Why Great Powers Sleepwalk to War — A Masterclass with Prof. Hugh White

Nation states have a formidable propensity to violence. For the last 35 years, we've had a sort of a holiday from nuclear weapons. Well, they're

back. There is absolutely no reason to expect a US China war over Taiwan not to become a nuclear war. This was the first time in my professional experience that

I'd been, so to speak, a witness to participant in a conversation about about well in very broad terms going to

war. And there's a famous anecdote from

war. And there's a famous anecdote from Hitler's interpreter. He took the

Hitler's interpreter. He took the British ultimatum into Hitler when it arrived. He looked at it and then he

arrived. He looked at it and then he turned his head and looked out of the window for a long moment.

And then looked back and said, "Now what? This is a story

what? This is a story without heroes and maybe even without villains."

villains." >> It's my great honor to be here with Hugh White. Hugh is maybe Australia's most

White. Hugh is maybe Australia's most prominent strategic thinker. He has been thinking about Australian strategic and defense policy for decades. He's held

positions at the pinnacles of multiple different domains in government, the public service, journalism, academia, think tanks. He was an adviser for Kim

think tanks. He was an adviser for Kim Beasley when Kim was defense minister, for Bob Hawk when Hawk was prime minister. He is currently an ameritus

minister. He is currently an ameritus professor at the Australian National University and he's the author of multiple books and quarterly essays. Uh

we're doing something a bit different today. So Hugh, I'd actually been

today. So Hugh, I'd actually been wanting to do an interview with you for years, but you've you've done your fair share of media and I wasn't sure how much I could add to that body of work.

And so I asked our mutual friend Sam Rogavine, you know, is there a is there a great interview kind of locked up inside Hugh? And Sam said that at least

inside Hugh? And Sam said that at least to his knowledge, no one had gone into your philosophical and historical underpinnings.

>> And that gave me the idea, why don't we sit down and talk about the the books that have most influenced you, most shaped your world view because I think it'll be increasingly the case over the

next few decades that that people will look at you as a very precient prognosticator.

>> I hope not.

>> Well, yeah, exactly. That's right. I

guess there's a distinction between what you think might happen and what you want to happen.

>> Exactly.

>> Which which maybe sometimes people people forget, but I think it will be really interesting just to look at the sort of intellectual bedrock underneath your views. So just for people who

your views. So just for people who aren't familiar, but maybe the thing that you've been most sort of clearly and consistently describing in the Australian discourse over the last few

decades has been the rise of China, how China is going to become the dominant power in East Asia and the Western Pacific and how Australia needs to

adjust accordingly.

So So I asked you whether you could put together a short list of the books that have most influenced you. And um we can't we can't quite for people watching the video, Hugh and I can't quite see

each other right now because there's a stack of books between us on the desk.

So this is the quote unquote short list.

So we have uh we have 11 books and we're going to go through and discuss each of them. Um I've endeavored to read at

them. Um I've endeavored to read at least parts of all of these books, if not the whole thing. And we're going to talk about well I guess we're going to compare notes and uh then we'll discuss

some specific questions about each book.

And then and then at the end I've got some general questions. So are you ready?

>> Ready to go. Thanks very much. Really

appreciate the opportunity. It's been a very interesting exercise for me to revisit these books and think about how one's ideas have developed.

>> So the first book is the pelpeneisian the outbreak of the pelpeneisian war by Donald Kagan. So for each book I'll give

Donald Kagan. So for each book I'll give a brief sort of background of the author uh blur for the book just so our audience has context and then we can start talking about it. So first

published in 1969, the author is Donald Kagan. He was an American historian and

Kagan. He was an American historian and classicist at Yale specializing in ancient Greece and he taught a very popular course at Yale for decades uh called the origins of war. One I think

one of the most popular courses at the university period. Um so he wrote four

university period. Um so he wrote four volumes on the pelpeneisian war and this was probably his best known scholarly work and this is book one of those four

volumes. Yeah.

volumes. Yeah.

>> And if I condense the thesis down into a sentence or two for me, the question he's trying to answer is at what point did war between the Athenian Empire and

the Pelpeneisian League become inevitable? So what was the the

inevitable? So what was the the threshold?

>> Yeah.

>> Uh and he concludes in contrast with Thusidities that the war was not inevitable. It was avoidable possibly

inevitable. It was avoidable possibly right up to the last minute. um

potentially even after the Mgarian decree when the second Spartan embassy requested that the Athenians rescend that.

>> Y >> um we can we can explain what what all that means, but um my first question is

do you buy Kagan's basic account of the causes of the war?

>> Ye yes I do. Uh I mean what he's trying to do in the book and the reason why he wrote a whole book on the outbreak as you say as the first volume of his

multi- volume analysis of the whole thing is to interrogate this line in Thusidities very famous line in Thusidities who who of course was the Greek general who himself was involved

in the war and wrote in some ways the first real history >> of anything um uh and a wonderful book in itself and it's sort of perverse me

in some ways to have offered suggested Kagan rather than lucidities >> as the as the book that uh is most shaped my thinking about these things.

But what Kagan set out to do in the book was to interrogate the proposition that is in Thusidity. Thusidity said the rising power of Athens and the fear that caused in Sparta made war inevitable. At

least that's the way >> his Greek is usually translated into.

And there's obviously a debate around whether he meant inevitable literally or just something like very likely.

>> Exactly. Exactly. And and so the whole book really is an interrogation of of that question. And in the process, what

that question. And in the process, what he does is to give a very detailed I mean considering we're talking about fifth century BC. Astonishingly detailed

account of what steps actually led to the war. And as you say, he he comes

the war. And as you say, he he comes down very strongly on the idea that it wasn't inevitable. that there are all

wasn't inevitable. that there are all sorts of points at which the war could have been avoided. Uh it's a terrifically interesting analysis from my point of view both because it is

throughout history you know since then has always been seen as such a sort of quintessential example of strategic analysis. I mean

thusidity's book is such a quintessential sort of primary example of strategic analysis. Um uh but but also because it does seem to resonate so

directly with the choices that we face today. Uh people addressing the US China

today. Uh people addressing the US China rivalry uh have spoken very explicitly about the thusidities trap

>> um and not just the scholars. Um

Xiinping on a visit to the United States uh a few years ago specifically in a speech in Seattle spec specifically spoke about the thusidity trap. you

know, is war between a rising power and an established power, a rising power like China, an established power like the United States, is war inevitable?

>> And another US scholar, um, Graeme Allison of Harvard wrote a book which is, you know, become very famous in which she does specifically analyze that

that that question. And so to go back to the original to see Kagan's painstaking analysis of what was going on in fifth

century Athens, what what drove the uh the the the slide to war and what which was indeed a catastrophic war uh for

both sides in the end that that the way in which uh he unpacks Thusidity's initial distinction between ultimate

causes and proximate causes. you know,

the big the big movements in history in the background and then the little things that they happen day by day. Um,

I I found it when I first read it uh which was sometime in the '9s when I was starting to think about uh the implications for Australia of the

rise of uh of the rise of China and what that meant for America's role in Asia and so on. I found it a a very compelling um model for how you think about these

questions. Uh and indeed his answer is

questions. Uh and indeed his answer is extraordinarily complex as you as you just as you just sketched. There's a

there are very big questions about the way in which Athens position in Greece after the Persian wars after the victory over Persia, defeat of the Persians. Um

how that evolved the the the the creation of of Athens of the Athenian le alliance which was really an Athenian empire uh the challenge that posed to the traditional Spartan position in the

Pelpines. The fact that there are

Pelpines. The fact that there are different kinds of power sparta is quintessentially a land power. It's got

a great army. Athens is quintessentially a naval power, a maritime power. Uh,

which itself is very very very resonant.

um a and and the way in which she describes those background forces and then all sorts of you know stuff happening and what's fascinating about the outbreak of the Palpanian war is it

starts with an internal dispute in a twobit little town that nobody had heard of called Epidamus which is now which is on the border of what on the coast of

what's now Albania and it drags in other countries dra cities it drags in Kulka what's now kfu drags in Corinth uh by dragging those two in the Athenians are

dra dragged in. Fascinating account as to why that little dispute drags these other powers in and then that starts to

worry Sparta and then the Athenians do some stupid things as as Kagan argues.

Um the Corinthians do stupid things, the Caucansians do stupid things. The the

the Athenians do do stupid things. Oddly

enough, it's the Spartans who come out kind of as not exactly the heroes, but they come out as the they do fewer stupid things than anybody else. Um and

that combination of grand shifts in the distribution of wealth and power on the one hand and events

and people's response to them failures of imagination as as Kagan says actually in this ultimate chapter people didn't understand didn't see clearly

didn't have the imagination to see the likely consequences of the steps they took.

>> Right? um produced a war which they didn't have to fight. um his you know one of the really important conclusions Keegan Richard is that Athens really wasn't threatening Sparta's position

that Pericles the great leader of Athens at the time did accept um the the the basic deal which had been done between Athens and Sparta at the

end of an earlier confrontation what's called the first Belian war um and and so Athens wasn't really threatening Sparta at all and the Spartans probably probably kind of understood this But

somehow things got out of hand. And of course, you know, when you tell a story like that, it it feels very familiar and feels very

frightening >> because um you know, it does seem to offer from 25,500 years ago

in an unimaginably different social and political and geographic and military setting, technological setting.

a set of propositions which are scarily resonant to our present predicament and you know one can't if you study the the

you know the plays the the great plays or you study the great philosophers I mean you know the dialogues of of of Plato the Socratic works and so on you

can't help but not just be familiar with it but in a way to love it and so the the sense of you know what you know fifth century Athens this was one of the

most amazing one of the most amazing moments in history and yet they couldn't avoid these screw-ups.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> You know the same community that could produce Sophocles and Uripides and Socrates and Plato could produce these mistakes.

That's a warning.

>> Yeah. So many so many an analogies to be drawn. I mean you can think of obviously

drawn. I mean you can think of obviously you can think of epidemous as like Taiwan but plent plenty of analogies to World War I as well.

>> Absolutely. You know it's I mean epidemus is is is Taiwan or or it's Serbia >> um or you know it's the assassination of the arch duke

>> and and and the analogy there is in many ways quite precise and this is the point about the the sucidian distinction between ultimate and proximate causes.

um you know if we look at the origins of the first world war and I guess we'll come to that um you know that all sorts of stuff was happening you know centuries long decadesl long fundamental

transformations in the nature of the international order or at least the the underpinning distribution of wealth and power but then a whole lot of little

things happened and in some ways in some ways the analogy with with with the assassination of the arch duke in 1914 is Not so much with epid is epidemnas

because that happened a few years before. That's more like the Moroccan

before. That's more like the Moroccan crisis for example or the >> or the the bulk the Balkan crisis of of of of 1909 and 1911 you know all sorts

of bad things happen in which bad choices were made and then finally one happens which sets the whole thing off >> and those those bad >> that might be the Mcgarian decree >> that yeah exactly which >> that's the last thing you say why did

they do that you know.

>> Yeah. So, so there's this city kind of in the the middle of Adica Mega. Um, I

think it's still a >> Oh, yes. Oh, oh, yeah. No, no, still.

Yeah. Yeah.

>> And Pericles issued a decree. I think

the pretext was that the Megarians had violated some sacred land. um killed the Athenian uh diplomat who went in the aftermath of

that and also given uh safe haven to some Athenian uh slaves who who fled Athens. But um probably the real reason

Athens. But um probably the real reason was to punish them for their involvement in that in the Epidemian affair.

>> Yes.

>> And it was essentially one of the first instances of economic warfare. Right.

>> What they did was slap trade sanctions on them. Sound familiar?

on them. Sound familiar?

>> Yeah, exactly. And this was this was obviously an ally of the Spartans.

>> Thusidities deemphasizes the role of that event in his account, but but Kagan kind of elevates it. Revates it.

>> Yeah.

>> Let me tell you what I didn't like about this book, >> right?

>> And then, you know, I want your feedback. So, so Kagan disagrees

feedback. So, so Kagan disagrees obviously with Thusidities that war was inevitable. Um, however we want to

inevitable. Um, however we want to interpret that word >> and and whether Thusidities really thought that. Exactly. Kagan seems to

thought that. Exactly. Kagan seems to just take the literal interpretation of inevitable.

>> I think for the purposes of the exercise, >> yeah, >> he he he takes that as his starting point.

>> Sure.

>> Um I think I think a classicist of Kagan sophistication would probably understand and just to be clear, I'm no I'm no um scholar of ancient Greek, but I understand that the word which is transl

which is usually translated as inevitable means something more like very bloody likely.

>> Yeah. Um, and that's different. You

know, inevitable is a very strong word to use and people use it all the time.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> And it's and and so I think in a sense he's taking that traditional translation of of Thusidities as a way of setting up the argument because of course Kagan

>> in a sense >> is no more interested in what happened in fifth century at Greece >> than we are.

>> He he's writing this the height of the cold war. This is and and and he's very

cold war. This is and and and he's very engaged his his sons in I mean he he he becomes an active he's an active participant in contemporary debates. He

became a leading neocon uh after the end of the cold war.

>> His his sons one of them in particular Bobby Kagan to whom this book is dedicated become one of the principal advocates of the uh Iraq invasion for

example. Um, and there's a very poignant

example. Um, and there's a very poignant passage in the book early on when he discusses the Athenian attack on Egypt, which is one of the contributing >> Yeah.

>> a completely unnecessary stupid attack on Egypt. Yeah.

on Egypt. Yeah.

>> Um, which has some resonances with the American invasion of Iraq. But it's but you know, so Kagan was deeply interested in contemporary strategic affairs. And

in the end, I think he's choosing to take Kagan's take this um proposition about inevitability as a starting point

for a conversation about how wars happen. Um and so I I don't I think if

happen. Um and so I I don't I think if you actually quizzed him as a as a linguist of ancient Greek, he'd acknowledge that inevitability that inevitable is not the best translation

of that formulation. But it's a good way it's a great way of setting up the argument.

>> Yeah. and Thusidities probably was being hyperbolic if he was using it in the literal sense.

>> Well, I put it this way. I've always

thought he was far too good a historian and far too good a strategist to make the mistake of imagining that anything in human affairs is inevitable. You

know, there are always choices.

>> Yeah. And you know in a sense the great drama of this whole subject and it's worth making the point I guess you know the subject is how how how do

countries find themselves going to war >> particularly how do they find themselves going to war in really big wars against really formidable opponents. Deciding to

go to war against weak countries is easy. Not very nice but it's easy.

easy. Not very nice but it's easy.

Deciding to go to war against a major adversary is a very big step indeed. And

so the question is you know how do countries how do countries reach this kind of decision and I think um you know Kagan is setting out to really interrogate that that question.

>> Yeah.

>> And um it's a very important question.

>> Yeah.

>> Let me let me tell you though what I didn't like about it. So

>> let's take inevitable as just meaning very bloody likely. Uh Kagan Kagan says that >> there were pre-existing conditions that made the war possible.

>> Yes. or narrowed the choices of statesmen.

>> But it was this sort of concatenation of mistakes and errors of judgment by statesmen on all sides.

>> Yes.

>> Who lacked imagination >> that caused the war to start that provided the spark.

>> And we can we've already touched on some of them, but just to list some of those mistakes, >> I think he places the most blame at the feet of the Corinthians for getting

involved in the Epidemian affair. And

their miscalculation was not thinking that the Athenians would get involved.

>> And essentially they wanted to meet out revenge on the >> Curian. Um so so Corinth was the mother

>> Curian. Um so so Corinth was the mother colony of Corkyia. Cyia was the mother colony of Ebidis.

>> Um and yeah, incredibly incestuous kind of >> and you got to remember all of this is happening with a total, you know, population of a few hundred thousand. I

mean everybody knows everybody, you know, it's like it's like Canra.

Um and no no less bloody in in the end.

>> No less bloody.

>> Um so the Corinthians miscalculate, the Athenians get involved. Um then the Athenians really make two mistakes.

One is the the Potterane affair. So this

is now in um I guess like Macedonia.

>> Yes. Yes. No, it's up the you know top right hand corner so to speak. another

Corinthian colony. Um, Athens issues an ultimatum to them. Um, and then there's the Mcgarian decree. So, those are two two areas of judgment on the part of Pericles that antagonize the Spartans.

You also have mistakes on the Spartan side. There are there's like a hawkish

side. There are there's like a hawkish party and Sparta who's who's agitating for war. Um, and the Spartans, um, you

for war. Um, and the Spartans, um, you know, right right up until the last moment, they don't they don't have to, uh, they don't have to tip this thing over into war.

>> And, and although there is, as you say, there's a there's a there's, and, you know, Kagan describes this very well, there's a people's image of Sparta is that they're all sort of, you know, crazy militarists. In fact, it was a much more

militarists. In fact, it was a much more sophisticated, complex, weird society than that. But there was and there was

than that. But there was and there was certainly a hawkish faction, but there were also very significant elements of of the Spartan polity that thought about

thought getting on with with Athens was going to be just fine. And that's one of the reasons why it took a while for the war to break out. And it took all these >> all of these incidents, you know, the the the whole stuff with the Corinthians

and the Cookerians and Epidamians, as you said, but also the Potaya crisis and the Mcgarian crisis. It took all of that adding up to finally reach the point where the Spartans said, "Well, all right,

>> off we go."

>> Y >> um and of course once it begun, once the war begins, then of course the whole dynamic changes and uh >> and uh you know the the the prosecution

of the war itself becomes an end in itself and you know then people get killed and then >> and you start to hate each other. And

you end up with well and you end up with with the dreadful sunk costs fallacy >> so eloquently expressed by Lincoln at Gettysburg that these honored dead shall not have died in vain.

>> Um you know but >> the fact is they were already dead.

>> Right. Right.

>> Anyway, that so that's a you know I think that's a I think what I mean what I like about Kagan is I think he does do justice to the complexity of the

process. People often looking back think

process. People often looking back think wars break out for simple reasons whereas there are a lot of different strands even leaving aside the ultimate causes if you just look at the proximate

causes a lot of different strands are coming together to produce a situation where political leaders national leaders end up deciding that going to war is a better idea than not going to war which

in the end is you know what the it it always ends up being that that choice is it better or worse you know the cost and risk of war better than the cost of risks of of avoiding war.

>> Okay, but now now we've set up sort of Kagan's view, but here's here's what I what I didn't like about it. So,

>> and apologies of this is being unfair to Kagan, but this is how I read him. So,

>> the problem I have with arguments of the form, the war wasn't inevitable because >> we can imagine a counterfactual where these precipitating events didn't

happen. So he goes through those those

happen. So he goes through those those mistakes and says, you know, it could have gone either way. Other other

choices were available >> and then comes to the conclusion that war wasn't inevitable. Um problems the problem I have with arguments of that form is that um you know in those

universes where those mistakes weren't made um other mistakes can be made later. So, so really it

shows that war wasn't inevitable in 431 BC, but it doesn't show that war wasn't inevitable at some point in the second half of the fifth century BC.

>> Yes.

Um uh that's a fair observation but the fact is that at at every point

leaders people have choices and at every point it's open to people to make a choice between peace and war

>> and and and I think it it is it is true that at every point it's not inevitable it's not true that the only choice people have is to go to war.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, you know, people often say they often say in in connection, for example, with the non-hypothetical question as to whether Australia would support the United States and go to war against

China if China attacks Taiwan, people often say, people in this town often say we would have no choice. That is wrong.

We would have a choice. Now, there'd be costs of for for a choice not to go to war in support of the United States, but that's a but we could choose to accept those costs rather than choose to accept the

cost of war. And being very self-conscious, very reflective, very analytical, very cautious and prudent about how you weigh the costs of one side against the

costs of the other. Making making

yourself very aware of those choices that you're making. It seems to me to be terribly important. terribly important

terribly important. terribly important as a piece of policy. And so I so I I would defend Kagan's interpretation because even if a different set of

circumstances had arisen even if uh you know the the Corinthians hadn't misjudged Athens support for Corker even if uh

even if Pericles hadn't gone in so hard against the poor old Potadayans and not torn their wall down and one thing another even if he hadn't got vindictive towards the Macarians

or even if the so to speak the peace faction ction in Sparta had been more powerful and the and the hawkish faction had been weaker and so even if war had

not broken out when it did uh then the next time similar set of circumstances arose and they almost certainly would have then the Athenians, the Spartans, everybody

else involved still would have had choices and they still could have chosen not to. And I think to ever surrender to

not to. And I think to ever surrender to the thought that under whatever circumstances war in is inevitable

um is to um is to let ourselves off the hook to make it to to relieve ourselves of the responsibility for the choices we

make and putting our choices back into the middle. Our choices, our leaders

the middle. Our choices, our leaders choices, but in the end our society's choices. Putting putting our choices

choices. Putting putting our choices back into the middle of the mix. asking

ourselves, do we really want to choose this? Do we really think that going

this? Do we really think that going going to war with Athens is a is a is a better idea than than making some compromises, accepting what's gone on,

accepting that they've screwed over the Mcgarians in a vindictive and, you know, frankly unjustifi, you know, from the the benefit of lot of hindsight, what Athens did towards Padau and what they

did to the Garensians looks unjustified.

But the Athenians, the Spartans could have chosen to say, "Okay, it." You

know, um, now, of course, when we view that this time, this point in history, in hindsight, looking back at what

happened in 1938 and 1939, we think that answer is easy. We think

that we have no choice. The Munich

metaphor will probably come back to that. But I I think I so I I would I I I

that. But I I think I so I I would I I I think it's very important to to preserve our consciousness of the fact that we do

have choices to make and I think that's what Kagan so because he does it so exhaustively and unpacks all of those choices at such length. Um, I think he does it very

length. Um, I think he does it very compellingly and I've always when I when I find myself thinking about the choices that I think Australia and America and

other countries face as they confront the rising power of China and the fear that causes, then I find myself often going back to

Kagan as the kind of, you know, way into the great thusidity and debate.

>> Next book.

>> Next book. All right.

So the next book is The Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Garrett Mattingley. So

this was first published in 1959.

Mattingly was an American historian, professor of European history at Colombia and he specialized in modern diplomatic history. And this is this is

diplomatic history. And this is this is a narrative history. Um you might describe it as purple pros, but it's incredibly enjoyable. Oh yes.

incredibly enjoyable. Oh yes.

>> Won a Pulitzer I think.

>> Yes, I think it did. Yeah. And it of course describes the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English in 1588 and the backdrop

>> yes >> to that event. So

why this book? Why is this on the list?

>> Part partly in a sense sentimentally I I I read it as as quite a young man probably I was still at school cuz my father recommended it to me and my father was in the trade. He was a

defense official and and my own interest in this whole business did uh you know does owe something to

the fact that I I sort of grew up with it a bit. Uh and it was a very uncharacteristic book for my father to recommend because as you say its pros at

points is quite purple. It's, you know, it's it's a very colorful narrative. And

he was an engineer with, if I can put it this way, an engineer's soul and purple.

He used to say, you know, the best way to improve a piece of writing is to cross out all the adjectives and which is sort of what he did, whereas Mattingly sticks plenty of adjectives in

>> and adverbs.

>> So, yeah, a lot of adverbs. Um but but but it also it did I think you know I it really made a big impression on me partly

because of the way in which um it illustrates how many different strands there are that feed into this. It's it's

unlike the Kagan it's it's not about the well it is of course about the individual decisions people take but but one of the things it's about is how many different players are involved >> right

>> and it's also and you know this is a recurring theme you know we touched in Kagan about Kagan point about failure of imagination you know the mistakes that people made

>> um I mean in this case particularly the stakes the mistake that Philip Philip II the king of Spain >> um made um in launching the Armada to start with but but one of the things that's fascinating about it you know it

starts with the execution of Mary Queen of Scots at fathering gay um which until I read it I had never re recognized that that was in terms of proximate causes

that was you know there was the grand sort of you know growth of Spanish power and the way in which Spain and of course a whole >> you know religious dynamic the the reformation versus the counterreformation or very big forces at

work there >> but the execution of Mary Queen of Scots was the proximate was the beginning of the proximate causes >> and she was of course Catholic and she was he wanted wanted her on the throne

>> that's exactly right she was the thought that she might if Elizabeth died Elizabeth the first queen of England if she had died >> Mary would have taken the throne uh

England would have returned to its to its Catholicism >> uh and and Spain would have gained an adherent and you know been spared

a country that was becoming a more formidable adversary. So there was both

formidable adversary. So there was both religion and real power politics involved and one of the things that makes the holy era fascinating is the interconnection between them. But then

there's the whole business of what's happening in France where there's this very bitter civil war between broadly speaking Catholics and Protestants but

also between supporters of Spain on the one hand uh and others a whole range of others on the other. And one of the things that's fascinating about the book is the way in which Mattingly

interweavves the struggle in France, which turns out to be vital.

The the Elizabeth's own thinking in in in England because she's very very reluctant to make an enemy of Spain,

but in the end not that reluctant. Um uh

and I mean her decision-m it's what the description of her decision-m about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots itself is you know worth the price of the book >> and then and and the the way in which

decisions are made in Rome by the Pope by Philip II in imued in his weird isolated

>> castle fortress monastery the escoreal in the hills outside Madrid >> the sort of nerve center of the the nerve center and I mean >> he's just there sort of sending out letters across the empire. It's you know

it's it's the the Spanish empire. It's

the first empire on which the sun the sun doesn't set.

>> First global empire that's from this nerve center just sending letters and correspondences out calling the shots.

