Brendan Simms
Brendan Peter Simms (born 3 September 1967) is the President and founder of the Henry Jackson Society.[1] He is also Newton Sheehy Teaching Fellow at the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge.[2] He is a fellow of Peterhouse College, Cambridge.[3]
Contents
Education and career
Simms was educated at the German School and Trinity College in Dublin before taking a doctorate at Peterhouse, Cambridge. [4] His PhD thesis 'Anglo-Prussian relations, 1804-1806: The Napoleonic Threat', was published in 1992. [5] He was a resident fellow at Christ Church Oxford from 1992 to 1993 and was appointed a fellow and director of studies in history at Peterhouse Cambridge in 1993. [6]
In May 1994 Simms, then 26, was the subject of a flattering article in The Times which reported that there was 'standing room only' for his lectures on decision making in the Third Reich. It referred to Simms as 'that rare combination: a teacher and a thinker.' The Times reported that Simms 'challenges the view that top Nazis actually believed much of the ideology'. 'His vision of decision making in the Third Reich,' according to the article 'traces many policies of the Holocaust to a grotesque parody of office politics. For Dr Simms it was the competition among favourites around Hitler that drove events.' [7] Simms's belief that the politics of the Third Reich could only be understood through examining its internal politics and that this drove its political ideology, was rooted in the political philosophy of Maurice Cowling, the leading figure in the so called 'Peterhouse Right'. In the entry on Cowling in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Jonathan Parry writes that in his 1963 book The Nature and Limits of Political Science Cowling argued that, 'the political process was far too complex and fluid to be rationalized by theorists, being fully intelligible only to those within the system.' [8]
That year Simms wrote a pamphlet for the Conservative organisation, the Bow Group, entitled 'Bosnia: why the Americans are right' which was published in November 1994.
In 1998 he was appointed Newton Sheehy teaching fellow in international relations at the University of Cambridge Centre of International Studies, trustee of the Bosnian Institute in London and a member of the Executive Committee of the British Irish Association. [9]
Views
On Kosovo
- Intervention in the Balkans disproves the notion that American foreign policy, or the variant espoused by neoconservatives, is somehow intrinsically anti-Muslim. If it were not for the United States, those who voted on Saturday would now be refugees or dead. Anybody who knows this will not be surprised that the most Muslim area in Europe, Kosovo, should also be the most pro-American and the most supportive of the War on Terror; there were certainly no “stop the war” protests in Kosovo.[10]
On Gaza
- When the Palestinians exercised their democratic right to vote for Hamas most may have done so to protest against the endemic corruption of the Fatah regime. They may not even have been aware that they were thereby signing up to perpetual warfare, any more than Germans did when they cast their ballots for Adolf Hitler. But they should have known, as neither the Nazis nor Hamas made any attempt to hide their ultimate objectives.
- The Israeli attack on Hamas is thus a legitimate attempt to secure Israel's southern flank in preparation for the showdown with Iran over its nuclear programme, which is expected this year.[11]
Publications
Books
- The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
- The Struggle for Mastery in Germany, 1779-1850, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998.
- Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia, Allen Lane, 2002.
- The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714-1837 edited by Brendan Simms and Torsten Riotte, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
- Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783, Allen Lane, 2007.
Affiliations
- Henry Jackson Society - President
- Bosnian Institute - Trustee
- Standpoint - Contributor
External Resources
- Author Archives: Brendan Simms, Social Affairs Unit.
Notes
- ↑ Dr Brendan Simms, Henry Jackson Society, accessed 19 April 2009.
- ↑ Brendan Simms, Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge, accessed 19 April 2009.
- ↑ Towards a History of Humanitarian Intervention, Henry Jackson Society, accessed 19 April 2009.
- ↑ Catherine Milton, ‘Standing room only for a rarity’, The Times, 31 May 1994
- ↑ Brendan Peter Simms, 'Anglo-Prussian relations, 1804-1806: the Napoleonic threat', Faculty of History, Dissertation - Cambridge, 1992.
- ↑ Debrett’s People of Today, Brendan Simms [Accessed 6 September 2010]
- ↑ Catherine Milton, ‘Standing room only for a rarity’, The Times, 31 May 1994
- ↑ Jonathan Parry, ‘Cowling, Maurice John (1926–2005)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Jan 2009; online edn, May 2009 [Accessed 15 Oct 2010]
- ↑ Debrett’s People of Today, Brendan Simms [Accessed 6 September 2010]
- ↑ Brendan Simms, Kosovo: A Neoconservative Victory, The Times, 27 October 2004.
- ↑ Brendan Simms, How is it possible to support Israel (over Gaza)? Brendan Simms explains why he remains a staunch defender of Israel and its actions in Gaza, Social Affairs Unit], 20 January 2009.
