The Times - UK (2022-05-17)

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Barbara Hall

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cult aspect of military operations for

democracies.”

In 1978 Martin took on a new aca-

demic role as vice-chancellor of New-

castle University. It was a challenging

period for his administrative and diplo-

matic skills, with the university facing

significant challenges as government

funding was reduced. He made the bold

decision to allow Channel 4 to film aca-

demics and managers grappling with

change as well as students giving their

views in a documentary series, Red-

brick.

Martin became a prominent figure in

the life of northeast England, appoint-

ed deputy lord-lieutenant of Tyne and

Wear in 1987. He was involved in the

university’s attempts to help attract

new Japanese investment to the region

and enjoyed the maritime memories it

stirred as photographs were displayed

of Japanese admirals taking delivery on

the Tyne of the warships with which

they routed the Russians in 1905.

After his wife died he set up the Lady

Betty Martin fund in her memory to

help children and young people in the

northeast to pursue arts activities.

In 1991 Martin became director of the

Royal Institute of International Affairs

in London, better known as Chatham

House. It was a fascinating period as the

Cold War came to an end offering the

hope, he wrote, that “the objective con-

ditions exist to eliminate violent and

mutually harmful conflict at least

between the major powers”. Nuclear

weapons had not disappeared, of

course. “This is not the time to disman-

tle deterrence,” he argued. “Rather, it is

the opportunity to adjust it.” He also

When Laurence Martin gave the BBC’s
Reith lectures in 1981, entitled The
Two-Edged Sword: Armed Force in the
Modern World, it was an especially sen-
sitive time in which to explore the role
of military power. The question of nu-
clear deterrence — in which Professor
Martin specialised — was under fierce
scrutiny after the election of President
Reagan in the US. Fears were expressed
by disarmament campaigners that the
use of such weapons by the West was
becoming more likely. “Perhaps the
only uncontroversial observation I
shall manage to make during this series
of lectures,” he said, “is to assert the
supreme importance of averting all-out
nuclear war. The problem is how to do
it.”
Other challenges were also explored
in the lectures such as the proliferation
of nuclear weapons in the wider world,
the failure of western Europe to
develop its own defence identity, and
the dilemmas faced by Britain in main-
taining its own notionally independent
deterrent.
Martin was a firm believer in the ba-
sic principle of deterrence and criti-
cised advocates of unilateral disarma-
ment. He was also critical, however, of
those who argued that victory was
possible if such weapons were used on a
mass scale. The original deterrence

idea of “mutually assured destruction”,
he argued, “has serious and probably
fatal flaws”.
For some time Martin had been en-
couraging debate about whether so-
called theatre nuclear weapons could
be used in a way that was militarily ef-
fective if Nato were attacked without
risking the removal of all Soviet re-
straint in responding. The idea of
limited nuclear war was “dreadfully
dangerous” yet offered “a few added
stopping-places, none too hopeful but
very much needed stopping-places, on
the dreadful escalatory slope... We can
only choose between policies that
entail different degrees of risk”.
This kind of discussion was typical of
Martin’s willingness to tackle the most
sensitive of strategic questions that
many might prefer to avoid, and to do so
in a way that was accessible to public
debate. He was a distinguished aca-
demic who had held posts in the US and
in the UK at Aberystwyth, King’s Col-
lege London and as vice-chancellor at
Newcastle University. His published
works included Strategic Thought in the
Nuclear Age and Nato and the Defense
of the West.
He had also had a parallel career in
the world of strategic studies seminars
that brought together researchers and
sometimes senior military and political
figures to wrestle with policy dilemmas.
He would conclude his professional
career as head of the Chatham House
think tank in the 1990s as it considered
the radically new security world
emerging after the end of the Cold War.
Martin’s broad perspective was en-
hanced by his early career as an aca-
demic historian. He was born in Corn-

He introduced ‘crisis

games’ so his students

could role-play scenarios

wall in 1928, where his father was a

teacher and his mother worked at a

local brewery. After grammar school he

studied at Cambridge, and also had two

years in the RAF as one of the last con-

scripts as the wartime military regime

was wound down.

In 1951 he married Betty Parnall, a

teacher, and they had a daughter Jane,

an editor, who predeceased him — he

later established the Jane Martin

Poetry Prize in her memory — and a

son, William, who became

an obstetrician.

