When: Wednesday 28 February, 18.00 (doors open 17.30)
Where: St Mary’s Church, Ross-on-Wye HR9 5HN
About: Global correspondent, Peter Apps, will be in conversation with Professor Adrian Kendry, former NATO Senior Defence Economist, discussing his first book, Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO. Peter Apps is a global affairs commentator at Reuters, a British Army reservist and executive director of pop-up think tank the Project for Study of the 21st Century (PS21).
Background: The book tracks the history of the world’s most successful military alliance, from the wrecked Europe of 1945 to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As they signed NATO into being after World War II, its founders fervently believed that only if the West’s democracies banded permanently together could they avoid a catastrophic global atomic conflict. Over the 75 years since, the alliance has indeed avoided war with Russia, also becoming a major political, strategic and diplomatic player well beyond its borders. It has survived disagreements between leaders from Eisenhower, Churchill and de Gaulle to Trump, Stoltenberg and Merkel, faced down Kremlin foes from Stalin to Putin and endured unending questions and debate over what new nations might be allowed to join
Peter Apps has reported from across the world as Reuters political risk and global defence correspondent, and was appointed a Reuters columnist in 2016. He undertook reserve military training with both the British and U.S. armies and more recently as a UK specialist army reservist, providing advice, analysis and training and serving two full-time tours of duty during the Covid-19 pandemic and Ukraine war.
Tickets £8 (£3 redeemable against book purchase)