million pounds which is about $3.8 million. agatha christie was the author of over 80 books including murder on the orient express died in 1976 at the age of 85. book tv will bring you new programs and publishing news and also watch all our past programs anytime at booktv.org. >> i'm louise miriam, the historical society president and i am real to welcome you to tonight's virtual program. learning how conflict will shake us. it's presented as a part of our irene schwartz distinguished speakers series which is part of our public program. just before i introduce our speakers i want to recognize and thank historical trustees who are joining us this evening. first and foremost the chair of our board, the visionary

chairman emeritus of the new york historical roger murtaugh, the chair of our executive committee richard lee's and trustees brian kane, suzanne, vice chair and bird and david loud. i'd also like to thank members of our chairman's council for joining us this evening. we are so very grateful to each and every one of you for joining and your encouragement and support this challenging time. here then we are very pleased to welcome martha mcmillan, professor of history at the university of toronto narrative professor of the international history at the university of oxford. doctor mcmillan previously was on the faculty of ryerson university, going on to serve as provost of trinity college atthe university of toronto . and warden of saint anthony's college. at the university ofoxford . he's the author of war, how

conflict shapes us which was published this past fall and her previous book includes harassment in 19, civil war entities, books including dangerous games and women of the lot. joining us as moderators is a bother, professor of jurisprudence at columbia law school. professor bobbitt is a leading constitutional theorist who has an extensive history of government service . he served in all three h branches of government , during six and instructions both republican anddemocratic . including most recently stas director of intelligence programs, director for critical infrastructure and senior director for strategic planning at thenational charity council . the next i will ask an hour including15 minutes for questions and answers , so those questions can be

submitted via the q and a function on your resume screen. in the interest of simplicity we disabled the chat function so members can use the q&a. we will get to as many questions and now it is my great pleasure to turn our virtual stage over to the next speaker. thank you. >> thank you louise and welcome margaret. it's lovely to see you. you say war is the most organized of human activities. where as a constitutional lawyer like me it's said that government is the most organized human activity. i mention this because the relationship of war and the emergence of the state is one of the greatstrengths , it's wonderful for a grouping of this book. you had a need to make war

has been the driver for government organizations. and i wish you'd just expand on that a bit. >> we may have the pleasure to be here, i just wish it worked virtual. i have read happy memories of the new york historical society. i think we may have to argue a bit about which is the most organized of human activity because i think war and governments are so closely intertwined but what i mean by it is when you think of what's needed to make war, the globalization not just of people but resources, control of those resources and control of the people, the disciplining of those who want to fight, the direction of often very large numbers of people , this seems to me to take tremendous organization and as you pointed out in your book the shoulder of achilles this has driven ahead or certainly drove ahead the organization of state that it became necessary for states to acquire greaterpower , partly in order to fight wars but more successfully in wars

that were more powerful the more often they became soit's difficult to say which comes first . war or the high level of organized states because the two are intertwined and one tends to drive the other class excellently put and use a government organizations assisted in peacetime with etthe need to monetize resources and create structures for which wars, itthese do not disappear with the end of the war. are you suggesting there's been a mission creek or the state and that we should roll back some of the powers of regovernment that are gained by necessity in wartime? >> what we do in societies, especially democratic by societies is the authority to our governments and we will give up freedoms during war as the pandemic was not a war but we are prepared to accept limitations on our freedoms to come and go as we wish as

we understand there's a greater good at stake and there's a crisis that we have to get through and it's the same with large scale wars. society will recognize the need for their governments to do things they grew up in peacetime, direct labor and make people do certain kinds of jobs and not allow them to move freely around. i think often at the end of wars some of these are rollback but what happens and i'm not saying there's anything malignant in this is just a natural at once governments have achieved a level of control and societies they begin to think of doing were using it for peaceful purposes. the amount of money governments began to take out of societies which they would have thought was inconceivable for the first world war my end of the first world war become something they realize they could supposed mission creek is not were. the sorts of things can stand , resources and working out it seemed to be desirable i think often governments will

go partly back to the pugilist situation and societies may go back and the tendency is for the authority and the powers taken on by government to resist after the war is over because you find many other good purposes to use them. >> you said that war is one organized group fighting another organized group using violence to get his will over the other organized group. i think you may have said this sometimes might include gang warfare or perhaps some have said organized crime syndicates. we suggest that you don't need a state for there to be war but there are many who say that war is the legal relationship between two or more states and are quite intolerant of the idea that you can have a war and not have a state. my dear friend michael harrod maintained that.

