Rupert Smith

According to the Defence Strategy & Solutions LLP(DS&S) website, where Smith is a 'military advisor':

Sir Rupert assumed his role in June 2003 following a distinguished Army career culminating as the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe and including senior operational command of forces in the Balkans, Northern Ireland and the Gulf. He provides strategic and military advice to the DS&S team and our clients.

Career

Mark Urban reports:

He rose through the Paras to command a brigade and later, the 1st Armoured Division during the 1991 Gulf War. He led the United Nations Protection Force (Unprofor) during the violent climax of the Bosnian war and during 1996-99 was General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland. After that, he was appointed as Deputy Supreme Allied Commander at Nato.

'Risk, Threat and Security'

Smith was a member of a private seminar series which met between May 2006 and January 2008 and produced an article in the RUSI Journal called 'Risk, Threat and Security: The Case of the United Kingdom'. The article expressed concerns that the 'politicisation' of defence policy and a national 'lack of confidence' made the UK vulnerable to security threats. It suggested therefore the partial removal of defence policy from democratic control.

In assessing the supposed security threats to the UK, the article expressed a concern that the country was ‘soft’ and lacked a cohesive identity which made it vulnerable to enemies. It complained of a ‘lack of leadership from the majority which in misplaced deference to ‘multiculturalism’ [has] failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities’.

Affiliations

Defence Strategy & Solutions LLP

Publications, Notes

Publications

The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (Hardcover) by Rupert Smith (Author) Publisher: Knopf (January 16, 2007) ISBN-10: 0307265625 ISBN-13: 978-0307265623