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>> good evening, everyone i am new york historical society's president and ceo and i'm thrilled to welcome you to tonight's virtual program war, conflict shaped us. tonight is presented with the distinguished speakers which is a part of our public program. just before i introduce herer speakers, i want to recognize and thank several new york trustees who are joining scv. first and foremost the chair of our board tim chappell, originator determine new york historical roger, executive

committee return reese and trustees suzanne, jean and david. >> i would also like to think members of our chairman's counsel who are joining us this evening, we are so very grateful to each and every one of you for your encouragement and support especially at this challenging time. until then we are pleased to welcome martha mcmillan professor of history at the university of toronto in the notice professor of international history of the university of oxford. doctor previously was onct the faculty of the university before going on to trinity college at the university of toronto in saint anthony's college. at the university of oxford. she is the author of war, how conflict shaped us which is published this past fall in her previous books include 1919

nixon in now, dangerous game in joining us as moderator this evening, professor of columbia law school, he's a leading extensive history of government service, he served in all three branches of government during six ministrations both republican and democratic including most recently in the intelligence program in the infrastructure of the national security council. our next program your questions can be submitted on your resume screen and you can use a q&a.

our speakers will get to as many questions as time allows. it is my great pleasure to turn our stage over to tonight speaker. >> thank you luis and welcome. >> you say war is the worst organize of human activities, and the government is the most organized human activities because the relationship between the emergence of the state is one of the great strengths of this wonderful gripping book, you need to make war as a driver for government organizations and i wish you would expand on that a bit. >> it's a pleasure to be here i

just wish it wasn't virtual, and happy memories of the new york historical society and i think we may have to argue a bit about which is the most organized human activity of war on government, so closely into client what i mean by when you think of what's needed to make war the mobilization not just the people but the resources, the control of the resources and the people disciplining the direction of large numbers of people this takes tremendous organization and as you pointed out in your book this is driven ahead and organization of state that it became necessary for states to acquire greater and greater power partly in order to fight wars but a more successfully the more powerful they often became and is very difficult to say which comes

first war or the high-level organize states, i think the two are intertwined and one tends to join the t other. >> that's excellently put. >> government organizations persisted in peace time and they need to monetize resources and create structures for which war in these did not disappear with the end of war are you suggesting there has been a mission creek for the state and we should rollback the powers of government that are gained of necessity in wartime. >> we given society is considerable to our government and willit give up freedoms durg war perhaps is a covid pandemic is not a war unless people use the language of war but there's something similar were prepared to accept limitations in our freedom to come and go as we wish because we understand the greater good at stake in a crisis that we have to get

through, i think it's the same with large-scale wars the society will recognize which they wouldn't approve of to control the economy when the direct labor to make people do a job and not move freely around to use censorship, at the end of war some of these rollback but what happens i'm not saying there's anything milling in this but is natural once government has achieved a level of control society they begin to think of doing it for using it for peaceful purposes the amount of money that governments begin to take out o of society which they would have thought was inconceivable before the first world war by the end of the first world war it was something they thought they could do and then i suppose mission creek is not a bad word the resources that they were getting out of society seem to be very desirable and governments will go back and societies may go part way back but the tendency is for the authority and the

powers taken on by government to persist after the war is over and many other often good purposes to use them. >> war is one organize group using another organize group using violence over the other organize group. some of this might include gang warfare and perhaps some upset organized crime, this is just you don't need a state for there to be more and many say war is a legal relationship between two or more states in quite tolerant of the idea that you could have a war, not have a state our dear late friend maintain that one point. >> i'm very sympathetic to that and i sympathize to the point of view but it seems you're trying to get at the essence of what we have different definitions and i

