[inaudible conversations] booktv is on facebook and twitter. Like us and follow us for book industry news, booktv schedule updates, behind the scene looks at author events and interact with authors during Live Television programming. Here are a fee few of book tvs posts. We tweeted a behind the scenes picture of amy choi and chad as they sign their book after taping of after words. You can watch book tv to see the interview. Book tv tweeted a wall street journal article, and on facebook we posted an aural from new york magazine, by kevin ruth about wall streets post crash recruits. Follow us on twitter on booktv,. Con coughlin recounts Winston Churchills first visit to afghanistan in 1857. This is a little under an hour. [applause] thank you very much. Welcome to the heritage foundation. Its my pleasure to introduce our good friend, con coughlin, the defense editor of the Daily Telegraph and a world renowned expert on the middle east. Con is the critically acclaimed author of several books, including the New York Times best seller, saddam, his rise and fall. He appears regularly on television and radio in the United States and Great Britain and has been a frequent political commentator on fox news, cnn, the bbc and sky news. Con is a veteran correspondent and his latest book gives a gripping account of sir win shawn churchills First Military campaign as a young cavalry lieutenant. As con writes, this is a story of High Adventure and imperial endeavor which contains important lessons and warnings for today. It is fitting our event, hosted by the Margaret Thatcher center for freedom, throughout her political career, Lady Thatcher drew strength and inspiration from churchills leadership, especially at moments when she faced huge challenges. Key moments in history that called for iron clad resolve. She also drew comfort from the fact that churchill has found himself alone on the political stage, scorned even by many in his own party, but never enough to not stand by this congress visitations and beliefs. Thatcher was influenced by her admiration for churchills courage. She said, everything about churchill heroic. He was a leader majors among men, and, she said for me and so many others, our ideas of liberty, honor, sacrifice, fellowship, our idea of britain herself, have been formed by churchills words. Please join me in welcoming con coughlin, historian, journalist, and writer. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much for the warm introduction. A great pleasure to be back here at heritage. The book, churchills first war. Is a story about what i think it the making of Winston Churchill, when talks about courage, his ability to prevail in adversity, this fascinating but neglected period in churchills early life shows almost almost lays the foundation for the man churchill became in later life. When i approached the subject, think probably like most people, when i thought of Young Winston, i thought of carl formans film and his exploits during the bell war, his escape from captivity and all that. And in fact when i was started research, i had another look at this film, and the only reference to churchill in afghanistan is the opening sequence where you have a picture of Young Winston on a gray horse, and the general is saying to one of his young officers, who is that bloody fool on the gray . Someone who wants to get noticed, i suppose, says the young officer. Hell get noticed. Hell get his blood where head blown off. And indeed the recent Young Winston went to the front tier which forms part of pakistan, is he did want to get himself noticed, and he was 22 years old. His family background was in some disarray. His father, lord randolph, had died of syphilis when churchill was studying at sandhurst. His mother, a Great Society beauty, had a reputation of a grand for various dallianses with society gentlemen. Among here admirers was the then prince of wales, and the family had a rather difficult reputation in british society, and not only that, they were deeply impoverished, and at the time that lord randolph died in 1895, Young Winston was just coming out of sand hurst, and having had a very indifferent schooling. Its one of britains leading public schools. And in those days if you werent very bright, if you werent being singled out for a career in the law or something useful, you went into the army class. And thats where Young Winston languished for most of his days there, and he was so behind academically that it took him three attempts to get into sand hurst. He failed the first two attempts and he had to take a primer to get through the exam. So, Young Churchills fortunes were at very low ebb when embarked on life, but he made it very clear from an early age, he thought a military career was the Perfect Foundation for a life in politics, and from a very early age, he had this vision of himself going through remote corners of the British Empire, winning medals, winning acclaim, and then using that acclaim to launch his political career, because even at this stage, when he was training at sand hurst, on his day off he would go to the house of commons and read avidly up on his late fathers speeches. And he said he wanted to beat his medals into an iron dispatch box. So the Young Winston was a very precocious character, and very, very keen to get out to places like the Afghan Border and make name for himself, and in fact one of his more memorable quotes from this period that he writes in his own accountants of his his open accounts of his war in afghanistan, and this recaptures the joy he writes nothing in life is so exsill rating exsill rating is to be shot at with no result. And it was this gung ho attitude that he set off for the northwestern frontier, and the thing that was driving him was that he needed to make money. And one of the more interesting rankments in the late 19th 19th century that was that birch newspapers rid on rather than sending correspondents, why not get a brilliant military officers to write dispatches from the front line. A. , they probably knew what they were writing about, and secondly, if anything happened to them, then the military would have to take care of all