James Cable – författare

A study of the political utility of navies, meant for war, but for over 40 years used in the "violent peace" of the modern era. This book considers what navies might yet do in total war and have actually done in limited war, and it studies their use in gunboat diplomacy, showing the flag, policing the coastal estate and tackling pirates and terrorists. James Cable also looks at proxy war at sea, naval arms control and the case for ocean-going navies. James Cable has also written "Britain's Naval Future", "Diplomacy at Sea", "The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina", "Gunboat Diplomacy 1919-1979", "Political Institutions and Issues in Britain" and "The Royal Navy and the Siege of Bilbao".

'James Cable's book...has deservedly remained the classic work' - Geoffrey Till, International Relations;When Gunboat Diplomacy was first published in 1971, it broke new ground with its study of how, in peacetime and in the twentieth century, governments used their naval forces in international disputes. Now fully revised and brought up to date after the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the cold war, this third edition of a book that was already a modern classic has a foreword by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald.

'James Cable's book...has deservedly remained the classic work' - Geoffrey Till, International Relations When Gunboat Diplomacy was first published in 1971, it broke new ground with its study of how, in peacetime and in the twentieth century, governments used their naval forces in international disputes. Now fully revised and brought up to date after the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the cold war, this third edition of a book that was already a modern classic has a foreword by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald.

In 1951, Britain's major overseas asset was Iranian oil, discovered, produced and exported by a British company. This book relates how Britain planned to use force in order to retain control of the world's largest oil refinery at Abadan.

The Geneva Agreements of 1954 were widely welcomed. They ended a seven-year war in Indochina; gave France a dignified exit; averted wider conflict. In later years first Americans and Vietnamese, then Russians, Chinese, Cambodians and even Laotians tried to force Indochina into different patterns of their own devising. These new wars triggered by rejection of the Geneva compromise lasted longer, killed more people, did greater damage and achieved less - for everybody. Perhaps Churchill was right: jaw-jaw is better than war-war. Certainly this lively, first-hand, up-dated account of the Geneva Conference of 1954 - that triumph of old-fashioned diplomacy, which Britain initiated and France completed - offers a better model for the twenty-first century to follow.