was trying to distinguish war efrom random violence that you might get a football game or canadian hockey game, this is not organized violence and as often as you know quite a bit of violence involved when i'm trying to get i think it was the english political theorist who said organize groups whom have war have some sort of thing that keeps them together they have a blissful goal and i would say the borderline between large-scale gangs who often use and make their money out of crime but might have political purposes instead of making money out of crime, we saw the same thing in northern ireland where the two sides the hard man on both sides who were fighting on both sides flipped over into common activities but they had a larger goal in mind what i was trying to get at the notion you are organize for some sort of purpose and you trying to do something with whatever force that you have that is not just a

you can sell more illicit goods or take other people's illicit goods screen that did you acknowledge some broad historical factors, demography, geography, technology, plagues and epidemics that are not altered or transformed by political decision-making in this book you write so powerfully and so winningly in the historic and cultural consequences of war and they defeated the greeks in the marathon suppose charles martel edhad been defeated and they had successfully or as you say spanish conquest for the americans have failed could you explain this for a minute when their broad sweep that you give the reader on how wars have altered the course of history these pivots that have changed

we were at no. >> it's something that historians argue about a lot history the deep moving current to flow well under the surface there are times when you need to see war makes a difference we have to be careful contra factual's and what if but you just raise them in america had been different if there was different outcomes to the work and there might've been a bigger british north america which could include mexico. in the outcome of wars can determine generations in longer than that religion political organization, food dominates, to say that war is really just on the surface and doesn't change

things very much, i think i'm on a side of thing you can see certain wars if the and indifferently the world would be different. >> at several points inar this book you referred to the ministry of war, it's incredible intensity, perhaps this is the idea if you can die then every leaf matters, why does war bring out the best and also bring out the worst of mankind, is it simply a matter of risk and risk of war? >> there's a debate over thepr result of evolution prone to violence but you could equally argue and i think you see both and worse, you get this in the memoirs which i haven't done that they have never felt, not everyone feels this but you get

this and i was with people i would die for and i knew they would die for me and you don't usually get that feeling, i suppose firefighters, first responders might have that is one of the things youou puzzle about an almost awful time is so complicated but were attracted to work and we find something about it that we wonder about the young men and young women say could i do it they wanted to measure themselves up against it, is seen as a test in certain cultures and certainly the culture that produced war was the supreme test why do people do we keep thinking about it but as you mentioned robert e lee

said his terribleness would follow love with it. >> this questions gender in the history of warfare. 99.9% in history that men, arm in the wires of cultures of all different times because her bigger, stronger is this evolution that have other questions, what do you think is the source of this. >> as you know the debate is a very long one and i'm not sure, i'm not sure of the physical

strength necessarily, there is a spectrum, there are women who can be as strong as men but at either end of the spectrum there .probably men who are not stronn as most women will ever be most women are weaker than most men are, i think a lot has to do with culture, if you grew up in a world in which you were brought up that you have to be brave you mustn't show pain or fear and you must be prepared to follow orders and if necessary die, if you are brought up in a culture, most cultures over time, not always, have tended to that is always been men pretty much at the receiving end of those undulations and expectations. where women have been expected to be the nurturers and stay home, i think we know when women do fight they may behave with each other differently and they may reactively but they do fight with as much courage or as badly

as men can do a wonderful book about soviet women in the second world war but the young sovietom women went off to war and they did not just stay behind the lines, they were snipers, bomber pilots, fighter pilots, manned artillery brigade, it is possible to argue that women simply haven't foughtss as much because of a culture of the society on which they become whatever they've gone to lecture to people in the military i noticed how many women are there and there in combat roles and logistics and things behind it, necessary things behind the scenes. >> technology will facilitate this transition, women have often been recorded as politics

of tactics and serbian rapes and bosnian women but i have to ask about the amazons. but i hadn't realized that there is a logical evidence for the existence. >> one of the fascinating things as archaeologists and evolutionary biologist can tell not much more about skeletons and they can manage to get at dna which is not possible 20 yearsnc ago in the north shore f the boxee which contains skeletons which looks like they have been killed and some - violence struggle often. with armor because of the lumbar and whatever is made when the subsistence will disappear andnd they are women and been identified as women and given

