MILITARY POWER AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE

This is an edited text of the sixth John Vincent Memorial Lecture deli vered by Lawrence Freedman at the University of Keele on 8 May 1998. A gainst the background of Soviet military power in Europe in the 1970s, the author explores in the first place the question of the utility of force in circumstances where there is no immediate danger of war, and concludes with a discussion of its contemporary relevance for the arm ed forces of the Atlantic alliance.