>> i'm sympathetic to that and i sympathize very much with that point of view seems you're getting at the essence of war, we have different definitions was listed distinguishing war from random violence, you mightget a canadian . this means not were last violence is quite a bit of violence involved in what i'm trying to get involved in, full tear set this organized groups who make more have some sort of organized thing that keepsthem together . hai would say there's a blurred line to large-scale gangs for example will often use criminal methods but who might have more political purposes than just taking money out of crime and i think we saw the same thing in northern ireland where the s.two sides, the hard men on both sides who were fighting on both sides went further into criminal activities but they had alarger goal in mind . i was trying to get was this notion that are organized for some sort of purpose in

trying to do something with whatever force you have that's not just so you can sell more was good or take other people'sillicit goods . >> you acknowledged that there's some broad historical factors and demography, geography, technology, plagues and epidemics that are not altered or at least not transformed by political decision-making. but in this book, you write so powerfully and so winningly about the historic and cultural consequences of war. suppose the persons who had defeated the greeks, suppose charles martel had been defeated or the ottomans had successfully stormed vienna or as you say, the spanish conquest of the americans had failed. could you explain just for a minute the broad sweep you

give the reader on how wars have altered the course of history. these tenets that have changed the place we are at now. >> it's a great question and as you know it'ssomething historians argue about a lot . his history that the moving current that flows well under the surface for is is the fraud on the surface but there are times when you can see war, the outcome of war doesmake a difference . i know we have to be counterfactual what it but these are gravestones. the americans would have been different if there were different outcomes to the war . america ouhave been different if the british want more evidence rather than losing my burger british come to include mexico so i think we have to recognize the outcome of particular wars and often for generations, sometimes longer than religion,

political organization, who dominates so i think to say that war is on the surface and doesn't change things i think can see was if they had been differently the world would be different.>> at several points, you refer to the mystery of war. it's incredible intensity, perhaps part of this is the idea to which you refer that you can die at any, every leaf matters. why does war bring the best also bring out the worstin mankind ? is it a matter of risk of harm? >> i think there's a debate about whether we are as a result of evolution prone to violence. but i think you could equally arguewe are prone to altruism and you i think you see both in wars . you get this in the memoirs

of those who fought in wars which i haven't done. not everyone feels this but you get people say i've never felt such comradeship that i felt in war. i was with people i would die for and i knew they would die for me and youdon't get that sort of feeling in civilian life . i suppose firefighters, first responders might have that sense. i think it's a lot of the things we argue about and it brings out the most awful and bcl side of human nature but i think it's so complicated. i'm not saying this is admirable but we are attracted to war. find there's something about it that we wonder about and down through the centuries young men and sometimes young women have said can i do it? it's seen as a test. certain culture, certainly the culture that produced the iliad, war was the supreme test and it's something, why do people do it?

we keep thinking about it but there's also that intensity of experience and i think tim o'brien whose novel i admire and honestly, the things they carried get that that suddenly in relief it stands out. you feel life just as you are about to lose it . >> robert e lee said it is good for is so terrible lest we fall with it . this is a rare book that addresses the gender in warfare. 99.9 percent of warriors in history are men. our men the warriors of cultures, all different climates because they are bigger, stronger and more endurance or is this a matter of evolution? and i have other questions about that but let me ask you what you think is the source

of this ? >> the debate over evolution is a long one and i'm not sure where you're settling it and i'm not sure that these are mere physical things that matches it that much. rethere is a spectrum. there are women who can be as strong as men but at either end of the spectrum there are probably men much stronger than most women will ever be and women who are weaker than most men are. i think a lot of it has to do with culture. if you grew up in a world in which you are brought up to think you have to be brave, you must be prepared to follow orders and if necessary die, if you're brought up in a culture where and most cultures over time have not always, but it's always been men being at the receiving end of that sort of admonition and those sort of expectations whereas women i've been expected to be the nurturers and to stay at home but we know when women do

fight , they may behave with -each other differently and react differently but they do fight with as much courage or as badly as men can do. lana alexander's book about soviet women in the second world war , the young soviet women n went off to war just stay behind the lines and do support functions. they were gorillas, snipers, fighter pilots. and and artillery brigades so i think it's possible to argue that women since they haven't fought as much because of a culture of society of which they, but i suspect that's changing . certainly in the united states whenever i lecture people in the military i've noticed many women are there and they are in combat roles. they're not just doing things like you just ask or ends behind, necessary things behind the scenes. >> technology will facilitate this transition.

