thus to the deterrence of any potential Soviet attack, but it is well that the fighting value of this force was never put to the test. Beyond Europe, the results were less satisfactory and the inability to meet commitments here while maintaining the façade in Germany reinforced the tendency to reduce and then eliminate most extra-European commitments from the mid-1960s.

The book is supported by an extensive bibliography indicating the very genuine depth and breadth of research. Inevitably, given the scope of the subject, there are some works relating to British policy in the period that have not been consulted. Reference to Spencer Mawby's British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates, 1955–67 (London, 2005), for example, could have supported French's claims about the coercive nature of British counterinsurgency at this time. Nevertheless, the engagement with secondary sources is impressive. Fundamentally, the book rests on very detailed primary source research in UK- based archives. Once again there are one or two minor omissions. The apparent failure to consult the Mountbatten papers is disappointing. Lack of reference to Chiefs of Staff Committee minutes and memoranda is puzzling given the range of relevant issues discussed in this joint forum, and rather limited reference is made to Air Ministry and Admiralty files. This may be inevitable in a book focusing on the army, but additional insight into the army may have been provided by some more research into their relationship with, and the views of, the other services.

Despite these caveats, it is important to note that this is a very well-researched book that succeeds in its aim to provide the first scholarly general history of the British army in the period from 1945 to 1971. In doing so, it provides a wealth of new information and challenges some widely held assumptions about the nature of that army and of British defense policy. It is to be hoped that this book prompts others to continue the investigation, to probe into issues and areas that French could only touch upon and thus to further our knowledge of the moral, physical, and conceptual components of the fighting power of the British army. In sum, this is a useful and an important work that will be essential reading for all those interested in the postwar British army and in wider British foreign and defense policy during this period. It is a good book, and I recommend it to you.