War historian says Brits should be warriors

WE NEED to be more like the Spartans, one Welsh expert in the history of warfare has warned.

Britain – often dubbed the warrior nation – and its Western military allies will fail because we have become “too distant” from war itself, says Swansea University’s Emeritus Professor John France.

His new book Perilous Glory (Yale, £25), examining the history of warfare from ancient Mesopotamia to the Gulf War, warns the notion war is a distant phenomenon is an illusion and our cultural attitudes must change.

He said: “In a world of violence many Europeans feel they can simply opt out, renounce the imperial pasts and pretend a new start can be made by burying our heads in the sand....