>> good evening everyone. william thrilled to welcome you to tonight's virtual program. to the distinguished speakers series which is part of our program. with those trustees for joining us this evening.

and the visionary chairman emeritus. and richard reese and trustees brian kane, but i would also like to thank members of the chairman's counsel for joining us this evening we are grateful to each a thank you for your encouragement and support during this challenging time. professor of history at the university of toronto previously on the faculty before going on as provost at trinity college at the university of toronto and that say into these college has

university of oxford she is the author of war how conflict shape does. and those that ended piece. >> and professor of jurisprudence at columbia law school professor bother is a leading international there is too has an extensive history of government service. with the six administrations both republican and democratic. with those intelligence programs for critical infrastructure at the national security council.

and with questions and answers and they can be submitted the q&a function on your zoom screen. we have disabled the chat function so please remember the q&a. we will get to as many questions as time allows. and now i turn it over to today's speakers. >> welcome margaret it's good to see you. >> thank you. so as a constitutional lawyer like me it is said that governments is the most organized of human activities. so that relationship is one of thet great strengths of this book. then need to make more for

government organization and just to expand on that a bit. >> it's a pleasure to be here. i have various happy memories of the us historical society. i think we might have to argue a bit because war and government are intertwined. but what i mean not just of people but of resources and the control of those and the discipline the direction of large numbers of people takes tremendous organization and as you pointed out to be driven ahead the organization and then to acquire greater power the most successfully run wars

so i have always thought it's very difficult of which comes first war or the high level of organize states? we are intertwined. >> that is excellent put in that iser persistent in peacetime to monetize resources and create structures but these do not disappear with the end of four. is there a mission creep for the state and those that are gained of necessity and more time? >> and then to give up freedoms during war and the covid pandemic but there's something similar here to

accept limitations on our freedom to come ago as we wish because we understand there is a greater good at stake that we have to get through. it is the same of large-scale wounds to do things that control the economy, direct labor, make people to move freely around. >> and i'm not saying that's anything malignant but it is natural that once government says we have achieved a level of control then they think of using it for peaceful purposes. the amount of money that they would have thought was inconceivable before the first world war then it became something they could do and then of course on the sorts of things they could spend in peacetime it seems to be very

desirable. so governments will go back to the situation with those authority and powers taken on to persist after the war is over because many others and those that can use them. >> war is one organize group fighting another using violence against other organized groups. but i thank you notice that sometimes that might include gain warfare or organized crime syndicates. this suggests that we need estate for their to be war. it is a legal relationship and are quite intolerant of the idea you could have a war and not have the state.

michael howard maintained that at one point. >> i am very sympathetic to that point of view but it seems if you're getting at the essence we all have different definitions i was trying to distinguish with random violence from a canadian hockey game this is not organized violence although there is quite a bit involved in what i'm trying to get at with the english political theorist that organize groups who make war have some sort of thing that keeps them together like a goal and there is a blur of lines between large-scale gangs who would use those criminal methods to have those purposes and then to say on —- see the same thing in northern ireland where the hard men on both sides fighting on both sides slipped over into criminal activities and they had a o larger goal in mind.

i'm trying to get out the notion that you try to do something with all the force that you have and not just to sell more illicit goods. >> did you acknowledge that there is broad historical factors of democracy plagues and epidemics that are not altered or transformed by political decision-making? in this book you write so powerfully about the historic and cultural consequences suppose the persians had defeated the greeks. suppose charles was defeated and the ottomans had successfully with vienna.

with this broad sweeping give the reader that changes a place we are at now. historians argue about it a lot. there is a what some would say on the surface? but there are times you can see the outcome of or does make a difference but you just raise them and europe with a different of different outcomes to the war. would've been different if british won the war of independence. and thatnd included canada to complete mexico. and to recognize that can determine religion, political

organization that dominates and to say that war is on the surface doesn't change things very much at income or on the side that you can see certain wars that they ended differently the war would be different. >> and in some parts of the book he referred to the history of four it is incredible intensity so every leaf matters. why does war bring out the best and worst of mankind? is it simply a matter of risk? >> there is a debate as apr result prone to violence. but you could equally argue we are prone to altruism and you see both and then you get this