women have often been quoted as motivators of war. as objects of tactics, the objects of serbian rates, of bosnian women. i have to ask about the amazons. i had realized that there's a good deal more physiological evidence for the existence of the amazons. >> one of the fascinating things and i learned this as i was doing the book is that archaeologists and evolutionary biologists can tell more and can manage to get at ancient dna which wasn't possible say 20 years ago and they found around the north shore of the black sea it contains skeletons, which show the marked trauma that looks like they've been killed in some sort ofviolent struggle are buried with armor , as opposed to the

substances that disappear and they are women and have been identified as women and have been given warriors burials and a number of viking women have also been found and it's possible to identify those skeletons in a way that wasn't possible before so it does look as though women have had a role in combat down through the ages but it's been as you pointed out a very limited role. expectation has not been that women will fight. >> i'm going to try to keep this away from my six-year-old daughter. she already has amazonian tendencies. your remark as we get better at killing, not less tolerant of war and i think there's little question that the nuclear posture caps heard on the great powers and i'd like you to discuss this. is war a thing of the past four northern tier countries?

>> we don't think it is. i don't want to predict because historians are you usually hopeless at predicting the future but it seems we have tutended to assume that war is a thing of the past most of us never experience it and i grew up in the last days of the second world war so i grew up in the aftermath in a peaceful country, canada and i never saw war and few canadians did unless went overseas to fight. i think we got used to the idea and a large part of the world that war is something that if it happens happens elsewhere but won't happen to us. as you know before the first world war a lot of europeans thought that area but war is something we won't ever do it again. it's something others do and i think you never know until you feel threatened or until something happens. i don't know how many people were isolationists in the united states before 1940 i would say a majority. >> close to it.

>> americans who said they would never fight were lining up to volunteer. >> does our aversion to violence today, if it's true and there's less tolerance for body bags and casualties of war, does this mean we in the northern tier states are more vulnerable to extortion by violence? >> that is a possibility. i haven't thought of it but i think that is a possibility. the enemies of countries like the united states know and calculate and isis has made statements to this effect. americans can't bear the pain of losing soldiers and eventually they will give up and we have to make it painful for them and i think that is a lesson that guerrilla groups whofight , they're much weaker than the united states but the one weapon they have is using public opinion in the united states and turning back against the united states

itself. it is true we are reluctant now to see beyond, the young in our society still off to fight. i was doing a comparison of how much british have died in afghanistan but it's around 1400 . 20,000 people died on the first day of the battle of the song and it was accepted. i don't think we accept that anymore. i think that's a good thing. >> on average in world war ii , 16,000 people died every day.16 >> it would be unacceptable today for us. e>> it's simply unimaginable. how important morgan is it that the generations who've grown up now, our generations, those of my students and yours have not served in the army's but the draft ended in the 1970s. i think it was the giant step towards a different sort of constitutional order . i wonder, what are the

conditions as inevitable as i believe it is of walling off the experienced service in a democracy? >> it concerns me and it should concern us all because what we don't want to see is a military purse where people are expected to fight for us. i think certainly in canada, cei think there has now been a public outcry but for a time we weren't doing enough to deal with the veterans coming back from afghanistan and i think that's because so few of us knew and partly because few of us knew any. the other thing that worries me about so many, so few people have military experience, most leaders have not had direct midget ctmilitary experience and if you haven't experienced war first-hand you may need be more casual about going to war and it strikes me those leaders who've been to world war were cautious about going to war because they knew what

it was like. if you've never been to war you may think great, wecan do this . i think it may be bad for society. >> there's an annual dinner in washington i used to go to throne by a print journalist relative to populations who always gives a humorous talk and at the beginning of the dinner the band plays the various anthems of the services and the veterans stand up during this playing and as the years go by there was a time when almost everyone stood up and now it's rare to see somebody standing up. you point out the armies of the 18th century were composed of badly treated common soldiers led by aristocrats creating the cast you just mentioned. you say are removed cast is also bad for those that it elevates. the praetorian guard of rome