>> It's seems very isolated.

>> Oh he is. That's that's right. And he's

I mean he's a he's an extraordinary bureaucrat in a way. Philip II a fascinating character. A and he was a he

fascinating character. A and he was a he was a he was a workaholic a and he wrote everything down and and he he I think I think Mattingly mentions it in that book

you've noticed in another another bubble called Jeffrey Parker called the the I think the foreign policy of Philip of Spain but at any rate he on on the on

the margins of he wrote all this sort of stuff in the margins of the things at one point he he writes >> in connection with this I I don't understand what this person means this is very confusing. What what what am I

meant to think about this?

>> And one of his generals or admirals is saying that it it's going to be easy to um defeat the English fleet in the channel and he writes, you know, nonsense.

>> Exactly. And so, you know, you get this wonderfully vivid sense of this person, >> you know, across the centuries. And in

some ways, you know, you know, Philip I of Philip II, you know, um, you know, heir to heir to the unimaginable Habsburg Empire, you know, son son of

Charles, the great sort of, you know, the probably the greatest hegamon Europe has ever seen, at least before Napoleon, but his Charles's um,

he was more lasting. I mean it's extraordinarily remote character but it feels very vivid this man >> this man man this individual making

these decisions and in the end although he was a very prudent person getting it wrong and Mattingly describes um how he

you know pushed by events um pushed by the pope pushed by his own diplomatic representatives in France who

saw this as a saw the the the Armada as a way of pro prosecuting Spain's agenda in France as well um and in the low countries because you know the the the

Spanish response to the rebellion of the Protestants in the low countries you know what's now Poland and Belgium um was central to all of this he he comes up with this hairbrain scheme I mean

militarily >> this is a hairbrain scheme it requires um uh one fleet to sail from um from

Spain up the channel and then somehow his commander in the low countries to ship a huge army across the English

Channel. Now, you know, this is this is

Channel. Now, you know, this is this is heavy stuff and and and and one of the reasons why it's so enthralling is that it's a the book is a very good example

of the way in which all of the stuff we've been talking about so far, you know, grand changes in the distribution of power, the way in which statesmen respond to individual events, all of this sort of stuff. That's all one

thing. On the other hand, it's a sheer

thing. On the other hand, it's a sheer military reality of this stuff. And I

mean, uh, and there are two bits of it that come across here. first is how hard it is to to move soldiers across water.

You know, the fact that England is an island makes all the difference. And you

know, Philip has this very strong army in the in in the low countries in in the Netherlands essentially, uh, which he hopes to ship across the English Channel

and that the Amad is really there to win control of the channel to give that army a chance to get across into England. But

it just turns out to be really hard assembling enough boats turns out to be really hard. Um and the other thing is

really hard. Um and the other thing is that the as it happens and this just you know when technology comes into play the English guns were just much better than

the Spanish >> and so it's a purely technical technological thing. Um, the English had

technological thing. Um, the English had smaller ships but better guns and they could they could stand off and impose real damage, inflict real damage on the Spanish ships without getting close

enough to grapple. Whereas the Spanish style of naval warfare was to get so close that you actually grapple onto the ships and you the soldiers who are on your ships jumped onto the other guy's ships. Well, if the other guy's guns

ships. Well, if the other guy's guns were better at longer range, you you couldn't make that work. Now a lot of other things were involved in the outcome of the Armada including the weather

>> which always counts for something particularly in the age of sale >> but uh but when you look at Philip's decision sitting alone there in the

middle of the night in this Goreal uh you know a big factor and of course you know they knew that you know they'd been fighting the English they knew what they're up against um it's hard now and

a Mattingly makes a point really or at least the point comes through from his wonderful colorful description of what was going on.

Why did Philip do this? This was a dumb decision.

And well, the study of dumb decisions is well pretty much the study of how was happen.

>> Was the religious motivation so restoring the status of Catholics in England was that just a pretext?

I look I think I I don't think it's just a pretext. I

mean, it's very hard for someone in our secular age and certainly someone of my totally secular disposition to think my way into the state of mind of a devout

Catholic in the middle of the 16th century with this extraordinary challenge from the reformation and the way in which it you know you know that the way in which people's view of human

life was built around their sense of religion the place of Catholicism in Europe's sense of itself and the idea that this would be violated by the reformation. I think it's very hard for

reformation. I think it's very hard for us to recreate what that what that meant. Um but so I I I don't think it

meant. Um but so I I I don't think it was just a pretext. I think it was for real. And to certain extent you can see

real. And to certain extent you can see that from what individuals did, not just Philip himself, but you know those you

know the martrs going to the stake. Um I

um I studied for a while at Oxford and just outside my college there was a cross in the in the road in the street

where the Oxford martrs had been burnt at the stake uh just before this um in when Queen Mary before Elizabeth when Queen Mary was and it is just walking

past it as I did every day. It just

gives you a sense the you know these people it really meant something to people.

>> So I I do think it was I don't think it was just a pretext. On the other hand it didn't run counter to Spain's strategic interests and to the Hapsburg strategic

interest. It directly reinforced it. for

interest. It directly reinforced it. for

bringing England back to the Catholic faith.

>> Mhm.

>> Bought England on Spain's side against its various adversaries including of course against France. Now France was well where France

France. Now France was well where France was going was itself a huge issue and in a sense the whole Spanish ar this is one of the points that Mattingly makes the whole Spanish armada story was a kind of

a subset of a big story about the contest between Spain and France uh which is hard for us to get our head around now because we're used to Spain being at best a second order power but of course in the 16th century it was

absolutely a first order power >> next book. next book.

>> Okay.

>> But also, I mean, the thing about Mattingly, it's I I just find it as as a story, I just find it riveting. I go

back and reread it every few years just for the pleasure of it.

>> Yeah.

>> The chapters are pretty short and some of them are just gorgeous. They're like

paintings or >> That's ex That's exactly right. And and

and moving, too. M m

>> um you know there's a description which seems in some ways to be over you know but a description of a battle between the between the Protestant and Catholic

side in France between within the French civil war which is one of the best descriptions of a battle I've I've ever read and it just yeah it's just >> why so

>> it was just so vivid um >> and concise >> he sets up and it's always critical with any >> and I'm not really a military history buff I should say. But he sets up the

geography of the battle >> with the Protestants on the defensive in the fork between two rivers and the royalists the Catholic royalists across

the ark between them and the sense in which of how the how the Catholics supremely confident of victory and they're fresh in the field. The

Protestants have been campaigning all year. They're feeling weak and and

year. They're feeling weak and and demoralized, but in the end they win.

And how how that unfolds.

>> Do you remember which chapter?

>> Oh, yes. I'll can find it for you very quick very easily. Um,

I have the happy day. 136.

>> Is it too long to quote?

>> Yes.

>> Okay.

>> Yes, it's too too long, I think, but Across the few hundred yards of open ground, the opposing horsemen had time to eye each other. The Hugenos looked plain and battleworn in stained and

greasy leather and gray dull gray steel.

Their armor was only curious and their arms mostly just broadsord and pistol. Legend was to depict Henry of

pistol. Legend was to depict Henry of Navar as that's he was their leader as wearing into this battle a long white plume and romantic trappings. But a

gripper to Aene who rode not far from Nvar's bridal hand that day remember the king as dressed and armed just like the old comrades around him. Quietly the

Hugenos sat their horses each compact squadron as still and steady as a rock etc. Opposite it the line of the royalist rippled and shimmerred.

That's so good.

>> He could really write this.

>> He could. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> And kind of a little, no offense, but a little bit surprised. I mean, this guy's a historian and he just comes out with he's a serious scholar.

>> Oh, he's a serious scholar. And for

example, he wrote a he wrote a book called Renaissance Diplomacy, >> which is actually it's full of vivid little vignettes, but it's a very serious, dry, sober piece of history.

When I when I, as I said, I was first got to first introduced to Mattingly by by with that book by my father. And when

I saw he'd written this thing around nations diploma, said, "Oh, that'll be great." Yeah. I mean, it's actually very

great." Yeah. I mean, it's actually very interesting but >> yeah, >> it's a bit dull.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. This is Jay.

>> Joe.

>> Jay works at Eucalyptus. I was trying to work out when it was that you and I first connected online, and I went back and checked our Twitter DMs, and it was September 2020.

>> That's crazy.

>> You're one of the OG listeners, so probably back when there were about 2,000 listeners per episode on average or something.

>> Yeah. Wow.

>> Back in the Jolly Swagman days. Some

would say the golden days.

>> Yeah. Some some some may say the golden days. Honestly, like I'm a little bit

days. Honestly, like I'm a little bit shook that it was 2,000 listeners then.

My perception of you then was like very established. We finally met in person at

established. We finally met in person at one of my live events and at that time you were working in the think tank world. You've been a policy researcher

world. You've been a policy researcher at various think tanks. Now you're

working in growth marketing at Eucalyptus.

Why the shift?

>> Really? It was more of shifting from optimizing for like frankly like intellectual status and loft towards a mindset around being a gun by 30. Like I

wanted to learn as many skills from like the best in Australia as possible. I was

watching Tim doing a keynote speech at Sunrise and then he mentioned off-handedly that he was currently trying to hire someone who'd written an essay online about taste and I thought

that's got to be Jay. Am I right in thinking that that essay was what put you on Tim's radar?

>> It was. It was a response to a sort of disassociating and insufferable discourse around taste and culture emanating from Silicon Valley tech types. One weekend I finally decided to

types. One weekend I finally decided to just write the rant down and then chipped in on Substack. Tim saw it on LinkedIn, his um favorite platform, and then yeah, he reached out from there.

Why do you think it is that Eucalyptus selects on writing ability? The marker

of like a good generalist today is your writing ability. I think if you can

writing ability. I think if you can write, you can think and then if you can think, you can do most jobs.

>> What would you say you've learned here that you wouldn't have learned in the think tank world?

>> Joining a startup is great to sort of see ambition realized with respect to speed and velocity and also autonomy.

Um, that's super refreshing.

>> All right, Jay, thanks for joining me on the podcast.

>> My pleasure. This is where I see whether I can spell eucalyptus.

You can check out Eucalyptus' open roles at eucalyptus.health/careers.

at eucalyptus.health/careers.

That's eucalyptus.alth/careers.

Cool. They call me one take walker.

>> Let's go.

>> Done.

>> My man can spell.

>> Okay, next book. The struggle for mastery in Europe.

>> Ah, yes.

>> 1848 to 1918. So, this was first published in 1954. The author is Alan John Perl Taylor, AJP Taylor, eminent English historian who specialized in

19th and 20th century European diplomacy. So this book is a diplomatic

diplomacy. So this book is a diplomatic history of the struggle between Europe's great powers from the democratic revolutions of 1848 to the end of the first world war.

It's a river of facts, characters, events, uh, flowing from 48 to 1918.

And, um, an interesting fact about this book. So, Taylor knew German, French,

book. So, Taylor knew German, French, and a little Italian, and obviously English. And he learned Russian uh, in

English. And he learned Russian uh, in the course of writing this book, reading the sort of diplomatic archives because he thought it would be useful.

>> He started writing it in 1941 during the Second World War. interrupted it to complete the course of German history, one of his other books, which was

published in I think 45. And then so he came back to this and finished it in 1953. So for more than a decade he was

1953. So for more than a decade he was he was working at this book.

>> And what a decade.

>> Yeah, what a decade. And it is sweeping.

Um there there were two chapters in particular that you recommended to me.

Um chapter I think 18 and chapter 22.

>> Yeah. So chapter 18 is about the making of the Anglo French on taunt.

>> Yeah.

>> Um in the early 1900s.

>> Yes.

>> What's significant about that for you?

>> I mean it's worth stepping back a bit.

Okay. You know why why is the book you know why is the book on my list?

>> Yes. Okay.

>> Uh there and there two reasons for that.

The the first is because it is a textbook as to how the European order worked in the 19th century.

at least in the second half of the 19th century and in particular how the European order adjusted to the phenomenal shifts in the distribution of wealth and power that occurred over that

time. You know Germany in 1848

time. You know Germany in 1848 >> is I forget the number 37 137 anyway some bizarre number of different sovereignties you know that Germany as

we know it didn't exist >> yeah little lots of little states >> little little state well some of them I mean you know Prussia >> Prussia's big Austria Austria is big of course um you know some of the others are reasonably large

but none of them and Prussia is kind of a great power >> um no Prussia is a great power but it's a marginal great power and you know there were all these other all these

other states so you know Bismar has not begun his process of creating the you know modern Germany and of course Russia is still completely backward you know Russia is nowhere the Ottoman Empire is

still a fairly serious proposition and so on and so the the distribution of wealth and power. The underlying

structures, international structures which which created 1914 were still then a long way off. And yet the European

order survived and flourished over those years from not not until 1918 until 1914. And so it's it's a textbook for

1914. And so it's it's a textbook for how a very complex multi-olar order in an extraordinarily dynamic era. I mean

we think we're living through an era of change but you think of the changes that occurred in Europe. I mean for anything else just off the top of the head railways appeared. I mean boy talk about

railways appeared. I mean boy talk about you know steam steam navigation appeared you know globalization.

Well, globalization had begun before but you know this is a full fruits of the industrial revolution are transforming the way people live the states work the whole thing and so it's a textbook for

the way in which as you say an extraordinarily detailed textbook of the way in which Europe managed this process and that seems to me to be inherently

very interesting that's first the second reason it's HP Taylor which means that it's full of the most outrageous statements you know he'll generalized,

boom, you know, but always always insightful, always stimulating. I

I mean, I just love his pros. Yeah.

>> And and >> he's always taking a few pot shots at people.

>> Oh, he takes pot shots at people and he'll just say, you know, that's complete rubbish. It was this that

complete rubbish. It was this that >> and and you know, sometimes one will disagree, but most of the time you just, >> so to speak, savor the texture. I mean,

it's a little bit like reading Gibbon, >> you know. You you you I mean I I do sometimes perhaps I shouldn't admit this. I do sometimes in moments of

this. I do sometimes in moments of >> stress or relaxation just pull my copy off the shelf and open it and read it at random just because I love the way the

pros works. I do the same with Gibbon

pros works. I do the same with Gibbon actually every so often. know he'll

Gubin can be describing some you know completely nonsensical theological dispute uh you know in the in the Middle East sometime in the sort

of 7th century >> but somehow the pros will just carry you along for a few pages and make the world seem a better place >> and um and that's and and that's that's that's Taylor for me so that's the

that's the broad setting but if we look at chapter 18 for example two things are happening at that moment and this the 1890s roughly speaking. The first is that and it's sort of hard to remember

that but particularly under the second empire under the you know the the second Napoleon the first one's nephew France still looked like a very

threatening place to Britain and you know because we know how the story ends including of course France's defeat by Germany in 1871

um you know France but to the British France still loomed very large and it So one of the one of the great revolutions one of the way great ways in which that order as I mentioned before adapted to

what was going on in Britain in in Europe was the long process of rupmore between France and Britain which came to a head at that time and I I love the description he gives of the way in which

that happened but that's not the only thing he's talking about because he also in that chapter is talking about the way in which issues outside Europe of course this is you know this is the high point

of European colonialism and Europe is perhaps in a sense in a stronger sense than we've ever seen before or since is ruling the world. um you know European

European colonialism had gone through extraordinary explosion in precisely the period covered by the book and so he's describing the way in which events

outside Europe particularly in this case in the Far East as they called it China um start to really hone in on what's

happening within Europe and so that sense that particularly for an Australian reader a sense in which what's happening in the Far East particularly what's happening with China

which is always a big part of my interest in whatever's going on is impinging back into Europe and and creating the circumstances which amongst other things led to the Pacific war. I

mean there's a, you know, there's a lot of water goes under the bridge before that happens. But you can see the the

that happens. But you can see the the questions about Japan's place >> in Asia. The question about Japan's relationship with China, the question about Japan's relationships to the

Europeans and the Americans, we'll come back to that relationship with China. Uh

they're all starting to you can all see starting to see them bubble to the surface there. And so it does I mean you

surface there. And so it does I mean you know the whole book in a sense can be seen I think should be seen as a long

exposition in extraordinary detail of how we ended up in 1914 right on the 4th of August.

>> But it's but it's a bit more than that.

It it tells you a lot more tells you a lot about how the how the modern world was bought into being by what happened in the latter half of the of of of the 19th century which is you know a big

part of the prologue to what what we've lived through in the 20th century and what we're now trying to deal with now.

>> I I think worth emphasizing it it it's fundamentally a diplomatic history. So

it's not a it's not a general history sort of lacking the economic and military dimensions.

>> Yeah. No, it's it's a history of diplomacy and strategy.

>> Yeah.

>> I mean the the military is never far below the surface, >> right?

>> But um >> so he's reading the kind of documents he's reading are sort of memorandums of foreign offices, minutes, you know, correspondences between foreign ministers and their diplomats

and ambassadors.

>> Yeah. Uh that's that's and so and it's classic old style diplomatic history.

>> Yeah.

>> Of a sort which is I guess in some ways discredited these days. Um I think wrongly. I think there's a great deal to

wrongly. I think there's a great deal to be learned from that kind of thing because in the end these might not be people or attitudes that are broadly representative of society.

>> Right.

>> But they're the people and the attitudes that are in the room when wars decided on.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> So pay attention.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So chapter 22 is on the build up and then outbreak of the first world >> brings it right down to to the to the moment.

>> Yeah. Exquisite chapter. I've got about three pages of notes on it, but I'm curious what you what you took from that chapter if you can distill it.

>> Look, it's a it's a little bit hard to separate that from the whole question about the sure >> what happened at the beginning, you know, what what happened in

>> from the 28th of June to the 4th of August 1914. Um but but you know one of

August 1914. Um but but you know one of the things one of the really critical questions about that moment

is how far did the various participants intend >> right >> who who intended to go to war >> um in particular did Germany want to go

to war there's a strong argument you know particularly in in Germany itself after the second world war there's a strong school of thinking that the

Germans really planned the war. Um uh to you know what what on earth were the Austrians thinking?

>> Why did they think it was so necessary to go to war with Serbia given that there was the threat that Russia would intervene and so on. And so what I really take from the and of you know and

the the and the French and the and the British. What I really take from it is

British. What I really take from it is first of all be because that chapter draws its so to speak has its roots in

all the previous chapters. Um and

therefore connects what happened in those weeks from 19 from from from the 28th of June to the 4th of of of August connects that with all that gone before

back to 1848. I think it makes it very powerful. But he also has some really

powerful. But he also has some really important propositions. He gives a very

important propositions. He gives a very compelling argument that the Germans but you got to be very careful of the collective nouns here because decision making actually one of the things about

what happened in those weeks is that in Germany in Austria Austria Hungarian Empire and

in Russia and to some extent in France the decision making was very fractured.

I mean, in the first three, you had in all three, you had these weird, you know, the these were modern states with modern economies. This is a world we can

modern economies. This is a world we can kind of relate to when we look at it economically. But they're still governed

economically. But they're still governed by these absolute monarchs.

>> You know, the the Kaiser is really the commander-in-chief.

>> Yeah. He's mad as a meatax.

>> Yeah.

>> The the the the ZAR.

>> Yeah.

>> Really? I mean, even more than the Kaiser. I mean the Kaiser at least has

Kaiser. I mean the Kaiser at least has to deal with with with the parliament but the but in in in in St. Petersburg

the Zar really is the boss >> but he's completely >> you know ill equipped to to form this function >> and and you know the the France Joseph

in in Vienna in head of this weird polyglot empire which you know hardly makes any sense at all and so the you know the deep and not just in Taylor but I mean there you know the whole books

very some very good books written about what happened in those few weeks but one of the things that comes clear and Taylor touches on this is how confused the decision-m is um because the

structures are so poor um uh and in some ways the only only one of those capitals in which you get a sort of a halfway sensible analysis of the choices is in

London >> um and thereby tangs a tail in itself but what what's so I what one of the things I really like about Taylor's account is that he does a very good and

actually quite concise job of adjudicating the question as to whether the Germans wanted to go to war or just >> went along with going to war. And there

was certainly a strand of German thinking that said we're going to have to fight eventually. Yeah.

>> And particularly their fear of Russia.

Yes.

>> We we I think in our present understanding >> we underestimate the extent to which the real rising power in 1914 was not Germany but Russia. Russia was Russia

was coming out of nowhere. Yeah.

>> And industrializing really fast. And so

it's traditional. It always had a place.

Well, not always. Since the days of Peter the Great, at the beginning of the 17th century, Russia had been a significant player in European power politics. But it was as Russia was

politics. But it was as Russia was changing, was industrializing, it was going through its industrial revolution a generation, two generations behind the rest of Europe, but because of its sheer

scale, that made it very uh impressive.

>> And so the combination of that, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire um and all the vulnerabilities, the obvious weakness of Austria. Um the Germans had reason to think it might be better if you're going to fight might be better to

fight now than later. But I think the the the I think AJP Taylor's adjudication of that question is very good. Yes. The other thing I really like

good. Yes. The other thing I really like about the about the chapter is the way in which he analyzes the British decisionm uh because you know the the there's an argument which he addresses directly if

I remember rightly >> that if Britain had only said right at the beginning that it was going to fight or not going to fight >> if it had been unequivocal >> and unequivocal one way or the other >> then it would either have deterred the

Germans >> or deterred the French and and the war wouldn't have happened and and I think he destroys that. rejects that

>> reject and destroys it very very compellingly.

>> So he says it was essential to the Schlieffen plan that the Germans had to violate.

>> They're going to go through Belgium.

Whatever happened >> they were going to go through Belgium and they'd already factored in that if they if they violated Belgian's sovereignty then the English would intervene.

>> Then the British would be in >> and they discounted Britain's involvement. They didn't think it was

involvement. They didn't think it was going to affect the outcome one way or the other. and and which was a not

the other. and and which was a not unreasonable position for them to take, you know, >> because Britain would only submit sort of a few a couple of divisions.

>> Six divisions well five initially. Um

and >> and so so that maybe one division is like 15 to 20,000.

>> That's right. And you know, by comparison um the the French and the and the Germans both mobilized way over 100 divisions, something like 160 divisions.

I mean the Brazilian troops >> Yeah. the British the British um

>> Yeah. the British the British um military army weight >> was really negligible. It in the end actually on the day

>> it didn't have a negligible impact on the way the battle unfolded in August.

We might come back to that. But but in the but you know on the sort of grand strategic weight Britain really only counted as a maritime power and its maritime power really only came into

play if the war dragged on right >> and the Germans being compl confident that the schlie plan would work that they would be able to knock France out in six weeks and then turn on Russia

knock knock knock Russia out >> um the so the the idea that that if that Britain's commitment one way or the other would have made a big difference

to German thinking Taylor demolishes in a few sentences and I think you know quite quite correctly I think it's a very compelling argument of course make the same point the other way if they'd said to the French we're not going to

fight then the French wouldn't have thought no the apart from their alliance with with Russia which was really fundamental and particularly the attitude of point I mean I think you can

argue that the only one of the European leaders who in those last days of July and first days of August really wanted

the war to happen was the French president Karee he that that's not a common view I might say but I when I back in 2014 like a lot of other people

I found myself reading a lot of books about what happened 100 years before >> and and I my conclusion was that he he was of all of them he was the one who

was least ambivalent um not the rest of the French government wasn't but as president and he was a very influential partly because the rest of the government was in chaos because

this is what French governments in the second empire were like um it was a different you know he he was he he was very influential so I think

>> Taylor's right on on that as well >> I I want to compare a couple of my notes with you but could you give like a 30-second description of the Schlieen plan just

for anyone one lacking that context.

>> Sure. So Germany's problem as it saw itself in a traditional rivalry with France very strongly amplified of course by the outcome of the FrancoRussian war

in 1871 in which the Germans marched off with two key French provinces Alsars and Lraine on the one hand France on one side Russia on the other this rising Russia

um who had allied themselves with one another uh to neutralize or at least to manage Germany's rising power. So

Germany's problem in the event of a European war uh was that it faced the potential for war on two fronts and in order to manage that problem Schlieffen

who had been their command their you know overall commander in the late 19th very early 20th century um formulated a plan in which Germany would defeat

France in six weeks.

>> Yeah.

>> And then swing all its forces against Russia. And the pl and the aim of the

Russia. And the pl and the aim of the way to defeat France given that the French had very strongly for fortified the border um uh in in the middle part

of the of the border was to go through Belgium. Uh a huge army swinging through

Belgium. Uh a huge army swinging through Belgium and then swinging round to hook behind Paris and then drive the French forces involve the French forces in a

giant encirclement.

And it was um uh it involved the violation of Belgium. And Belgium when it was established as an independent

state in the 1830s was um it was neutral and as neutrality was guaranteed by all of the key European powers including Germany. A and this therefore involved a

Germany. A and this therefore involved a violation of what was seen as a really fundamental principle of European European order. So the the the the

European order. So the the the the German war plan, if they going to go to war with Russia, they had to go to war with France. And if they were going to

with France. And if they were going to go to war with France, they had to invade Belgium >> because of the on between >> Oh, yes. The the Well, the the the

problem was they couldn't go to war with Russia without assuming that France would go to war with them because they knew that that's what France's commitment to Russia entailed. Yes.

>> And this was this was not a wishy-washy alliance. That was it was it was it had

alliance. That was it was it was it had a lot of substance to it.