in the memoirs that i have not done but they have never felt comedic of people saying i s never felt suchuc comradeship as i felt in the war that i was with people i would die for and they would die for me. and you don't usually get that feeling i suppose firefighters are first responders might have that sense. it's one of the things we puzzle about with human nature but becauseca it is so complicated come i'm not saying it's admirable but i think we are attracted to war. we find there isen something about it that we wonder about and to the centuries of men and women have said w could i do it? they went to the measure themselves up it seems like a testin and then the culture that produced the elliott it was the supreme test for men and

why do people do it? we keep thinking about it but there is that intensity and tim o'brien whose novel i admire enormously gets at that now suddenly every leaf stands out the sun is bright you feel life as you are about to lose it. >> robert e. lee said it is good war is so terrible last we fall in love with it. >> this is a rare book that addresses the question of gender in the history of warfare. ninety-nine.99 percent demand with the warriors of cultures at all different times because they are bigger, stronger is this a matter of evolution?

what do you think is the source of this? >> the debate of revolution is a long one and i'm not sure we have the strength and those that can be as strong as men and those that are much stronger than they would be l and those that are weaker than most but a lot of it has to do with culture but if you grow up in the world in which you were brought up to thank you have to be brave and not show fain - - show pain or fear of your product inou the culture and most cultures p over time , not always but it is always the men of those admonitions and expectations but women have been expected to be the

nurturers and stay home but we know that when womeno do fight they may behave with each other differently but they do fight with as much courage the wonderful book about soviet woman in the second world war but the young soviet women went off to war they didn't just do support functions by gorillas and snipers and fighter pilots and manned artillery brigades. it is possible to argue women haven't fought as much because of the science id but i suspect that is changing in the united states i have noticed how many women are in combat roles not just doing things like logistics are necessary things behind the scenes. >> technology will facilitate

this transition thatt women have been recorded as brutal leaders of war and then as objects of tactics and serbian rape and of bosnian women. but i have to ask i hadn't realized there is more evidence with the existence of the amazon. >> one of the fascinating things that archaeologist and evolutionary biologist can now tell much more about skeletons and managed to get that ancient dna that was impossible 20 years ago and they have been found around the north shore of the black sea which has skeletons looks like they were killed in a violent struggle and often buried with armor.

the metal survives the leather and the other natural substances. and they are women and identified as women. a number of viking women warriors have also been found it's possible to identify those skeletons in a way it wasn't before. so it really does look women had a role in combat down to the ages. but a very limited role as you pointed out and that expectation is not to fight. >> i will try to keep this away from my six-year-old daughter who has amazonian tendencies. [laughter] so as we got better at killing we get less tolerant of war so the nuclear posture of the cold war, i would just like you to discuss this is war a

thing of the past for the golden tier countries? >> i don't think it is that i want to predict because we're hopeless at predicting the future usually but it seems we see that as a thing of the past because most of us have never experienced it and i grew up in the last days of the second world war in a peaceful country of canada and i never saw a war. very few canadians did. so i think we got used to the idea that war happens elsewhere but not to us. but as you know before the first world war europeans thought that's not something we wouldld ever do again it's something othersth do. and you never know until you feel threatened or something happens. i don't know how many people were isolationist in the united states before 1940 but possibly a majority.

but americans who said they would never fight were lining up to volunteer. >> does our aversion to violence today, less tolerance for body bags, does this mean in the golden tier states are vulnerable to extortion by violence? >> yes. that is a very good question. i haven't thought of it but that is a possibility the enemies of the countries know and calculate and isis has made statements the americans cannot take the pain of losing soldiers they will give up we have to make it painful for them and i think that is a lesson that guerrilla groups who fight and they are much weaker than the united states but the one lesson is using

public opinion to turn that against the united states itself. i think it is true they are very reluctant now to go up and fight was doing a comparison how many british soldiers died in afghanistan. it's around 1400. 20000 dade on the first day of the battle and it was accepted. we don't accept that anymore and that is a very good thing. >> on average world war ii counting civilian deaths 16000 i every day. >> that would be unacceptable today. >> simply unimaginable. how important is it that generations who have grown up now or those of my students and yours, the draft ended in the seventies, i think it was a giant step toward a different type of

constitutional order. what are the conditions if they were inevitable in a democracy? >> it concerns me and should concern us all because what we don't wante to see the people that we expect to fight for us and then certainly in canada now there has been a public outcry but we were not doing enough to do with those veterans who are coming back and that's because the other thing that worries of the about so few people having military experience is that most of them have not had direct military experience and then you can be more casual about going to war and those in the period after the second world war have been very

