ABSTRACT
It has not therefore been the necessity of war which has ultimately divided liberals from geostrategists. For war has been as instrumental to liberalism as it has to power politics. Neither, in fact, has it been a matter of strategic savvy. Strategists only ever get it right in books, on the sand table or after the event. It has been a question, instead, of which wars were said to be necessary and why. Which peace those wars were fought to win, and on behalf of what kind of political subject or, indeed, on behalf of what understanding of humanity, they have been said to have been fought.
