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I’ve met many important people who I wouldn’t want to spend more than half an hour with!
I became interested in the subject when…
My entry into the field was a course I did as an undergraduate, which looked at nuclear weapons and arms control, and when I was a postgraduate this became the focus of my study. The moment of revelation came when I went to Oxford in 1972, and Michael Howard was appointed as my supervisor: one of the great military historians. I read his book Studies in War and Peace (1970) in one sitting and thought: this is what I want to do.
Growing up I was fascinated by…
I was fascinated by cowboys and Indians in primary school; I read all sorts of books about Jesse James and ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok… but I grew out of that! If you grew up in the 1950s, the Second World War dominated. My dad had been in the Navy during the war, as had uncles, relations, and their friends, so there were lots of war stories around.
My favourite period or conflict…
I’ve always been most interested in the post-1945 period – although unlike proper military historians, who get into the details of the fighting, I’m more concerned with the policy. But the conflict that’s made the biggest impact on me has to be the Falklands. The 1982 Argentinean invasion took place the day after I began as a Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, so I tried to follow it as closely as I could. I went on to write three books on it, including the two-volume Official History of the Falklands Campaign (2004). This was how I moved from knowing a lot about nuclear weapons and arms control to watching a real war unfold.
The figure I most admire…
Somebody who has long impressed me is David Low, the political cartoonist and creator of Colonel Blimp. The combination of commentary, humour, and craftmanship in political cartoon and caricature has always appealed to me, and Low is one of the greats. He was a New Zealander, who came to the UK just after WWI, and had an enormous impact; he was a great anti-appeaser, and he made some blistering cartoons of Hitler and Mussolini.
My dream dinner party…
I’ve met a number of really important people in my time, and many of them I wouldn’t want to spend more than half an hour with! There are people I miss, though, who I’d like to get together again: the aforementioned Michael Howard; Alastair Buchan, a professor at Oxford when I arrived, and one of the founders of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who led a very interesting life; and possibly Peter Nailor, a professor at Lancaster, who I know was very good company.
A novel I’d recommend…
I’m not a great novel reader, but one that interested me recently was David Szalay’s 2025 Booker-winner Flesh. I think it has some problems, but stylistically, it’s a clever book.
My favourite war film…
Growing up, The Dam Busters (1955) made an enormous impact. The thing bout films of that period is that the actors had largely been in the war, so there is an authenticity about them. Another one is The Cruel Sea (1953); my dad, who spent time on convoys, found it almost unbearable to watch, which again says something about its authenticity. More recently, I was impressed by Dunkirk (2017).
A museum to get lost in…
It’s easy to get lost in the Imperial War Museum, there’s so much to see. I also have a soft spot for the Churchill War Rooms; I was fortunate to go down with a friend, who worked for the IWM, when they were just opening them up. I remember being able to walk around with all the stuff left exactly as it had been, which was quite an experience… the Admiralty Lists were sitting on a desk, and I found my dad on the list.
Something I learned recently…
I’ve been reading about Iran, so I appreciate how little we understand about Iranian politics since the 1979 Revolution. There’s a very good book that came out recently on the subject, called Stolen Revolution: betrayal and hope in modern Iran (Viking, £22), by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati.
My next project…
I’m writing a book on the Russo-Ukrainian war. I’ve been following this conflict closely since 2014, and it’s an extraordinary story of resistance and resilience. But I’m not going to try to finish that until there’s a full stop on the war of some sort – or at least a comma.
Sir Lawrence Freedman is a scholar and author of work on foreign policy, strategy, and international relations. He is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, and has written on a range of topics; his latest book On Strategists and Strategy: collected essays, 2014-2024 (Oxford University Press, £22.99) is out now. He served as a member of the Iraq War Inquiry, and was knighted in 2003 and appointed to the Privy Council in 2009.
Images: Peter Morris, Sydney Heads; David Low; © 1954 Associated British-Pathé Limited