>> It wasn't it wasn't as substantial as NATO. You know, NATO sort of distorts

NATO. You know, NATO sort of distorts our view of the way alliances work. But

the French had, for example, poured in contemporary terms of billions of dollars into helping the Russians build the railways that would ship Russian troops

uh to the front against against Germany.

So you know this was this was not just a piece of paper. This was very practical strategic cooperation. And as it

strategic cooperation. And as it happened >> point uh as president of France visited Russia

>> at the end of July. I mean he was there when he he had just left Russia on the way.

>> Exactly. with his foreign minister Viviani. Then the the Austrians delayed

Viviani. Then the the Austrians delayed the issuing of their ultimatum to Serbia >> until they were at sea.

>> Until they were at sea. I mean, you know.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Like I say, the people in the room, you know.

>> That's right. So, so, so on the Shifen plan, Germany knew that if it was to fight either France or Russia, then had to fight both >> to avoid fighting a two-f frontont war.

The decision was to just and there was this cult of the offensive at the time, but the decision was just to overwhelm France. Why France not Russia? Part of

France. Why France not Russia? Part of

the logic, a large part of the logic was it would take Russia much longer, like several weeks to mobilize because of their disorganization and also just the distance.

>> So we we'll overwhelm France first and then we'll swing back towards the um eastern front.

>> It's partly just a matter of distances on the German side as I mean in order to achieve a decisive result in Russia you had to travel a long way >> as people keep on discovering you know

Napoleon and Hitler and so on. Um

whereas France relatively compact >> um you know you could get from the German border to Paris uh in a few days, >> right?

>> And so it was inherently it was a quicker it was a quicker water fight because the distances were not as great.

But the German troops as they as they came down and they came through Belgium and then headed south down towards >> towards Paris. And at at the last

moment, so to speak, they swerved to the east, to the left of Paris, viewing it from their line of march. Um,

but but at the closest point, th those German troops could see the Eiffel Tower. They could see they could see

Tower. They could see they could see Paris in the distance. But they swerved away >> for >> reasons which one of our other books goes into at great length >> and um and produced the debacle which

produced the battle of the man which produced the western front that we all know about >> um and that claimed so many Australian lives. But the but the um you know it

lives. But the but the um you know it nearly worked this story on plan.

>> A couple of the notes I had I mean if you wanted to sort of boil down Taylor's account of the first world war into a sentence or two it would be that Austria Hungary specifically Austria >> yes

>> wanted the war.

>> Yes.

>> Uh they were the declining great power in Europe.

>> Yes.

Germany Germany didn't have a plan to start it.

He basically says that that um Bethman and the Kaiser were and and von Mula were just incapable of of timing the war.

>> Um but when the opportunity presented itself, >> they went along with it willingly >> because for the reasons we've discussed and we'll come come back to. I think one

theme I definitely took from Taylor was that the Germans wanted in the background there was this strategic need to fight a preventive war against

against Russia. Germany went along with

against Russia. Germany went along with it. Um statesmen on all sides succumbed

it. Um statesmen on all sides succumbed to military timets and >> military planning. Um so these these sort of things like the plan already in

place that once that process started it was very difficult to stop or reverse it.

>> Um and then the allies fought for defense.

>> Yeah.

>> Look that's that's that's that's basically right. Um I mean Austria of

basically right. Um I mean Austria of course did didn't want the war they ended up fighting.

>> Yes.

>> They they wanted to fight a war against Serbia.

>> Yes. And their bargain, their gamble, uh, was that they could go to war against Serbia without going to war against Russia.

>> Even though Russia had an alliance with Serbia. Yep.

Serbia. Yep.

>> And uh and they and you know it's it's clear from the from the archives in the conversations in Vienna that those over those weeks that they believed that they

could fight a war against uh against Serbia without being attacked by Russia.

Right.

>> Because Russia would be deterred by the fear of a war of attack from Germany.

>> Yeah. And uh and that's pro when the Kaiser as he did said to the Austrians after the assassination, "Go ahead and

punish Serbia. We'll back you."

punish Serbia. We'll back you."

>> He probably thought what that meant, well, who knows cuz it's the Kaiser.

>> Yeah.

>> But but it's perfectly plausible that what he really thought he was committing himself to was simply standing there to deter Russia.

>> Yeah.

>> So that Russia wouldn't attack Austria.

So Austria could have a war with Serbia by itself. That and and and so I you

by itself. That and and and so I you know I think that and I think that's you know that's basically although Taylor doesn't put it quite that way. I think

that's basically Taylor's Taylor's argument.

>> And so it's a real you know the question is not not just do you go to war or don't you but which war do you think you're going to fight. Exactly.

>> And often you end up fighting a war country to the one you you expect.

>> Yeah. Um,

>> so Germany was Germany was egging AustriaHungary on.

>> Yes.

>> It wasn't it was a little ambiguous.

>> Yes and no.

>> Yeah. So it was a little ambiguous as to whether >> in Taylor at least as to whether >> Germany expected that AustriaHungary would invade Serbia.

>> Yeah.

>> Is that they well there was there was there was uncertainty.

um uh a great uncertainty and and there was a lot of uncertainty in Berlin. Now,

you know, Taylor doesn't go into this in this that detail cuz this in the end is one chapter in a fat book that covers decades.

>> Yes.

>> But uh I mean if you look at the at the at the work that was I mean you know there's Albatini's you know whatever it is four volume history of the outbreak of the first world war which is a sort of bible that everybody goes back to

that was produced between the wars. Um I

haven't I've read all of it but it's a it's a remarkable book but for but for example um to my mind the best of the books that were published in 1914

in 2014 about what happened in 1914 there's a book by called TGI called July 1914 which unpacks what happened in each capital in great detail and what's clear

from that is that there was a lot of debate in Germany about you know they the Kaiser had given the Austrians the green light and then they sent some some

flashing amber signals and then there was another green light from the Kaiser.

It was the the messages were very mixed including messages from the Kaiser himself quite apart from others. And so

I think you know one of the things that that emerges from the the detailed study of what happened in July 194 1914 is that in everywhere but particularly in Berlin there was a there was a lot of

confusion. People quite weren't quite

confusion. People quite weren't quite sure >> right >> and they weren't unaware of the scale of what they were committing themselves to.

Kaiser himself said at one some stage in July quite late in July that if it comes to war it will destroy European civilization for a century.

>> Yeah.

>> Which for an idiot is quite a which he was is quite a perceptive observation.

>> Yeah.

>> So you know the simpleminded version is is a is a bit is a bit um you know doesn't quite do do justice to the complexity and and Taylor doesn't unpick all of that. As I say, for me, the real

strength of Taylor, that part of Taylor's thing, is the way in which you can you get to it having gone through all of this other stuff about what had happened in Europe. And one of the points is we tend to see 1914 as a kind

of an isolated incident. Yeah.

>> As if the story begins with the assassination of the arch duke. No,

that's the whole point.

>> I mean, it's ultimate versus proximate causes.

>> All of this has been set up >> through a century of European history.

and and and you know the the the way in which things that had worked for through the 19th century from 1815 the defeat of Napoleon >> Yeah.

>> why why did they stop working? Yeah.

>> And really that in a sense one way of interpreting >> struggle for mastery.

>> Yeah.

>> Is it's an account of why did what had worked so well >> stop working.

>> Yeah.

It's notable in both Struggle for Mastery and Guns of August, which we'll come to next, just how little attention is given to the event of the the assassination. Yeah.

assassination. Yeah.

>> But so in terms of >> of of how Germany is thinking about this, the note I had from reading

Taylor's chapter is that um I mean they're not certain that AustriaHungary will invade Serbia.

But if Austria Hungary does attack Serbia, Bethman Hovig and Wilhelm II don't expect Russia to defend >> and if Russia does defend, they think

well war is better now than later when Russia's a stronger power. that and

that's that's that's that's exactly right that I mean in some ways this the story of what happens in the last week of July is that everybody

expects everybody else to let their allies down.

>> Yeah.

>> People often say that that the cause of the first world war was that they had all these alliances and the people stuck with them. But what's striking is that

with them. But what's striking is that everybody expected them not to strike with them. So the Austrians thought they

with them. So the Austrians thought they could attack Serbia without going to war with Russia because they thought the Russians had let the Austrians down. the

Russians decided they could go to war with Austria without going to war with Germany, etc. And they also thought there was a fair chance the French would let the Russians down. But of course, this a

Russians down. But of course, this a point the the once once Germany had built its war plan around the assumption that the FrancoRussian

alliance would hold, then it was going to happen. And this goes back to the

to happen. And this goes back to the point you touched on before. A very big factor in 1914 was that they was that once preliminary decisions had been made,

it was very hard to turn back.

>> Yeah. Um and it it's a classic problem and in fact it's a it's a very common problem in the management of military operations even on much much smaller scale that if you want to have a

military option you got to start taking steps and once you start taking those steps you start losing flexibility and

so for for the Russians for example because precisely because they were so big and they took so long to mobilize if they were going to have the option of going to war with Germany

They had to start doing things earlier than they would have wanted to. And the

poor >> there was a lag of weeks >> because of lag of weeks. And the poor old Zar and I say that advisedly because it's hard not to look at him. He he

looks so sad and helpless in those photographs. And he comes across that

photographs. And he comes across that way in the documents that the poor old the poor old Zard says, you know, well, can't we just mobilize against Austria

and not mobilize against Germany? and

and his commanders say, "No, we can't do that." And it's worth bearing in mind

that." And it's worth bearing in mind there's a there's a there's a very clear technical reason for this. One of the things that's happened in the 19th century is that the combination of population growth and industrialization

and railways and telegraph uh massively increase the size of armies because there are more people around and and better social organization

and massively increase the speed with which they can be moved. Mhm.

>> And so you can bring together these huge mass armies and move them to the front within days and vast amounts of energy and and imagination and so on are

devoted uh to perfecting the concentration and deployment of these forces. But it but it required I mean I

forces. But it but it required I mean I think that you know the stories I think Tukman touches on it. You know you talk you talk about you know another railway train going over the key bridges every

seven minutes. Yeah.

seven minutes. Yeah.

>> 24 hours a day. And so once the thing is so so detailed and so sophisticated and so complex that you can't you can't change it. So at one point the Kaiser

change it. So at one point the Kaiser right at the last moment I think on the 1st of August maybe the 31st of July says to von Muli his commander well

can't we just go to war with Russia and not against France just as the the Zar has said can't we go to war with Austria and not against not against Germany and in both cases what the commander say is

no >> we can't because if we do that the whole plan will fall apart we lose the optional Oh, and and well, exactly. I

mean, it's it's it's chaos. If you start disrupting the thing, it's not as though, you know, the whole thing falls a falls apart. And that's

>> and so there there and people often think, well, that's just, you know, the fault of the boneheaded military commanders who didn't have any imagination. Actually, they were

imagination. Actually, they were themselves prisoners of the particular way technology had evolved. uh which

produced these massive armies that had to be moved by railways with great speed, with great precision, which required incredibly elaborate forward planning.

>> Yeah.

>> And of course, >> you know, we do face our own version of that today >> with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

>> You know, things move very bloody fast.

and they were I I so I don't I don't blame you can blame the military commanders for an awful lot of what happened between 1914 and 1918 but I don't blame the military commanders for the predicament they found themselves in

in the last week of July and the first week of August 1914 that that's that was something that the technology had imposed on them.

>> Yeah just back to Russia quickly. So

Russia wanted to mobilize only against Austria Hungary but they weren't capable of that. Th did they had to do a general

of that. Th did they had to do a general mobilization instead, but it wasn't at that point their intentions or their expectation wasn't to fight a war. It

was to raise the bid.

>> Yeah.

>> Um and Germany asked them to stand down.

They didn't. And then

>> Well, that that's right. Everybody, as I said, everybody hopes that they can deter the other guy from fighting. And

and the the great attraction of that is that you achieve your objectives without paying the costs of war.

>> And it's worth bearing in mind that everyone is trying to preserve their place in in the in the in the in the European order. You know, you have a

European order. You know, you have a European order with five great powers.

that emerges from the end of the Napoleon wars and with the addition of emergence of Germany as a unified power um which is a fundamental change but you

still got those five great powers in 1914 and a Austria Hungary is hang on by the skin of its teeth um and

Germany is not even sure itself that it's got the power that it deserves to have >> France is fundamentally weakened by demographic problems, some economic problems, some political problems and so

on. And the fact that it's just losing

on. And the fact that it's just losing out in the race with Germany and then with then with Russia. Britain is having big doubts itself. Britain's been the world's biggest economy forever, but it's been overtaken by America probably,

you know, sometime in the 1880s or 1890s. And so, everybody is unsure of

1890s. And so, everybody is unsure of their position in the international system. And when 1914 comes, all of them

system. And when 1914 comes, all of them see it as a test of their status as as a great power in that in that system. And

they all hope they can preserve their position without going to war because the other side will back down. And so

the Austrians hope to preserve their position as a great power by being mean to the Serbians and hope that the the Russians will back down. The Russians

want to preserve their position as a great power having been humiliated by Austria a few times in the past by by threatening to go to war and hoping that the Austrians will back down etc. And so

everybody is trying to you know strengthen their position as a great power but none of them want to go to war to do it. M

>> they all hope that they'll strengthen their position by the other side backing down.

>> Now, you know, just to foreshadow >> that that that's what both America and China think about Taiwan.

>> Yeah.

>> China wants to assert its place as a great power in Asia in the face of America's power by threatening to go to war with Taiwan and making the Americans back down, therefore proving the Americans are paper tigers. America

wants to preserve its position in the Western Pacific by threatening to go to war with China if China goes to war over Taiwan. And they hope the Taiwan the

Taiwan. And they hope the Taiwan the Chinese will back down. Neither side

want to war, but both hope that they'll bolster their status or achieve the status they seek by making the other back down. And that works fine if the

back down. And that works fine if the other backs down. But of course for precisely the reasons we see in 1914, you end up with a war that neither side wants

>> because both hope that they can achieve their objectives by making the other side back down.

>> Yeah.

>> And uh both can end up being wrong.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's really the great story of 1914.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is why it's so resonant for today.

>> So we have one more book. Oh well, I mean at least one more, but this is this is the only other book directly on 1914.

So next book.

>> Yeah.

So, The Guns of August >> by Barbara Tuckman, first published in 1962.

Uh, Tuckman was an American historian and journalist. She wrote in the genre

and journalist. She wrote in the genre of popular history mainly. And this is essentially a military history of the first month of the First World War.

>> That's quite right.

>> U brilliantly written. Wiper.

Why is this on your list?

>> Well, um, for two reasons. The first is that it's um uh in a sense it's it's a it's a book of great significance simply because so many other people read it and were so

influenced by it. it, you know, it it hit the shelves in 1962, as you said, and it had a it had a huge impact, made people think a lot about how war had come in 1914 and and in the context of

the height of the cold war, uh, you know, where where weeks before the literally weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis, the great story is that Kennedy was reading it at the time of the Cuban

Missile Crisis, which I think is probably true. M um uh and uh and it

probably true. M um uh and uh and it does deal in a very compelling way with what we've just been talking about that is what unfolded between the 28th of June, the assassination of the arch duke

and the >> and the outbreak of war on the and the first days of days of August. But you're

quite right to describe it as you just did as a military history because the real weight of it is not so much its account of the outbreak of the war although that's interesting um and and

quite compelling in places but the way in which the you know so to speak the circumstance in which the war fighting started but what happened in that first month which shaped the whole of the rest

of the war and so it is really a military history rather than what you might call a strategic history it's a it's a history of military operations Um but it but it does it in such a good way

and in particular it I think it does such a good job of interweaving the impact of plans and technology on plans.

>> Yeah.

uh the impact of of individuals of personalities the great personalities uh of the commanders for example on both on both sides uh which you know it's

hard I think to look at those events uh without acknowledging you know how you know people like Faulk and French and Ludenorf and Zazen of the you know

these these are well it's you know we we we have a kind of a I I think as a culture we have a kind of tendency to discount the great man great

person view of history but the fact is that when big wars start that the the capacities of individual commanders really matter and the the way in which

there's a kind of um drama and fatalism about the way in which this the Schlieen plan that we touched on before this massive movement

of German forces you know big right and sweep through Belgium down towards Paris aiming to encircle the French army. And it it

nearly worked and it didn't >> and it didn't work for a million different reasons, but partly just the sheer momentum. She's very good at

sheer momentum. She's very good at describing how how an army on the march day after day, week after week, very hot weather as it happens. It was August

after all, northern August. and and the German at

northern August. and and the German at one level the Germans just ran out of puff >> and the French and the British were withdrawing and in chaos and defeated

but the way in which they you know famous words they stand on the man >> Mhm.

>> and push back and and therefore deny the Germans victory. Don't of course destroy

Germans victory. Don't of course destroy the German army. leave the Germans in possession of a large swads of France and create and create the western front.

>> Yeah. And so is a description not so much although people thinking at it his influence on Kennedy and so on think about it primarily as a book about the outbreak of the war whereas it's really

a military history of of of that critical first series of battles and of that I think it's >> it's hard to beat and you can read a lot of the much more detailed sort of

professional military histories of that moment and um and still not come away with as much feel for what happened.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Uh as as she provides in this. So I and I but the other thing about it is that I came to it early. I mean I I first got interested in

the first world war at the age of 11. I can be quite precise about it because in 1964 to celebrate or to mark the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the war,

the BBC did a television series called The Great War. Mhm.

>> which uh 22 parts or 24 parts, something like that, which went to air in Australia on the ABC >> every Sunday night at 6:00.

>> And I it just I watched it. It, you

know, it just blew me away.

>> It had a huge impact on me.

>> And really, I think to be honest, sort of apart from the fact that I, as I said, my father was in the trade. My my

mother my her father had been a naval officer. So I grew up in a family that

officer. So I grew up in a family that was a bit focused on this sort of stuff.

But but but the the that that television series even even now I mean the when I first saw it again I didn't see it from

then until about 10 years ago when I found the DVD. Now of course it's all on YouTube. You can watch it anytime you

YouTube. You can watch it anytime you like. But I hadn't watched it but but it

like. But I hadn't watched it but but it all just came back to me.

>> Yeah.

>> Um astonishingly vivid and very sophisticated. It wasn't rahrh

sophisticated. It wasn't rahrh patriotism. It was very measured. And

patriotism. It was very measured. And

>> yeah, >> Michael Redgrave did the narration in this lubrious plangent voice which even even now is kind of the voice of the

first world war for me.

>> Yeah. And um so I I I and it it gave gave actually in the first few episodes a wonderful description of how the first world war

broke out. And and then a bit later at

broke out. And and then a bit later at school actually I came across a small book on the origins of the first world war that I read probably at the age of 15 or 16 which really interested me and

I you know because of because of the impact that this television series have.

But then I came across this in a moment of enforced idleness in catand do of all places while I was I had to wait a few days for

some friends to turn up and I was going to go and do some walking not really climbing but walking with them and I had a few days to kill and I'd seen all the

sites of Catman do and uh I found the British library the British Council Library I found on on the Well, I don't know whether I had known about it before, but anyway, I thought that looks

interesting. So, I sat down over the

interesting. So, I sat down over the next couple of days. I read it and this was a gap. This is in the moment that I was traveling from Melbourne to England where I was going to study in a do a

graduate degree and it was a point at which I was sort of thinking where my future might take me and I suppose I always knew I was going to go and work in government. I wanted to work on all

in government. I wanted to work on all this sort of stuff. But reading it there in Catmand do in that kind of strange isolated sort of nether world sort of in

a bubble um completely detracted divorced from my from my surroundings um did think oh oh yes oh yes this is this

is really interesting.

>> So it did it it sort of has an almost for me a personal impact which goes beyond the quality of the analysis.

Right. Um,

>> so this this sort of tipped you towards the direction >> tipped tipped me towards it. It really

by the time I'd finished reading it. So

therefore, by the time I'd arrived at Oxford to study philosophy, study more philosophy, it had really consolidated what had anyway been sort of hovering in the background and that is that I wanted to

work, you know, I wanted to work in government and I wanted to work on this stuff >> or because >> which is exactly what I've done.

>> Yeah. Or or because you stopped in Catmando on your way to Oxford.

>> Exactly. Exactly. It's an appropriate story of contingency given the themes of this book.

>> Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think well, I wouldn't going back to what we said before, I wouldn't say it was inevitable, >> but I do think it was there was strong predispositions anyway.

>> Um, but uh and of course, you know, partly it's a generational thing. You

know, I was so I was born in 1953.

Both my parents served in the war. All

of my friends parents served in the war in different ways and you know my grandfather my mother's father had served in was a naval officer who' served in the first world war. Um all of

this stuff was very vivid. You know,

it's a big big part of our and of course we were growing up in a cold war. And so

the the the the way in which the significance of big wars and not Iraqs or Afghanistan's but really big wars,

world changing wars and wars fundamentally changed one's own country and changed people's lives. um

you know these were this was something that was closer to the surface um for my generation than >> yours >> I think.

>> No definitely.

>> So just to draw out a couple of things I learned from this book and test them on you. Uh I mean the first as you

you. Uh I mean the first as you mentioned the the big theme is contingency at the level of the battlefield.

>> Yes. And the both the siege of Lege but more importantly the battle of the man and the failure of that to be a decisive battle >> shaped this subsequent course of the war

led to a very drawn out conflict. The

stalemate on the western front um that was one thing >> I I also did I think it's interesting in terms of the the sort of the outbreak of the war because she does cover that in

some some detail. I think it's interesting to compare and contrast Tuckman and Taylor's accounts. So, I had I had two similarities and two differences.

>> The the similarities were, you know, both emphasized contingency. The war was avoidable. We know this um for Taylor.

avoidable. We know this um for Taylor.

Well, for both of them because um the Germans could have gone with the older von Mula's plan instead of Schlie. They

didn't. All the other examples of contingency we've discussed. Um and both both Tuckman and Taylor regard I think the generals and their plans as somewhat usurping the politicians and

diplomats.

>> Yes.

>> In terms of the differences, I think Taylor discredits the view that the complicated alliance system was to blame. We spoke about that and his

blame. We spoke about that and his reason for that is that >> no one ended up abiding by the letter the the letter of their commitment.

>> Exactly.

And whereas I think Tuckman more emphasizes the the intricate alliance system as as being something that led to that sort of cascading effect >> in in causing the great powers to to

join the war. And the second difference was I think um Taylor seems much more sympathetic to a more sort of structural explanation that Germany wanted to launch a preventive war against Russia

whereas I I I I just sort of mainly get the theme of contingency in Tuckman.

Does that all sound look fair to you?

>> I think I think that's I think that's right. Um yes, I I think that the the

right. Um yes, I I think that the the point the point about about the alliances not not driving the war um the

way Tuckman tends to sort of assume um is is right. I think I think Taylor does does take the different view on that. I I when I I think that aspect of

that. I I when I I think that aspect of Tukman is really in a sense taken over from the very strong presumption that people made in the inter war years.

Between 1918 and 1939, there was of course a huge focus on the causes of the war and the idea that there had been all of these alliances made, these secret treaties

um that somehow imprisoned uh politicians and the idea that the soldiers too had usurped the role of the of the commanders by produc of of the

political leaders by producing these enormously detailed plans. uh that th those those were common places of the of the analysis between the wars. And so I

think in some ways Tukman to took those on without necessarily interrogating them very closely because she what she really wanted to do >> was to get to the story of what happened >> right

>> after the after the after the invasion.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh you know after after the war began.

But I think so I think that's one thing.

Second point is um uh I I do think it's worth separating Britain's decision from everybody else's because the fact is the British Britain was the only as I

touched on before Britain was the only cap of the critical European capitals where they really had a what you might call a proper debate about whether or not to go to war or not. And you know

the cabinet was split and and Assworth had to work really hard to bring them together. In the end, he didn't bring

together. In the end, he didn't bring them all together. In the end, Belgium, the invasion of Belgium provided the pretext, but not the reason. You know,

Gray was very clear. Gray's speech to the House of Commons on the 3rd of August, which is one of the most moving >> documents imaginable, in which he says, I think she quotes it in the book, but

she says in just an unbelievable understatement that for Britain, uh, if Germany ends up winning and dominating the continent, it would be disagreeable.

Well, you know, British strategic policy forever, >> back to Elizabeth, >> yeah, >> had been to prevent the domination of Europe by any one country because if any one country dominated Europe, then they could threaten Britain. And you know,

that's been the great, you know, the balance of power. That's been the great great theme. And the and the real

great theme. And the and the real question that the British cabinet confronted and therefore us in Australia because that's you know we followed them was

whether Britain could live with a Europe in which Wilhelm Germany had succeeded in in overpowering France and Russia because it it could have you know it was

a it was prudent of them to think about that. Now, you know, Gray's marshally

that. Now, you know, Gray's marshally understatement about disagreeable suggested that was not something people were interested in. And if you look at the debate in Britain in the years

before 1914, growing anxiety about Germany, um uh there was a real debate and some famous memorandum written by a senior British bureaucrat uh called

Crow, the Crow Memorandum, which talked about what a threat it would be to to to Britain if Germany ended up dominating the the continent. It made people feel

that they had no choice but to go to war otherwise this ancient precept of British strategic policy would be violated. But the question is

violated. But the question is well actually would a Europe dominated by Wilhine Germany have been worse than what actually happened cuz what actually happened was the first world war.

>> Yeah.

>> And then the second world war and then the cold war.

