you maybe about a week later, you'll see some slowing down, but we have not felt that manila streets aren't as empty as one would imagine. during the lockdown, more businesses are allowed to operate, and more people are out and about. but health department officials say it could take weeks before the impact of this walk down is spelt barn to be low. i'll just hear manila ah, hello again. the headlines on al jazeera, the u. s. has reopened caballo airport after chaotic scenes for a temporary suspension of evacuation flights. thousands of people rushed onto the tarmac, desperate to escape taliban rule. in his 1st address since the taliban assume control of travel, the us president joe biden conceited events unfolded quicker than expected. but went on to blame afghan forces for the takeover. we planned for every contingency,

but i always promised the american people, but i'll be straight with you. the truth is, this did on fall more quickly than we had anticipated. so what's happened of ghana, stan political leaders gave up and fled the country. the afghan military collapsed sometime without trying to fight. if anything, the development of the past week reinforced that any u. s. military involvement, i guess and now was the right decision. the masters cannot and should not be friday, you know, or and dine in a war that afghan forces not willing to fight for themselves. the un security council held another emergency meeting on i've gone on secretary general. and so any good terrorists called on the taliban to respect human rights. he said he's

particularly concerned about reports of the violation of the rights of women and girls. a tropical storm is looming and hey, t reports flooding is it brings heavy rain and some areas hit by saturdays, devastating earthquake. there are fears. it will hamper rescue efforts as the search for survivors continues through the night. more than 1400 people have died. many of the thousands of injured are being treated on the streets as hospitals are overwhelmed. for the 1st time, the u. s. is declared a shortage at its largest water reservoir triggering mandatory cuts to some western states. lake meet on the colorado river serves some 40000000 people. farmers in arizona are expected to see the biggest drop in supply. nevada will also face cuts as well as the nation of mexico. the region is struggling with the droughts and record high temperatures. those are the latest headlines on al jazeera. the stream is up next. ah

. when ever you ah, all the news a they're welcome to the stream. i'm josh rushing, sitting in for me. ok today. now look. if you're watching this live on youtube, i want you to help me out to that box over there. that is a live youtube chair, and we have a producer sitting there waiting to get your questions and your comments to me so that i can ask them during the show today and what to show it as we're talking about war. and that's the title and the subject, the one to the hottest books at 2020. they got picked as a top 10 book by the new york times for nonfiction,

and we're lucky enough to be joined by an author. margaret mcmillan. professor mcmillan is a professor of history at the university of toronto in an ameritas professor of international history and a former warden of st. anthony's college of university of oxford. and oxford is where she's joining us from today. good day, professor, how are you? very well, thanks. alright, so let's start with a book. you've written a lot of books about that, the 20th century, and then you wrote this one, which is a course about the 20th century, which is nobody's great wars, but it's actually a much more broad look at history on this one topic, a war. why did, why did you write it? i'm also curious. are you surprised at all by the response to it? well, the 2nd question is easy to answer. yes i am. it's something i've been thinking about for a long time, but i thought it will come out. it's the book that a few people might like be nice if it got some nice reviews, but i am, i am surprised. it's something i've been thinking about for a long time. if you do, history, war comes in and out of history a lot that has

a huge impact on history. and i suppose war was in my own background like it's in the background of a lot of people. my age. my father was in the canadian navy, both i in the 2nd world war, both my grandfathers were in the 1st of all, horace doctors. and so it was something i heard about as a child and for some reason it's a subject, the whole subject of war through the age is something that there's always fascinated me. it's interesting because every history book i've ever read, it's a war of prevalent part of it. the book isn't just about war. and are there a category of human experiences that you might put on the same level like love or sex or economy or like, what kind of category are you placing war in terms of human experience? for is one of the great challenging experiences for humans. i suppose it brings out both the best and the worst in human nature. it can have a profound impact on societies or it can be something that's somewhere else by