cautious because they knew what it was like if you've never been to war you think great. we can do this. so it may be bad for societies. >> the annual dinner in washington put together by print journalist. and then the band plays the various anthems of the services. and as the years have gone by it's very rare to see someone stand up to you point out the armies of the 18th century composed poorly regarded common soldiers led by aristocrats and i cast that you say the removed cast was also elevated of the ottoman

empire. why should we be worried about isolated military class? >> it's a good question i would like to say i cannot but the danger of having a military is that they can see themselves at odds with the restt of society they are not understood and the rest of society is soft. that was thehe case in germany before the first world war and there was an elevated status but then they thought they were above it and truly the guardians of the germination and they needed toer do with the political leadership wanted and this can be dangerous and in democratic societies just how important the military is

we should want that is part of our society not to see that as separate. >> ace to give the opening lecture to the national defense university to colonels and brigadier's and i would ask them is training more the defeat of the enemy? they would generally agree that it wasn't and that i would say no that is football may be victory in chest but in war is the achievement of the war aim. do you agree with this? is the reason we fail to achieve victory in vietnam or iraq or afghanistan because the aims arer unrealistic or the tactics and methods were inadequate? >> i think it can be both you try to win the war with methods adults so on —- suit day terrain or struggle and you see it throughout history

nations go to war thinking once we then defeated the enemy forces, that's it. they don't think about what happens next or how to achieve a lasting peace. saint augustine said it should be piece but the danger is in focusing on military victories, there is a very good book where he talks about the and often it is having a plan for what you do and what you hope to achieve. and too often nations or groups of people go into wars without knowing what they have to achieve and often what you get the more it expands and then to make up for the sacrifices.

>> and that is to say do you agree with this? i sense a skepticism about the laws of war. >> we keep trying and we ought to keeput trying that it seems to me there is an extraordinary thing that we try to control something there is always in danger of becoming an controllable and going all out to win. but it is a credit to limit the effects of war and say you must not useo those weapons or target those people so the attempt through the ages with the cultures to protect the innocent and women and children and protect those who are not causing any harm is absolutely right. but the temptation is when a war starts throw those out the window. >> you mentioned a columbia

law professor who directed military from the civil war that was the basis for the codes of worlds of war and the american civil war also saw the first appearance of total war in the modern era and a strategy to replace those decisive battles. do you see a relationship betweenti the effort to impose laws of war that grant and sherman initiated? >> both the 19th century is that there is an attempt to make laws in a number of areas and to regulate society. that mayay be driven in part that it was becoming too

complex and then the means of destruction were becoming too great. also what happened at other times and places is the distinction between those who have been fighting and those are supporting were blurred general sherman says we must make the southfield what it means to go on fighting that means women and children build burning factories and farms making it impossible forss them to survive. so we see on the one side the attempt to legislate which we see in other areas of society this is a grade of age lawmaking in the industrial society. but we also see this because they get more complicated. >> so what you discussed for the audience which i think is keenly interested in your

answer the way from the teaching of diplomatic and military history and university? >> i am concerned. i don't quite know why it has happened also in my own country of canada. there is a sling away from teaching international relations the single most at the university of toronto is the strategy and statecraft it is oversubscribed but the department is leery of it because they are not quite sure. they are concerned and history is moving as it should in the direction to take a new subjects looking at histories of groups who are not writing into history. but because international relations and more could have such profound effect on the lives of people. we need to be aware of it.

the study of four has come to be seen people talking about tanks and regimens that's not what war is about. but then to study war and society and not military history. it does concern me. because those in the next generation need to know something about war or international relations because and not have to deal with issues involving those. >> returning to the theme of the mutually affected relationship between moore and state that history had ended the dialectic that produced history had ceased with the triumph of the nationalistic

imperial state. and you would agree with this because you gave a riveting description and to write, from this place and from this day forward begins a new era in the history of the world. described what he was writing about. >> actually one of those historical events that doesn't deserve all the attention and symbolism loaded onto it. it was a clash of arms between the french revolutionary troops in 1792 in vesey on —- invading f forces as soon as they possibly could. and the forces coming into germany were turned back or at

