S4E21: Strategy’s Human Dimension, with Baroness Neville-Jones

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.