>> Yeah.

it what it didn't didn't end well and so and one of the interesting things is you can see in the British debate in the debate in the cabinet although they didn't address at least from as far as the record show they didn't address it

very directly but that's that was what they were thinking about you know may maybe we'd be better off sitting this one out and if they'd sat this one out we would have sat that one out you know with no inevitability about Australia

going to war in 1914 and I think as a country we don't interrogate nearly carefully enough our decision to go to war in 1914 because we did make a decision. We presented as if we just

decision. We presented as if we just went along because Britain went along but there was a clear Australian perspective on it and we were in fact encouraging them to go to war at that stage. So I think there's a you know

stage. So I think there's a you know you're right there's a fascinating dynamic dynamic there. The the other point I'd make is that just touching on the first point you made about the

military dynamic. I

military dynamic. I one of the interesting things about the what Tukman describes is that when you get into the you know after the first

month is over after the battle of the man after the western front gets established you end up with a war which is overwhelmingly dominated by the extraordinary challenge of adapting

tactics to new technology.

uh heavy artillery, machine guns, tanks, aircraft. You know, this is this is a

aircraft. You know, this is this is a different war than anyone's planned for.

And the whole terrible story of the Western Front is trying to work out how the hell you can win a war under those circumstances. But what's interesting

circumstances. But what's interesting about the month that Tukman describes, you know, really from the fourth or fifth of August to the fourth or fifth of September

is that actually it's it's much more primal than that. It the technology is not playing a really decisive role. I

mean, it is playing a decisive role. You

know, you know, French soldiers in red trousers are running are running up against running up against machine guns >> because they didn't want to change their uniform to something less conspicuous.

>> Well, exactly. Pont Rouge was the spirit of France and all of this. But but the fact is that you know when you and I think Tukman brings this out really well is that in in the end it was just the

fact that that France kind of after this terrible series of defeats in in in August of course because their army had gone the wrong way. The army had gone that way when the Germans were coming

this way. Um

this way. Um they they steadied themselves. They good

command and good staff work. They they

gathered bits and pieces of of of armies from different parts of the map, bought them together on the man, and they they stood there and they mounted a successful counter offensive

really against all the odds. And that's

not technology. That's good

oldfashioned, you know, courage or leadership or a lang maybe. But it's a and and it and it's of course I mean it's not the only time you see it on the

western front because when you look again at what happened in 1918 when the stalemate is broken first by the Germans with their spring offensives but then by the allied counter offensive spearheaded

by Australian divisions. I mean that is the that is the point at which the ANZAC myth is actually pretty right. Um you

know that was an Australian performance by Australian by the Australian divisions uh already you know after long long years of war. They did an

remarkable job. But but the demand is

remarkable job. But but the demand is the point at which you know in the first world war so to speak the old old warrior issues

>> seem to have to have a place >> and and it's and that's both so to speak interesting to the serious student of military affairs because that stuff does

still matter but also kind of moving as well.

>> All right that's Tuckman.

So next book is the origins of the second world war.

>> We are back with AJP Taylor.

>> We are >> so this was first published in 1961.

>> Taylor as we know eminent English historian. Um as the title suggests this

historian. Um as the title suggests this book is about the buildup and the causes of the second world war. And if I can sort of distill the thesis for our

audience, he's sort of critiquing the Nure, what you might call the Nuremberg thesis, which is the idea that if you wanted to explain the Second World War,

it centers on this madman, namely Hitler. And he wanted war. He planned

Hitler. And he wanted war. He planned

for war in detail, and he launched war.

Launched the war. Taylor's breaking with that thesis. and and this this gives him

that thesis. and and this this gives him or bolsters his reputation as an iconoclast and revisionist historian.

And when it comes to the history of the first world war, Taylor says that there's a preponderance of interest and analysis in the causes, but then the war itself is treated as an epilogue.

Conversely, when it comes to the Second World War, there's there's so much interest. the the average person knows

interest. the the average person knows quite a lot about the cause of the war and the spec specific events and battles within the war, but there's not as much interest about the the causes. Everyone

assumes it was just this madman, this evil individual Hitler. And so he's trying to address that state of affairs by interrogating the causes of the Second World War.

>> Um, now what do you understand his his thesis to be?

Look, um I I I I found it a terrifically impressive and important book partly because it did well because it did did just take on that orthodoxy

>> that somehow the Second World War, the origin of the Second World War didn't need to be explained. There was a there was a there was a one-word explanation, Hitler.

>> Uh and you know, it's all all just flows from that. Uh I I what I take to be the

from that. Uh I I what I take to be the the his primary alternative hypothesis

is that um the the problem of Germany, the problem of how you fit Germany into the European order which had caused war

in the grand scheme of things in 194 was unresolved in 1918 because Germany was still there battered and humiliated.

its its position in Europe was even more uncertain and that responsibility for finding a way and and and and would have been there whether Hitler had

emerged or not. you know whatever happened the problem of Germany and how you fit Germany particularly post 1918 Germany into a European order had not

gone away and had to be solved and it was a collective responsibility of European leaders and you might say European populations behind European leaders to find a solution to that

problem and uh and that they failed to do so. Um and he says

do so. Um and he says uh I think more or less in these words that the most powerful countries in Europe in 1918 and in the decades after

1918 were Britain and France and therefore the primary responsibility for finding a place for Germany in Europe lay with them and they failed to fulfill

that. Now, he's not saying

that. Now, he's not saying that Hitler wasn't a very bad person, but he is saying that war

was not Hitler's fault because, without using the inevitable word, the the unresolved question of Europe, of Germany's place in Europe had to be

addressed somehow and that it was everybody's responsibility to address it. Germany's of course, but also

it. Germany's of course, but also Britain's and France's. They failed to do that and therefore they the Britain and France deserve blame for the

outbreak of the war as much as Germany.

Now this is a fantastically provocative thing to write.

>> Uh it it it created a firestorm um understandably Taylor was expelled from the British Academy for example.

Yes. I mean it was a real you know it was a real deal. He was really but I think there's a very valuable and I don't of you know it's AJP Taylor so

get some pretty wild stuff in there but but I think underpinning the wild stuff is a very important thought and that is

that it's everybody's business to manage the international order and that uh you know when we ask ourselves you know viewed from 1918 thinking where where

should we go from here and not just at Versailles though obviously the the Versailles outcome contributed to the whole problem but the the task of building a stable and effective European

order that could accommodate Germany's power and one might also say accommodate Russia's power it's a very important part of the story as well um failed and

uh and I think that's you know that it's a it's a very important antidote to the idea that um

that uh you can explain what goes wrong by saying there are bad people out there and the bad people have just got to be stopped which is essentially the kind of

rhetoric about sort of orthodoxy about what happened uh in in 1939 and there's a terrifically provocative phrase line

sentence in the end of chapter one I think in which he says something like so so mine is a story without heroes and even perhaps without villains.

>> And I, you know, I think that's such a valuable, you don't have to agree with the whole proposition because obviously, and I don't he doesn't deny this, obviously

Hitler was a uniquely bad person and the Nazi regime was a uniquely bad regime.

And that's it's pretty important to remember that in light of some of the other issues that are kicking around at the moment. But but the fact is that

the moment. But but the fact is that Hitler would not have been able to do the terrible the worst things that Hitler did.

>> I mean the Holocaust wouldn't have happened if the Second World War hadn't happened, >> right?

and France and Britain failed to stop and you might say Russia failed to stop this the Second World War and and so you

you know you was the war was not inevitable but very creative statecraft to reframe the European order to accommodate

Germany was necessary and made war very bloody likely.

>> Right. if that wasn't achieved and that's what France and and Britain failed to achieve. Now the bulk of the book unpacks that by rebutting the argument that Hitler had a

grand plan from the beginning. He says

that Hitler is a guy who made stuff up as he went along.

>> Sort of an opportunist >> an opportunist. And I think there's a lot of strength in that analysis. I'm

not sure that I regard myself as a sufficient expert on every detail of that history to definitively adjudicate the correctness of his analysis at every

point, but but it's a but it's a pretty compelling story and and I think overall even if you disagree with him on, you know, particular issues, you know, the

reoccupation of the of the Rhineland and, you know, the the archelus and so on, I think the overall story that that Hitler was making it up as as he as he

went along and therefore if the allies had found a different way of responding more effective way of responding earlier

it could have been stopped and that the traditional vision that you just had to stand up to Hitler that you know of you know the the criticism of appeasement they just have to you know

go like that uh it's not doesn't get you nearly far enough it's a much more complicated question than just trying to push Germany back into a box.

>> Yeah. So should I read Taylor as saying, you know, if we ask this question, what was Hitler's role in the war?

If you subtract out the sincere and virolent anti-semitism, if you substituted most other German leaders of the time for Hitler,

they probably would have done the same things. So, we might have ended up with

things. So, we might have ended up with the Holocaust, but we would have ended up with with World War II.

Um, well, I I think that's I think that's right. I

mean, I don't think one can dismiss the anti-semitism of the Third Reich just as Hitler personally, if you know what I mean. There was obviously something much deeper going on in German

society there. Yeah. I think that the

society there. Yeah. I think that the point one point he makes on that is is is the difference between sort of Hitler and the the average German in terms of their sort of prejudices was Hitler's literalism.

>> Yes.

>> Like he took the the prejudice of the the common German.

>> Yes.

>> And then enacted it.

>> Yeah. No, look, I think that's I think that's right. Um, and I don't, you know,

that's right. Um, and I don't, you know, nothing in this argument should for a moment suggest that what Hitler and the attitudes of his regime of the Third

Reich were not incredibly evil.

The difference is that he was put in a position where he could operationalize that evil in unimaginable unimaginably

evil ways because the European order broke down and um and

whether or not it there's no sense in which uh a war like the Second World War was inevitable.

Because the whole underlying premise of Taylor's argument is that Germany's position in Europe could have been accommodated.

Actually, in the end, it was accommodated after 1945 in the context of the cold war. Um, and the end of the cold war. Um and there's no particular

cold war. Um and there's no particular reason he would argue with good and he doesn't say how I might say which is a shortcoming of the book but his basic

proposition is that it was a responsibility of the other European well all of the European powers together including Germany but above all France and and Britain because they were the

strongest powers to find a way to accommodate Germany's power a and by doing that to avoid a conflict and therefore avoid the situation in

which Hitler was able to do the terrible things he did. Now, that doesn't in any way lessen Hitler's responsibility for what he did.

>> Sure.

>> But it does suggest that other people carry responsibility as well.

>> And I think that's always an important lesson. It's very tempting to try and

lesson. It's very tempting to try and say that >> it's all his fault or it was all her fault.

>> Um, no, everybody's to blame when things go pear-shaped. And uh and and that's

go pear-shaped. And uh and and that's important because it if you too simple

simple-mindedly attribute all the blame to the Germans in 1939 then you let yourself off the hook.

>> Yeah.

>> And you don't want to let people off the hook. You want to focus people and this

hook. You want to focus people and this is not irrelevant to today. You know we all have responsibility >> Yeah. for thinking about how to manage

>> Yeah. for thinking about how to manage the international order, the evolution of the international order to accommodate the new distribution of wealth and power that we confront today.

>> Yeah.

>> In a way that avoids a conflict.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Let me let me bounce off you two specific things I learned from this and then I've got two additional specific questions for you relating to the Second World War.

Taylor did help me gain a more specific understanding of just exactly how the Treaty of Versailles set the stage for World War II. And if I recall correctly, one of the points he makes was just the

the decision to um to require disarmament on Germany's part and to seek reparations from Germany

required a unified Germany and a German state >> to do that leg work for you. Uh and so in doing that the the allied powers

inadvertently left this kind of latent great power in Europe with the sort of central question of how do we accommodate Germany and the

balance of power still unsolved because there was this problem of of enforcement.

>> Yeah.

All Germany had to do, you know, in a decade or so was just to sloth sllo off the the demands on it was just to say, "No, I'm we're going to start rearming.

No, we're not going to pay reparations," which obviously is ultimately what it did. And then you're kind of just back

did. And then you're kind of just back to back to the same problem.

>> So that was >> Yeah, >> that was one thing that I thought was interesting. The the other thing was

interesting. The the other thing was just his criticism of appeasement, I think, was was was compelling. So we have we

have we have a few events you know there's the the remilitarization and reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 there's Munich in 1938 where Germany

enexes the Saditan land the sort of German speaking parts of Czechoslovakia and the criticism of Britain and France here is that when Germany finally when

Danzig finally happens that is the cassis bell eye >> yes >> and they've They've already let the Germans get away with so much. Compared

to those earlier things like the enexing of the Sadin land, Danzig >> appears minor in comparison.

>> And so it's not so much that the Germans miscalculated. It's just that the the

miscalculated. It's just that the the Allied powers weren't terribly consistent with their policy. Is that

>> is that correct? Is that a correct reading of Taylor?

>> I think that's a I think that is a correct reading. I mean, let me make a

correct reading. I mean, let me make a couple of points. on the first um on the first point. Look, I think that is a

first point. Look, I think that is a fair interpretation of Taylor. I don't

think in the end it's the strongest part of his argument.

>> The fact is that whatever happened, there was going to be a German state, >> right? And one of the differences

>> right? And one of the differences between 1918 and 1945 is is that in what what what the allies did in 1945

was to occupy Berlin and destroy the system of government. I

mean literally and rebuild a new one.

Now they rebuilt the new one with the assistance of some Germans. But you know the the fed the FRG the Federal Republic of Germany on the western side um and

the the Democratic German Republic on the on the on the Soviet side were artifacts of the conquering powers. So

they rebuilt the German state according to their to their wishes. What happened

in 1918 was that that the the the Wilhine Germany collapsed and the allies left it to the Germans to try and rebuild their own state and you know

long and short of it is they failed. Um

they left a very weak structure which Hitler could take over and and pervert the way he did. Um, now I I think the problem is not that by demanding things

like disarmament and reparation from Germany, the allies, as so to speak, contributed to the reestablishment of a of a German state that was going to be a German state. They just did nothing to

German state. They just did nothing to design it. All they did was put pressure

design it. All they did was put pressure on it and very difficult pressures, you know, hard pressures that were hard to resist. Um whereas you could say that

resist. Um whereas you could say that you know the success of the post World War II settlements actually both in Germany and Japan is that the new political dispensations that were

created by the allies designed to suit their interests. Now you know the good

their interests. Now you know the good news is and there's a whole story here that that worked in the interests of Germany and Japan as well. Um in the end you could accommodate these powers >> right

>> into a new order. Um, but by the time you got to the position in both places in 1945, it means you had to redesign their political systems from the ground up.

>> So, Versailles wasn't harsh enough.

>> Well, put it this way, it was a halfway house. But it was very bloody harsh.

house. But it was very bloody harsh.

>> Yeah.

>> But it but it left, if you might say, left the poor old Germans struggling with how to rebuild themselves after this crushing defeat.

>> And the German political system couldn't couldn't do it.

Now, as to appeasement, I'm more sympathe Well, there's two points. I think the the key thing that

points. I think the the key thing that Taylor is making is that the mistakes that France and Britain made was not to not resist the reoccupation of the

Rhineland or not to resist the ancelus with Austria or not to resist um uh the occupation of the Sedatan land and the

in the Munich crisis. Um uh

what they the mistake they made was you know by the time they got to that they already on a hiding to nothing. The

mistake they made was not in the 20s and early 30s to do much more effectively what they tried to do with things like Lano to produce a stable effective

functioning post World War I post 1918 order in which Germany had a place and there were some subsidiary problems. the problem with dealing with Japan and uh

in you know Japan's invasion of Manuria and subsequent bits of that history and of course Italy's adventure in Abbiscinia. So there were you know there

Abbiscinia. So there were you know there were contributing factors but the you know right at the heart of it was a failure to to start work in 1918 to rebuild an order which would give

Germany an operative place. By the time you get to, you know, 1936, 1938, we're already in a in a world of hurt.

Now, I I'm I'm much more sympathetic. I

think Chamberlain was a is a very unattractive historical character. But I

think I'm much more sympathetic to the choices he made particularly in 1938 than other people are because I think any anyone who had lived through the

first world war and I don't just mean Chamberlain I mean the whole society.

The fact that they really wanted to work very very hard to avoid another war with Germany is something I find it very hard to condemn.

The mistake they made, it seems to me, and this gets to the point about Danzig, the mistake they made was not to not go to war over Czechoslovakia. In the end,

I don't think I I don't think it was worth going to war over Czechoslovakia.

Very harsh thing to say, but I'd also say I don't think it's worth going to war with China over Taiwan. Harsh thing to say, but in order

Taiwan. Harsh thing to say, but in order to in order to reflect on that judgment, you have to see what's on the other side of the equation.

What was on the other side of the equation was the Second World War. And

we know what that was like. What's on

the other side of the equation with Taiwan is a nuclear war. We don't know what that's like, but we ought to put some effort into imagining it. But the

mistake that they made was that they didn't succeed in really convincing them Hitler that they go to war over Poland.

>> Right? You see, you know, after Hitler moved on in early 1939 to o because, you know, he took the Sedatan land in

September 1938 and then in early 39 he took the rest of Czechoslovakia and that was the point at which Chamberlain swapped and gave the security guarantee

to Poland and I might say whole lot of other countries in Eastern and Southern Europe. The problem is he he gave these

Europe. The problem is he he gave these guarantees, but he failed to convince um Hitler that he was serious about them because he didn't do anything to implement them.

>> Nothing. Very dangerous to say, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to defend Poland and then do nothing about it. You

just have to look at the map to see that, you know, you've got to do something to make that to to make that real. And um and Hitler

was, you know, the evidence is reasonably clear. Um Hitler did not

reasonably clear. Um Hitler did not expect the British to go to war over Poland because although Chamberlain had stood up in the House of Commons and said that they given a security undertaking, they didn't do anything to implement it. And they were right cuz

implement it. And they were right cuz actually the British did nothing to defend Poland.

>> So, you know, you could you could argue that I would argue that the mistake that they made in in the leadup to the Second World War, viewing it more narrowly, not

in the very broad way that that um that Taylor views it. It wasn't the mistake they made was not that they didn't go to war over Czechoslovakia.

It's they didn't absolutely unambiguously draw the line over Poland given that Poland was where they decided to >> to stop appeasing. And that's, you know, that there's a again there's a there's a

message for us in that, you know, we keep on saying you must not do this, you know, you must not invade Ukraine and then we don't effectively resist it.

>> Right?

>> That's a that's a big mistake. you I I'm I'm a big believer in appeasement. That

is I'm a big believer in making concessions to avoid war. But in order to avoid war through making concessions, you have to make it absolutely crystal clear where the concessions stop.

>> Right?

>> And the idea that you can never appease because whatever what whenever you give something, the other guy always asks for more.

That's only true if you fail very satisfactorily, very compellingly to draw the line and say this is where we stop appeasing. Now the Cold War is the

stop appeasing. Now the Cold War is the absolute object lesson in this. What

happened in the Cold War, you might say at Yaltta, >> the the the Russians were appeased by essentially FDR with poor old Churchill tagging along behind saying yes, you can

do what you like in Poland and of course they can have their half of Germany. But

then they drew a line down the middle of Europe and said we will go to war over this uh that it was it was effective deterrence

>> based on effective appeasement. You know

if they if they tried to deny if the if the allies at Yaltta in 1945 >> had tried to to to deny Russia the the

the the hegmany over Poland that it sought and for the rest of Eastern Europe. Poland's the one that everyone

Europe. Poland's the one that everyone focuses on. Then they would have faced a

focuses on. Then they would have faced a war with the Red Army in Europe in 1945.

And the Red Army was very, very good and very, very big. That would have been an unimaginable disaster. Tough to say to a

unimaginable disaster. Tough to say to a Polish audience, and I've done it, but it was the right decision to make. But

then they drew a line down the middle of Europe and said, "No further." And and and made that line absolutely compelling. How

compelling. How by sending hundreds of thousands of American troops to garrison it and by backing them up with an unimaginable nuclear arsenal. Now that's deterrence.

nuclear arsenal. Now that's deterrence.

What was the correct policy at Versailles? So if you were in charge,

Versailles? So if you were in charge, what would you have done? What what are what are Hugh White's 14 points?

Well, good way to ask the question because it's not the 14 points. Um, you

know, the the the the Wilsonian approach uh and we'll come to this uh was to imagine a world governed by laws and upheld by American power, backed by

American power. It was a surprisingly

American power. It was a surprisingly modern vision if I can put it that way.

A and that that wasn't going to work.

you you you you you couldn't you couldn't so to speak legislate the problem of Germany away. You had to actually manage Germany as a powerful

sovereign entity in the heart of Europe.

Um, and uh, well, it's a really good question and I don't know the answer, but it would have

would have entailed accepting Germany as a co-equal of France and Britain and Germany and and Russia rather uh, as

co-equal great powers in the European strategic order. And that was of course

strategic order. And that was of course an extraordinarily hard thing to do at the end of a very long and bitter war.

And also at a time when Russia had disappeared from the European state system temporarily because of the revolution and because of the you know the civil war that was enraging in

Russia. Russia wasn't part of the

Russia. Russia wasn't part of the picture. Russia wasn't at Versailles of

picture. Russia wasn't at Versailles of course. And so one of the things that

course. And so one of the things that stopped the European great powers in 1918 building a European order that would have accommodated German power uh

peacefully was that one of the key players wasn't there. Um and even if it had been what

there. Um and even if it had been what kind of role it would have played is anybody's guess. Um because and of

anybody's guess. Um because and of course the other problem was that you had at the same time because the collapse of the AustroHungarian Empire and the application of Wilsonian

principles you'd suddenly develop this constellation of small weak states in the place of what had been the Austrohungarian Empire. Now, the

Austrohungarian Empire. Now, the Austrahagarian Empire, as we saw in August 1914, was a pretty shoddy operation, but the the fact that you ended up with all of these weak states

like Czechoslovakia, like Poland turned out to be, and so on, >> um uh made the management of the European order much harder, >> made the creation of a new European

order, which accommodated German power, but also contained it, that much more difficult. And you know, in a sense,

difficult. And you know, in a sense, that's the that's the that's the tragedy of the 20s and 30s. I I I don't have a model as to what exactly that would have

looked like, but but but it's going it's going to look a bit like what happened in 1815 because you know the great story of 19th

century Europe is that after whatever it was 23 years of incredibly bitter complex warfare between everybody in Europe and France during the long

revolutionary Napoleonic Wars, the victors got together at Vienna in 1815 and after they defeated Napoleon a second time invite invited France to

join them >> and restored France to its something like its old borders and acknowledge France as a great power in Europe. Now,

this took astonishing, you know, we we we we might tend to underestimate just how visceral the Napoleonic Wars and traumatic the Napoleonic Wars were for for for their

time. They were

time. They were >> I think almost literally true. They were

an order of magnitude more devastating than any war that had ever taken place.

>> And the first the first total wars in history right?

>> Well, the first modern total wars. Well,

total put it first way more total because more industrialized. I mean, not not total comparable with with the first world war.

>> I think the the the disconnect between the Napoleonic wars and the first world war is still very great because of the astonishing transformations that happened in the intervening hundred years. I mean, part railways apart from

years. I mean, part railways apart from anything else. I mean, there's a limit.

anything else. I mean, there's a limit.

There was a limit to how many men you could draw out of the population and put under arms. how many musketss and bayets and pairs of boots you could produce to to equip them with

>> uh and how you could move them and supply them >> um simply because you didn't have railways and you didn't have modern logistic systems and so on. By the time you got to the first world war actually

via the via thei the American civil war the American civil war is the fascinating midpoint in that transition.

Um, if id thought longer and harder, I would have put Bruce Kton's book on the first on the American Civil War under onto my list. It's a fascinating book which had a huge influence. I read it

very young, >> but it's uh but that's but but still so I wouldn't I wouldn't put it I wouldn't put the Napoleon wars in the same category as the First World War, but it

still was for an entire generation extraordinarily dramatic and extraordinarily demanding. Um,

extraordinarily demanding. Um, and so the fact that at the end of it they invited France in and reestablished

France as a as a as a great power, you know, me meant that, you know, you you had the foundation for a European order which and this is, you know, the

concept of Europe, the the Congress of Vienna model which lasted for 100 years and that was the hundred years >> in which Europe >> ruled the world. Yeah. It was the best

100 years in Europe's history. You could

almost certainly argue >> a lot better than the 20th century anyway, where they found no place for Germany. So I I guess my my short answer

Germany. So I I guess my my short answer is the that what they should have done in 1918 was to go to Vienna instead of Versailles.

>> So So I'm clear. Are you implying the problem with Versail was that it it sort of wounded German pride or what was the mechani what's the mechanism there?

Well, I I I think when one says wounded German pride, it makes it sound a bit trivial.

>> Sure.

>> But but the fact is that status in the international system, >> yeah, >> turns out to be incredibly important.

>> Am I understanding you correctly? And

that that being the the difference between Versail and Vienna is >> Yes.

>> how the >> Yes. That

>> Yes. That >> the status accorded to the loser.

>> Uh yes. uh it the in in in 1815 the the loser was accepted >> Yeah.

>> and reass reestablished as a great power in the European system.

>> Yeah.

>> Um and uh and in 1918 Germany wasn't.

>> Yeah.

>> And that sounds a bit glib when you put it like that because it's not just a matter of giving it a label.

>> Yeah.

>> You had to actually think of a whole European system that would accommodate it. that's what they invented in 19 in

it. that's what they invented in 19 in 1815.

>> Um, and that's what they failed to in in 1918. And it was partly because, you

in 1918. And it was partly because, you know, inspired by the 14 points or rather failing to dodge the 14 points.