least didn't come any further as a result of the resistance of the french revolutionary soldiers. and the officers were horrified because they rush across the field of singing revolutionary songs it's very hard to withstand because so it manages the news spirit and the new motivating force among soldiers and this is nationalism. not for all people but for those in the 19th century and in some parts of the world today. it is like an ideology. it is. a religion wanting to build a utopia on earth he will fight and die and kill others for then' nation. this abstract concept but i don't think history came to an end because as we know the way be organizer self changes, the way we fight changes, we live

today in a very different world of the 19th century. >> and a large part you write the relationship between social darwinism and then imperialism and racism on the other. how does war play into this? >> how we think about ourselves and others affects the ways in which we behave. social darwinism in retrospect was a misapplication of darwinian ideas and adaptation to human societies and the french racer the british race which we know is nonsense anyway and impossible to distinguish in any meaningful way but the argument was speaking to the nature so the french were like bulldogs in

english were poodles or the other way around. and then the whole idea of adaptation of survival of the fittest a very dangerous concept that only those that adapted and wereia prepared to adapt would survive. this became a moral imperative you otherwise you did not deserve to survive and that was in the minds of some races that are so defined so i was not swept aside by more vigorous braces. they don't have the moral right. and thate did help with the 19th century. the europeans went out around the world as they haven't done in the 18th century with a tremendous sense of

self-confidence and they had every right to do. in a funny way the more important it was to have an empire the keying of belgium was born so he acquired the belgian congo but it was a way of y showing that you counted. >> today culture and countries are moving toward evolution more multicultural identities greater individual autonomy , this is our future. to questions about war easily arise who are we willing to fight for such a state with no cohesive national identity? i was driving by my son back from tennis camp and he said if war broke out, would you go

to england? because i spend a lot of my time there. i said i would send you and your brother there but i would stay here and i told him those that were central america as babies and he said why would you come back? i said this is my country. it just seemed like a natural reply. now he is grown and wonder what his contemporaries would have said. or would they be willing to risk their lives and their fortunes in war? >> i would make a distinction that patriotism and nationalism. sometimes it is racist and somehow bound byis the mystical ties to others.

that patriotism simply is to say my country is not such a bad place. i would like to defend it i don't want to see it taken over by someone like hitler and the nazis. so yes i will fight for it so that needed depend on a shared ethnicity or cultural values. there has to be some sharing and we haved to see what happens in canada because we have moved way beyond being an offshoot of britain and france. we have moved into much more multicultural society and what the canadians are proud of. just as the public health so it may be the groups of people develop other reasons to be loyal to the group beyond nationalism. >> i will press you but are people willing to fight for a

country whose history are spies? >> we could talk a long time about that. pink advance that we were becoming less as a species. skeptical about this myself, but as i say i live with small children so violence is more or less constant of my life. if he's right the applications -- to war, might return to drones and artificial intelligence as a way of hiding of violence or will we actually become pacifist? >> i don't know. it is very hard to predict. i mean, i think this is distinction to be made between and pinker talks about how society is particularly in develop part of the world. the folks up north have become less violent and less willing to tolerate things like public

executions or skepticals and less willing to tolerate violence in the street and not unusual to see people fighting in streets neng ways that you wouldn't perhaps as much now accept perhaps in northern ireland at the moment. but -- where would that mean for going to war again whaing the individual feels like and what the individuals is going to commit is not war making, and i think one of the things that the military does spend and awful lot of time on how to turn ordinary people into civilians into those who fight so much train and preparation so ping -- training in values could make a huge difference in the willingness of people to fight. >> one of the things about this intook your discussion on how organized violence begins in the human community andth gaered in place bag or cultural groups would you expand on that for a

moment? >> well it is highly speculative and i think -- happen sod far back we won't get evidence but seems to me time to gather we know we think we know that actually it was a fair degree of violence people did kill each other this view they had a garden of eden is not realistic at all but once people settle down a number of things happen one they were tiebl produce a surplus as agriculturalist meant that not everyone had to work on land and take part as hay did in in gatherings and preparing and killing the food they were going to need. and it became possible to have class differentiation and possible to support upper class scribes and military, but also once people settled down, of course, it was more difficult to pick up and go away. you couldn't and you could have done if you would say trouble over the horizon let's get out. and they have chases you