Martin moved to

the US to study for a

history doctorate

at Yale in the

mid-1950s and

then on to MIT,

publishing in

1956 a book on

The Anglo-

American Tra-

dition in Foreign

Affairs followed

in 1958 by Peace

Without Victory —

Woodrow Wilson and

the British Liberals. It ex-

plored how US president Wil-

son had been influenced by British radi-

cals and their view of the causes of the

First World War. Wilson had found it

difficult, he concluded, to ally liberal

precepts on foreign policy to “the real

world of fear, ambition and unaccom-

modating geography” as well as to pop-

ular passions.

While working as a historian Martin

had begun to take up more contempo-

rary themes, convening a seminar on

strategic studies. In the mid-1960s he

published The Sea in Modern Strategy,

which sought to bring naval matters

more to the fore in discussion of the

post-1945 security world. His involve-

ment with Anglo-American policy de-

bate had been enhanced after he moved

to Washington to work at Johns Hop-

kins University and at the Washington

Center of Foreign Policy Research.

In 1964 he returned to Britain as pro-

fessor of international politics at Aber-

ystwyth, where one of his inno-

vations was to introduce

“crisis games”, in which

students and academics

would role-play

dramatic scenarios

in international

relations. In 1968

he moved to

London as profes-

sor of war studies at

King’s College,

heading a varied de-

partment that in-

cluded specialists in

ethics and diplomacy as

well as military affairs.

Martin continued to ex-

plore the latest global develop-

ments in publications such as Arms and

Strategy — The World Power Structure

Toda y. As well as more conventional

analysis of changes in military equip-

ment (“there is no natural technologi-

cal plateau on which strategy may rest,”

he wrote) he also explored newer fac-

tors such as the role of TV reporting on

the course of the Vietnam war. “The

management of mass media,” he con-

cluded, “will constitute a new and diffi-

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Professor Sir Laurence Martin while director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, much better known

as Chatham House; one of his seminal works; and with Lady Betty, his wife, after receiving his knighthood in 1994

warned of the need to

“take care of the losers in

the global market eco-

nomy”.

And while the collapse

of the Soviet Union might

have reduced interest in

what Moscow was think-

ing, Martin presciently

urged his fellow strate-

gists to continue to keep a

close eye on Russia. Would

it “fall into the habit of us-

ing force externally?”, he

asked. “The only current

conceivable mortal threats

to Britain are a revival of

Russian strength and ag-

gression,” he commented — what

seemed to many a very distant threat in

the optimistic days of the 1990s, but

much less so now.

He was knighted in 1994 and left

Chatham House in 1996. After another

brief period working in the US there

was more time to enjoy in retirement

other interests such as gardening at

home in Suffolk, sailing, fishing in

Northumberland and appreciating

steam trains. Anyone who knew him

would be aware of his devotion to Dad’s

Army, which, according to his son, was

the only television programme he

would stop talking for. He continued on

occasion to contribute with character-

istic vigour to debates on defence

policy, questioning, for example, the

British government’s decision to invest

huge amounts in new aircraft carriers.

“It must not be too late,” he wrote, “for

an informed debate on a policy that will

make or break our whole future strate-

gic posture?’

This was exactly the kind of debate,

about long-term strategy rather than

short-term political priorities, that

Martin had encouraged throughout his

career. His historical training had also

made him sensitive to the need for gov-

ernments to prepare for the unexpect-

ed. “Security, like electricity, must be on

hand when you need it,” he had said in

his Reith lectures. “But also, like electri-

city, it is almost impossible to store, and

every generation must make its own.”

There were never easy answers, par-

ticularly when facing the horrible di-

lemmas of nuclear deterrence. Yet

some kind of policy, he urged, had to be

made, even for the most difficult sce-

narios.

He was fond of referring to cartoons

to illustrate his points. When it came to

nuclear strategy he said he was remind-

ed of the famous wartime image of a

young soldier cowering in a water-

logged shell-hole in no man’s land

under a fearsome barrage. When he

complains, a veteran responds: “Well, if

you knows of a better ’ole, go to it.” As

Martin concluded drily: “I have yet to

find a better hole than our present bal-

ance of power.”

Professor Sir Laurence Martin, historian

and strategist, was born on July 30, 1928.

He died on April 24, 2022, aged 93

Obituaries

Professor Sir Laurence Martin

Distinguished historian and expert on international security who became head of Chatham House in the post-Cold War years

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