Um, they ended up with a structure which was too legalistic.

>> Yeah.

>> And it insufficiently backed by force.

>> Yeah. And it's the point about building it, you know, the the point about the model of 1815 is not just that everyone was nice enough to say to the French, okay, you can join

us at the conference table as a great power. What underpinned that was an

power. What underpinned that was an absolutely ironclad understanding that if any power, including France, sought to dominate Europe, all of the others

would unite against it. Yeah,

>> it had a, you know, the Congress of Vienna was not just nice diplomats in powdered wigs.

>> Yeah.

>> Dancing wals with one another.

>> It it there it was a a very strong strategic underpinning to it. That is we will treat you as a great power. We'll

treat everyone the five around the table as great powers.

>> Yeah.

>> And we will respect your status as a great power and we'll respect your vital interests.

>> Yeah. But if you try and dominate, then the rest of us will gang up and defeat you.

>> Yeah.

>> And it it was the that was a deterrent.

The the mistake in at Versailles was neither to accord Germany that status nor to resolve on the deterrent. And

that's one of the points that Taylor makes that the various attempts to to impose a a robust deterrent on Germany

uh failed and failed and was and were failing long before long long before the uh the reoccupation of the rhinland. You

can build a balance of power. I mean

there was plenty of power in Europe >> to frame and balance Germany's power without Russia and and you know the fact that Russia was first of all out of the picture and then when it came back into

the picture it came back into the picture in a very complex way.

>> So Taylor Yeah. So Russia kind of withdraws after the first world war.

Taylor says like you can think of the sort of gravity of power in Europe is shifting from Berlin to the to the Rhineland after World War I. Yes. No.

Well, that that's right. And then when Russia comes back in, as it does in the 30s, >> um you know, there's a um and you know,

that the the French and the British >> think very hard about bringing Russia back back into the picture to counterbalance Germany as as part of the process of establishing a balance of

power against Germany.

>> But they keep on being very ambivalent about it because they're so ambivalent about >> bulcheism.

And I mean there's a you know the the the the failure of Britain's and France various attempts to call Russia in to help contain Germany is a big part of

the tragedy of the late 30s and in some ways a bigger part of the tragedy of the late 30s than the betrayal inverted commas of Czechoslovakia.

Um and that's um uh you know that so so Russia Russia eventually became part of the picture but it wasn't and this is one of Taylor's criticisms of them that they

weren't prepared to take the Russian to really take the Russian options seriously. Mind you, it was made harder

seriously. Mind you, it was made harder by the fact that the Poles didn't want were very resistant to Russia um being a guarantor of their security as well for reasons one can well understand. But the

Poles had a choice between >> being monstered by Russia or being monstered by Germany. That's their

>> that's their position in history.

>> The lot of Poland.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> Yeah. Um, I'm gonna save my other question for the end because I think it makes more sense after we've discussed some of the other books. But anything

else on Taylor before we move on?

>> I think I think that's >> okay. I mean, there's there's much more.

>> okay. I mean, there's there's much more.

>> It's a it's a huge it's a huge book and >> very challenging and unsettling. It's an

unsettling book, >> right?

>> You know, and I being Yeah, >> it's a disturbing book.

>> It's a disturbing book. It's It's a good It's not a book, unlike The Struggle for Mastery.

>> Yeah.

>> It's not a book that you just pick up and read for fun.

>> No, it's it's a bit, you know, it's edgy. I find I find it edgy, but but

edgy. I find I find it edgy, but but that's one of the reasons why I like it so much.

>> It really, you know, really challenges to think about >> about things, but it but and but also, you know, it just does push you back to the big question about the choices that countries face about how to manage

changes in the international system.

>> Yeah. and and brings the focus back on those choices. And a lot of history aims

those choices. And a lot of history aims at people sort of trying to distract distract attention from that focus.

Yeah.

>> By saying that it was inevitable, nothing it could have done.

>> Yeah.

>> Um >> and uh and and you know, the so to speak, the orthodox account of what happened in the leadup to the Second World War is a version of that. Yeah.

>> That you know, once Hitler was came to power in 1933, the war was inevitable.

Nothing he could have done to stop it. M

>> and and and that's that's that's a that's a laziness and a complacency that you want to fight against.

>> Okay. Next book

>> 20 years crisis.

>> The 20 years crisis 1919 to 1939. So the

author is eh Carr. He was an English historian and diplomat. He joined the British Foreign Office in 1916.

participated in the Paris Peace Conference uh and then resigned from the foreign office in 1936 to begin a career as an academic.

>> A little bit sort of sort of a parallel to your to your career in that sense, right?

>> I don't think I'll accept that.

>> Um so this book was first published in 1939.

>> Yes.

>> Now, um >> before September.

>> Before September. Yes. So he's writing the preface um around the time Germany's invading Poland. um with Britain and

invading Poland. um with Britain and France declaring war a couple of days later. So this is the this is the

later. So this is the this is the foundational realist text in the international relations sense and he obviously critiques the utopianism of

the the liberal >> um idealists exemplified by Woodro Wilson.

>> Um ju just a random question um before we go into the substance. So I first discovered car uh in high school. We

read what is history?

>> History.

>> Yes.

>> Um he's also famous for so probably his his biggest scholarly work was the history of Russia. Um

>> history of Soviet Union.

>> Sorry. History of the the history of the Soviet Union.

>> Uh he he thought that that was his magnumopus, but this is probably the most influential book. Um, so it's funny how authors themselves aren't always

good at predicting which of their books are going to be the most successful.

>> I think the thing about car is that he really did, you know, the history of the Soviet Union was a ma, you know, five six volumes. It's a major and it was it

six volumes. It's a major and it was it was the major attempt in English to to sort out exactly what what had happened.

And I can see why he thought it was his major his magnumopus. Um because of course at the time he wrote it the Soviet Union was a very big deal.

>> Yeah.

>> Now it is a kind of historical curiosity.

>> Yeah.

>> And you know I mean when I was uh you know when I was in my late 20s or early 30s I I read the whole thing >> really and it seemed Yeah. Yeah. Well

you know people did it seemed it seemed important >> back in the days when people read books.

back in the days when people read books and back in the days when people thought that what the Soviet Union was all about and where it was heading and therefore where it had come from seemed really important. M

important. M >> um now I mean I still have got my in fact a couple of volumes probably in here somewhere but but you know I

forgotten most of it um and so I think it's uh whereas the questions he was addressing in this the questions about same as in Taylor's origins of the

second world war they're really books about the same subject what went wrong in what he calls the 20 years crisis from 1919 to 1939 9 that we find ourselves, we Britain find found

themselves back in the terrible terribly perilous position they were in in 1939 even before the war broke out. And um

and that that that that I mean it had if you like two waves of influence. It it

felt very relevant in the cold war and it feels again I think very relevant today because it's all about how you

manage the international system to accommodate powers and avoid >> the problem of war and he does that in a

very different way from from Taylor >> by looking at less at the diplomatic machinations which of course is what Taylor writes about but at the sort of

intellectual conceptual >> and ethical >> foundations >> and as you say he starts off with um you know no not just starts off really

the whole book is a critique of the Wilsonian model of an international system governed by laws and ideals essentially as I think he says somewhere

in the book you know the whole story of what happened between in the decades after 1980s an attempt to apply American ideals of sociology to

>> to the international system.

>> So transferring individual morality, the kind of morality or ethics that would operate at the level of a society.

>> Yes.

>> Onto the international system.

>> Yes. Though not just ethics, we might want to come back to that.

>> Yeah. but more the the idea of almost the sort of political culture that is that you have a a system of rules that people sign up to which they more or

less most of the time voluntarily submit to because it's in everybody's self mutual self-interest and where they stray off the beaten path then somebody slaps them back into line >> right

>> you know it's a pretty conventional model of how domestic societies work and it was a very natural thing particularly if you're an American with a very comfort feeling about how your domestic

society works back then that you'd apply that model to the international system and car you know the bulk of the book

really is a critique of that but in the process which I think is accurate in the process as you say he articulates an alternative which people call realism

the realism he advocated articulated got picked up after the war by particularly by a series of American scholars

and I think somewhat perverted um the the realism as it emerges with people like Morgan Thou who was one of the great sort of 1950s post-war

theorists of international relations and establishing a tradition which is carried on these days by people like John Mshimemer is is called realism and

people often call me a realist I think it's actually a misunderstanding of what car was about and a misunderstanding of the way the world

works. I not I don't think of myself as

works. I not I don't think of myself as a realist in that way at all. I think

they have quite a different view of these things. I do have a version of

these things. I do have a version of realism but it's not it's not it's not theirs. It's much closer to cars.

theirs. It's much closer to cars.

>> So can you well >> tell me your understanding of cars realism?

>> Right. Right at the heart of KH's argument is the idea that you have to be not surprising for someone who's writing

in those decades.

You have to be extremely conscious of the costs of what you're trying to achieve. If you don't want to abandon

achieve. If you don't want to abandon hopes for a more orderly and disciplined international system, a more peaceful international system, but you have to be extremely conscious of the real costs of

doing that, including the risk of of war. One of the points he makes is that

war. One of the points he makes is that people in the post-war era, post first world war era underestimated the significance of armed force. In

particular, as you contemplate the management of change in the international system, you have to put a very strong priority, not an

overwhelming priority, but a very strong priority on the imperative to manage that change peacefully. And so what for me is a really key passage in the book,

well two really key passages, one is the one in which he critiques the idea that everybody really wants peace.

And of course at one level he's right.

Everyone wants peace.

>> But in the words of Jackie Fischer, the British admiral who built the Royal Navy before the First World War who thought about this stuff. Jackie Fischer said something like, "Oh yes, peace.

Everybody wants peace, but they want the peace that suits them."

>> Exactly. And KH has a line in which she says the universal de something like the universal declaration everyone makes that they want peace conceals the fact that some people want peace in order to preserve the international system and

others want peace in order to want to change it peacefully. In other words, they want to improve their position.

>> Yeah.

>> Without having to fight for it.

>> And so what you know what he what he's stressing is that the idea that it's going to be easy for us all to agree on an international order which we're all going to be happy with. It's just it's

just not realistic.

There's the first point about realism.

The second is that when confronted with a a a force, a country that wants to change the international order, there's a kind of presumption that the and for

someone writing just before 1939, this is a very big thing to be saying. So

there's a presumption that somebody who wants to change the international order must by definition be in the wrong and that it's always right to fight to preserve the international order and always wrong to fight to change it. But

actually change is natural and that some in some circumstances it might be as wrong or wronger to fight to preserve an old order that is to to to to produce a

new one. Now it's probably obvious why I

new one. Now it's probably obvious why I think that's an important set of judgments because that's where we are right now. You know, as we ask

right now. You know, as we ask ourselves, should we go to war with China over Taiwan? Not a hypothetical question.

Clearly, we're facing a China wants to change the international order. The

question is are we so sure that the international order that we like that we're used to that we support which tellingly we call the rules-based

order the image of the rules-based order that we have that we say I think a historically emerged after 1945 is an image really it's very Wilsonian

image the image of a world basically run by American ideas not that I have anything against American ideas I'd love it if this world worked I just don't think it's realistic. But the the idea

that, you know, we we live in a rules-based order and that China is challenging a rules-based order and therefore it's we're justified in doing whatever it takes, including, if necessary, going to war with China in

order to preserve it, which is the the the orthodox view of the mainstream of American foreign policy, not the Trump administration on much, at least. I

don't think the Trump administration.

It's also, I think, the the the essential underpinning of Australia's position on these issues. Certainly the

underpinning implied by Orcus, for example. Well, that, you know, we got to

example. Well, that, you know, we got to ask ourselves, is that is that right? Is

it are we so justified in in thinking that preserving the existing international order is so important that it's worth going to war um to preserve it. And of course, that's that

it. And of course, that's that judgment's got to be heavily based on a judgment about what kind of war we're talking about. Well, in this case, we're

talking about. Well, in this case, we're talking about a nuclear war almost certainly. So, I would say

certainly. So, I would say um and I think Carr would have said too if he was alive and with us today that we're much better off going back to Taylor

trying to find a way to adjust the international system to accommodate China's power rather than putting ourselves in a position where we find ourselves with no option but to fight to

fight to contain it. Now the point about that second sense in which that's realistic, my sense of realism is that that doesn't deny the attractiveness of

preserving the features of the current international order that we like.

But it weighs them against them the costs of doing so, the real cost of doing so. And if the real cost of doing

doing so. And if the real cost of doing so of fighting a nuclear war, then that cost is too high. And you got to make a choice. It's a difficult choice. the

choice. It's a difficult choice. the

choice between an order which in some ways is going to be less congenial to us just as poor old Sir Edward Gra and his colleagues faced choice between a Europe

in which Germany's strength and power would be disagreeable um on the one hand or the cost and risks of a war that would make the second the first world war look like a picnic

because I do think there is absolutely no reason to expect a US China war over Taiwan not to become a nuclear war unless America starts the war and then

surrenders quickly which is no not the worst of all possible world wars. The

nuclear war was the worst outcome but but whatever happened I mean you end up with a war that looks a bit like the first world war that is countries go into it hoping to preserve their

position as great powers and end up end up destroying it.

>> You you mentioned how we call the current order the the rules-based order.

>> Yes. There's a section in the 20 years crisis called national interest in the universal good where he talks about how statesmen like to dress up national interest in this this rhetoric of um

their interests as being good for humanity but he says that you know international moralities really just perpetuate the supremacy of the the dominant group.

>> Yes.

So there there's this notion of the national interest in car but it's not at at this point and obviously international relations is really at its beginnings as a a sort of science.

>> There's not there's not a clear >> clearly defined concept of what the national interest is.

>> Um what what do you think uh nation states are maximizing?

Um well I think the most important conclusion to draw is that there then there there's no simple answer to that.

Uh nation states face very complex choices. Um but in the end I think

choices. Um but in the end I think one of the things that makes international relations an interesting difficult and occasionally tragic study

is that nations behave very much like people.

Thusidities all the way back said that um wars are driven by three things

uh fear, greed, greed and honor and the greatest of those is honor. Well, just

to translate that into modern parliaments, peop nations like people want three things fundamentally.

They want to be safe. They want to be rich or at least comfortable. and they

want to feel good about themselves.

And a lot of the uh tragedy of human life comes up because the last one overrules the first two.

Uh people people make huge sacrifices for status in different ways, how they see themselves and how they see their place in society. And nations are just the same.

And so when you look at a look at a country making choices, you can see all of those factors in in play. But most

often, most destructively, it's the concern for status that it really drives people. And people are surprised by

people. And people are surprised by this. There's a sort of a common, so to

this. There's a sort of a common, so to speak, you know, pop pop cynicism that says, "Oh, you know, it's it's all just driven by economics." really

no national relations would be a lot easier to manage if people were just driven by economics. Um economics is is often a factor but but people countries

make huge sacrifices economically in order to preserve what they see as being their status in the international system and you know really that's what 1914 was about and that was the unresolved

question uh about Germany's place in in the Europe in post 1918 Europe. So you

know you just do keep coming back to this um to this question and so I you know I think states are driven by those

things um and the question is can can leaders and behind them populations make um intelligent well-informed imaginative

judgments about how they balance one another. You know, yes, Britain wanted

another. You know, yes, Britain wanted to avoid being somewhat further subordinated, losing some of its international status by confronting a

disagreeably powerful Wilherine Germany in Europe and therefore went to the first world war. But in the process, it destroyed its economy.

>> Mhm.

>> And killed most of generation.

>> You know, in the end, was that price worth paying? Were they imaginative

worth paying? Were they imaginative enough about what the price might be?

And it's you know it's worth making the point that it's very important point that the choices here people often present a contrast between a realistic approach

to foreign policy or strategic policy which just looks at interests and an idealistic approach or a will only approach which looks at values. I I I

very strongly reject that in the realist analysis as I can see it there are values on both sides. On the one hand, you might say that the values that are embodied

in the rules-based order, and although I smile at the title, those values are real.

>> On the other hand, there's the values of avoiding a war.

>> And that's that's for real. You know,

peace is a value, too. And so people who, as I often do, look at me as scant when I say we should now declare that we would not go to war with China over

Taiwan. They say, "You're sacrificing

Taiwan. They say, "You're sacrificing our values." To which I say, "Well, yes,

our values." To which I say, "Well, yes, but actually what I'm doing is weighing them against the values in avoiding a nuclear war. And if you don't think

nuclear war. And if you don't think that's serious, you'll forgotten what nuclear war is like because >> or you can't imagine >> you can't imagine what a nuclear war is like."

like." >> But, you know, I'm going to I'm going to pull a generational point here. you know does make a difference

here. you know does make a difference having grown up during a cold war even in Australia.

you know that it was the the prospect of a global nuclear holocaust as it was called is real was real and it it could have happened and I think people you know

this goes back to the point about imagination but people simply cannot imagine a nuclear war and what they can't and part

of that is not imagining the reality that the machinery is all there right now as we speak you know the missiles are in their sight silos. The crews sit

at their consoles.

The launch codes are in the safe on the wall behind them.

The submarines are at sea.

You know this is this is you know we you know I'm going to sound like a from someone from the campaign for nuclear disarmament which I'm not but you know we are the only thing that stops a

nuclear war breaking out is the decision-m from a very small number of political leaders around the world and the idea that we could be confident that that wouldn't happen in the event of a

US China war over Taiwan for example I think I think it's just insupportable don't you you know there is no ar there's no credible argument you can make for that. And I'm going to allow

myself to say shocked by how insucial a very large number of people, including people in Australia, are about the idea, yeah, sure, we might go to war with China over Taiwan.

Really, what on earth do they think that war will be like? And how do they weigh the values >> involved in avoiding that against the

values we'd seek to defend by undertaking it? Yeah.

undertaking it? Yeah.

>> And you know, that's that's what this stuff's all about.

>> Yeah. A lack of imagination is a great way to put it. And it's certainly a theme that has emerged for me from from these books is just at different points.

A lack of imagination on the part of statesmen, a lack of imagination on the part of Athenian and Spartan statesmen.

To think that this could >> could ever turn out to be the the 27-year conflict that that it turned out to be.

lack of imagination on the part of you know the Kaiser and the SAR and the Kings in 1914 to think that this would be anything other than the decisive battles that they were expecting.

>> Well and in that case lack of imagination about the military realities but also lack of imagination to recognize that their opposite numbers had exactly the same hopes that they did. You know they hoped that the other

did. You know they hoped that the other guys were going to back off and they didn't think that the other guys were hoping that they'd back off. Yeah.

>> See how the other guy sees things.

>> Absolutely.

>> So, so back to back to the the 20 years crisis, the book >> car infamously self-centered between the original edition in 1939 and an updated edition in 1946.

>> And >> I think most of the substantive edits were made to that chapter 13 on peaceful change. and he tried to remove some of

change. and he tried to remove some of the stuff that was favorable towards appeasement.

>> Um so uh for example in the original the 1939 edition he justified Munich as an example of peaceful change.

>> Yes.

Given everything we've discussed, was he did he kind of have a case exante >> and the the allies just sort of spoiled

his spoiled his um his >> you mean that he was right in 39 about appeasement for example about Munich?

>> Yeah. Well, um I think there is a case to be made as I mean I think but there are two parts to it. The the the first is that by the time you get to Munich,

by the time you get to 1938, you already have a Germany that is that has become extraordinarily difficult to accommodate. Perhaps not impossible, but

accommodate. Perhaps not impossible, but extraordinarily difficult because of the nature of the regime. And you know, you do have to keep coming back to the fact

that in some ways what happened in 1939 uh is a bad source of lessons about management of

the international system because most most regimes most of the time are not nearly as bad as the Nazis. I mean

people for example looking at Putin's Russia today or she's China uh or sometimes the Ayatollah's Iran say

you know this is a very very bad regime which simply must be you know resisted at all costs and they use the Munich metaphor but it but the metaphor breaks down for several reasons and and one of them is

that yeah the these these these countries have got their faults but they're not the Nazis.

So I I think in some ways I'm not sympathetic to car because I think you know the you know in the end by the time he got to Munich it was all too late because we

already dealing with the Nazis. On the

other hand to be fair to him in 1939 nobody knew how bad they were going to be.

No nobody knew about the Holocaust.

Nobody knew about what the German armies were going to do in in Russia. Nobody

even knew how they were going to behave as occupying powers in Western Europe.

So you know one can understand how in 1939 you might have thought that the other point though is that going back to something we touched on before you know

mu Munich could have worked if when Hitler in a sense violated Munich by going beyond the sedatan land to occupying Prague

if um if France and Britain had stood up then and said we will guarantee the security of Poland by

invading Germany from the west if Germany attacks Poland and had deployed massive forces onto the German French

border. French forces and and British

border. French forces and and British forces, in other words, have done an analog of what NATO did in 19 in in the

Cold War from, you know, 1948 onwards, then there's a fair chance that would have deterred Hitler.

You know, the that's the point. Even

even then, even in March 1939, World War II could have been stopped had the had could have been had the British and the French really marshaled the forces

required to impose real costs on Germany and convince the Germans up there to impose those real costs. And this, you know, the strong evidence that that that that

would have made a difference and the evidence is made up with the way way Hitler responded when the when the British actually did declare war in September 1939. There's a famous

September 1939. There's a famous anecdote from Hitler's interpreter who was with him a lot of the time and

he he to Schulz I think his name is he took the British ultimatum in to Hitler when it arrived and Hitler sat down and

read his translation of it and and he he said Hitler looked at it and of course he was saying this after the war and he was talking to the allies so but he looked at it and then he

turned his head and looked out of the window for a long moment and then looked back and said now what that you know that is that's a very

poignant moment. So you know the things

poignant moment. So you know the things that could have been done but it required imagination amongst other things. It required imagination to see

things. It required imagination to see that what was going to be required and it was not just to say something but to do stuff and to take the concrete steps

which make what you say really credible and uh and that's what you know that's that's why the cold war never went hot.

That's why that war didn't happen because actually both sides did it. both

sides, both the the the West and the Soviet block, compellingly convinced the other that they'll be willing to go to war rather than tolerate any change in

the status quo. And they did it not just by declarations, though the declarations matter, but by the deployment of massive forces uh on either side of the Iron Curtain.

You know, the old line about strong fences make good neighbors is creepy but true.

And and converse of that is if you're not prepared to take those steps, then don't try and draw the line.

>> You know, you've got to you you want to accommodate up to the point where you really are willing to draw the line. And

I mean, this is this is not irrelevant to Europe today. The Europeans today face a choice as to where they're going to stop Russia.

And they talk as if they wanted to stop him in Ukraine, but they don't do anything. At least they don't do much.

anything. At least they don't do much.

they don't do enough.

>> Um, at some point they are going to have to draw the line and say to Russia, "No, you're really not going to be allowed to cross this line." And the great question for Europe is where are they going to draw that line? And I don't think the

Europeans have decided yet.

>> Yeah.

And will Russia view that as credible?

>> Oh, well, they will if the Europeans make it strong enough. And in in in particular, what the Europeans have to do is to convince the Russians, not just they willing to fight a big conventional battle,

but that they're willing to deter any Russian use of nuclear weapons, but with nuclear retaliation.

I mean, that's the way these things work in the nuclear age. That and that's of course what both sides did in the Cold War. And that's a terrifically

War. And that's a terrifically formidable um B bar to clear. Uh it's a terribly hard thing to do, but but that's what they

did in the Cold War. Um and that's what they're going to have to do again because we're still living in the nuclear age. We've we know for the last

nuclear age. We've we know for the last 35 years we've had a sort of a holiday from nuclear weapons. Well, they're

back.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> And they're back in Asia as well as in Europe.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. The next book, The Continental Commitment. So published first published

Commitment. So published first published in 1972. The author is Michael Howard,

in 1972. The author is Michael Howard, eminent English military historian. Um

perhaps his most significant scholarly work was a book on the FrancoRussian War.

>> He was also awarded the Military Cross for an act of conspicuous bravery during World War II. Um and he set up the Department of War Studies at King's

College London. Um so this this is a

College London. Um so this this is a short book. Um I really enjoyed this

short book. Um I really enjoyed this book. I maybe I just have a soft spot

book. I maybe I just have a soft spot for pathy >> books, but um uh one of his most influential. Um, so the book's chapters

influential. Um, so the book's chapters are reprinted substantially from lectures he gave at Oxford in the spring of 1971.

As the subtitle implies, it offers a sketch of British defense policy as it unfolded in the first half of the 20th century. And in the preface or the

century. And in the preface or the introduction, he says that he will be um advocating a quote unquote controversial thesis. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but

thesis. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of that controversial thesis was that far from strengthening Britain's hand against Germany, the

empire actually >> dissipated its its strength. Um, am I reading him correctly?

>> Yes, I think I think you're right. And I

mean, it's embodied in the title, >> the continental commental commitment.

>> Yes.

>> I mean, it's worth making the point there's a there's kind of a change of pace here or a change of focus.

