The news has been full of the Munich Security Council meeting currently taking place. The talk is of increased military spending and war-readiness. Based on what I discovered when researching for my book On the Warpath: The Psychology of Public Support for Armed Action (OUP 2024), this looks to me like the process of softening up the public, us, to accept the possibility of war. The Stop the War Coalition says ‘We must stand up to this madness before it is too late.’ Whatever you think of that, I believe we should be very, very careful. At least we should match increased war-readiness, and the simplified narrative that always goes with it, with greater attempts at diplomacy and more nuanced thinking.