From The Wars of Peace · Author’s Note

Why this book

An excerpt from the Author’s Note, pp. 12–13.

For almost thirty years, I served in diplomacy, defense intelligence, and strategic communications. I sat in war rooms and negotiation corridors. I traveled to conflict zones, listened across frontlines, and read the cables that rarely reach the public domain. I was part of the architecture that states build when they choose not to fight, but to speak. That experience did not make me cynical. It made me careful. And it made me aware of how often truth is lost—not in war itself, but in the telling of it.

…

The Wars of Peace is not an argument in defense of policy. It is not an attempt to persuade. It is a record. A reflection. A way of documenting what I saw, what I heard, and what I believe should be understood. It is shaped by proximity, but written with distance.

…

I did not write The Wars of Peace because the world asked for it. I wrote it because those who do the work rarely get to tell the story.

And when they don’t, others will.

— Nawaf M. Al Thani

Selected passages; omissions are marked by ellipses. © Nawaf M. Al Thani. Published by Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press.