and janissaries of the ottoman empire. why should we be wary of an isolated military class, with the end of the constitution? >> it's the good constitution and i'd like to say i hope not but the danger of having a military curse is they can see themselves at odds with the rest of society. that they don't understand the rest of society and that was the case in germany before the first world war where the military had an elevated status but also felt they were special and felt were above politics. that they were truly the guardians of the german nation and didn't feel any need to do what the political leadership wanted and didn't in fact inform a political leadership of what it was they were planning and this can be dangerous. i think in democratic societies we understand how important control of the military is and we should want a military is part of our society, not something we see as separate and see

itself as separate. >> i used to give the opening lecture at the national defense university to a couple hundred kernels and brigadier's and i would ask them ais war the defeat of the enemy? they would generally all agree that it was and i would say no, that's victory in football. maybe victory in chess. victory in war is the achievement of the war aim. do you agree with this and if you do, is the reason we fail to achieve victory in vietnam , afghanistan because our war aims were unrealistic or because our tactics and methods work inadequate? >> i think it can often be both. that you're trying to win the war with methods that don't fit a particular terrain or type of struggle but so often in war and you see it throughout history, nations

will go to war and groups of people go to war thinking it's one thing to see the enemy forces, that's it and they don't think about what happens next and they don't think about how to achieve lasting peace. the objective of war should be peace and i think that's right but in focusing on military victory there's a good book catherine nolan called the allure of battle where he talks about this fixation with winning the decisive battle but often the decisive battle doesn't settle things and it's having a plan for what you do when the enemy is ready to talk and what it is you hope to achieve and i think too often nations or groups of people go into wars without thinking through what it is they hope to achieve and what they want and what you also get is the longer and more costly the war becomes a war expands. you want to make up for the sacrifices and the losses. >> cicero famously said this with your audience will know.

in warfare the law is silent i. do you agree with this? i sense a certain skepticism in this book about the laws of war. >> i think we keep trying and we want to keep trying but it seems there is this extraordinary thing are eetrying to control something that is always in danger of becoming uncontrollable and is about the use of violence and is about going all out to win. but i think it is a credit to humanity that we keep on trying to limit the effects of war and keep trying to say you must not use certain kinds of weapons or not target certain kinds of people. the attempts down by the ages to protect the innocent, to try to protect women and children and try to protect those who are not causing any harm i think is absolutely right but the temptation always is when a war starts to throw therespect for law out the window . >> you mentioned francis lieber who was a columbia law

professor who drafted a military order number one during the civil war that was the basis for our code of war. and of course he's much honored the american civil war also saw the first appearance of total war in the modern era. as it's replacing decisive battles in the imperialist states, do you see a relationship between the effort to impose laws as lieber and lincoln attempted and the creation of a doctrine of total war that glad and sherman initiated? >> i suppose the 19th century is as you would know better than me a century when there's an attempt to make laws in a number of areas and an attempt to regulate society. that may be driven in part a sense that society was becoming too complex and in the case of war it means

destruction was getting too great and what happened in the 19th century and in other times in and in other places is the distinction between those who were doing the fighting and those supporting them were more blurred. general sherman said we must make the self feel what it means to go on fighting and that means the women and children and burning the factories and making it impossible for them to survive. i think we see on the one side this attempt to legislate and make more and which we see in other areas thof society area this is an age of great lawmaking and a biased industrial society but we also see this blurring of the line because society has been getting more complicated and lastinglonger . >> would you discuss just for this audience which i think will be keenly interested in the answer, where in the

united states and to a lesser degree the united kingdom a move away from military history at theuniversity . >> i'm concerned about it and i don't quite know why it's happened. it's also happened in my own country canada. in the history department there is a swing away from teaching international relations even though the populations want it. the first-degree undergraduate course where i'm attached to the history department is called strategy and statecraft and its overwhelmingly subscribed but the department i think is a bit leery of it because they're not sure. history has been moving in the direction of taking in new subjects looking at the histories of groups have not been written into history and this is important. but because international relations and because war have such profound effects on the lives of people in different societies, we need

to be aware of it . unfortunately i think the study of war as come to be seen as toys for boys. people talking about tax and regiments and that's not what war is about. i call mentioned earlier he said he was studying war and society, he wasn't studying military history, he was being war and society and it does concern me is those are going to lead us in the next generation need to know something about war. need to know something about international relations to show that they are dealing with issues involving those. >> we returned to our theme of mutually affecting relationships between war and the state. >> ..

