"But it cannot follow that because weapons and troops are now being deployed we are bound to go to war"
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Hurd draws a clean line between preparation for force and the sovereign choice to use it, pushing back against the fatalism that treats mobilization as an irreversible slide to conflict. Speaking as Britains foreign secretary during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis, he argued that the movement of troops and materiel to the Gulf under UN authority was part of coercive diplomacy: a way to make the demand for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait credible without foreclosing the chance of a peaceful outcome. The deployment was a signal, not a trigger.
The logic is both strategic and constitutional. Strategically, a credible threat requires capability and proximity, but credibility does not obligate action if the adversary yields. The presence of forces is meant to alter the other side’s calculus, to create an off-ramp rather than a roadblock. Constitutionally and politically, elected governments must preserve decision space. They owe their publics clarity that preparation for the worst is compatible with working for the best. Otherwise, troop movements become a self-fulfilling prophecy fueled by rhetoric about inevitability.
Hurd was a cautious realist, attentive to the risk that the machinery of war generates its own momentum. Mobilization creates sunk costs, raises expectations among allies, and tempts leaders to fight to vindicate earlier choices. His point is to resist that drift. Deterrence and compellence are tools of statecraft, not mechanical levers; wise policy keeps both pressure and diplomacy in play, and sustains off-ramps even as deadlines loom.
The line also foreshadows his later stance during the Balkan wars, where he favored containment and negotiation over escalatory action. In both theaters, he insisted on the just-war principle of last resort: force should be prepared and, if necessary, used decisively, but never because prior preparations leave no alternative. The enduring lesson is that readiness need not become inevitability, provided leaders guard against momentum, maintain honest diplomacy, and remember that the decision to fight remains a choice.
The logic is both strategic and constitutional. Strategically, a credible threat requires capability and proximity, but credibility does not obligate action if the adversary yields. The presence of forces is meant to alter the other side’s calculus, to create an off-ramp rather than a roadblock. Constitutionally and politically, elected governments must preserve decision space. They owe their publics clarity that preparation for the worst is compatible with working for the best. Otherwise, troop movements become a self-fulfilling prophecy fueled by rhetoric about inevitability.
Hurd was a cautious realist, attentive to the risk that the machinery of war generates its own momentum. Mobilization creates sunk costs, raises expectations among allies, and tempts leaders to fight to vindicate earlier choices. His point is to resist that drift. Deterrence and compellence are tools of statecraft, not mechanical levers; wise policy keeps both pressure and diplomacy in play, and sustains off-ramps even as deadlines loom.
The line also foreshadows his later stance during the Balkan wars, where he favored containment and negotiation over escalatory action. In both theaters, he insisted on the just-war principle of last resort: force should be prepared and, if necessary, used decisively, but never because prior preparations leave no alternative. The enduring lesson is that readiness need not become inevitability, provided leaders guard against momentum, maintain honest diplomacy, and remember that the decision to fight remains a choice.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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