other people. and we don't think about it very much. but i think it intensifies what it is to be human, i mean, and wore your face with what you mean in war. so you know, better than me, your face with the most elemental decisions you have to try and save your life. you might have to try and take another life. you do things for other people that you might not do in peace time. and so it is something i think, which is not natural to us necessarily, but it is an enormously testing part of what it is to be human. you know, it's not natural members, not the actual experience of war, which i have been to many, many times as journalists and only once as ring as a marine. you have a reason that you're there, a purpose, be adjuster, unjust. but you definitely know why you're there. as a, as a journalist, when you're there, obviously you're there, it's important to witness it. but at the same time, you feel foolish finding yourself in that kind of like who finds himself on about a field without a weapon. i. it's just a weird,

weird thing and you ask yourself these questions like, what am i doing here? but you document in your book, you know, through time people being on the battlefield cameras, when they 1st were there were cameras. and what have you found about the way people reflect on war? well, i think it depends whether you're there is an observer and i think if you're only there is an observer, i mean, of course your life is in danger and you're part of it in some ways. but you want fighting, and so you're not experiencing the same way. and what i'm very conscious of is i'll never really understand what it is to be in combat. and what i try and do is read about it, look at pictures about it, and i think soldiers, those who find themselves often tried to capture that in the 20th century, their memoirs. and then when she cameras came in the 1st war, it was possible for a soldier to carry a very small, cheap cameron in the pocket of his uniform. they tried, i think, to record it as much as they could in their own ways. because i think they probably sense this was something that they. ready wanted not to remember fondly but,

but to capture because it was such a crisis moment in their lives. we have a question for you from someone from our community. this is caroline ball. she's an academic librarian, in derby, and she has a question about steven pickers book, which you've mentioned a few times in your book here. and i'll let her ask him several times in this book . you mention, stephen pinker, on his book, the better angels of our nature, in which she argues that violence has declined in human societies throughout history. i wonder having written this book that focuses exclusively on war. what you think about that argument? are we listening to the better angels of our nature and becoming less violent? or are we saying the same more, or maybe even becoming more violent? i wonder what you think about myself estate and think his book is enormously challenging, and i think very important. but i would make a distinction, i've been thinking about it a lot since i've read it and i've read other books which, which take our take issue with him. and what i would say is that we may be becoming

in some societies less prone to random violence or less prone to silence in our everyday lives. we don't expect people to come outside pumps anymore and role and we just approve of it if that happens. and it used to happen a lot more and we don't enjoy public executions or public displays of, of cruelty. so i think in some ways, perhaps the better angels of our natures, at least in some societies, have one out. but war is quite different. it's not random. violence wars organize violence and you can take someone who is perfectly peaceful and doesn't want to kill any well, some turn that person into someone who is a disciplined warrior who will do it. and i think the crucial thing about was that it's organized. and in some ways the violence exertion of war. yes, there is violence over the violence extension was purpose if it's intentional and sometimes i think it's a great deal more devastating and cruel than the random violence when, when we just lash out. but are you making the argument that you think pinker is wrong and as central argument that these are the least violent times in human

history? i think it depends what you're talking about. if you're talking about certain societies, yes, they are enjoying least less violent times. although, i mean, there are exceptions, his own country, the united states has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. you know, it's way out on the end of one scale for most of the developed world. but what i think about war is it's not that sort of violence. it uses violence is an element, but war is highly organized and anthropologist sentiment. i've been thinking about it ever since war is the most organized of human activities. and you apply violence to war. but you do it often, a very cold and calculating way, and so war is not the same as the violence that you might see in societies where violence is endemic. what people use beating each other up, and then trying to kill each other or simply been cruel. to each other, war is organized purpose of violence. and so i would say that in some ways we've been getting nicer. but we still have a tremendous capacity to organize ourselves for destruction and for killing others . you talk to us about how war shaped culture. i was really,

i really enjoyed the last chapter of your book and you think about it going all the way back to homer in the iliad through a casa gornick, or all the great writing that came out of war. we're one he just, i don't know. that's fully appreciate it as much as perhaps it should be. but before those 2 things with culture one is this war provokes the response, and people have great creativity, and they try to make sense of it. i mean, some of the great racing that came out of the social war was those who were engaged in that war, trying to make sense of the war itself over this tremendous industrial killing machine, which europe and built and painters and musicians as well. i think try and make sense of where they're trying to understand it because it's such a challenge to our understanding who we are and what we are. and so war i think will provoke among great ashes, a very thoughtful and awesome, passionate response. so you think of picasso's guernica, that extraordinary painting he did after the italian f o defenseless bask town in