>> from this place and from this day forward begins ast new era n the history of the world. you can also say you were present at its birth. would you describe what he was writing about? >> the battle was one of those historical events whichve doesnt deserve all the attention and symbolism loaded onto it. it was a clash of arms between the french revolutionary troops in 1792 and invading forces from the other regimes who want to strangle the french revolution as soon as it possibly could. and the forces come into germany i think they were prescient austrian, and you can correctly, were turned back or at least didn't get any further as a result of the resistance of the

french revolutionary soldiers. the officers of the more traditional forces were horrified because the french revolutionary stories didn't how to behave. they rushed across the field, sang songs. the order was terrible but they were hard to withstand because they didn't stop and fired in the ranks. what he meant was there's a new spirit that it taken hold, a new motivating force among soldiers and this is nationalism not for all people's but it was a very powerful force in the 19th century. and indeed inn some parts of the world today. it's like an ideology. it is an ideology, like a religion or wanted to build a utopia on earth. you will fight and die in kill others for the nation. this abstract concept. i don't think history came to an end because as we know the way we organize ourselves changes, the way we fight changes. technology changes. we live today in a very different world from the world from the beginning of the 19th

century. >> a large part because of the ensuing wars. you write interestingly about the relationship between herbert spencer and social darwinism on the one hand, anti-imperialism and racism on the other. how did war play into this? >> how we think about ourselves, how we think about others affects the ways in which we behave. what social darwinism was, in retrospect, and this application after winning ideas about evolution and adaptation to human societies. i human society, the french race for the british race which we knows nonsense anyway, impossible to distinguish in any meaningful way, the argument wasn't there like species in nature. the french were like bulldogs. the british were like poodles or the other way around and they were distinct species, and it

was and that this whole idea of adaptation and survival, survival of the fittest, this dangerous concept that only those that adapted and were prepared to adapt would survive. this became in social darwinism a moral imperative, that if you were not prepared to fight for yourself you didn't deserve to survive. you should be swept away in and stronger more vigorous races to take over. some not all but in some writings, this became races, that there was some races, some defined in this way, which were inferior and would be deserve to be swept aside by the more vigorous races. they had not got the moral right to survive. that did help to fuel the imperialism of the 19th century. the europeans went out around the world as they had not done so much in the 18 century with a tremendous sense of self-confidence that they were a superior race and that at evy right to do it. in a funny way the poor country

came from the less significant, the more porter was tond have an empire. tiny belgium, the king of belgian was bored and so he acquired the whole of what became the belgian congo. it was way of showing you counted. >> culture in the northern tier countries are moving towards more devolution, more multicultural identities, certainly greater individual autonomy. and if this is our future, to questionsbo about war immediatey arise. who will be willingo to fight fr such a state when there's no cohesive national identity? i was driving by a tennis camp. it war broke out, would you go

to england? because i so spent a lot of my time in britain. at least i did before the pandemic and i said, well, i might very well send you and your mother, but no, i would stay here. i told him about our support and people you and i have known who are sent to american during the war as babies during the blitz. he said this is my country. seems like a natural imply. i wonder when he's grown if his contemporaries would affect such sentiment, and if they do with the dwelling to risk their lives and fortunes at war? >> i would make a distinction which i i think george orwelld between patriotism and nationalism. nationalism is this often unreflectivele and sometimes ras since of yourself as some are bound by these mystical ties and superior to others. but patriotism i think simply come at a kat remember his words

come save my country that such a bad place and it's a decent place and i would like to defend it. i don't want to see it taken over by someone hitler and the nazis and so yes, , yes, i t for. regions of that needn't depend on shared cultural values. thus be some sharing at they don't know will have to see what happens in canada because we have moved way beyond being an offshoot of britain and france with a fair mixture of the indigenous. we have moved into mulch more multicultural society and something canadians are proud of. it's become an ingredient in what it is to be canadian come just as our public health system is an ingredient. maybe groups of people to other reasons a feeling local to the group beyond nationalism. >> i won't pressure on this but my answer makes me ask myself, whether people would be willing