burials the number of lawyers have been found and is not possible to identify the skeletons in a way that it was impossible for so it does look as though women have had a role in combat down through the ages as you pointed out a limited role, the expectation has not been that women will fight. >> i've been keeping this away from her 6-year-old daughter. >> we got less tolerant, there's little question that the nuclear posture of the cold war kept it cold and the great powers, and would like you to discuss this is war a thing of the past for the northern tier countries. >> historians are hopeless in predicting the future war is a

thing of the past because most of us never experienced it and i grew up in the last days to second world war so i grew up in the aftermath of the second world war in a peaceful country of canada and i never saw were and i think we got used in idea and a part of the world if it happens happens elsewhere, won't happen to us but as you know before the first world war a lot of europeans thought that they thought were was not something we whatever dragon, is something others do and i think you never know until you feel threatened or until something happens, i don't know how o many people wee isolation in the united states before 1940 but i was impossibly majority. >> pearl harbor changed all of that, americans who said they would never fight lining up to

volunteer. >> does our aversion to violence today, if it's true then there is less tolerance for casualties of war, does this mean we in the states and were vulnerable to extortion by violence? >> that is a possibility, i think it's very good question, i think that is a possibility the enemies in the united states no, calculate and isis has made favors that the americans bear the pain of losing and eventually they will give up and painfulto make it so for them, i think that is a lesson that groups that fight there much weaker in the united states but one weapon is using public opinion in the united states and were turning that against the united states itself, i think it is true that were very reluctant now to see the young in our societies go up about, i was doing a comparison

the other day of how many british shoulders have died in afghanistan and i think you probably know but it's around 1400, 20000 people died on the first day and it was accepted, i don't think we accept that anymore, think it's a good thing. >> on average of world war ii 16000 people died every day. >> it would be unacceptable today for us. >> how important is it that the generations who grown up now, our generation and those of my students in years have not served in the armed forces, in 1970s i think it was a giant step towards unconstitutional order, i wonder what are the conditions as evan annable and i

believe it is an expensive service in our democracy? >> i think it's a concern because what we don't want to see is a military for people we expect to go and fight for us and i think certainly in canada there has been a public outcry but for the time we weren't doing enough to deal with the veterans coming back from afghanistan to help them to readjust to society that's because so few of us knew any and the other thing that worries me about so few people having military experience, those who lead us, most of them do not have direct military experience and i think if you have an expense first and you may be more casual about going to work it strikes me that those political leaders after the second war were actually very cautious about going to work because they knew what it was like, if you've never been to war you may think great we can't to this, i do think it may be

bad for society. >> there was an annual dinner in washington that i used to go to my politicians and at the beginning of the dinner the band plays various anthems of the service in the veteransla standp during this play and as the years have gone by it's very rare. >> you point out the 18th century composed of very badly treated fully regarded creating and you say and removed and elevated. in an empire. why should we worry as an

isolated military class, are we moving in that direction. >> it's a good question and i would like to say i hope not but i think the danger of having a military they can begin to see themselves on arms of the rest of society but they're not understood, i think that was very much the case in germany before the first world war where the military had an elevated stay in germany but felt they were special and felt they were about politics that they were truly the guardians of the german nation and didn't feel any need to do with the political leadership wanted and didn't inform the political leadership of one it was a replanning and i think this can be dangerous. i think a democratic society we understand how important it is to be in control of the military is and i think we should want a military that is part of a society, not something that is seen separate.

