Sir Simon Mayall, Former British Army L. General, Middle East Expert, Author 'Soldier in the Sand'

Sir Simon Mayall, Former British Army L. General, Middle East Expert, Author 'Soldier in the Sand'

Sir Simon Mayall is a senior adviser for Greenhill & Co, the investment bank. Previously, he had a 40-year long career in the British Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo among other places. In the army, Mayall held the rank of Lieutenant General and between 2011 and 2014 was also Middle East Senior Adviser at the UK Ministry of Defence. While in the army he completed a Defence Fellowship at the University of Oxford, studying Turkish security policy, and held the offices of Deputy Commanding General in the Multi-National Corps (Iraq), Assistant Chief of the General Staff, and Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff. By family background, academic inclination and professional choice and circumstances, he served much of his time in Arabia.

Sir Simon Mayall Interview Focus

1. Can you get us an introduction from you - background, overview, education?
2. Can you tell us about the academic background?
3. How did you connect the academic and the military background?
4. From your military background which career highlights can you tell us?
5. In your career there was always a bridge between academic history research, military acumen and execution back with politics and governments?
6. Your knowledge of history has been always present in the way you managed your career both politically and military?
7. From your parents' background you had a big part of the history of the British Empire and the creation of the new geopolitical order post WW2 that is still changing. How do you see this?
8. The Middle East is a complex puzzle that from the dawn of civilization has been making and changing the global geopolitics. Can you highlight how you see this region?
9. The Middle East has been in the state of persistent change and upheaval, there has long been a need for a comprehensive, yet readable study that can give the intelligent and interested lay-person a greater understanding of this diverse, complex region. Your book offers an unique mixture of history, politics, academic study and first-hand experience affords the reader an invaluable insight into a fascinating, fractured and frustrating area of the world. How did you build the book and the format of it?
10. Your book is partly a personal memoir, that highlights public service, sense of responsibility, a big sense / conscience of history and the analysis of a very powerful and intense region. How did you manage these different areas?
11. You recently were highlighted in a podcast about the Future of Defence. With so many things going on both on technology, AI, geopolitics, cultural values and history how do you see the future of defence?

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