to fight for a country whose history they've been taught toth despise? that they go on to something else. >> we can talk a long time about that. >> particularly -- stephen pinkard has advanced thesis that were becoming less violent as a species. i'm skeptical about this myself but as i say i live with small children so violence is more or less constant in my life. if he's right, what are the implications for war? might we turn to drones and artificial intelligence as a way of hiding violence, or will actually become pacifists? >> i don't know. it's hard to predict. there is a distinction to be made between, and pinker talks but have societies particularly in the developed part of the world, the fortunate northcom have become less violent, this one to talk with things like

public executions per skeptical and less willing to tolerate violence in the street. when i was young it was not unusual to see people fighting in the streets i think in ways that you wouldn't perhaps as much about except prats in northern ireland at the moment. whether that means we'rere less likely to go to war, again i think with the individual feels like and what the violets individuals when it iss not warmaking.nd one of the things military do is spend a lot of time working out how to turn ordinary people, civilians come into those who fight. that's why this much training and preparation. training inculcation of values could make a huge difference inn the willingness of people to fight. >> one of the broader things about this book is your discussion of how organized violence begins in the human community when hunter gatherers were replaced by cultural roots. could you expand on that for a

moment? >> it's highly speculativean ani think it happened so far back that we probably don't, will not get definitive evidence but it seems to me as hunter gatherers we know i think we know their action was a fair degree of violence, people they kill each other. this to the people that didn't the garden of eden i think it's not realistic at all. but once people settle down a number of things happen.en one is they w were able to prode a surplus is agriculturalists. which meant that david had to work on the land. not a foot had to take part in a hunter gathererth society and gathering of preparing and killing the food they're going to need. it became possible to class differentiation, possible to support an upper-class, scribes and military but also once people settle down of course those were difficult to pick up and go away. you couldn't s and you could hae done if you were nomadic supersafe there's trouble over the horizon, let's get at. they won't chase us.

you couldn't pick up and go away as easily as we had to begin to build walls and some of the earliest human settlements they found remnants of walls around. the more organized and well-to-do particular groups became, the more they were targets for those whatnd to attk them, the more they were capable of attacking others. the more organized we became, to go back to your earlier point about the coexistence, the -- what's the word on? codevelopment of organization and fighting i think goes back a very long way. >> that's fascinating. i wonder now about the future. i would just end with this question and perhaps we can go to the audience who is anxious to ask their own questions. going from our ancient past to the near future and the prospect of deploying roadblocks and

drones in the battlefield, do you think we will build robots that have conscience driven algorithms that will allow them to do the right thing, , despite the risk of their destruction? or do you think we will build robots to eichler ruthlessly and decisively than human beings when men and women would hesitate unselect? >> i to get defensive much how we programmed them and what evidence we building. there is considerable debate at the moment about whether autonomous weapon systems which of course can include the next generation of robots should have ethical standards built in or not. there's a lot of resistance to have any sort of barriers built in because would make them less effective? a danger as we know is this patient is artificial development, artificial

intelligence develops, that these may begin to program themselves and they get out of our control. we alsogr know there's problems with programs that can go wrong. we had seen enough of that. you program of robot as a don't do any harm to women and children and so the robot will go off and kill everyone else. it's not a good example but i'm worried about the way war is going, take that the high-tech and. >> this is fascinating, and it's an exercise of maximum self-restraint that makes me appear to 45 minute deadline so we can go to the audience. i am suspicious of modern technology because i'm so inept at it myself, but i think i've mastered at least this part. here's some questions how has compulsory military service in the u.s. and abroad affected

nationalism and public opinion? >> well, one of the side effects of national service is it can often make people more patriotic. when the german army before the first world war started training large numbers of men often from the working classes, the poorer classes in german society, the military operates are very concerned. what happened is even like left wing workers, members of trade unions under the military service became quite different as a result. so often military service was a nationbuilding activity dependent the can of the country. what also seems to happen at a think it's a good thing is if we do military service if something like a draft, you can be and often are strung together with people or at least that like you. i think it's good for a country where people of different parts of the country different classes at different types of people to