>> Yeah. Because what we've been talking about so far has been a series of books that have focused primarily on what you

might call grand strategy in the grandest sense. That is the way in which

grandest sense. That is the way in which the international system works, the way in which it adapts, the way in which countries make choices about how the international system functions. In other

words, the choices they make about uh whether or not they go to war.

um the continental commitment really so to speak takes the focus down a bit and that is focus okay how do you how do you prepare to fight wars um now obviously some of the issues are connected but you

know I often say my career has focused on two big issues first is what wars should Australia fight and the second is what armed forces should Australia have and you obviously hope the answers will

be connected but they are different they are different questions now this is really a book about the second um and a whole lot of My career has been focused on really what you might call quite technical questions about defense

policy. What sort of armed forces should

policy. What sort of armed forces should you build? What sort of aircraft you

you build? What sort of aircraft you need and so on? What sort of battles do you want to fight in the detail and more detailed sense? And the reason why I've

detailed sense? And the reason why I've always loved this book is that it provides such a vivid if you like connection between the the high strategy

stuff on the one hand and the actual choices that governments make about how they spend their defense dollars on the other.

And um you know in Britain um well you might say all countries face big choices but in Britain there's been a very particular pattern to the choices Britain faces um and indeed he he

outlines that pattern in a wonderful passage in at the beginning of the first lecture in which he says something like the student of British defense policy looking back over the last 70 years will

notice many issues coming back the way you make your choices between defending the empire or defending one's interests in Europe, the way in which you make choices between maritime power and land

power, etc. It's a it's a beautiful it's a beautiful passage actually. It's a

beautifully constructed sentence, but it also contains a deep truth. And I found it when I was thinking about Australian defense policy, I found it very instructive to see how Howard had by

unpacking this this history of Britain's choices about the kinds of armed forces it needed based on judgments about the kind of wars it needed to fight. I

always found it very inspiring. Now, um

you're absolutely right. the the the basic uh choice that Britain has faced and you could say this goes back to the Armada certainly to the early modern era

is is the idea of Britain primarily as a maritime power focused on its global empire and just so to speak leaving

Europe to one side on the one hand which very strongly motivates it to spend most of its money on its navy and on the other hand the idea of continental power. That is a country

continental power. That is a country which happens to be separated from Europe by the English Channel, but whose most important strategic interests are nonetheless tied up with the prevention

of the domination of Europe by any single power. And therefore that what

single power. And therefore that what Britain really needs to be able to do is to contribute forces to European

continental conflicts, hence the name, um to prevent the emergence of a of a of a major um as a of a European heckimon.

and his controversial proposition is that Britain's attempt to do both, which of course is what governments always try and do whenever given a choice, but that in the end the the really decisive

challenges to eur to Britain's security um have been through continental hegimmons >> and therefore the most important thing Britain has got to do with its armed forces is to contribute to the

prevention of European hegemany and that has meant that repeatedly it's had to so to speak put its navy to one and create big armies to send to the European

>> uh land mass. Now, that's not to say that the naval bit of it has no part and there's often been an attempt to square the circle by suggesting the right way for Britain to

contribute to continental wars is to use its navy to put little small armies small armies around the round around the place. But it's but in the end when the

place. But it's but in the end when the chips are down as they were in the first world war as they were in the second world war as they were in the polonic war and as they were in the seven years war and the war of the Austrian

succession the war of Spanish succession then the the really the eur the British got no alternative to raise a big army and send it to Europe.

>> Yeah. And William, you might say, as you mentioned, he was an army officer. Um,

at least during the during the war. He

he served in the Italian campaign with great honor, as you mentioned. But he

and of course he wrote this during the Cold War. And what Britain did during

Cold War. And what Britain did during the Cold War uh was to build for it a relatively big army and station it in Germany, very much part of the continental commitment to the

containment of the Soviet Union. And

that's that's the historical context in which he's writing. Um but in a sense and I think that I I actually think that's the right conclusion from Britain's point of view. I think his

argument for that conclusion is is um is very compelling. Um but uh which has big

very compelling. Um but uh which has big implications for the extent to which one can depend on Britain uh as an ally elsewhere in the world very relevant to

Australia. The fact is in the end

Australia. The fact is in the end committed as Britain always regarded itself as being to the security of its empire when the chips were down >> what happened in Europe really mattered.

That's why what happened in 1942 happened. Um, and that's why I think the

happened. Um, and that's why I think the idea that Britain is somehow going to help to defend us against China.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is sort of one of the underlying principles of Orcus, >> right?

>> Is madness >> and very ahistorical madness.

>> Yeah.

>> But I might say I also like the book cuz I just love its style. You know what I mean? It's just beautifully pithily. I

mean? It's just beautifully pithily. I

you know when you you read something like that I mean when when you read Garrett Mattingly you couldn't say I want to write like that cuz I'm just not in that business.

>> Uh just like I couldn't write like Gibbon >> but I read that and I think I want to write like that you know I I want that's how I want to sound.

>> No I'm I'm I'm with you on that.

>> Very magnetic character I might say. I

met Yeah, I met him a few times and very very engaging character. I wonder if it's something about the the lecture format or something that translates well into that kind of style.

>> Yes, I think it I think it does or particular I might say his lecture format, >> right?

>> He was a very good lecturer.

>> Um but but it's also just his his style.

I mean the the um I mean he wrote a lot um but for example his his FrancoRussian War >> is is an absolute pear you know it's

it's beautifully written um and I I mean I'm not as I think I mentioned before I'm not really a great fan of military history in the sort of tactical sense you know you know sea company advanced

300 yards up the road and met a machine gun nest leaves me leaves me cold the the Franco war is a detailed military history, but he writes it so well and

focuses on the most interesting aspects so so resolutely that I it's a very compelling read.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, let me let me summarize a couple of the things I took from it and then just check them with your understanding. So

understanding. So obviously over the course of the first half of the 20th century, British strategists and defense policy thinkers

are kind of like dragged to >> finally accepting this conclusion that Britain's security lies with >> the European continent. And it's only by sort of the end of well by World War II

that they the end of World War II really that they come to that to fully embrace that >> that conclusion. Um and and until that point there's been this sort of trade-off between defense of the empire

and defense of the continent. Um just to just to underscore uh how non-committed they were to the continent at the beginning of this

period. Um in the first chapter he

period. Um in the first chapter he writes about how you know in the early 1900s the main destination anticipated for the British expeditionary force was

not the European continent. it was India um in expectation of a Russian invasion of of India and all the planning was around so the the British expeditionary force you know that fought on the western front etc

>> was really intended to fight in India um with you know Russian troops pouring across the Oxus and >> yes >> and so defending the empire >> was always a long shot >> right

>> put it mildly >> in terms of the threat from Russia >> yeah yeah another thing I learned was just And in my naivity, this wasn't

obvious to me, but just one might think that the Dominions were an asset, but it seems that on net they were more of a liability defensively

um at least after, sorry, at least after World War I >> cuz you would think that they would be able to provide the empire with manpower and money, >> but actually there was this policy of never again

>> Canada and South Africa cuz they could afford to be because of their geographic isolation.

Well, they were isolationist. Australia

and New Zealand were a bit different.

They were worried about their vulnerability in the the Pacific, but but the sum total of that was this attitude of of never again. And

Australia and New Zealand also felt that Britain was indebted to them for gipoly.

>> At the same time, the Dominions are expecting and demanding more autonomy.

They don't uh want to sacrifice their own defense for for Britain. So, it it does amount to this um this kind of liability. Yeah,

liability. Yeah, >> I mean this is this is maybe a little as but just the the there was just a basic theme about sort of the reality of trade-offs in defense policy and how

countries ultimately need to prioritize their vital interests.

>> Yeah, of course that that's that's the heart of the issue.

>> Sorry. Yeah, that's the wrong word. It

just it feels when I say it, it feels a little obvious. Well, it it is obvious,

little obvious. Well, it it is obvious, but it that's not to say it's not not worth saying >> because in the in the end uh you know, defense policy is all about making

choices between conflicting priorities.

>> And governments often say, our present government says, you know, well, we will make no compromise in national security.

No, you make compromises all the time.

You decide you're not going to do this because you want to be able to do that.

>> The most important defense decisions any government makes are the decisions they make about what not to do. M m

>> and and you know the British as they faced very substantial commitments globally against a declining share of global GDP against adversaries it had an

increasing share of global GDP and when technology was working against Britain in a very fundamental way because Britain depended on power projection by

sea and this is a bit of a different story but it's a very important one from the late 19th century onwards power projection by sea became harder and harder as ships became easier to find

and easier to sink.

>> A really sharp and consistent technological shift uh from the from the maritime military domain in which

Britain had thrived in the 17th, 18th and 19th century. And and and so for all sorts of reasons, what Britain was trying to do in the 20th century became harder and harder. And one of the

reasons why it's such an important book for Australians, because this story is so important for Australians, is that, you know, right at the heart of the sorts of choices Britain made as to whether or not it was going to be serious about defending Australia and

New Zealand against Japan in the Western Pacific. This was I mean we'll come back

Pacific. This was I mean we'll come back to this with Neville Mey but this was the great question >> the sort of foundational strategic question for Australia

>> and Howard's unpacking of that choice the fact that the costs of of defending the empire were high and went up

um and particularly Australia and New Zealand I mean Canada and thei and South Africa were were in different cases for different reasons Canada because of the United States M >> there was only one country that could

possibly threaten Canada was the United States and you couldn't possibly defend Canada from the United States. So in a sense Canada has always existed in a kind of strategic no man's land.

>> South Africa because it's although of course in some ways it doesn't look as isolated as we are because it's you know at the tip of a vast continent but none of the countries on that continent could

challenge it. Whereas Australia and New

challenge it. Whereas Australia and New Zealand, although we're quite remote from the main centers of power in Northeast Asia, because of all that water, which can either be a great

barrier or a convenient bridge, um we always felt ourselves to be and in as it turned out were potentially vulnerable to Japanese aggression, right?

>> And so defending Australia and New Zealand and you might say Britain's other possessions in this part of the world, including ultimately India, was a huge was a huge question. And that was the choice the British had to make. And

it was it's not quite true to say that it was a choice between spending money on the navy and spending money on the army, but pretty near, you know, it's a pretty good >> um pretty good model for the for the

choices they made. And in in the end, Britain could not afford to defend the empire and um contribute to the balance of power in Europe. And when they had a choice, it always ended up choosing the balance of power in Europe. It's very

important lesson for Australia.

>> Yeah. Yeah. As I was reading this, I could see um I could see at least one of the reasons why this influenced you, which was just the the implication is

Britain was always bound to choose the continent over >> Exactly. You can't you can't criticize

>> Exactly. You can't you can't criticize Britain for that.

>> No, I criticize Australian >> uh political leaders.

>> Yeah. for not realizing what was patently obvious, which was that if forced to make a choice, Britain would always choose >> um >> Yeah.

>> Uh the security of the home islands, as it absolutely should if I was a British politician, a political leader, if I was a British voter and taxpayer, that's what I'd >> Yeah, >> that's what I'd expect. U you know, the

fact that Churchill famously says said told menses, "Don't worry if the Japanese come south, we'll be there to defend you." You know, who could believe

defend you." You know, who could believe that? You know, it's as if I promised to

that? You know, it's as if I promised to buy you a Rolls-Royce. You know what?

Really?

>> I don't believe you.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. You know.

>> Yeah.

>> On the other hand, um I mean, one one of the qu the other questions this raised for me was just the extent to which imperial defense was a factor in appeasement because they were so

stretched initially.

Well, I think they they certainly were stretched, but I think that I don't I think that was, if I can put it this way, a second order issue.

>> Okay.

>> I think the primary issue was simply the horror of going back to the Western Front.

>> Yes. You know, I think, you know, obviously building the forces that would have been necessary to to um to deliver the kind of deterrence of Germany

>> that we talked about before, putting a vast army, a Anglo French army on the German border >> would have been very expensive and probably would have precluded a strong position in the Western Pacific.

>> Yeah.

>> Um but the fact is that what was even more strong was not that they didn't want to spend the money. They just

didn't want to face the possibility they might fight another war on the same battlefields.

>> Yeah.

>> And I find it hard to blame them. I

mean, it was a mistake.

>> Yeah.

>> For the reasons we talked about before, but I find it hard to blame them for that. The other point to make is that in

that. The other point to make is that in the end they they their position in Europe wasn't weakened by um by making provision to defend the empire because

they didn't make provision to defend the empire in the end. I mean they they had you know you could Britain really abandoned its strategic obligation for

Australia before the first world war in 1904 to to counter the the growing power of Germany's high seas fleet. The British

withdrew the major fleet units from the Pacific including from the Sydney station. So the battleships and battle

station. So the battleships and battle cruisers, the you know the real heavy hitters, >> the capital ships, they were all withdrawn to the North Sea to constitute the ground fleet against to to counter

Germany. And so as Japan's

Germany. And so as Japan's naval power grew, they depended on their treaty with Japan, the fact they had an alliance with Japan to to make sure the

Japanese didn't attack Australia. Oh

well, we looked to the Americans as we sort of >> won and you know that's why Deacon invited the great white you know the American great white fleet here in 1908.

>> Um but in the end the British were never in a position to defend us from Japan from about 1904 onwards.

>> Yeah. Y

>> and um so I I think in the end we were that dye was cast long long before the 1930s.

>> Yeah. We'll come back to that with Meanie. But next

Meanie. But next >> I want to do American Diplomacy.

>> Yeah.

>> George F. Kennan. This is first published in 1951.

>> My version is the 60th anniversary edition with a very helpful introduction by John Mshimer.

>> Oh. Oh, that' be interesting.

>> So Kenan was an American diplomat and historian. He was an IR realist. Um

historian. He was an IR realist. Um

father of the containment strategy. He

wrote the very famous X article in foreign affairs in um 1947.

>> Probably the most famous ever article written about American foreign policy.

>> Um it was the X article because he wrote under the pseudonym X because he was a highranking official at the time. Didn't

want people to think this was government policy. But he introduced

policy. But he introduced >> Yeah. He know it came out only like a

>> Yeah. He know it came out only like a few weeks later I think. People just

Yeah. It was a the worst kept secret.

Okay. And

>> fig leaf.

>> Fig leaf. Okay.

And in that article he obviously intro uh introduced the term containment uh and advocated it as a strategy against the Soviet Union. Um so this book covers American diplomacy in the first half of

the 20th century. It's probably the canonical book on its subject.

In the introduction to my version Shimmer calls it Kennan's most important book and the first part is drawn from a series of lectures he delivered at Chicago University in 1950. The second

part is a couple of articles for foreign affairs including that ex article. Then

the third part which was appended to an expanded edition is a couple of lectures he gave at Grenell College in I think 84.

>> Ah my edition hasn't doesn't have them.

>> Yeah. Well most my questions are really just about the the first part.

>> Yeah.

>> Um so the central question he's addressing is why did America's security decline from 1900 to 1950?

>> How did this influence you? Why is it on your list? Right. Well, as you as you

your list? Right. Well, as you as you mentioned, Kennan is a very significant figure because he is seen correctly as the architect of containment. Um, that's

not to say invented it all by himself and obviously containment wouldn't have taken off. Whole American posture

taken off. Whole American posture visibly the Soviet Union and the Cold War didn't just emerge from from George Kennan. But but the ex article and the

Kennan. But but the ex article and the long telegram which was the formal telegram that if you like contain where really threshed out the ideas ended up is a is a terrific piece of work a

wonderful piece of writing very vivid very strong very revealing in some ways and not all of them flattering to canon.

Um so Kennan is anyway a very significant figure but what he does in American diplomacy is to really deconstruct

the story about how America got to that position and the usual story the orthodoxy and still the orthodoxy today is that the the first half of the 20th

century is a kind of a wigish story of natural progression as America um having absolved itself, so to speak, of slavery and the Civil War, having

developed enormously economically in the second part of the of the 19th century.

Um, starting to engage globally in the very end of the 19th century and early 20th century, Spanish American War, that sort of thing, having eventually got

itself into the uh into the First World War and made a decisive contribution to at Versailles. And then after the

at Versailles. And then after the mistake of not of failing to join the League of Nations, somehow got itself slowly and painfully through the 30s back into a position of global power and

influence in the Second World War and emerged, so to speak, victorious at the end of the Second World War uh only to confront the Soviets. Um but it was a it's a positive story. It's a story of

the of the American century, the famous um loose image of America and and it's a story that still if you like underlies

the reverence and faith that we have, we in Australia, Americans, Europeans have in the the validity and durability of the European of of the of the US-led

global order. Very much part of where we

global order. Very much part of where we where we are today. Kenan completely

turns that on its head and he says, "What the hell's gone wrong?" In, as you said, in 1900, we're the most secure country in the world. And here we are in 1950. Um, and remember, 1950 is an

1950. Um, and remember, 1950 is an important year. The Soviets tested a

important year. The Soviets tested a nuclear weapon in 1949.

>> When Kennan wrote the X article, 1947, Soviets didn't have a nuclear weapon.

And nobody expected them to, nobody in America expected them to have a nuclear weapon for a decade.

And and in that Kenan at the end of the article says, you know, this is all this containing Soviet Union is going to be a bit of a big deal, but but you know, we we can, this is a paraphrase,

we can give thanks to Providence that America has been given this opportunity to prove our worth as a nation by facing this great challenge.

Well, that was before the Soviets got nuclear weapons. He was he was he was

nuclear weapons. He was he was he was much more sober after that and he should have been he was dead right. So what

what this book does is to is to go through it in a very critical way. Say

you know what has America screwed up and in many ways it's so to speak the American version of K's 20 years crisis.

>> He goes back further he talks about American policy in relation to China. A lot of it's focused on Asia

China. A lot of it's focused on Asia which makes it very interesting from our point of view. In fact, he does see Asia as the principal focus. But he he he he talks about China. He talks about the

deterioration of America's relations with Japan and the long process Maris intervention in the first world war. The

the the long process of decline of the relationship with Japan that led up to the Pacific war and so on and he sees a lot to criticize.

Kenan in some ways of course because of his role on in appeasement would would seem to be you know absolutely at the center of the center of American policy

circles. In fact he was always an

circles. In fact he was always an outsider and this is a very much an outsider's book and I quite like it for that.

>> So I loved this book. It's it's in some ways it was a work of political philosophy as well. Um,

it it might be the one I have the most questions on because I want to leave time for the other books. Can I rapid fire some of my questions at you?

>> Okay. So, a key premise here is that American security is bound up with the b balance of power in the European continent. Similarly, the Asian

continent. Similarly, the Asian continent.

>> Eurasian continent.

>> Yeah, >> I would say.

>> Okay. So, this is something I don't understand.

>> Um, I know Kenan's nightmare was a a single power dominating Eurasia.

>> That's right. But um he was he was equally concerned with the power dominating either Europe or Asia. Am I

right?

>> I don't think so.

>> Okay.

>> Uh that's not the way I read him.

>> I I read him very much as focusing on the risk of a Eurasian hegimon.

>> Okay.

>> And this is an old idea, but I mean he articulates it very very strongly. um

that interesting um Kissinger talks about this as as well but you know it's been that the sort of the great organizing idea of American strategy going all the way back to George Washington

>> has been that the vast oceans what Donald Trump calls the big beautiful oceans >> uh on either side of the the continent that separates it from Eurasia

>> keep America secure from any country that doesn't have the power to project power across those vast oceans. Now that

is a huge undertaking particularly to project power across those oceans in the face of what America can do to stop you.

>> Yeah.

>> And and the view the reason why isolationism worked for the United States all through the 19th century is that is that no no power in Eurasia and

the only powers in Eurasia that counted in the 19th century were European powers because of the distribution of wealth and power at the time. No country in

Eurasia could possibly acquire that strength unless it dominated the whole of the Eurasian land mass. Yeah.

>> Because if it didn't dominate the whole of the Eurasian land mass, A, it wouldn't have enough strength of its own, and B, it would face rivals closer to home. So that if it started putting

to home. So that if it started putting all its energy into sending maritime forces across the Pacific, across the the Pacific or the Atlantic, their neighbors, next door neighbors would seize on them. So only a country that dominated the whole of Eurasia would

have the power and the freedom of maneuver to threaten America at home in the United States. Right? And you can you know you can say the grand narrative of American strategic engagement in the 20th century

>> was that three times that contingency threatened and three times America intervened to to to to stop it. The the

first was in 1917 after the Russians collapsed. Um and the Germans looked

collapsed. Um and the Germans looked like you know in 1917 it looked like the Germans were going to win the first world war and that wouldn't have just meant them dominating Europe because the

the German the papers in the journal journal staff make plain Adam Tus has written about this very well in his book about the end of the first world war the Germans seriously looked at you know

going back to Russia and if they dominated Russia then they dominate Eurasia cuz there wasn't much else. M

>> um and so that was the first time. The

second time, of course, was the Second World War. Now, by the time the

World War. Now, by the time the Americans got into the Second World War, December 1941, the Germans looked like they were going to take over Soviet Union.

>> And Japan was on their side.

>> Mhm.

>> And Britain looked set to be crushed. Um

the prospect of Germany and Japan together dominating all of Eurasia was very, very real.

And the third of course was after the end of the Second World War when the Soviet Union really looked like it was to come and dominate Eurasia because everybody else was flat on their back and it had emerged from the Second World War with the well you could roughly say

the most powerful country the world army the world's ever seen. And so you know consistently America has and this is really you know Kenan's point you know

the the the main spring of American um strategic policy has been to prevent the emergence of a European hegamman. It's

not Kenan's idea alone. For example, you know, big Brazinski um wrote a lot about this as well. Um now the question as to whether the same is true of either a

European or an Asian hegimon, >> right, >> is a very different one.

>> Interesting.

>> Because for example, today we might well face the prospect of an Asian hegimon that doesn't control the European end of the >> of the of the picture. M

>> the reason why I focus on Eur Asia rather than either separately is that I don't actually think they're that easy to separate because you got Russia in the middle.

>> Russia connects them. Russia's in both.

>> And uh and I I think the um I think that I think the chances of Eurasian Hegimon emerging today is very very very low.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> Diminishingly low. It's a very important part of my argument.

um the chances of a uh and and a country that doesn't dominate the whole of Eurasia has no chance of being powerful enough to threaten the United States.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. One one final quick piece of context and then I'll rapid fire my questions at you. As I understand it, his thesis is that American security declined from 1900 to 1950 because

America pursued a misguided liberal foreign foreign policy principally by fighting for total victory in World War I and thereby leaving a shattered balance of power on the continent, laying the seeds for World War II and

the Cold War.

>> I think that's right. I I certain certainly I think that's that's a strand of his argument.

>> Okay. Um but I but I think he he's also got another argument running and that is that we've that America was didn't it wasn't just that it fought for total

victory in World War I. It it continued to um and I mean to a certain extent that wasn't America's fault because its allies by that stage were fixed on total victory.

>> They weren't actually allies. They were

associated powers but its partners. But

the but he's also criticizing the the hopes that American have of um of of a world order that basically conform to

America's wishes. And so he he he says

America's wishes. And so he he he says America should be prepared to live with um regimes it doesn't like.

>> Yeah.

>> As long as they don't actually threaten America's security at home in the Western Hemisphere. And he and he's

Western Hemisphere. And he and he's arguing against the idea of the establishment of a US-led global order which was a Wilsonian idea from from the beginning of the century from the after

the second world war. I see after the first world war but also uh after the second and so he's he's I think he's his critique is a bit broader than that.

>> I see. I see. Okay. So let me I'll rapid fire a few questions at you. So, so

Kennan says that democracies tend to pursue total wars and seek unconditional surrender. Do you agree with him about

surrender. Do you agree with him about that?

>> Well, I think the data set is too small.

>> Okay.

>> Um, you know, they we did in the first world war and we did in the second world war, but I I and I you can see why people have that instinct, but I I I don't think it's impossible for

democracies to reach compromised pieces.

>> Yeah.

>> I mean, Britain, for example, did in in the Napoleonic Wars, and it was a democracy.

Do you think diplomacy matters as much as he seems to think it does? So if he'd been in charge of US foreign policy between 1900 and 1950, would America's

strategic situation have looked that much different in 1950? Like it's it's not clear to me that America could have could have um prevented World War I. And

if World War I was the the original sin, >> I don't think it could have prevented World War I. I mean just to be clear diplomacy really matters but by diplomacy we don't mean what the

diplomats do by going to cocktail parties or even what what matters is the choices the governments make about how they manage their relations with other countries and what they're prepared to accept and that and in particular the

choices they make not about the day-to-day stuff but the choices they make about how they see the structure of the international order and the sacrifices they're prepared to make to to turn the international order into the

one they want. that that re that really matters.

>> Um and I think for example he he's absolutely right. America could have

absolutely right. America could have avoided war with Japan.

>> Very big part of the book is talking about you know what what could we have done to prevent going to war with Japan. And you know he makes this really important point about the about the first about the second

world war that the basic alignment of forces at the beginning of the war was such that they couldn't that that uh it wasn't it was about Russia as well as

Germany and Japan and that the the west could not you know Britain and America and France could not have defeated any of those major adversaries without the support of the other and that was always

going to compromise the the outcome. So

the seeds of the cold war were laid in the second world war and the and and the seeds of that and this goes back to the sort of stuff that car is talking about

and for that matter um AJP Taylor is that the the failure to find a way to accommodate a defeated Germany but are still very powerful Germany in the European order and the failure to find a

way to accommodate Japan and the Asian order re really led the way to war and that was that was the failure that the countries of the best including America have to hold themselves accountable.

>> I see. I see.

>> And learn lessons from.

>> Okay. Okay.

I have other questions. I think I think I'll I'll skip them for now and we'll go to many. This episode is sponsored by

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Okay, next book, The Search for Security in the Pacific. So, this is volume 1 from 1901 to 1914. Uh, published in 1976. The author is Neville Meanie, an

1976. The author is Neville Meanie, an Australian historian specialized in the history of Australia's defense and foreign policy. He was a professor at

foreign policy. He was a professor at UNSW and then at the University of Sydney.