the costs rather than the newspapers. So, in that spirit, churchill got himself an arrangement with my newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, and in fact it was thanks to Winston Churchill and the articles he wrote during this period that this rather cozy arrangement ended because lord tichenor, who had the british army, took such a dim view of the openly criticizing the high policy of the british military, that lord tichenor personally ordered that the practice cease, and its never been undertaken since except by retired officers. Parallels with today. A lot of people in this room when i say that church was fighting the greatgreat grandfathers as the taliban would raise an eyebrow. Not least because churchill was fighting on the other side of the border, fighting in what is now modern pakistan. But if i tell you that i traveled extensively around the region, researching the book. If i tell you that if you got a map from the cia of all the drone strikes theyve launched in the tribal areas of pakistan, they correlate almost directly to the villages, tribes, and valleys where churchill fought in 1897. The store story of the young pakistani squirrel goo, school girl, malala, she was shot a few miles away from where churchill was based. So in terms of history repeating itself, its hard to have a more graphic illustration of how history is repeating itself. Back in the 1890s the main problem and again, as i go through the churchills story youll see the overlap with today. But the main problem in the 1890s for the british had been caused by the implementation, the arbitrary implementation of the drone line. Its the border between pakistan and afghanistan, and back in the 1890s, the british, who had two disastrous military campaigns in afghanistan in the 1830s and 1880s, basically said we have had enough of these afghans. Were going to draw a border and that will the afghans can stay on their side of the border and we will have the British Empire on the other, and never the two shall meet. And a bit like the securities and the israelis established in the west bank, the line went right through tribal lands, and inflamed the tribes and then as now, mullahs wandered around the mountains and incited the afghan tribesmen, pashtun tribesmen to revolt against the british, using similar arguments he used today, that these infidels were coming to usuper their religions, enter fire with their customs and take over their lives can, so its wasnt difficult for the mull mullahs to incite the tribes. Winston churchill, even though he only spent six weeks up there and never actually met an afghan, he became a selfappointed expert on these people. And churchill wrote in a dispatch, one of his early dispatches for the Daily Telegraph of his very low opinion he had of these talibs. He view them as degraded as any on the fringe only humanity. Dangerous but not so graceful as a tiger. He blamed them for afghan0s limited development, and keeping them n what he calls the grip of miserable superstition. Churchill was also particularly repelled by the talibs loose moral conduct. They lived lives they lived free at the expense of the people, he wrote, and more than this, they enjoy sort of no mans wife or daughter is safe. Some of their manners or morals it is impossible to write. You can imagine the impact that had on the breakfast tables in london when the Daily Telegraph came out. As a result of the duran line being established, the tribes were quickly in a stage of revolt and came charging down from the mountains and attacked british bases. In 1895 there was a very bitter contest, and later on, all along the border, all the places we know so well today, all these areas, the valley where churchill fought, the all took up arms against the british at different stages, and after the uprising, the british government, under now a conservative Prime Minister, lord salspure, dod they need it to put up fences around the border to protect them from future attacks. One base was a place called atta attabad. It was one of the main supply bases for in the forts, the network of fortses build along the frontier, and one fort is built at malacan, and in 1897, while the fort was being built, again, the mullahsre very successful in inciting the tribesmen that this fort just the First Step Towards a british takeover of their region, and a great uprising started in the summer of 1897. Now, this time churchill was kicking his heels in london. He joined a very smart regiment, which had taken part in the charge of the light brigade, and had fought with wellington during the peninsula wars. A very smoother regiment, and the reason he joined the regiments is because it went to the best parties and its meant he would get noted. Much to his frustration, this smart regiment, when it was being deployed to india, was not going the north where the trouble was, but down to the south, and you get this wonderful sense of the impertinence and impatience of the Young Winston churchill, as ogot his mother, who had high social connections, and everybody else he could think of get himself posted somewhere more interesting and exciting where he was more likely to win medals. When i was researching the book, liked at some of the british regimental records in this period, and quite a few young british officers perished during thunder tours of duty in Southern India but none of them died in combat. They all died in pursuits such as pig sticking and tiger hunting and things like that. And Young Churchill was in no mood to waste his life chasing wild beasts. He wanted action. And although he did have to join his garrison in Southern India, before left he run into a veteran of frontier warfare, a british general called general blood, and general blood had fought in several campaigns on the frontier with some distinction, and Young Churchill had met him at a party in london, and basically distracted this promise from blood, that if there was anymore trouble he would send for churchill and get churchill to see some action. And sure enough, churchill was on holiday in britain, taped the attending the races osgoodwood, when he read in the paper the tribes were