the spanish civil war. one of the 1st times that civilians had been bombed from the air and it caused a tremendous response and produce one of the great paintings of the 20th century. but culture also shapes when we, which we look at war. and we know that culture can react to the horrors of war and portrayed, and the cultural artifacts can also try and portray, or something glorious and the portrayal of, or something glorious minutes there in the end. even though the horror, or is there as well, has also influenced people in their attitudes towards war. many of the young soldiers who went off to fight in the 1st or was particularly from the middle and upper classes, had been educated on the classics. and they thought they were going off to fight a noble war like the trojan wars or like the roman wars. and so it works both ways . war will produce cultural, cultural responses and cultural creations. but those creations, in some cases, can also help shape our attitudes was and help make, make us perhaps, ready to fight in some cases. there's also something in that about the way that we

remember war. i want to bring in another comment. this is from an associate professor or history at uva, charlottesville, virginia name to, to, for sessions. one really important impact of war on society is how words remember, then, how memories of war are used politically in the present. if we take the imperial wars, the european american font, in the 18 and 1900 hundreds for them. whether you see them now as instances of national glory or race as mylan is really about what empire means to you today. and how it relates to your contemporary values, who we see as heroes and the villain of wars. and the past is as much about who we identify with in the present as it is about what happens historically. when we look at the face about monuments that have been going on over the last couple of years, american civil war monuments,

european colonial monuments. this is what's really going on. and i think that's very true and i think it's true history in general, but we are constantly reshaping our views of the past, offering different questions of it, depending on what we're preoccupied within the present and what concerns we have about ourselves. and i think i quite agree. so when you look at the debate happening in the states over the civil war monuments, what, what's your take away from that? what does history tell us about that debate? well, how we look at monuments, changes, and a lot of the civil war monuments were put up. actually i hadn't realized how recent some of them was. some of them were put up in the fifty's when the civil rights movement was beginning to get go. and i think they put up very deliberately by white supremacists in the united states to show that we wanna and the last and to the, to the black americans, and you'd better watch it. and now of course, as american society is coming to terms with it, so racism, and with the tensions between the races, those monuments, again,

i'm being seeing that different lights. and i think this happens a lot that how we see things is very much affected by what's happening to us today . and i think it's quite right improper. we should question such things as we question our histories. why does it seem normal, that every country on earth needs to trained some of its young people to be killers and not unrestrained killers, but some kind of control killers where it's okay to kill here and then, but not here. and now how, how does that normalized? well, it's partly fear. i think it fear that if we don't prepare ourselves others might attack us. i think here plays a very large part in preparations for war and thinking about war and always has done. but there are those who believe and have believe that training people to be ready to fight is actually good for the nation. it helps to be it's mark nation strengths. it's good for young people to be given discipline. i mean, that was quite prevalent and a lot of european countries, for example,

before the 1st world war. but somehow military shoes were what you wanted. discipline, willingness to sacrifice, willingness to die for your country or for or for whatever cause. and so i think there are a number of things that dr. societies repair for war and one is clearly fear. but sometimes there are those and societies say we need to get ready because we may want to fight award to take what we watch the japanese militarist before the 2nd world war believe in a strong armed forces. so they could see more land on the mainland of china, so they could make a stronger japan. and so there are many motives wars, and many reasons why people do prepare to fight them. there's some interesting part of the book where you talk about the technological advancements that have come from war all the way from stirrups to silk shirts to steal ships in the airplanes. we have to have a comment from. this is from a professor of history in florence, italy here, check us out. know the reach of societies on earth are fast approaching the moment

when they will be able to wage war almost entirely by machines and information systems without exposing their own men and women to destruction of the battle to. so how will these change war, the propensity of our society is to wage war and the huge differential between the richest and the poor society earth in these i need the relationship. i think the vision a question, and i don't see any com forward to answer these questions. i want to answer back from our youtube community d. d. amelia says the west is made war worse than it was. people used to fight with swords on battlefield without children, without women to innocent men. the western world has added fuel to the fire, causing this. and so she's not that the advancement of war were becoming worse. and also i'd add one more thing. did you notice that the recent job was that happened in azerbaijan with are many other use of drones,