have to get on with each other. there are numberar of military memoirs that satan often upper-class officers say i never really talked to a working-class people before and the republicans have ideas.-- so this bewilderment that, in fact, others with they didn't take seriously as citizens did have their own wants, desires, personalities. it can be quite a good thing. >> same question asked from the darkside, based on your observations have you found there to be n a link between compulsory military service and the frequency which a nation engages in armed conflict? >> i think it depends very much on the nation. so i don't think i would draw a direct link. a number of countries in your pet compulsory military service after the second world war but this never been any major state to state war in europe since they get 45. the germans continue toe have at least for a time compulsory

military service but but i t think it leads in itself to war. also i think simple leads to a greater appreciation of those who do their military service of country. >> one person asks, there's a general consensus police and the united states that veterans should be cared for and supported by their government. is this a new idea? how has the experience of veterans changed throughout history? >> it used to be in many armies that they were simply discarded. they had no pensions. no one worried about them. poetry is very good about this, tommy atkins, youou know, they need us when they have about and then at the end they don't give two cents for us. but i think gradually as the idea began to spread the people, country were not just subject of aerobic s citizens of the county from governments begin to see that ought to do something. if you've been to london, the

chelsea pension hospital established to look after old and often six soldiers, ordinary soldiers, perhaps in paris which established very much a a samt of things. by the 19th century a number of countries particularly the countries who could afford it there was a sense you must do something for those what fought for you and suffered for you. >> another person asks what linkstw d.c. between war and class? -- do you see -- who fights wars, who dies in war or other consideration from your research? >> i did it depends often on the nature of society. in very hierarchical societies where those of the top actually in some cases depend on their military strength to maintain the power they don't wantt anyoe else fighting. in the middle ages the knights in armor at first were very right to use f the foot soldier, reluctant of arches on the

ground because they fear for the own dominance and, of course, their position with their armor gave been tremendous power. and tremendous authority. as i said it depends on the society. you will get societies in which only a few people fight and them come from particular class leading democratic societies those who fight will often be ordinary people because they are fighting for a seat come for the own society. those who went off to fight in the first world war were by and large i don't think fighting for abstract concepts like bizarre or the ever or the king. what they were fighting for was their homes and their wives and their children. >> there's a visual image when he was described, he describes the original lithuanians confronting teutonic knight on horseback, seven, eight feet high with huge metal -- the competitive seeing a tank. >> yes. they would even terrifying once

they learn how to deal with it, if you y stand firm and start shooting at the horses you can do rather well. >> how would you characterize foreign meddling in u.s. elections? should we beac calling this an t of war, cyber espionage or something else entirely? >> it such a new area, such an interesting question, isn't it? i tend to have this rather narrow definition of war but there'ss all these great areas. war is moving into this new area of cyber war in cyberspace. it doesn't involve direct combat for the direct clash the forces but it can often involve as much damage and as much destruction and as much loss of life as more direct conflicts. so i think the ways in which states or substate actors you cyber attacks to cause maximum disruption, i think cans be seen in many cases as an act of war.

we know that it is possible at least for hostile forces to do things like turn off power grids and the damage from that or destroying dams for making it impossible to water purification plants here that can be enormous. enormous. i would regard it as adjunct to war work with increasingly important part of war. >> another question is, with the exception of genocide, policing sites throughout history typically designate portions of the population dash ibec what are the origins of the standard of the corn and how did it evolve over time? >> i think we don't know for sure, but i think part of it may bent again to be embedded in the values of a particular society, a society where women and children were revered as the future of the society, meant for killing them, your own being killed and killing others was a

very dreadful thing to do. but but i think there was alsa feeling that those who feel certain functions should be protected, priest in for example. those preset been exempt from being attacked or in theory exempt from the attack. also i think there was always a utilitarian motive to get into people who might be useful to you. in the middle ages you tended not to kill those who were farming because you knew you were going to produce the food you needed even if they belonged to someone else or on someone else's land. >> another question is, how has the advent of social media determined how conflicts are solved and fought? and how fighters are recruited? in your opinion doesn't get too much credit, like the arab spring, or not in a? >> we know, which is coming to terms with social media and we know the people recruit

