My interest in war and related forms of political violence dates back to my early childhood, when, before conscription was instituted, my father volunteered for service in World War II. I recall being shocked when I realised that war involved people who didn't know each other and had no direct grievance against each other trying desperately to kill each other because they were on opposite “sides.” My shock was of course all the greater and more personal for the realisation that my father might kill or be killed. He was not killed or physically wounded, as it happens, though he took part in one of the bloodiest battles of the Australian involvement in the Pacific war against the Japanese on the island of Tarakan off the Borneo coast. I don't know what part he played in the killing of enemy soldiers, since, like many combat soldiers, he was most reluctant to speak to his family of his war service.

Since then, my conviction that there is something affronting, even absurd, and certainly morally problematic about the resort to war has been strengthened by reading and reflection about war's reality. I have never myself experienced what Keegan once called “the face of battle,” and hope never to do so.