revolving again. They wrote, and, surprise, surprise, general blood had been appoint to lead the punitive expedition to subdue the tribesmen. So churchill literally left the races at goodwood, got a train to victoria, got a train from victoria down to southern itly to get the boat back to india. Merely to send blood a cable reminding hem of his promise. Of course in those days the journey took three weeks, and you get this wonderful sense of urgency with churchill in his diaries, as he stops at the time at the different ports and goes to the telegram office, expecting to hear a reply from general blood. And theres nothing. And he gets all the way back to Southern India and still hears nothing. And by this time he is very agitate and he writes to his mother in terms that, this fellow, blood, is a bit of a cad. How dare he not reply to me, a churchill at that. Eventually blood, who of course was off campaigning and quite hard campaigning it was, too when he did get back from the first phase of the campaign, against the tribes, he did send a cable to churchill saying, well, we dont have any room on the military staff, about why dont you come up as a newspaper correspondent. So churchill went charging up, took five days by train, and reading through the diaries, his sense that fate was against him and by the time he got up there on this horrible train journey through the plains, all the action would be over and nothing for him to do, no medals to win. In fact when he got to ma lakand in early september, 1897, the british had already suffered quite heavy casualties, and they were looking for young officers to replace those who had been killed. And those days, rather than send the effects of injured soldiers home they simply had an auction so that the comrades in arms could benefit from their loss. So, churchill went straight to one of these auctions to get himself his fighting kit, basically. And among the effects being sold was a gray horse, and churchill thought ill get myself notices, notes realizing the reason the horse was up for sale in the first place is the schapp shooters and started to attack churchills party which in total was 90 strong. Churchill was reputed to take part, to provide covering fire while the main party went through which they did in stages in the first stage was affected without too much incident but by the time they started to move, to withdraw, they really close thin. Churchill has a really gripping account of just how intense the fighting was at this particular stage. Once the main body had moved to a position, churchills covering party bent to follow them. The rest of our party retreat, there was a ragged volley, shallots, exclamations and a scream. I thought five or six men would laid down again so they had two killed and three wounded. One man shot through the breast, another l. A. On his black kicking and twisting. The british officer was spinning around his face a mass of blood his right eye cut out. So churchill has to recover the bodies, get the wounded down and in fact got a mention in dispatchs for this particular, for his bravery in this action and in fact later on he complained to his friends if the senior officer had been on his grave someone would have noticed him and given him the Victoria Cross because Victoria Crosses were given out in this campaign, and one of his rivals wrote dispatches for the times newspaper. He managed to win the Victoria Cross and that irritated churchill that all the got was a mention in dispatches but the interesting thing about this lesson from churchills first war is he learned what conflict was really like, what it was like to be in an engagement where one point when he ran out of bullets he and the tribesmen were throwing rocks at each other. That is how close the fighting was. A lot of churchills friends were killed during this campaign and some of them a forgotten part of the world and churchill himself could have been perished and would have been laid to rest in the history of the 20th century may have been very different. Churchill was complex when it came to his wartime leadership. People forget these humanity of churchills wartime one of the big arguments he kept putting up about his opposition to the dday landings was his fear about the loss of life and coming back to america, churchill was an another engagement, involved in another bidder skirmish when a close friend of his, young lieutenant named Brian Wilkinson was shot by churchills side and churchill had to help retrieve the body so it was not covered by the afghans and he later wrote to his mother i very rarely detected genuine emotion in myself but i must cite this rare instance the fact that i cried when on the 30th of september i saw the men really and steady under fire, and that poor young officer literally cut to pieces on a stretcher so you have churchill really understanding the nature of war and that young man who started out writing about being shot at is learning a very fast and bitter lesson on the realities of war but churchill did survive and when he looked back on it, to say this is a fascinating and objective bit of churchill in history because it was the making of Winston Churchill for several reasons. You went out there with one purpose, to make a name for himself and to laid the platform for his later career as a politician and he achieved that in spades. First of all he got his mentioned in dispatches. He also wrote a ceres of fine newspaper articles, i am a former Foreign Editor at the telegraph and i have seen some good dispatches in my time and anything coming from Winston Churchill would have been warmly received. As a result of his dispatches, his one regret about the newspaper aspect of things was the telegraph didnt print his name on them. And again the intemperance of his language to his mother when he discovers these scoundrels in the Daily Telegraph didnt give him a byline and should write a book. And i will tell the Great British public and the greater world how brave diane and how wonderful i have been and how important i have been to the success of this campaign. He sat down to write about american field force which was churchills first