wouldn't pick up and go away but you have to build walls and earliest human settlements they've found and, of course, more organize well to do particular groups became the more they were targets to those who want to attack them and capable of attacks others so i think the more organized we became to go back to earlier point about the -- coexistence, the what's the word i want? codevelopment of organization, and fighting, i think, goes back very long way. >> it's, it's fascinating -- i wonder now that the future and just end with this question and perhaps we can go to the anxious to for own questions. going from my ancient past to near future -- and the prospect of deploying

robots and drones and the battlefield. do you think we will build robots that have conscience given algorithms that do the right thing despite the risk of their destruction or do you think more will act decisively than human beings when men and women would gavel at some act? >> i think it depends how much we program them. and what we build in, and there's a considerable debate at the moment about whether autonomist weapon systems, of course, can include next generation of robots should have ethical standards built in or not. and i think there's a lot of resistance to having any sort of barriers built in because would it make them less effective but danger as we know is that especially as artificial development artificial intelligence develops, that

these may begin to program themselves. >> yes. >> they may get out of control and problems with programming that can go wrong. you know, we've seen enough of that. so you know, you program a robot and say don't do any harm to -- women and children. so the robot will kill everyone else. you know, it's not a good example but i think i'm -- i'm worried about the way war is going particularly at the high-tech end. >> well this is fascinating, and that exercise of maximum self-restraighten that makes me adhere to 45 minute deadline so we can go to the audience. i'm suspicious of modern technology because i'm so inept myself but aye managed at least this part here's some questions. how has compulsory military

service affected? >> one is it can make people more patriotic when german army before first world war started training large numbers of men often from the working class and in german society the military upper ranks were very concerned they said we're putting gun in their handle and turn it against us and what seems to have happened left wing -- workers members of trade unions, for example, who did the military service became quite different as a result. and so often military service was a nation building activity dependent again on the country. what also seems to happen and i think it is a good thing is that if you do military service you can have something like a draft. you can be an to people with least bit like you and i think that's good for a country and people from different parts of the country and different classes and different types of people to get on with each

other, and you know they're numbered for military that say you know upper class officers of officers and privilege say i never really talked to working class before and you know, they read poetry and they have ideas. you know this sort of -- bewilderment, in fact, others who they didn't take seriously as citizens did have -- did have their own wants, desires, personals, so i think it can be quite a good thing. >> same question earlier -- from a dark side -- based on your observations have you found there tore a link between compulsory military service and the frequency in which a nation ten engages on conflict? >> i think it depends very much on the nation so i don't think i would go directly link. number of countries in europe have compulsory military service after the second world war and no major state to state war in europe since 1945. and germans continued to have at least for a time compulsory military service the swiss

did -- but don't think it leads in itself to war. and it often i think simply leads to a greater proorks of those who do military service of the country. >> when a person asks there's a general consensus at least in the united states the veteran should be cared for and supported by their government. is this a new idea how has the experience of veterans changed throughout history? >> well it used to be in my armies they would simply discarded. you know they have no pensions they have no one worried about them, you know, took place poetry is very good about this tommy atkins, you know -- they would need us when they have a battle and then at the end they don't give two cents for us. but i think gradually as idea began to spread that people country would not just subject to ruler but citizens of that country governments began to see they ought to do something and so you've ever been to london pension hospital -- it was established to look after

old and often sick soldiers ordinary soldiers -- perhaps in paris -- which was established very much same sort of thing so by the 19th century thing a number of countries particularly the countries that could afford it there was a sense that emplace do something for those who had fought for you and suffered for you. president what do you see between war and class, for example, in who fights wars who dies in war or other considerations from your research? >> i think it depends off on the nature of the society. and so in very high societies those who depend on military strength to maintain their power they don't want fighting they're in middle ages of the knights in armor and to use foot soldiers or reluctant to have on the

ground because they fear for their own dominance and their position on a armor gave them tremendous power. and tremendous authority, but i think again, as i said it depends on the society. you know, you will get society it is in which only few people fight and they come from particular, but in democratic societies, those who fight will often be ordinary people because they're fighting for or they see it for their own society who went to fight in first world war by and large not fighting for ab tract krpghts like czar or emperor or the king. what they were fighting for was their homes and their wives and their children. >> there's a beautiful image when judge describes the -- the original lith wane i confronting on horseback, 7, 8 feet high with a huge metal and compares to seeing a tank --

terrifying you watch but once they learned how to deal with it yeah you start shooting at horses you can do rather well. >> how would you characterize meddling in u.s. elections should we be calling this an account of war cybers pee espionage or something else? >> interesting question isn't it? i think i tend to have a narrow definition of war but there's always agree areas and i think war is moving into a new area of cyberwar and cyberspace. it doesn't involve direct combat or the direct clash of forces. but it can often involve as much damage and as much affection and loss of life as more direct conflict. so i think, you know the ways in which states or sub state actors use cyberattacks to cause maximum disruption i think can be seen in in cases as an act of war.

