To conclude Season Four of Talking Strategy, we talk to long-serving diplomat, policy adviser and politician The Rt Hon Baroness Neville-Jones.

With intimate experience of the functioning of governments and the EU, Lady Neville-Jones compares the respective organisational cultures and human side of strategy, drawing on lessons from her career.

Pauline Neville-Jones joined the British diplomatic service in 1963. She was posted in places as varied as Rhodesia, Singapore, Bonn, Washington and the European Commission. From the 1990s onwards her postings were specifically concerned with defence matters. She was head of the Defence and Overseas Secretariat of the Cabinet Office from 1991 to 1994, and during that time she also chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee. Subsequently, she was Political Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 1996, and in that capacity negotiated the 1995 Dayton Agreement on Bosnia on behalf of the UK.

In the final episode of this season, Lady Neville-Jones reflects on the success of the Dayton Agreement: was it ‘good enough’? Was anything better in the offing? And on relations with Russia: did the West ‘lose’ Moscow in the 1990s? Tune in to hear her advice to practitioners.

Moshe Dayan (1915-1981) is a controversial figure in Israeli politics. Revered by some as a master strategist, he is criticised by others for his failure to foresee Egypt’s attack in 1973, and then for ‘giving up’ the Sinai in return for a peace treaty.

Strategy-making can take two approaches. The first, ‘Deliberate Strategy’, is formulated and implemented hierarchically and centrally; decisions are taken by the head of the organisation, and detailed plans and instructions are issued to those responsible for implementation. The alternative model, ‘Emergent Strategy’, is characterised by its flexibility on ends as well as ways and means.

This week’s guest, Professor Eitan Shamir, is the Director of the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies of Bar Ilan University, argues that Moshe Dayan was a strategist who took the second approach. Professor Shamir is the author of a new biography entitled “Moshe Dayan: The Making of a Strategist” (2023, in Hebrew, and due to be published in English in 2024 by Cambridge University Press) and, with Beatrice, edited Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies: National Styles and Strategic Cultures (CUP, 2017).

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur Tedder was General Eisenhower’s Deputy as Supreme Commander for Operation Overlord during the Second World War. A quiet and thoughtful leader, Tedder understood the difference between war and warfare and carefully orchestrated his campaigns – including the transportation plan concerning D-Day – in an alliance context to great effect.

Tedder’s strategic leadership can be characterised as understated and thoughtful, underpinned by his ability to manage relationships with allies and experts to get the most from each. He also understood the importance of waging war economically in a way that exploited logistics capacity as a critical enabler for his own forces and as a means of weakening his enemies. Despite the Allied victory, after the Second World War he recognised the weaknesses that loomed.

This week’s guest, Air Marshal Edward Stringer, was the air component commander for NATO's operation in Libya in 2011, the Director of Operations in the UK Ministry of Defence and the UK liaison officer to the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. In his last role, he was Director General Joint Force Development. Since retirement, he has become an expert commentator and writer on defence, defence strategy and air power.