literary offering and if you can imagine his immense irritation when he discovered his rivals incastle had much to say and the two young officers were in this bitter race to get their books out. They were both published in the spring of 1898. I must say churchill was a far better read. It is quite florid. When you check with the regimental archives and other papers from the period, it is very pro churchill but it is quite a good read for that. As the result of the book, churchill received a warm letter from the prince of wales who had been given a copy by Jennie Churchill but importantly lords all very who played his own role at ruining lord randolphs career invited churchill to downing street so for the first time in churchills life as a direct result of his exploits, invited into downing street, where many decades later, where he would find true fame and glory and again, churchill, 23 by this time, full of impertinence, having had his six weeks on the northwest frontier is desperate to get to the sudan where Lord Kitchener is preparing for the final push comments and he has taken a dim view of his criticism and had no desire to have him anywhere near his army. You can imagine his surprise, he looks around to find Second Lieutenant w. S. Churchill riding alongside him. This is the result of a promise from boards of perry, when had he left downing st. After is his audience the Prime Minister said if there is anything i can do for you in the future let me know. He said yes, sir, i would like to go to the sudan. Could you arrange that for me . Churchills whole road to fame and glory, his participation in one of the last cavalry charges undertaken in the sudan, his movement then on to cover the South African war as a foreign correspondent, his capture, his international reclaim, his election to Parliament Soon after his return, he becomes so famous in britain. You heard of Winston Churchill, this is all i have to say. The latest and greatest correspondence, that was the 1890s. When i look at afghanistan, a crucial year. And americanled campaign. People could reflect on churchill and british in the 1890s. The original idea i had with general David Petraeus who was the nato commander, counterinsurgency strategy to face in the taliban and he had been reading churchills american field force and the lessons to the british. General David Petraeus tells me for just like the british, the military resources you have that your disposal there is not a military solution to this problem. Geopolitical solution and that is quite a challenge in the years coming forward in the months ahead. Churchills own conclusion having gone into this conflict was rather terse. Financially it is ruinous, morally it is a wicked. Militarily is an open question and politically it is a blunder. And i think those words will occupy many of our thoughts in the months ahead. [applause] thank you, a tremendous talk. We now have time for questions. Would like to invite questions from the audience. Please identify yourself first, on the red point. Eric rosen from the committee for accuracy in middle east reporting in america. When it said there is no political no military solution to conflict like this, doesnt it really mean there is no political solution without first an advantageous military accomplishment . That would be my view. I am the defense editor of my newspaper and i spent a lot of time with the military, most of the campaigns over the last couple decades and i think one of the controversies about the Afghan Campaign is under general David Petraeus and general Stanley Mcchrystal and overall strategy was devised whereby military pressure would be applied against the enemy and by the time general David Petraeus and general Stanley Mcchrystal appeared on the screen we had basically an industrial strength insurgency on our hands but they made it very clear the military effort was only a means to an end and the end was a political resolution. The moment president obama said he wanted to withdraw the forces and not see the jobs through, the ability to request that kind of political settlement has been in doubt. The office was open in qatar to facilitate peace talks between the afghans and the taliban. It remained empty as long as it has been there. Whatever you think of the iraq conflict, eventually led to a political settlement. Might not be a perfect political settlement but the Iraqi Government is democratically elected and they have a new constitution based on democracy and rule of law which they would not have had it not for the regional effort. My name is dan kelly. Isnt one problem if you dont get a deadline like president obama has to be incentive among the local political officials not to change their behavior . Malcolm laird was secretary of defense under president nixon, that part of the problem in vietnam by withdrawing reporter the vietnamese government, willing to take on more fighting responsibilities . The shadow of vietnam is one that was very much in the president s mind when he said he wanted to set a deadline. If at dday we said we would invade france and germany and stock pricing in spring of 1945 we would have a far more difficult fight. And a far more difficult challenge in trying to win that war. The deadline is fine so long as the parameters are clearly set of what are to be achieved. This deadline is about combat operations and the way things are going now, i can see after more than a decade of effort, we will withdraw from afghanistan, the taliban will be back in control with all the implications that has for our security and we will have no influence over those outcomes. We knew David Cameron has read your book and less likely president obama doing fine. What is your overall assessment of obamas handling of the war in afghanistan. Rather confused. He came in, if you remember the first nine months of his presidency, he had a very thorough review of the Afghan Program and as a result of that, up to the counterinsurgency strategy devised by general David Petraeus and general Stanley Mcchrystal and the american army. Within months of having signed up to that reporter his mind. This is where i find it rather difficult. Of