and we know that it is possible at least for hostile forces to do things like turn on power grids, and the damage from that -- you know destroying dams or making mottled to have water purification plants that can be enormous so i would regard it as an adjunct to war but increasing part of war. les >> another question is will the exception of genocide -- policing side and arm conflict throughout history, typically designated portionings of the population offlimits. what are origins of this standard of decorum and evolve over time? >> i think we don't know for sure and might have been -- embedded in values of a particular society that a society where women and children were revered as the -- the future of the society meant for killing them both and killing others with a very

dreadful thing to do. but i think there's also feeling that those who loss function should be protected for example and many cultures those who are priests have been exempt from being attacked or in theory exempt from being attacked. and also i think there was also a totalitarian motive and so in middle ages you tended not to kill those who would be farming because you knew they were going produce food that you needed even if they belong someone else or 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 -- does it get too much credit and propelling or not enough? >> well, we know i think we're coming to terms with the social media and we know that people recruit themselves and they now

have means to do it and it is not a new phenomenon. the assassins who killed recruited themselves, by reading through the national tract and by reading works and they model themselves on other successful assassins but it was much more difficult in those days and then with information were not as instantaneous live spread as they are today so i think we do face a real problem with people who will recruit themselves or also conspiracy theory encourage them to regard those as enemies who are not enemies at all. and i do think this is the problem the other way i think social media is affecting more -- is that increasingly -- for a lot of countries war is afoot under tremendous spotlight and tremendous amount of publicity. and part of fighting war now so make sure your story gets out and other side story doesn't get out one of the things that cause much trouble or did cause such trouble for the united states in vietnam, was the coverage of the war which reached people at home and made them come to conclusion

and many of them come to conclusion this was not a war they were going win. >> i think your -- your readership has expanded far beyond a wonderful new book. you're heard from this question, wants to know could there have been another outcome to treaty of versailles written differently all of you know that mark has written this amazing book about the negotiations of the treaty of versailles, and tell us. what do you think? >> well, you know, i think when i wrote this book and -- i look at what they were actually dealing with. and i saw how much did they have? the major statesman in paris, and they were dealing with shattered they were dealing with germany that was defeated on battlefield and it is not conclusionive for whatever gentlemen high demand said in

1920s and 30s said germany was defeated in first world war. it was not a affect of surrender and in terms it is surrender so what could allies have done to make things better? what that could have done would have been much more generous to germany but that was politically very difficult indeed. you know if you are living in france, and you know that the whole of the country is devastated which contains, you know, something like industrial plant religious towns, mines, rileways all destroyed often destroyed deliberately as germans are leaving in the summer of 1918, are you going to say well let's be generous? and i think the french prime minister at the time didn't think he could i said i will have to face and being a democratic politician saying he has a next election they might have been wise to be gentle with germany. but you know, 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 reformations out of germany but we don't hear it today and how germany was treated. so i think apartment of what went wrong to give a very short answer after 1919 is a failure of politics in nawmple countries and a failure of international m and might have been great for the great depression but that's something to turn very bad indeed. >> coming up almost to end of our time moving on to a different question now. in the coming decades what issues do you see igniting more conflicts and what parts of the world should we be watching? >> i think and phillip you made this agreement, i think we still see state to state conflict for the potential for state to state conflict in pakistan -- you know, they have fought i think three times now -- they both possess nuclear weapons india china they fought

once and squirmishes up in help and they are possibilities that people are beginning to contemplate they may be wrong and i certainly hope they're wrong. but i think what we're also going to see is a lot more con conflict as we're seeing in fail state and governments for various reasons and states wobbly never built a strong political structure or infrastructure and often destabilized by outside forces see mother of those and see more of those and lots of more yemens and that worries me. well to return to point that we began with -- there's a large body of opinion 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. [coughing] i'll say good evening, gregory and all of our friends in new york. losorship of wolf capital.

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