>> i would ask them is war the defeat of the enemy? they were pretty generally and that is in football, do you agree with this and we fail to achieve victory in vietnam and iraq and afghanistan because our work and unrealistic or attack methods were inevitable. >> i think it can be both that you're trying to win a war with a particular type of struggle but so often in war and easier throughout history people will go to war in nations will go to work thinking once we defeated the enemy forces, thatnk is it d they don't really think about what happens next and they don't

think about how to achieve a lasting peace, saint augustine said the war should be peace. i think he's right but the danger in focusing on military victory there is a very good book where he talks about the fixation about the history and winning the decisive battle but often the battle doesn't settle things and it's having a plan for what you do a when the enemy is ready to talk and what it is you hope to achieve, i think too often nations or groups of people going towards but really thinking through what they hope to achieve and what they want and what you also get the war becomes to expand and make up for the sacrifices and the losses. >> in warfare to you agree with this and since skepticism about

the laws of war. >> i think we keep trying and we ought to keep trying but it seems to me there's anem extraordinary thing that were trying to control something that's always in danger of becoming uncontrolled the use of violence and it's about going all out to win. but i think it is a credit to keep on trying to limit the effects of war, to keep saying you must not use certain kinds of weapons or you must not target certain kinds of people, the attempts through the ages and the number of cultures to try to protect the innocent and the women and children and those who are not causing any harm think it's absolutely right but the temptation is when a war starts his respect for the laws of the window. >> you mentioned francis a colonial law professor who drafted a military order number one during the civil war that created a basis for our code and

he's much honored with the american civil war also saw the first appearance of total war in the modern era, there is a strategy replacing the bottles, do you see a relationship between effort to impose laws of war, the creation of the war initiated. >> the 19th century as you would know better than me is a century when attempting to make laws in the number of areas in the sense of the engine society is too complex. in the case of where the distraction of getting to great in other places, the distinction

between those who are doing the fighting and supporting and got normal blood. and that means the women and children burning the factories and making it impossible for them to survive. this attempt to legislate and to make laws which we see in other areas of society this is an age of great lawmaking particular advanced industrial society we see the blurring of the line getting more complicated in the blurring of the line. >> would you discuss with his audience was to be keenly interesting. away from the teaching of diplomatic and military history and universities. >> i'm concerned about it and i

don't quite know why topping in canada and history departments there is a swing away from teaching in international relations, the single unpopular university of toronto worm attached to the history department a strategy, it's overwhelmingly subscribe, the department is a bit leery because it not quite sure, i think the concern in history has been moving as it should in the direction of taking a new subject and looking at the history of groups who have not been written into history for example, this is important because international relations and war can have such profound effect on the lives of people in different societies, i think we need to be aware of it,

unfortunately they think the study of war has come to be seen, people talking about regimen and that's not what i think war is about, michael as mentioned earlier was studying work on society and military history, it does concern me because i think those were going to lead us in the next generation need to know something about work in international relations, and involving those. >> to return to the mutually effective relationship between more. the dialectic to produce history had ceased with the triumph of this nationalistic. imperial state, you would agree with this because you give a riveting adescription of the battle" and

is something you want to refer audience, he writes from this place and from this day forward begins a new era for the historw of the world and you're also present at his birth. would you describe what he was writing about. >> it was actually one of those historical events which doesn't deserve all the attention and symbolism loaded onto it it was a clash of arms between the french revolutionary troopss in 1792 and invading forces from the regimes who wanted to strangle the french revolution as soon as he possibly could and the forces coming into germany if you can correct me would turn back or at least didn't come any further as a result of the resistance of the french revolutionary soldiers.

the offices of the more traditional forces were horrified because the french revolutionary did not know how to behave, they rushed across the field and sing revolutionary songs and the order was terrible but it was very hard to withstand because they didn't stop them fire inng the ranks, this is a noose. then it taken hold any motivating force among soldiers and this is nationalism, not for all people but certainly a powerful force in the 19th century and indeed in some parts of the world today, it's like an ideology, it's like a religion or wanting to build a utopia on earth, you will fight and die and kill others for the nation for this abstract concept but i don't think history contained in because the way we organize ourselves changes in the way we fight changes, technology changes, we live today in a9t different world from the world from the beginning of the 19th century.

