The Phoney Victory: The World War II Illusion is a book by Peter Hitchens.

[1] However, Hitchens does not make a universal anti-war case because he believes that this position often leaves countries unprotected and defenceless in times of war.

[2] The book was negatively reviewed by Richard J. Evans, former Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, in the New Statesman.

[3] At the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hitchens responded to this review, "It was reviewed... by somebody who actually honestly believed it was a Eurosceptic book written to please the patriotic readers of The Mail on Sunday; any reader of it who actually gets to the end may find this to be, how shall I put it, a possibly mistaken summary.

[5] Daniel Johnson writing in Standpoint disagreed with many of the claims made in the book, and compared it negatively to the recent book Churchill: Walking with Destiny, which Johnson said refuted Hitchens' "claim that the whole conflict was unnecessary".