for military writers are saying this signals a new age of warfare. but go ahead, if you want to comment about what, what the video comment was. well, i thought the 1st remark was said, it was very good and i too am pessimistic because what's happening is it's possible to wage war at a great distance on people you never see, or people you never engage with. and that may make the waging of war much, much easier meant so much of the war that has happened in the world since 945. not all but, but a lot of it has been powers fighting well away from their own territory, sending this armed forces abroad. and it's been possible for people in countries like united states or canada in my own country or britain to see was something that others do and happens elsewhere. and i think that is very, very dangerous. and i do worry about the growth of artificial intelligence and more of the growth of self guiding machines in war. and i think that is really worry, i think, develop nations who want to wage that sort of war. however, we'll find that war may come to them. one of the things that the military in

developed countries wearing a lot about now, and they showed as urban warfare and the possibility for small urban guerrillas or small groups of people, often self recruited to wage war. even on very powerful countries. so i think i see the future wars moving both in the very high tech level and often far away from the countries that are waging war, but also war of a low level which will cause a great deal of misery. as far as the west, being responsible for using technology in war, i think it's not just the west, any peoples that has come across new technology has i think for about how it might be used to war. the mongols learned that the horse couldn't be useful in war, it made them very effective warriors, and they learned how to make very, very powerful, composite bows, development and steel. the production of steel was a great help to some of the armies that rampage through the middle east. so that i

don't think the western certainly in recent century's being responsible for a great deal of the technological advance and war. and indeed for great deal of the destruction of war. but it is, i think it's something that is throughout human history. when a new technology comes along, societies have often wanted to see how they can use it for war. and that, i think is pretty much something that, that is part of humanity. you know, for what i saw in iraq and afghanistan. and i wouldn't be surprised if you told me that the u. s. deployed more laptops and computers to those wars on the naked guns . i mean, it's really the signal that the information agent are much that quote for your book about rommel saying that the war is fought by quarter masters long before the battle begins. i think, you know, so much is put toward that kind of controlling and understanding information and logistics and supplies and, and all that. but what happened in agile region on which i just, i hinted at, is that this thing i've been in a still made between these 2 territories for that,

you know, 2030 years. and then they came in with a bunch of drones and within a month were able to force armenians and to really a terrible comp mizounos because of drone technology. so when you can do that without risking the lives of the young people from your country, there becomes a disconnect between the political will that's required for politicians to conduct war and actually doing it. are there examples of that historically? where, where countries were maybe able to pay mercenaries to fight wars for them, so that they didn't require the political will. other people, mercenary was, have been common throughout history and mercenaries have often come, understandably, from the poorest parts of the world. because it's the way i was in europe in the 16th and 17th century, the most nurse came from places like switzerland, ireland, scotland, because those are the poor parts of europe. and young men didn't have much opportunity in life. and war gave them at least a chance to leave and possibly survive and possibly to get on in the world. but i

think what we've also seen is always a search for a particular area and develop societies for types of technology that will enable you to spare the lives of your own men. and that was great hope. after the 1st world war that the airplane would make mass armies on the ground unnecessary. and that it would be possible to wage war at a distance using machines. and i think this is something that society keep on looking for the sort of solution that will enable them to get the edge over their enemies and not have to sacrifice their lives and the young people, i think what's also happening and it happens, you know, in different societies at different times is the number of societies no longer are willing to see their young people sacrificed in war. i think the 1st and 2nd world war had a huge impact on public opinion in the countries that taught them. and i think in many countries is a real distaste now for risk rest risking the lives of those that they would have risked in the past. we have another comment for someone in our youtube community right now. it is,

is nationalism the main cause of modern acceleration of war. i know nationalism played a big role in the great wars of the 20th century. and now we see nationalism on the rise again with you'd like trump and both narrow and bricks. it. should we be, it's a secondary in the coal mine that we should be watching for. i think nationalism has been a factor and warm it very much from the 18th to the end of 18th century onwards. before that, most people did not organize themselves or identified themselves as being part of national groups, but they didn't begin to do so. nationalism as we know is a very powerful force. it's like a religion in a way that people will do it for the sake of something they see is much bigger than them, much more important than them, which will live them. and people are prepared to sacrifice and die for this thing called the nation. it's enormously important as a way of identifying ourselves. and i do worry because what nationalism so often does is not just say we're a people bring us together. it also points out those who are excluded. it draws a line and it says they're not part of us and there are enemy. and so nationalism

