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Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying western impotence.

We do not agree that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and al-Qaeda activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion.

Now the difficulty with those warnings is that they were not specific.

However, the fact that the tanks had now been raised to such a pitch of technical perfection that they could cross our undamaged trenches and obstacles did not fail to have a marked effect on our troops.

The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.

If there is no direct threat why are we invading?

A technological advance of a major sort almost always is overestimated in the short run for its consequences - and underestimated in the long run.

Another adverse factor was the way the Russians received continual reinforcements from their back areas, as they fell back. It seemed to us that as soon as one force was wiped out, the path was blocked by the arrival of a fresh force.

The responsibility of commanding the invasion fell to me, and the task was assigned to my Army Group.

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.