themselves and they now have the main student. it's it's not a new phenomenon. the assassins who killed -- basically recruit themselves by reading serbian national tracks and by reading the works of anarchists. but it's much more difficult in those days where information was not as instantaneous and as widespread as are today. we do face a real problem with people who will recruit themselves or who will find conspiracy theories which will encourage them to regard their enemies not in the saddle. this is a problem. the other with social media is affecting war is increasingly for a lot of countries war is afoot under tremendous spotlight, tremendous amount of publicity, apart of fighting or notice make sure your story gets out and a decides story doesn't get out. one of the things that causes such trouble forvi the united states in vietnam was a coverage of the warn which reached people

at home and made him come to the conclusion made many of them come to the conclusion this is not a war they were going to win. >> i think your readership has expanded far beyond this wonderful newto book. could have been another outcome to the treaty of versailles if it'd been written differently? all of you know an amazing book about the negotiation of the truth of her sigh. tell us what do you think? >> junior, i think one of the book and a maybe would change my mind out and we should always built and ginger michael a look at what they were actually dealing with and i thought how much did they have come to make a statement in paris? irrigating with europe that was shattered. they were dealing with that with a germanic mac thatte it interviewed on the battlefield, and to think it's that conclusive for whatever the german high command said in many

germans believed in the 1920s and 1930s, germany was defeated in the first world war. it wasn't a surrender but if you read the termsie of the armistie of the semantic come to look at the allies have done to make things better? what they could of doneon it be much more generous to germany but that was politically difficult indeed. if you are living in france and you know the whole of the north they countries devastated which contains something like a third of your international plants, villages, towns, minds, railways, all destroyed often destroy deliberately as the germans leading in the sum of 1918, are you going to say let's be generous? the french primates at the time didn't think you could. he said i will have to face my middle-class and used to get the next election. they might have been wise to be gentler with germany but i don't know because you look at the end of the second world war and germany was treated much, much worse. it was divided.

it was devastated. the soviets took huge amount of reparations out of germany but we don't hear it today, do we, have very and fairly germany was treated. part of what went wrong, to give a short answer after 1919, is a field of politics in the number of countries and the failure of the international system. i still think it might've it all right if it not been for the great depression but that's when things will return very bad indeed. >> coming up almost to the end of her tonsil moving on to a different question now. in the coming decades what issues do you see igniting new conflicts, what parts of the world should we be watching? >> i think, and philip, you may disagree, i think we still may see state to state conflict india-pakistan.t they fought think three times now. they both possess nuclear weapons. india and china, they have

fought once and have had these skirmishes recently along their common frontier up in the himalayas. of course the united states and china. i'm not saying these are going to happen but these are certainly possibilities the people are beginning to contemplate. i maybe wrong and and i hope theyey are wrong but think what we're also going to see is a lot more conflict as we're seeing in failed states, where governments for various reasons state that wobbly to begin with, builder strong lyrical structure which often were destabilized by outside forces i think we'll see more of those. i think we'll see more syria and more somali and more yemen and that worries me. in america that strong states drive themselves towards war. that when you give a state more power you take power away from the individual and from the civilian society --

feeling that may not always be true and that -- if you want to prevent war, don't count on a weak state weakest states are the most -- states. but i say this as a prejudice prelude to this maybe next to last question. do you think increasing budgets increase the livelihood it have war? >> not necessarily. i think it depends what you're spending on. i think there's been interesting on the budget recently in "new york times" today actually about it how these budgets take on some of the inertia and military keeps spengsding and they don't really sit down and say do we need all of this and government so i'm going to -- not covid i think this is just -- [coughing] so always a danger i think when you have a race that feels it is

falling behind -- attempted to do something silly. this has been a wonderful evening and we're so grateful to you -- for coming -- and personal level, of course, wonderful to see you. and i hope we're all reunited somewhere -- some time soon. >> thank you. apologize for my cough but thank you all, and wish i were in new york but there we are -- >> i wish you were too. >> thank you for all of those [laughter] ly questions. >> thank you all for those lovely questions. >> i'll say good evening to neil gregory and all the friends in new york. thanks to all of you. thanks for coming and thanks for the wonderful questions. again, thanks to our tremendous audience. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store with the collection c-span products and every purchase to help support our

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visit booktv.org for more information. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> now on booktv's "after words" program "washington post" staff writer john woodrow cox reports on the effects of gun violence on children in america. he is interviewed columbia university health education associate professor and adjunct professor of epidemiology sonali rajan.