tends to want to find. opponents tend so much my enemies, and therefore, i think is very dangerous. and we're seeing, i think, arise of nationalism around the world. which i do think the potentially very dangerous. indeed, i'm in the recent clash in the hind mansions between india and china, engage nationalist passions in both countries. and there was a tendency to look on the other. the people on the other side is somehow your mortal enemy who would have to be confronted. so yes, i agree with the questioner. margaret, what's your favorite book on war? now that i've read your book, what's the next? what you would recommend to me? well, i start with the ad because it is both a masterpiece and a foundation, i think of world literature. but it also brings out the horror and yet the fatal attraction of war. you know, achilles is this great warrior and he's terrifying. and in some ways in human, but he's also greatly admired. and so i think i'd start with that, but i think i,

it's hard to, to list all the things i think are wonderful. i tend to like the novels and the literature because they seem to me to capture something about war. i know she leaned on tim o'brien's the things we carried a lot. that's an excellent one. my favorite is we die alone. about the norwegian guy, yon buzzword? i think it's no, i'm mispronouncing his name, john balls. rude. have you read that book? we haven't know. well, make a note some great admirer, tim o'brien, that american novelist. i mean, i think his description in viet nam and in the things they carries of what the cells went through. but he also gets it's something which i think is a very important component. canada born, that's a camaraderie. that's the feeling that those who are fighting have for each other. and i think he gets that very well indeed. i think it's a wonderful book. local people remember say 20300 years from now. what will be remembered about the 20th century?

if we're still around, we'll be latin ever dust bins of history as well. i think people will look back at the 20th century as they are already looking back at saying what an extraordinary century. i mean, in some ways, such great progress, enormous scientific and technological advances. social advances, not uniform, but certainly changes often for the better and societies and also what horrors it produced. how could this century have encompassed so much that was good about humanity and so much was bad. how could you reduce these hideous took dictatorships the not to dictation soviet dictatorship, a whole host, other dictatorship models, dictatorship, totalitarian states? how could it have improved the lives of so many people and also introduce killing on a mass scale it's, it's one of the most bloody centuries, i think in human history. and yet it has this paradox, and it also produce tremendous advances and advances in the way we think about each other. advances in human rights advances in the sense for common humanity. i don't

know how people in the future will characterize the 20th century. i think it will continue to be this extraordinary puzzle. if buzz aldrin once told me that you know, 100 years now look back on the 20th century. the only thing that will be remembered as well or to and landing on the moon. real quick, i got less than a minute, but i want to know if you had a nephew come to you and say they were thinking about joining the military or niece in less than a minute. what would you advise them? go and read about it. read the memories of those who for if this is what you want and there are very good things about being in the military. yes, you will get an education, you will learn who are from your people you meet. you'll meet some wonderful people . but remember that base what you're doing is repairing, if necessary to kill others and be killed? sage advice, margaret. and they could definitely pick worse places and start than yearbook war. and that's what i'd recommend to start there and visit a v a hospital, maybe margaret,

thank you for the time today and everyone in our audience. thank you. i'll see you next time. ah, me on counting because europe pete fun to find terrorism and counter china and russia in africa. activists say they'll provide weapons to dictate the climate emergency costing billions. placing millions, counting the call on al jazeera, with more than 200000000 cases, the curve of 19 worldwide government attaching to fight fresh wave of the virus a new barrier. there has been a 3rd and the number of people working vaccination appointment from the human cost to the political and economic pool out. i'll just bring you the latest on the pen demik. this'll have vaccinated more than 1100 people here. all of them migrant farm workers, people on home testing because they think that there is a risk to demography special coverage and i'll just 0 through

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ringback face in the news haunting images of desperate off guns trying to escape after an abrupt taliban takeover may have shot the world. but us president joe biden remains defiance and president of the united states america. and the buck stops, was me. deeply saddened by the facts we now face when i do not regret my decision in afghanistan, people live under the new reality.