>> you write very interestingly about the relationship in imperialism and racism on the other, how did war play into this? >> how we think about ourselves and how we think about others affects the way in which we behave. when social dear liz and was in retrospect a misapplication of ideas about evolution. into human societies and human societies called the french race or the british race which we know is nonsense anyway and impossible to distinguish in any meaningful way, the argument was like species in nature and so is the french bulldogs the british were like the other way around and there was distinct species and it was in the whole idea of

adaptation and survival, survival of the fittest a very dangerous concept only those that adapt were prepared to adapt would survive. and this became as a moral imperative that if you were prepared you didn't deserve to survive you should be swept away in more vigorous races will take over. some, not all in and some writings and some races so defined in this way which were inferior and swept aside by the vigorous races, they did not deserve to survive, they hang got the moral right to survive. that did help to fuel the imperialism of the 19th century . . . around world as they haven't done with a tremendous amount of self-confidence that they were a superior race and every right to do it and in a funny way and from the less significant of the country came from europe and more important to do empire so

he acquired belgium congo he acquired the whole of what we know as the belgian congo but it was a way of showing. >> culture in the countries are moving towards more devolution, more multicultural identities, certainly greater individual autonomy. if this is our future, to my questions about war easily arise. who will be willing to fight for such a state where there's no cohesive national identity? i was driving back from a tennis camp. he said if war broke out, would you go to england next because i still spend a lot of my time in britain, at least i did before the pandemic.

i said i might very well and send your mother there but no, i am going to stay here. i told him about alastair horn and people you and and i han were sent to america as babies during the blitz. and he said why would you come back? and i said well, this is my country. it seemed like just a natural reply. i wonder when he's grown if his contemporaries would have such -- would be be willing to risk their lives and fortunes at war? >> i would make a distinction, which i think george r did between patriotism and nationalism. nationalism is is often i'm reflecting and racist sent to be felt for some of bound by these mystical thighs and superior to others. but patriotism is i think simply advocate member, , my country is not such a bad place and it's a decent place and i like to defend it and i don't want to see it taken over by someone

like hitler and the nazis so yes, i will fight for it. the ingredients of that patriotism needn't depend on a shared ethnicity or even shared cultural values. there has to be some sharing at the don't know we'll have to see what happens in canada becauseri we have moved way beyond being an offshoot of britain and france with a fair mixture of indigenous. a we have moved into much more multicultural society and do something canadians are proud of. it's become an ingredient in what it is to become canadian just as our public health system is an ingredient in what it is to be canadian. so what may be groups of people develop other reasons the feeling loyal loyal to the group beyond nationalism. ask myself r people will be willing to fight for a country who's history they've been taught to despise. let me go on to something else -- rng we can talk a long time about that --

particularly steven 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 i hope we t are all reunited somewhere sometime soon. >> thank you. i apologize for my cough but thank you all and wish i were in new york, but there we are. >> we wish you were, to. >> thank you for all those lovely questions. >> i will say good evening to dale gregory and all our friends in new york. thanks to all of you. thanks for coming. thanks for the wonderful questions. and again thanks to our tremendous author. >> tonight on booktv on c-span2, look at some of this year's best-selling books starting at 8 p.m. eastern.

>> ♪ ♪ ♪ >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday you will find events and people that explore our nation's past on american history tv. on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. it's television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. weekends on c-span2. >> the u.s. senate is not in

session today to allow senators to attend the funeral of former senator mike enzi in wyoming. the defendant is back in session at 11 a.m. eastern on saturday. the senate will continue work on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. it funds of roads, bridges, public transit, railways, water projects, airports, broadband internet and electric vehicle charging stations. when this and is back in session at 11 a.m. eastern you can see live coverage on c-span2. >> next, military historian and author patrick o'donnell on his book "the indispensables." chronicles the marblehead regiment of the continental army during the american revolution which he says played a crucial role in both battle and as protectors of george washington. >> good evening. i'm kevin butterfield executive director of the washington library at george washington's