>> And one of my favorite books, >> um, this is a history of Australian defense and foreign policy. Um, as the subtitle says from, uh, 1901 to 1914,

the second volume goes up to 1923.

So, uh, te tell me how you encountered this book and why is it on your list.

>> So, this is the first book of the ones we've discussed that really talks about Australia.

>> Yeah. And it's a bit perverse in some ways because Australia is very much the focus of my work. Um but one of the problems if you like about thinking about Australia's role in all of this

stuff is that we tend to think of ourselves not as a player. We tend to think that all of this stuff goes on at, you know, a sort of a stratospheric level and we just go along for the ride.

And we kind of, you know, in some ways we kind of quite like that. You know, we don't think of ourselves as having made a choice to go to the first world war or go made a choice go to the second world war. You know, we just sort of sign up

war. You know, we just sort of sign up and go along. Now, that is profoundly wrong. And I always had the sense that

wrong. And I always had the sense that it was wrong and that therefore Australia shouldn't excuse itself from thinking very carefully about where its own strategic positioning and

contribution to the wider debates led us. But I didn't I didn't have a so to

us. But I didn't I didn't have a so to speak a factual basis for that instinct until I came across his book. It was

just after I actually started working professionally in this field. At that

stage I was a journalist. The Sydney

Morning Herald. Kim Beasley had just become defense minister. I was in Wellington with Kim on a visit that was all about the New Zealand's uh anti-ship

visits policy which had just been introduced. So this is 1984

introduced. So this is 1984 and in a secondhand bookshop I had a couple of hours off. I wandered around Wellington, which is a lovely city, and

up a little lane running up from Lamp Key to the terrace. It was a little lane. It was a little secondhand

lane. It was a little secondhand bookshop. And I can never pass walk past

bookshop. And I can never pass walk past a secondhand bookshop without going in.

So I wandered in and there I saw this spine. Search for security in the

spine. Search for security in the Pacific, 1901 to 1914. What the

that? I wonder. What's that? So I pulled it out and there it was about Australia's decisionmaking at this absolutely critical time in the leadup to the First World War. How Australia

saw its strategic situation.

This this is it. Anyway, I bought it, took it back to the hotel and I literally stayed up all night reading it. I could not put it down and it just

it. I could not put it down and it just a huge sort of frame for the way you think about how Australia fits into this stuff.

>> Did you give it to Kim? Did he know about it?

>> He knew about it. He knew about Neville and um and was way ahead of me. The

delight of working for Kim for all of those years I was with him. I mean I wasn't working for him then I was a journalist but not very long after I I went on his staff and was with him for five or six years whatever it was. Yeah.

>> And one of the delights of it was that he knew so much history.

>> Mh.

>> And uh and you know the I sometimes say that my years with Kim was just one long parapotetic seminar on on strategic history of all descriptions. You know,

sometimes it was, you know, what what the hell happened at the b battle of Benham or, you know, why why did you know why why did Hitler go to the rescue of Greece or

>> and a lot of the time it was focused on Australia and um so you know he he he knew all about Neville and actually later Neville Kim and I spoke at the launch of Neville's second volume

>> um which was a bit of a privilege but um but the really you know the big point he's making is that far from that image of Australia being a kind of a strategic

naive or even a strategic non-player that that the the the the the people who were instrumental in the establishment of the Australian Federation and who steered Australian

foreign policy in that critical time were very sophisticated strategic thinkers who thought very carefully about Australia's place. They absolutely

did not take Britain's support for granted. In fact, the whole structure of

granted. In fact, the whole structure of their thought >> was a very precient recognition that Britain's global position, his capacity to defend the empire was declining.

>> Yeah.

>> All the reasons that uh that um uh Michael Howard spells out and that um and that Australia absolutely could not take Britain support for granted >> and that we therefore needed to think

very carefully about how we responded to that. Part of it was to develop our own

that. Part of it was to develop our own forces. You know, a big part of this

forces. You know, a big part of this story is the decision to develop our own navy, for example, rather than to contribute to the Royal Navy. Uh to

develop our own army. The question, do we do we build an army to defend Australia or does to send it overseas to support the United Kingdom? These were

the these were the big debates people were having and thinking about what kind of threats might develop which focused very strongly on Japan. M m.

>> Now, partly that there was a kind of, you know, what you might broadly call a racial basis to that, but it didn't mean that leaving aside the racism embedded in it, it it didn't mean that there wasn't a genuine

strategic concern there as we saw in 1942. But the way in which these guys

1942. But the way in which these guys analyzed Australia's situation and recognized the choices that we faced and

made those choices explicitly.

Well, to put it politely, contrast favorably with the way in which Australia is debating and confronting the choices we face today, >> right?

>> Um, this this was out of nowhere really for reasons I have no explanation for.

We we we found ourselves with a group of very sophisticated strategic thinkers.

And and it struck me reading this book that the independent defense and foreign policy thinking that was happening in Australia was being driven by the political

leaders themselves. Absolutely.

leaders themselves. Absolutely.

>> As distinct from their military and well >> international relations advisers.

>> Exactly. Well, they're almost they all there were. I mean there almost wasn't

there were. I mean there almost wasn't there wasn't a bureaucracy to start with. M

with. M >> and you had people like of whom Deacon is by far in a way the the strongest but you know but George Reed for example comes out of a lot of this very well

>> um and so a lot of the others but Deacon is stands above them all I think um was a remarkable man and a remarkable strategic thinker and he he'd started to

understand this stuff very clearly in the 80s in the 1880s and through the 80s and 90s initially as a very young man he was thinking really serious seriously

about where Australia stood as British power declined. And they were very frank

power declined. And they were very frank about it, very, you know, they they weren't they weren't sort of we we sort of think of them as being sentimentally attached to the home country and and

rural Britannia and all of that sort of stuff, but they were very cool and realistic in their assessment of Australia's predicament.

>> Um, and it was Yes, it was just it was very much the political leaders because there wasn't really a bureaucratic structure Yeah. underneath them. Yeah.

structure Yeah. underneath them. Yeah.

Um but what it tells you is that these people saw thinking deeply and reading widely um informing themselves about global strategic affairs as they

affected Australia uh as a very important part of their job >> which I don't think it would be fair to say is true of the present generation of Australian political leaders.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's a worry.

>> Yeah.

Anything else on many?

>> I could talk about many all afternoon, but no, that'll do.

>> One other interesting fact that that I learned again probably in my naivity was that the Australasian colonies adopted a Monroe doctrine for the South Pacific in the >> South Pacific. I mean, it's it's alive

and well that you know, we signed a defense treaty with PNG last week.

>> Um, that's absolutely or this week. Um,

yeah. No, no, that's the the and the use of the phrase the Monroe Doctrine is very was very resonant. I mean, a lot of what they were concerned about initially was not just Japan as a strategic

challenge, but other European powers colonizing the South Pacific.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. 10th and penultimate book, Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger, published in 1994. He doesn't need much of an

in 1994. He doesn't need much of an introduction. an American diplomat and

introduction. an American diplomat and political scientist, secretary of state in the US from 73 to 77. This is a sweeping history of international relations beginning in Europe in the

17th century and going through to the end of the Cold War. Concentrates mostly

on the 20th century. Um, and while the bulk of the book is a history, the final chapter is a forward-looking one. We

might discuss that chapter. It's the

only forward-looking chapter in the book.

>> And allegedly, he really sweated its details. So, he was rewriting that final

details. So, he was rewriting that final chapter. um constantly revising it

chapter. um constantly revising it almost until publication day.

>> Surprised.

>> Yeah. Okay. So, so how if you could condense what you took from this book, how did it influence you?

>> Look, Kissinger, you know, you described him as a political scientist. I describe

him as a historian.

>> Um he and he wrote a lot in different ways about the management of international conflict. Um, and it's a

international conflict. Um, and it's a it's important, I think, to separate Kissinger's capacities as a historian from his capacities as a statesman. Some

of what he some of what he did as a statesman was reprehensible. But that

doesn't mean he didn't have a lot of interesting things to say about the way the international system worked. And

this book in a sense is a placeholder for a whole lot of other things that Kissinger wrote including the world restored which was his book about the Congress of Vienna which was all about

how they built that international order after the Napoleonic wars that we talked about before. But the reason why I

about before. But the reason why I mention this book is twofold. The first

is because those earlier chapters he describes in a very neat and you know compact and accessible form a lot of very complicated diplomatic history particularly the history before the 19th

century from you know because he really starts um in the 16th century with the establishment of the Westfallian order after the 30 years war and all the

various terrible things that happened in Europe and and and the way in which that evolved over the ensuing centuries which I think is a really handy textbook and then it's then he gives a very good account of what happens in the 20th

century. It's the counterpoise if you

century. It's the counterpoise if you like to Kennan's account >> and he's very good although not I think always very honest about highlighting the the tension between what one might

very crudely call the realist and the idealist wings of American foreign policy. He's always identified very much

policy. He's always identified very much as a realist. But he's always very careful, I think sometimes misleadingly careful to to so to speak salute the

Wilsonian components and he and he's forever because he was not just an academic but very much a player and he's always trying to preserve his position in the

debate. He's always trying to do his cap

debate. He's always trying to do his cap to the Wilsonians so that he doesn't get himself presented as being too out of step with America's with the mainstream of American life. Partly because of course he wasn't born in America.

>> He was born in Germany. He was a teenager when his family fled Germany, Nazi Germany. So he always felt of

Nazi Germany. So he always felt of himself as an outsider and so he sort of had to talk his way back into the >> back into the American mainstream. But

also that last chapter is very interesting and it's a pair with the Kennedy that we'll come to last.

>> Yeah.

>> Because what he does is to draw all of this together to say, well, what sort of world are we heading into? and what he makes and this is 1994 so this is the

high point of the end of history America is the unipolar power that's going to dominate the world and and he just says no no this is just history going on as

usual and he talks very explicitly about the evolution of a multipolar order he says we're going to have uh a a system in which there'll be a number of great powers and America is going to have to

learn to live in the system and the great challenge will be to find try and accommodate its Wilsonian instincts and values and aspirations with the reality that it's going to be living in a very

complex and difficult world. And when I read it when the book first came out, it wasn't the first time I'd thought of that. I mean, I I've got to allow myself

that. I mean, I I've got to allow myself to say I've already thought my way through that point myself, but but it did actually. I It came to me, the book

did actually. I It came to me, the book came out and I read it only a few months after I had myself sat down over the summer of 19 923.

Early 1993, I sat down and wrote out for myself what I thought the end of the Cold War meant for Australia's predicament.

>> Do you still have that document?

>> Yeah. Yeah. No, I do.

>> Have you ever published it? No, I

haven't.

>> I'd love to see that.

>> Well, I' I've got I've got copy here. I

I'll send it to you. Thank you. I mean,

it's very rough. I literally sat down over the over my summer holidays and just in the intervals between going to the beach and things, I just was what the what the hell does all this mean?

>> Yeah, >> it was a >> I mean, it was a nice moment because I'd been working for Hawk.

>> Does it hold up your document?

>> Pretty well.

>> Okay.

>> Not not 100% of course.

>> Um overestimated Japan actually as Kissinger does >> and Kennedy >> and Ken. Yes. none of us predicted how far Japan or and underestimated China

>> but got the China story basically right but it was a it was a moment for me because I'd I've been working in Parliament House for years eight years or something and my last few years have been working for Hawk as international

relations advisor very you know very much at the center of things and very exciting then Hawky gets the boot Kading takes over and I end up back in OA in a job which was fascinating much more

quiet but much quieter And so I had a lot of time to think and this was 1992. If Soviet Union had collapsed at the very beginning of the year, a few weeks later I find myself in

an office with the phone not ringing anymore with that map uh on my wall and with some very good and very knowledgeable colleagues. And I spent a

knowledgeable colleagues. And I spent a lot of that year just talking to others and thinking myself what the hell does the end of the cold war mean for Australia that everyone's, you know, thinks, oh, this is fundamentally, you know, Europe transformed all the rest.

What's it mean for us? Mhm.

>> And so the the notes I wrote, Tathra notes I called them cuz we were at Tathra. Um was my sort of summary of of

Tathra. Um was my sort of summary of of all of that.

>> Hi everyone, this is Joe. Hugh provided

me with a copy of his Tathra note. We

digitized it and he generously allowed me to publish it on my website so you can see how he was thinking about the shifting geopolitical landscape in 1993.

To read the note, go to jnwpod.com.

That's jnwpod.com and go to the Hugh White episode page.

All right, back to the conversation.

>> When I read this and then got to that last chapter, it was both challenging and reassuring. Think, okay, yeah,

and reassuring. Think, okay, yeah, right. that that really makes that

right. that that really makes that really makes sense and had a big impact on the way I thought about uh our situation through the '9s when I was working in defense and and you know a

lot of the policy that we developed in defense in the '90s both under the Keading government and under the Howard government did it strongly presuppose

really took as its starting point the idea that China's rise was the most important shift in Australia's strategic situation far more important than the

end of the cold war and I I think you know the the the way in which Kissinger comes to that conclusion on the basis of this very comprehensive history of the

evolution of the international system and with uh uh and with all of his other you know drawing on so much of his other scholarship and and to a certain extent

his experience in the cold war I mean he wrote some fascinating books about the way the taunt works for example that the taunt is all about accommodation appeasement, you might say, to avoid

war. Uh it just seemed to me like a very

war. Uh it just seemed to me like a very uh helpful summary of a very big set of issues. What's fascinating, of course,

issues. What's fascinating, of course, is that although Kissinger was this revered figure, nobody in the United States paid the least attention that the mainstream of American foreign policy

was then and continues today to be based on the proposition that America was the world's leading power.

And you know, Kissinger provided all the arguments as to why it wasn't going to be in 1994.

>> Yeah.

So, two specific questions for you about this book. The first is toward the end

this book. The first is toward the end of the book, he says that the most analogous period in history to the world in which America finds itself in 1994

after the cold war is 19th century Europe.

and America should be uh American statesmen should be thinking more in terms of the the balance of power.

>> Yes.

>> Yes.

>> Is that still the case especially in light of China's preponderance? Maybe

now we've more got like two global hegimmons in two different hemispheres.

>> Uh yes. No. Well, I see I wouldn't frame it that way and I don't think he would have framed it that way. No, I think I think it is right. But I think the point he was making was not that not that the

analogy was with the the the balance of power, the concert of power in Europe.

It's that there is now a multipolar as there was a multipolar order in Europe >> which actually functioned as a multipolar global order because Europe dominated the globe. Yeah. He's saying

we're now going to have a global multipolar order and and so the glo the multipolar order will function not in Europe but globally. I think he says in there

>> I see >> I'm pretty sure it's Kissinger who says in that in in that last chapter that this is going to be the first time in history that we have a genuinely global international system. Yeah. In other

international system. Yeah. In other

words, that the world is so interconnected now that countries, great powers in particular all over the world will affect will will affect what happens

everywhere. Now, of course, you could

everywhere. Now, of course, you could say we kind of had that >> after the second world war in the bipolar order which was a genuinely global order. But because there are only

global order. But because there are only two of them, we've never had a global multipolar order. And so I think what he

multipolar order. And so I think what he was saying is the world in future is going to focus the way Europe used is going to function as a multipolar system the way Europe used to function. America

will be part of that multipolar system rather than standing aloof from it which is what it always used to do.

>> Yeah.

>> And America has to learn to function within that multipolar system.

>> Right.

>> That's exactly right. And that's exactly what America has failed to do.

>> Yeah. And that's exactly what I've not me alone but I've been arguing for years America needs to do and I in ch you know the choice in my book the China choice was America's choice to start treating China as another great power in a

multipolar system.

>> Yes. Yes. Okay. Final question on this book. So in the '9s people still viewed

book. So in the '9s people still viewed Germany as a threat after reunification and that that comes through in here >> still there. Yeah.

>> Now so now that Germany's rearming because of Russia and Ukraine. Um,

should people be taking it more seriously? I mean, it's the third

seriously? I mean, it's the third biggest economy in the world. If it

rearmed, it would be the most powerful state in Europe by far.

>> Um, no, I don't I don't think I don't think that's a a worry. And that's

because sometimes things in international relations really do change. and whatever else has gone

change. and whatever else has gone wrong. Um, something really remarkable

wrong. Um, something really remarkable happened in Europe in the decades after the second world war in Western Europe initially but spreading throughout

Europe after the cold war um throughout Europe. I'll come back to where you draw

Europe. I'll come back to where you draw the boundary but we really did see the evolution of a post strategic international system perhaps for the first time in history. I I don't think

I don't think a powerful Germany poses any threat to other European powers. Uh

I do think uh and this is the old line from the polls. The trouble with Germany is that it's either always too reticent or too active in using its power. And

you know what German what Europe desperately needs now is a Germany that accepts the strategic leadership of Europe which only it can exercise

because Europe collectively is going to is is going to be is compelled because America won't do it for them to decide where to stop Russia. And nobody's

better placed to to lead that enterprise than than Germany. it it can't be led by the kind of structures that have led

Europe's you uh economic and social integration under the EU because security strategy is different and anyway those processes and structures and institutions have lost lost a lot of

credibility anyway but you know Germany is fated by its place both as the most powerful country in Europe and because of its central location >> as being the only country that can do it

>> you can't lead Italy from Rome anymore M >> and and certainly not from London or Paris. Um and so I think that the threat

Paris. Um and so I think that the threat to Europe is not Germany's um strength but Germany's weakness or at least his political weakness.

>> Right.

You're right. It's instructive that even in the mid90s people were still anxious about that as they were anxious about Japan.

>> Yes.

>> You know, now boy doesn't that doesn't that seem like a long time ago? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean,

Japan is it's it's present in Kissinger. It's a

it's present in this next book we're going to talk about, but other books at the time, like there's the Lester Theorough book, Head to Head, and >> Oh, yeah. No, no, it was a you know, >> before the bubble burst, its economic rise meant people extrapolated its

military power.

>> It's worth bearing in mind just how big was the delusion that Japan could overtake the United States.

>> Yeah. because and and it's a it's a cousin of the delusion that China wouldn't overtake the United States.

>> You know, people looked at Japan and and serious people said, you know, this country is a global could is a potential global competitor to the United States.

Look, Japan has one quarter of America's population, >> right?

>> For its economy to overtake America's, its per capita GDP would have to be four times America's. Now, America is an

times America's. Now, America is an extraordinarily productive economy. It

is. It simply defies the laws of so to speak economic physics >> that Japan could could overtake America four times.

>> I mean that's just you know it's just out of the question. Japan's economy was never going to be bigger than America's because its population is so much smaller.

>> Yeah. You turn that coin over. People

used to say they said it to me all the time.

>> Say it less now. Don't worry. China is

never going to overtake the United States. I mean look that's what people

States. I mean look that's what people said about Japan and it didn't happen.

to which my response was, well, the difference is that China's economy, China's GD population is four times America's. So, it overtakes America's

America's. So, it overtakes America's GDP when its per capita productivity is one quarter of America's.

>> That's not hard.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> That's going to happen.

>> That's happened.

>> Yeah.

>> And but you know, the idea that people still say, oh, you know, China's economy is lagging mild by the United States.

No, it's not. No, it's not. Which of

course gets us to the rise and fall of great power.

>> Yes. I can't believe it. The final the final book. So, The Rise and Fall of the

final book. So, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy, published in 1987. He was a British historian

in 1987. He was a British historian specialized in the history of international relations, economic power, and grand strategy, professor at Yale.

Uh, I think one of his thesis advisers was AJP Taylor at Oxford.

>> Oh, that' be for sure, I think. Yes.

>> Um, so this this is best known book, Smash Hit, maybe the most influential history book of the 20th century, sold.

>> Oh, I wouldn't go that far.

>> Okay. Yeah, that's putting a bit strongly. You're right. But it sold uh

strongly. You're right. But it sold uh around about two 2 million copies so far. So far. Yeah. Globally.

far. So far. Yeah. Globally.

>> The section at the end where he reflects on what all this means for America was included at his publishers request.

>> And that is what turned this into the hit that it became.

>> So his analysis is confined to the modern era. So post 1500, post

modern era. So post 1500, post renaissance. And he looks at the

renaissance. And he looks at the interaction between economics and strategy. Um we can talk about his

strategy. Um we can talk about his thesis in a moment but um just one fun fact in terms of the influence of this book is that after uh Osama bin Laden's

compound was raided in a botbad in 2011 US special forces found a copy of this among bin Laden's books.

>> I didn't know that.

>> Yeah. Um so so why is this on your list?

Well, because right at the heart of everything we've talked about is the way in which international orders change because of shifts in the distribution of wealth and power.

>> Yeah.

and and and that is the big story of our time and the big challenge we face that is how how does the international system adapt to the rise of new powers and how

can it adapt peacefully and we have lots of textbook examples of how it fails to adapt peacefully. I mean you can say

adapt peacefully. I mean you can say that the rise of Athens and the fear that caused of Sparta was a was the first example we we we've looked at but

um you know the the the the first world war was in the long run a response to the collapse in the old post-Napoleionic order in Europe caused by the fundamental shift in the distribution of

wealth and power between those countries. The failure to deal with that

countries. The failure to deal with that effectively gave us the second world war. And you can say that because at the

war. And you can say that because at the end of the second world war we ended up with just two powers worth of dam, Russia and the Soviet Union and America.

We were still wrestling with that same set of problems. Now we have a completely new set of problems because out of nowhere, so to speak, we've seen the fastest

biggest shift in the global distribution of wealth and power since the industrial revolution.

And one of the problems we have is getting our head around the scale of that shift. The rise of China is not

that shift. The rise of China is not just another day in the office. And for

that matter, the rise of India is not just another day in the office. This is

a really big historic moment. And the

thing about Kennedy's book when it came out which was still in the Cold War um uh was that it gave a really good

compelling and I think broadly right account of the way in which the distribution of wealth and power had shaped the evolution of the international order in you say the

really the centuries since the collapse of the Hapsburg's attempt to dominate Europe and um and so as that moment at the end of the cold war

when I and others were asking ourselves what does all this mean? Um and we came to the conclusion

I can remember very clearly there was a moment and I would have had this on my shelf in the room. There was a I read it when it when it came out gobbled it up.

Um there was a a moment standing in front of that map. I mean that actual copy of the map with a very dear colleague of mine at OA.

>> Do you want to just quickly explain >> that? That that map is is a map of the

>> that? That that map is is a map of the hemisphere, half the world centered on Darwin, which seems eccentric, but it was a chart that Darwin was at least at

the time uh when we bought the F111s. It

was the furthest north of our major air bases and it it's called the air staff planning chart and it's designed to help you work out how far your F11 can fly to drop how many bombs on which target. But

what it does is capture the the the Australia, the Southwest Pacific, uh the Southeast Asian archipelago and the coast of East Asia all the way up to

Japan and India touch touches in the side. So it really does Australia's

side. So it really does Australia's strategic world, >> right?

>> And it was uh it was on the wall of Kim Beast that that particular map was on the wall of Kim Beasley's office. A

version of that map was reproduced in the 1987 white paper that Kim produced.

It was on the cover of a later white paper. Um,

paper. Um, >> and he gave you that >> and he gave me that that when I when I left his office >> when he ceased to be defense minister in our so to speak final conversation of

many many conversations he said I'd like to give you something as a momento. And

I said I know exactly what I want. And

he said oh what? He said I'd like that map. He said you bastard. But he then

map. He said you bastard. But he then stood up signed >> dedication to me and I've carted it. So

it's been in every office I've occupied.

>> Yeah. uh since then. Um but I stood in front of an OA >> with a very dear colleague, very knowledgeable colleague and we were just sort of batting backwards and forwards what this meant and all of a sudden it

came to me and I said okay so actually the collapse of the Soviet Union is not the most important thing that's happening. The most important thing

happening. The most important thing that's happening is the rise of China.

Yes, that's right. And that's it's it's that basic Kennedy insight >> right >> that the thing that really frames the you know in terms of going back to theidities and Kagan the difference

between the ultimate and the proximate causes of wars is that the ultimate drivers are the shifts in distribution of wealth and power and that that's what

you've really got to keep your eye on you know the growing power of Athens it's the growing power of China and how we respond to that and whether we

respond to it by just trying to contain it or whether we respond to it by trying to accommodate it or appease it, that's the big choice we face and that's the

choice that Australia is still I think not seriously embraced.

>> There's a great quote by Lenon. Do you

recall this one >> on page 436?

Maybe it's short and it may be worth reading out.

This is Lenon himself to a Bolevik colleague in 1918 >> like who knew a thing or two about this sort of stuff.

>> Yeah. Realizing that the uneven economic growth rates of countries would lead to the rise and decline of specific powers.

So this this is Lenin quote half a century ago Germany was a miserable insignificant country as far as its capitalist strength was concerned compared with the strength of England at

the time. Japan was similarly

the time. Japan was similarly insignificant compared with Russia. Is

it conceivable that in 10 or 20 years time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained unchanged? Absolutely inconceivable.

unchanged? Absolutely inconceivable.

>> Yes, that's right. That's right.

Whereas because what people what people do is they attribute the status quo the status quo they like with a kind of eternal um sanctity. Yeah. Almost.

um sanctity. Yeah. Almost.

>> Yeah.