his heart wasnt in the Afghan Mission to start, signing up the counterinsurgency strategy, and my concern now is when combat operations wound down by the end of this year i can see other trouble ahead. You got chuckles from the audience when you compare what you wrote in his book to the records, more pro churchill, can you give us of better sense of how he wrote this history and what actually happened . For example, a very entertaining going through the Daily Telegraph because he wrote a lot of them before he got to the front which i think we call them by line bandits. He read up on what is going on but this wonderful firstperson account when he was on a boat bobbing around in the mediterranean, it is that kind of flourish he brings to his riding and of course when you study the other contemporary accounts they are rather different and one of the more amusing aspects of the narrative are the accounts of his fellow soldiers and countering the 22yearold churchill and rambunctious comes up time and time again. One occasion his fellow officers get so fed up with him they basically put a sofa on top of him. No one keeps churchill down. There is this wonderful account from another fellow officer from an American Campaign who shared a tent with churchill. It was a very bloody campaign and looking at the stars, and i am not worried about getting killed or injured as long as they dont shoot me in the mouth and stop me from talking. Even at this stage, 22, it is very clear he is on the road to glory and nothing is going to get in his way and when you look at his official writing, the another amusing thing about his writing is his ability to recycle which is something he does throughout his career. Someone wins the nobel prize for literature, as he writes a newspaper article, use it again and again and again, when i was at the churchill archive i came across the original manuscript and it literally cut nice paragraphs from his telegraphed dispatches onto a piece of paper and ribbon around it so you dont have to duplicate anything. Tongue down one from barrons magazine. Could you say a bit about what happened after churchill left afghanistan, what lessons there are for counterinsurgency strategy is in general from the british experience, the totality of the british experience . The british finally settled the border in 1901 when George Curzon, the british viceroy, literally went all the way around the border and associated individual tribes, deals with the tribes, some were carted off to india into captivity. The important thing, researching the book i went through the whole district and interviewed a couple of pakistani civil administrators in the 1960s, at a time when the queen of england went on holiday she cable churchill who was in his 90s standing at the seat of one of the greatest triumphs and Prince Philip went to the valley and that this period after the creation of pakistan the pakistani left the tribal areas in the same autonomous state that George Curzon negotiated and that arrangement really lasted until after the 9 11 attacks. Of course one of the effects of our intervention in afghanistan was taliban went over the mountains into tribal areas of pakistan and that is where the trouble started. Pakistani is will tell you the only way to calm this down, and these sorts, you have read this morning pakistani government and the taliban, nearly everybody in the Taliban Movement is a past due and. Trying to come to this kind of arrangement. The basic formula was you dont threaten us and we will leave you in peace and if you drill into the offer made by the taliban, you dont harbor terrorists, you harm us, we will leave you alone. If you look at most western policymakers that is where they are. The problem is the taliban have nothing to fear from us anymore. They are not willing to do that here. I am a former Deputy Defense in pakistan, doing a lot of work with the Organization Called the alliance in support of the Afghan People which is where i need to continue regardless of various political currents we have had, maybe a little bit of success. I was wondering with respect to the u. K. Is the u. K involvement in afghanistan, the most recent one something that is going to just end and the british people wash their hands of that . People see a future in the relationship . The answer is yes but there are elements in britain that want to maintain the relationship. For example britain has just set up a military academy to train the afghan officer corps. Sanders in sanders, a longstanding commitment which, one where a british officer and trainers train up a new generation, the afghan army. Instill in it a kind of discipline and principles we would expect from the western army. Whether this is sustained as a big question as you probably know. Old chicago, greenland two years ago the west provided 4 million or so to pay for the afghans but the absence of Financial Security perhaps with hamid karzai really jeopardize that. Hamid karzai has gone off on his own strange journey again and i get the sense the Obama Administration is almost exasperated by this and is not prepared to make any commitment beyond 2014 but it is from my experience of working in afghanistan as a journalist i dont think the afghan army and police force is yet ready to take complete control of security. They do a lot of good work at the moment but that is because we are helping them, providing helicopters, neighbors, intelligence. And without that i can see the whole thing falling apart very quickly just as it did after service withdrew in 89. After a long history of involvement. Of final question for you. Regarding British Defense cuts, an issue of significant debate. What is your view . The Coalition Governments handling of British Defense spending, do you think this is significantly undercut through this wave of defense cuts over the last few years . There has certainly been a lot of damage inflicted to our military capabilities. Although they havent said that, the british play a lead role in the libya air campaign three years ago and the british mome undertake the kind he was probably britain handle libya. No. On the ground, no british