Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia [Kindle Edition]

This book is full of important information for anyone interested in what happened in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. The style is very academic (unsurprising considering that Brendan Simms is a lecturer at Cambridge), comprehensively dissecting events, and so can be heavy reading at times - quite different from the easy readability of Mark Curtis and Robert Fisk.

Unfinest Hour, however, still deserves its 5 stars because of its comprehensive coverage of the topic - there's no other book that deals with the topic so well. Despite it being heavy reading, it can still be a page-turner due to the disturbing revelations within it.

Professor Simms has produced a compelling dissection of one of the most shameful episodes in European history, when the Western powers stood aside and knowingly allowed a multi-cultural, democratic, independent European state to be dismembered, during a prolonged period of ethnic cleansing and genocide. In doing so, he ruthlessly pins a great deal of the blame upon those British politicians who not only allowed this to happen but who by their actions, inactions and mis-placed words actually encouraged Serb aggression and racial hatred.

Hurd, Hogg, Rifkind, Major and Owen all find themselves targets in Professor Simms' justifiably angry polemic. Well written and clearly setting out the issues even for those readers who are not familiar with the disgraceful recent history in the Balkans, he reveals the shocking incompetence and serial misjudgements of those who were supposed to steer our foreign policy.

Despite incomprehension our leaders can hardly claim to have been ignorant of Serb intentions. Radovan Keradzic told Alija Izetbegovic, in public and in front of the TV cameras, that in the forthcoming conflict "You Muslims will be exterminated." For once in his life he wasn't lying.

As Professor Simms explains, we then invested millions of dollars in the provision of food and medicine but would do nothing to silence the guns that caused the need for such aid in the first place. As the book makes clear, the stark reality of the West's decision to confine itself to the provision of humanitarian aid is that we were prepared to feed people but stood aside and allowed them to be raped, shot and shelled. It was political cynicism at its worst.

Simms is surprisingly light in his criticism of the UN but does point out that its insistence that it remain impartial and that it required the consent of both sides before acting was actually in violation of its own mandate. Most of the relevant Security Council resolutions were made expressly under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, making them "enforcement" mandates authorising the use of force in order that they be fulfilled.

The book is in some part quite amusing about David Owen ("Let me through, I'm a doctor is the chapter title for the section of the book dealing with his woeful efforts). Owen refused to challenge the Serbs with the evidence that they were operating rape camps on the grounds that "You can't talk to the Serbs like that." Well you can, actually and you should.

Douglas Hurd will be less amused by his place in history as recorded here, although Simms throughout is careful to emphasise that Hurd is an honourable man who believed he was doing the right thing. His "Everybody can see there is going to be no military intervention" was tantamount to telling the Serbs that, whilst we might not approve, they were free to carry on killing. In other words, to secure peace it was necessary to reduce the Bosnians to a state of total hopelessness, an aim shared with the Serbs.

Simms is to be congratulated for producing a well argued, extremely well researched and elegantly written book that turns a much-needed spotlight upon this most shameful episode in history. The fact that both Douglas Hurd and The Economist - those who at the time argued that the West could not and should not intervene and who have since been proved so terribly wrong by the outcome of events in Bosnia - have united in pillorying this book is almost recommendation enough.

I had no idea at the time of just how sinister a role was played by the UK establishment in condemning Bosnia to it's fate. I always believed that more should have been done to intervene but now I know why it was not and, most interestingly, how assistance to Bosnia was prevented. Unsurprisingly, cabinet members at the time, notably Hogg, Hurd and Rifkind, all receive much criticism as does "the perfect popinjay" David Owen, but I didn't realise Thatcher and David Trimball had taken such admirable positions on the issue, not to mention our lovable cousins across the Atlantic.

The book is well written, occasionally humorous, and the overwhelming majority (but not all) of the arguments it presents are coherent and well referenced. It certainly does have an agenda but this is in no way disguised. My only main complaint is the length of the chapters. At approximately fifty pages each, it is hard going to find a suitable place for a break, especially as some of the material is relatively mentally taxing. That said, the author presents what is a demanding subject in a style that maintains interest.

The material covered in this book is highly relevant to current events in Iraq, on which we all have an opinion. I found it very interesting to see that many of the voices who are today complaining about western imperialism, the immorality of military intervention etc were the same as those who lent their support to British foreign policy in the early 1990s, with appalling consequences.

Note: this is not a history of the break-up of Yugoslavia, which is covered with great skill in the excellent "Death of Yugoslavia" by Silber and Little.