>> Um >> I mean Kissinger talks about this the very phrase international order seems to presuppose permanence whereas in fact it's always changing >> and that the process of managing those

changes sometimes the time frames are quite long.

>> Yeah. You know, it can take decades. I

mean, China started rising.

>> You could almost say the year I first came to CRA, 45 years ago. You know,

1979 >> was was the point at which um you know, Dang Xiaoing initiated the big changes.

So, it's been a 45 year story so far.

Not over yet.

>> Yeah.

>> But but you know, those sorts of and adapting to those changes, recognizing that change is happening. I mean this is something that uh that eh car talks about that you know ch change is change

is not bad in itself but we just got to make sure we manage it to survive it as best we can.

>> Having said all that one thing I did learn from this book was about sort of Britain's second wind. So the financial revolution underpins British

>> strength as a great power in the 18th century.

>> Yes. And then the industrial revolution takes them to sort of a new height in the 19th century. and and maybe you could draw analogies today with so if for example AI turns out to be as as

transformative as some people think it might you know the US might get a second win relative to China or >> whatever but >> well it it might

um I mean the reason why the financial revolution gave Britain such a lift in the 17th century was that nobody else had it >> in the 18th >> in the 18th century rather that nobody else had it actually started in the 17th

century with the establishment of the bank of England. I mean really the the War of the Spanish Succession was the first great victory of the Yeah.

>> of the Bank of England >> strength, the source of British strength, >> but it was but nobody else had anything like it. So they had, if you like, a

like it. So they had, if you like, a monopoly on this stuff and so they could raise taxes and therefore build ships at a rate that nobody else could. Whereas

the trouble is, you know, the Chinese have already got AI.

M >> uh America might might stay ahead, but it's going to stay ahead by a by, you know, a relatively narrow margin, if at all.

>> Whereas Britain had a monopoly >> on on on what we'd call a modern >> state finances.

>> 33% on average of their wartime expenditure between 1688 and 1815 was loans. Through loans.

was loans. Through loans.

>> Yes. Yeah. And and and the fact is they could they could raise that money.

>> Yeah.

>> Because they had a highly reliable way of paying it back.

>> Yeah.

>> And people believe they pay it back.

>> Yeah.

>> And you know and and a whole you know a whole British society >> uh survived on large sections of British society functioned on the basis of

lending money to the British government.

You read Jane Austin and people talk about they've got so many so much money in the funds. Yeah.

>> That's what they mean.

>> Yeah. You know, it's it's you know, Brit the British war debt >> kept British upper class society float afloat.

>> Yeah.

>> And and you know, >> they ruled the world.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Anything else on Kennedy?

>> No. Again, we could talk about Kennedy all night.

>> I mean, we we didn't really touch his key thesis.

>> Well, it's his his key thesis. I mean,

he the mistake he made was to presuppose that America was overextended at the very end of the Cold War. And it proved something of an embarrassment to him because he predicted that America was

overextended and was going to start declining uh about two years before the Soviet Union collapsed which didn't look that compelling but the underlying message which was keep your eye on

what's happening to GDP that was the right message and that was that was the message about China.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. in our final. So, we're finished with the 11 books.

>> I want to ask you some general questions.

>> Just before that, you have kindly given me permission to publish a sort of long list with some annotations. Um, we've

we've mentioned a few things that would appear on the long list. There's Bruce's

history of the American Civil War, >> but not only books, things like the BBC's 1964 documentary, The First World War. So, so we'll we'll put that up for

War. So, so we'll we'll put that up for people who are interested in in an even longer list of the books that have shaped your thinking and that people might benefit from in in shaping their

thinking about these strategic questions as well. Um, but but some just some

as well. Um, but but some just some general questions now. So, firstly,

if we take World War I and two together, what is Hugh White's grand parimonious explanation of those two events?

uh it's the collapse of the very stable and successful European order of the 19th century caused by a fundamental shift in the distribution of wealth and power both within Europe with the rise

of Germany with the rise of Russia/ the Soviet Union coming out of nowhere the collapse of the Ottoman Empire which fundamentally destabilized relations between particularly between Russia and

Austria which was a big part of what happened in 1914 and the rise of Japan Now, all of those meant that the s and and I might say the relative decline of

Britain because of the rise of America.

Um, and so, you know, the you'd had this very stable international order all through the 19th century, which didn't mean they didn't have wars. They did

have wars, but the wars didn't become systemic. you know, the Germans fought

systemic. you know, the Germans fought the Austrians or the Germans fought the French or the British and the French fought the Russians, but they all they were contained and they didn't lead to

fundamental change. Whereas once you get

fundamental change. Whereas once you get to 1914, the whole thing comes apart at the seams and it came apart at the seams in 1914.

They failed to put it back together in 1918. the same problem

1918. the same problem with Hitler added as a as an additional appalling catastrophe, but it was the same fundamental problem in 1939.

>> Yeah.

>> And having destroyed Germany or at least having destroyed that German challenge because of the way Europe evolved after 1940, Western Europe evolved after 945.

Um but Russia of course takes its place and so I think the um the whole unfolding of the 20th century through indeed to the end I because I'd include

the cold war is the un is the unpacking of the consequences for the European order of the of those fundamental shifts in distribution of wealth and power which really occurred in the 19th century. I mean they were they continued

century. I mean they were they continued in the 20th century but a lot of what happened in that continuation was driven by the wars themselves. I mean, Russia emerged as the strongest power in Europe

because it was the one that survived the Second World War best.

>> Okay. Briefly, for someone wondering why these books mostly focus on European history, >> what would you tell them?

>> Yeah. No, really good, really good question. The answer is that what we're

question. The answer is that what we're the question we face is how a system of modern nation states manages its relations with one another and in particularly manages relationships with

one either by going to war or by avoiding going to war. Now one of the things that makes fifth century Greece so continually fascinating is that although

they are very different actually they function a bit like modern states. You

know, you can you look at at that system. Uh but the fact is that there

system. Uh but the fact is that there was no there was no system of states elsewhere in the around the globe that functioned the same way. Uh but one of

the consequences of the success of the European system in the 19th century was that their model of states and of state system spread to the world. So we now have states all around the globe

including here in East Asia which function a lot like the European state system of the 17th 18th and 19th century and although the analogies are always imperfect it's by

far and away the best textbook we have for how these sorts of states interact.

Yeah.

>> And so, you know, if it's it's uh there is a kind of an underlying logic in the fact that studying what the Europeans got right and got wrong is the best basis we have for understanding what our

choices are today.

I mean I should just say there are some there are some very good books focusing on what happened in East Asia particularly uh in the in the that from

my um reading uh particularly in the in the 20th century the way in which the Japan China relationship evolved yeah in particular

>> um but one of the one of the reasons why there isn't more is that as Southeast Asia emerged from colonialism In the 50s and 60s, we ended up in a

strange period in which America's primacy in East Asia was essentially uncontested.

>> So there was very little power politics in East Asia from well particularly since after Nixon went to China in 1972, but you can even say before then.

>> And that's that's um uh if you like a whole new history of the geopolitics of Southeast Asia and East Asia to be written and that's only just beginning.

It's going to be pretty exciting.

Okay. So, abstracting away from the subject matter, the the events dealt with in each of these books, how would you describe the underlying

philosophical framework or frameworks that they've given you?

Well, it is that um nation states have a formidable propensity to violence that states really do go to war and and most states

most of the time spend a lot of money on preparations to go for war. So, you've

got to take the you've got to take the propensity to violence seriously.

And it's worth bearing in mind that of all the terrible things that can happen to humankind, major war is the worst thing we inflict on ourselves. There are earthquakes,

on ourselves. There are earthquakes, there are bush fires, there's global warming, there's famine, there's all sorts of terrible things to there's pandemics, there's all sorts of terrible things that happen. But but of all the

terrible things that can happen, major war is the worst thing that we do to ourselves.

and therefore finding ways to avoid that. But one might also say recognizing

that. But one might also say recognizing there are points where you probably shouldn't avoid it. They're deciding

when not to fight and deciding when to fight are amongst the most important decisions that societies can make. And

you know that was the sort of thing I think that enthralled me about the BBC's early episodes of the BBC's program is that it sort of dramatized the fact that people made these choices. It wasn't a

natural, you know, it wasn't like an ice age that just happened to us, something we did to ourselves. And that working out under what circumstances we should

go to war, particularly big wars, because big wars are driven by major shifts in the international system.

And so working out how we can manage international change, major systemic change in the international order peacefully is one of the most important tasks we face. Now we have we we thought

about this a lot in different ways during the cold war. We stopped thinking about the end of the cold war. We

thought it was the end of history. Some

of us did.

And we're still still not really thinking about that nearly carefully enough. And although

our political leaders keep saying that we live in the most dangerous strategic circumstances since the end of the Second World War, which suggests they think they see something's going on, but they stop there. They don't then

explain, well, why? What's happening?

What's the cause of the of of the danger? And what can we do to manage it?

danger? And what can we do to manage it?

And when they even start venturing into that area, they just say, "It's China."

Well, no, it's not China.

This is a story without heroes and maybe even without villains.

>> If you could force every Australian statesman and statesoman to read only one or two of these 11 books that we've

discussed, which would you pick?

>> Oh, that's a good one.

>> The origins of the Second World War.

>> Huh.

>> It's the hardest. It's the starkkest.

>> I think it's it's the one that most, you know, most challenges you.

>> If you could somehow guarantee that every member of the CCP's poet bureau read a Mandarin translation of one of these books, would it also be Origins of the Second World

War?

>> They've read them all. That's the point.

They understand us much better than we do. Mhm.

do. Mhm.

>> I you know wouldn't say a pull-up bureau but the central committee standing committee.

>> Yeah.

>> Standing committee that that's the point they've they've thought about this a lot.

>> Yeah.

>> Um uh so yeah I I I'm our problem is not that they don't understand what they're doing.

Some ways our problem is that they do understand what they're doing and we don't.

This next question feels a bit more frivolous in light of the the previous ones, but I went through and and calculated the average age of the authors in the year that their books

were published.

>> The average age is 50.

>> So the the the oldest author was Kissinger. He was 71 when Diplomacy was

Kissinger. He was 71 when Diplomacy was published. The youngest was Kagan. He

published. The youngest was Kagan. He

was 37 when the outbreak of the Palpanian war was published.

>> Both of those are interesting.

>> Yeah. So the average age of 50. 50.

What? Why do you think uh that is?

>> Does 50 seem old to you?

>> I mean in some other disciplines your maybe your the peak of your achievement might be in your 30s or your 40s.

>> Yeah. Even in your late 20s.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Look, I do think it's a very it's a good question. I do think this is this is an issue in which is a kind of a sedimentary principle that the impact of

ideas floats down and settles and then builds up.

>> Um and I think I mean to look at Kissinger for example as the oldest of them bit scary a year younger than I am now but he started writing about this stuff in his in his 20s.

>> Yeah.

>> The world restored was his PhD thesis.

Mhm.

>> It's an astonishingly pretentious, courageous book. Um uh and I, as I said,

courageous book. Um uh and I, as I said, it could have been on my list. It's

always been very influential, but in but in the end, what he built up there was a lot, you know, it's a lot more of his own experience stacked up there. So,

it's less it's less brash and it's a bit more measured and a bit more a bit more pessimistic actually. And I

think you know a degree of pessimism uh is a pretty good pretty important component >> of one's mental equipment >> in this field. And I think people do become more pessimistic as they get older

>> or at least more attuned to how things can go wrong.

>> Yeah. Yeah. That that seems that seems true. And maybe maybe this is a

true. And maybe maybe this is a different way of making the same point, but because these are mostly history books um like maybe for maybe for historians sort of crystal intelligence

is more important. You're sort of accumulating a lifetime of facts and >> insights and and and that that's more that's more important to something like history.

>> I think that could that could well be ripped out. That's a good point. And I

ripped out. That's a good point. And I

guess that's kind of what I was trying to get to at the sentimentary thing that there's, you know, these ideas sort of build up >> cumulatively over a long period of time.

It's not a matter of going out and trying to find a >> you know a a particular formula which links phenomenon A to phenomenon B for a physicist or something like that. It's a

much >> more complex >> process.

>> Okay. So two final opportunistic questions. these don't necessarily

questions. these don't necessarily connect to the books we've discussed, but just because we're here and the mics are rolling and and you're Hugh White, I I just wanted to >> to ask you a couple of things. So So the

first is, you know, putting you on the spot a bit, any anecdotes about your time, your your five years as Hawk's international relations advisor or

before that working for Kim Beasley when he was defense minister. Any anecdotes

you haven't shared publicly that you can share with me today?

Well, I think one one moment and you know most days in the office when you're working for a minister are much like every other day, you know, but sometimes

something happens and one of the most interesting moments was in May of 1987 when the first Fiji coup occurred.

Um, a Labor government has happened.

Fiji Labour Party had been elected a week or two before and the Fiji military pushed it out and um tried to take his

place and uh I was working for Kim at the time and Kim and Hawk and Gareth Evans who was acting foreign minister Bill Hayden was the Savannah foreign minister but he was overseas for

gathered in Hawk's office and started talking about how to respond and I I insinuated myself into the conversation after they've been at it

for a while and I was surprised to discover that they were seriously considering a military intervention.

This was the first time in my professional experience and I'd only been in the business for seven years at that stage that that I that I'd been so to speak

witness to participant in a conversation about about well in very broad terms almost trivially trivial scale going to

war using the armed forces in that kind of way and and these were three very sophisticated people and what I'm about to say is not in any way criticism of

them. I know them all well and admire

them. I know them all well and admire them all immensely.

But but the idea that we might send the ADF to overturn this coup and restore the Bandra government was very seriously uppermost in their minds. And I was

fascinated by how quickly even these very sophisticated but who I might say were all absolutely of the generation who'd learned the lesson of Vietnam and you know all through the

1980s were extremely allergic to the idea of using armed force precisely because Vietnam had been such a traumatic experience. It was an idea

traumatic experience. It was an idea that came to them very naturally and I I never forgot from that how now in the end of course they decided not to or

rather they kind of decided not to. We

did deploy the ADF but not to overturn the coup but just to make sure that if any Australians got into trouble we could rescue them. But that in itself was a kind of a halfway acknowledgement of the fact that they wanted to do more.

Now, they quickly reached a very sober and conscious and correct decision that an intervention would be a mistake, that it wouldn't work. But the fact that they initially thought that this was

something that they really wanted to seriously consider taught me a lesson about the way governments and people react in such situations. Now to compare that to

the British cabinet on the 2nd of August 1914 weighing whether to go to war with Germany is trivial at one level. But it is just a

it for me it just illustrated that there are you know the a few these decisions are made by a very few people often on

very short time frames. And you know, we touched before about the idea of, you know, whether Australia would decide to go to war, support the United States in a war with China over Taiwan. If the

Chinese do attack Taiwan, the the the decision confronting Australia will need to be made within hours and it will be made by it won't be made by the full cabinet. It'll be made

by three or four people in the prime minister's office.

And the question is, how are they prepared to make that decision? Have

they thought about it? Do they think they'll have long to think about it when the time comes? So that that experience, as I say, trivial in itself, but that experience of watching ministers

confront that choice of peace or war for the first time. And it was not the last time because I was involved in other decisions about later conflicts later on, bigger bigger conflicts. But that,

you know, saw something about your first time.

>> Was there anything particular that surprised you about it watching them wrestle with that decision?

just just that the idea of going to war seemed appealing, >> right?

>> You know, this >> it was a decision that they could make >> a decision they could take. Yeah.

>> Decision they quite wanted to take >> decided against it but >> and decided against it for the right reasons. I say I'm not I don't think

reasons. I say I'm not I don't think their >> their approach or their processes were inappropriate or illegitimate and I think their decision was the right one.

>> But it was striking to me that >> and these were very sober people. These

were not these were these were not silly people. Yeah. Okay. Final question. So I

people. Yeah. Okay. Final question. So I

I I feel like I have a good sense of how you think Australia's defense and for foreign policy should adapt to China's challenge.

I'm curious though, do you have any thoughts, even halfbaked ones, on how our domestic polic policy should adjust even at a high level? So for example,

one might say that a sort of populate or perish policy would be appropriate to increase our manpower, increase our GDP.

Um that that would be an example of a a domestic policy shift in order to adjust. Um yeah, do you have any

adjust. Um yeah, do you have any >> Well, let me start by slightly reframing the question. Sure. Because although I

the question. Sure. Because although I myself have spoken about the rise of China as the great dynamic in our international setting which we and other countries have to adapt to, it's not

just China. The real story

just China. The real story is the end of the long era of Western and we might say Anglo-Saxon English-sp speakaking domination of the Western

Pacific. Ever since European settlement

Pacific. Ever since European settlement in 1788, this the world's biggest economy, the world's primary maritime power and the dominant power in this part of the world

has either been Britain or America. And

that has always framed and continues to frame our whole thinking about our place in the world. Now, that's what we have to adapt to. And what challenges that is China, of course,

but it's also India.

Never forget India. It's also Indonesia which well before the middle of the century will have the fourth biggest economy in the world. Now that's going to be different and it will be the emergence of a whole

new strategic order in in Asia including in East Asia which will work completely differently from anything we've known.

So that's what we have to adapt to. It's

not just responding to China although China's a big part of it.

Now um what does that demand of Australia?

Well, it demands of us that we find a way to make our way in an Asia which is no longer dominated, made safe for us by an Anglo-Saxon power. And we're going to be more on our own than we've ever been

before.

And that is, I think, frightening and certainly challenging. Um,

certainly challenging. Um, and that has big implications for our defense policy because we do have to, I think, think about how we defend ourselves independently in a way that we

haven't had to do before. And that in turn has implications both for our demographics and our and our economy or the associate, you know, the association between them. That is the the bigger our

between them. That is the the bigger our economy, the more we're going to be able to look after ourselves. I think it's a very straightforward thing. But anyway,

you want your economy to grow. So I

don't know that that's a sort of a new dimension for all sorts of reasons. You

want the biggest economy you can have, >> but it is an argument in favor of of I wouldn't quite put it as populate or perish, but it is it is an argument in favor of a of a bigger population.

But I don't think that's the real issue for us. I think much more importantly,

for us. I think much more importantly, it's a it's it going to it's going to demand of us

a rethinking of who we are. In the end, how you relate to other countries always depends on how you see yourself.

And Australia has in a sense the great drama of the Australian story, one of the great dramas has been an adaptation to the fact that although

many of our ancestors came from other parts parts of the world, European parts of the world, Caucasian parts of the world, um we found ourselves in this

continent off the off the off the end of Asia. And reconciling that contradiction

Asia. And reconciling that contradiction between history and geography has always been part of our story. But for a long side, the reconcil reconciliation was eased by the fact that our mates left

over from the other part of the world still dominated this part of the world.

And so we never really needed to think about how to make our way in Asia uh by ourselves. And now we do

ourselves. And now we do >> because a very big part of my argument is that in the world I've just described, the United States will not play a significant strategic role in Asia. There's no reason why it should

Asia. There's no reason why it should and and and I'm as sure as I can be that it won't. People find this extremely

it won't. People find this extremely challenging idea because they think that America's been the leading power in this part of the world for roughly speaking 125 years and something to last for 125

years lasts forever.

>> No, no.

>> Things that have last a long time collapse all the time. And that's what's collapsing. That's what's happening now.

collapsing. That's what's happening now.

And it's partly a Trump story, but it's not just Trump by any means. And that's

going to require us to think of ourselves as Asians >> and to identify ourselves with our region. Now Keading and Hawk used to

region. Now Keading and Hawk used to capture something of this idea when they spoke about Australia looking for its security not from Asia but in Asia.

But uh but but we need to go a lot further than that. Of course, in a sense, this is already happening because demographically we are becoming

more Asian and that's not going to stop and I think we have to accept that. But

when we keep on I think most Australians most of the time think that whatever else happens as we respond to the rise of China and India and Indonesia and other regional countries, we need to

remain true to ourselves. We don't want to change. We will change. We will be a

to change. We will change. We will be a different country. uh and the way we

different country. uh and the way we think about ourselves and you know we are going to have to make choices contrary to John Howard between our history and our geography. Our history

is that bit of our history is val is disappearing in the rear view mirror. Uh

our geography is looming larger and larger. And so thinking about how we

larger. And so thinking about how we adapt to that is a very big part of it.

And if you want a really simple oneline point about the cutting point, it's language study. Nothing nothing is more

language study. Nothing nothing is more striking than that Australia's at at the at the individual level and you might say at the emotional and intellectual

level even Australia's engagement in Asia has weakened not strengthened in the last 25 or 30 years.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's completely contrary to where we need to be going.

>> Right.

>> I said that was going to be my last question. Something you said earlier has

question. Something you said earlier has just been bugging me.

>> Good. You said you said that Australian political leaders probably haven't read many if any of these books at least in comparison to you know the standing members of the the members of

the standing committee of the the poet bureau.

>> Um and yet these are potentially the leaders who will be making that decision at 3:00 a.m.

>> That's right. maybe in a few years about whether to follow America into Taiwan if that to defend Taiwan if that eventuates.

>> Is it is that is it true? I mean this this kind of appalls me that our you know key members of cabinet maybe don't have a better than average understanding

of the causes of the first world war, the causes of the second world war, haven't read many of any of these books.

Is that really true?

>> Yes, it really is true. And it's not just that they haven't read the stuff, but they don't have, I think, what you might call the the

sort of social memory of it. So there's

a contrast here with this generation of political leaders and and earlier generations. I mean, I spent quite a lot

generations. I mean, I spent quite a lot of time over the years, both as a staffer and as a public servant, talking to ministers and prime ministers about scenarios in which Australia might go to

war. And when you talk to people like

war. And when you talk to people like Hawk or Keating or Howard, all of whom were of a generation for whom

the Second World War was a vivid recent memory, the Cold War was absolutely what they grew up with. the Vietnam War fundamentally shaped their whole their

politics one way or another.

Um these these people had even if they hadn't read the books they had a kind of an instinctive intuitive understanding of these things so that when you explain

things to them they oh they yeah got it you know they got it things slot into place. Now it's not to say they always

place. Now it's not to say they always got things right but they had a kind of framework for thinking about this stuff.

The generation of political leaders that grew up after the end of the Cold War, which includes our current leaders, were

very strongly influenced by the um so to speak utopian optimism of the 1990s. the idea that we lived lived in a

1990s. the idea that we lived lived in a world which was uh framed by American ideas and upheld by American power which

for Australia was an ideal world and whose thoughts about war were very strongly influenced by events like the

first Iraq war 199192 the second Iraq war and Afghanistan which first one was great success second two were terrible failures but they were

small failures is they didn't really matter.

Uh they didn't matter to some people, but they didn't matter to Australia overall. You might say that's shameful.

overall. You might say that's shameful.

We left 41 people in Afghanistan. But

but and those were wars they went into with le particularly the second two with very little thought. But my impression

is that the current generation of political leaders has has remains very

unreflective about the realities of strategic of the strategic choices they they potentially might have to face. And

um I might say very very anxious about the domestic politics of this issue.

But um but are also I think unable to I mean politicians are always focused on domestic politics. They should be that's

domestic politics. They should be that's their job but they also have to balance that against what you might call the bigger national issues and they're very anxious about the domestic politics

uh and very unconscious of the bigger strategic questions and you know they if if you want a if you want a data point then you look no further than Orcus. I

mean, Orcus is a really dumb idea for a number of reasons, apart from anything else. We don't need nuclearpowered

else. We don't need nuclearpowered submarines, and anyway, we're not going to get them. But the really fundamental problem is that they are a very unambiguous

declaration of commitment to support the United States if the United States decides to go to war with China over whatever reason, but most probably Taiwan. And our political leaders either

Taiwan. And our political leaders either understand that and just pretend they don't or they don't understand it. And

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. I think they don't understand it,

doubt. I think they don't understand it, which just shows they have not thought about this.

>> And this seems shocking. It is shocking, but I think that's the reality we deal with. And those of us who engage in the

with. And those of us who engage in the national debate on this have to reckon with the reality that we are in a in a kind of a politically speaking, we're talking into a vacuum. M

>> because neither side of politics I mean the point I'm making is purely bipartisan. Neither side of politics

bipartisan. Neither side of politics wants to engage in it >> and that's um that's a disaster actually. We are

living through the the most difficult transition in our strate in our national history strategically since European settlement.

And yet we're so much less focused on it and so much less prepared at our political leadership than uh the men and they were all men who who managed our way through the transition at the end of

the British Empire >> uh to towards federation. You know those those guys I mean I was talking before about Australia has to rethink what sort of country it is. One of the things

Australians did at the end of the 19th and early 20th century was to recognize that as Britain's strategic leadership in our part of the world collapsed. We

had to rethink who we were and stop thinking of ourselves as Victorians or New South Wales and start thinking of ourselves as Australians. And it was not an it was not an easy cell. You know, we we we had to have two referendums to get

it through. People bitched and moaned,

it through. People bitched and moaned, but in the end they bought the argument.

>> Well, no one's taking on that kind of argument now.

Hugh, we better leave it there.

>> Better leave it there.

>> It has been so interesting uh learning about some of the texts that have most influenced your thinking um as I've been reading them over the last couple of weeks, but I feel like I've learned even

more from you today. Um yeah, thank you and and thanks for being so so generous.

>> Oh, well, my pleasure. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed the the

much. I really enjoyed the the conversation.

>> Fantastic. Done.

>> Okay, see you.

>> Thank you, sir. It's all good.