hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle a century ago this year the first world war started it fundamentally changed the global political order later and even weakened international system set the stage for the second world war since the end of the cold war the global order has been in limbo under american domination in the twenty first century just how stable our world politics.

to cross not parallels to nine hundred fourteen i'm joined by my guest george samuel in new york he is a fellow of the global policy institute of london metropolitan university and author of the new book bombs for peace nato's humanitarian war on yugoslavia in washington we have brian becker he is the national coordinator for the answer coalition and in london we crossed to david stephenson he is an author of several books about the first world war as well as a professor of international history at the london school of economics all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it george if i go to you first in new york a century ago one of the worst catastrophes in history occurred and it was the beginning of the first world war and looking at parallels to the present we had a very unstable international system then how stable is the system today. when it was not so much. stable system back then i mean small that there were. policymakers. and foolish policy makers are around

today i think what happened in one nine hundred fourteen was a series of miscalculations due to the belief on the part of policymakers that there's an easy way to win a war and there's an easy way to get what you want through force rather than diplomacy ga ga i'm sorry to interrupt you george but it sounds like that sounds like afghanistan and iraq to me in the in our century now that's exactly right that's. that's exactly right and i think that's what they're the parallels are there which is that even today we have policymakers in washington who are absolutely convinced that there's an easy way to win a war we'll just bomb a little bit and then we'll get a regime change and then we'll have the balance of power will be in our favor and of course it never turns out that way it always escalates and gets out of complete

control and then once the war starts no one knows how and is supposed to get out of it or what even the original objectives were or what the objective should be bryan how do you reflect upon the the balance of power house stable the international system is right now because as i mentioned we have a lot of unilateral action coming out of western powers and i mentioned iraq and afghanistan libya you could throw in there as well yugoslavia before that you know a lot of people will say that it's very similar to nine hundred fourteen because of alliances how stable our alliances particularly western alliances well i would say there's a fundamental difference between now and nine hundred fourteen nine hundred fourteen was the and the war and the outbreak of conflict on a on a global scale something that hadn't really been seen before was the consequence of the centuries and then decades of intense colonization that culminated so so that the entire world was divided. between

a few powers in the colonies some in colonies and spheres of influence and then there was a war about how to read divide the world and read divide the colonies and spheres of influence in the markets today after the collapse especially of the soviet union but more importantly after the the end of world war two we've seen the world shift instead of the various major capitals powers vying with each other they've been pulled together as a united front under the leadership they had germany of the united states first to do a war against the socialist bloc countries but now to sort of ring colonize those countries that have become independent so the nature of the conflict has shifted fundamentally since world war one which doesn't mean it's a stable world ok david in london we we have the one a lot of historians will say that you know the germany of the first part of the twentieth century the equivalent in our century now is china rising power because germany was the rising power in the first part of the twentieth century and that's

why you go back to the instability of the international system it wasn't prepared for germany how about the rise of china and the decline of the united states. i think that misreads the situation in one nine hundred fourteen. what we need to understand about nine hundred fourteen is that we may look back and see germany as arising. but the german leaders in one nine hundred fourteen felt himself to be extremely vulnerable when they thought of the problems it was moving rapidly against them particularly because of the economic growth military reforms taking place in russia they would look very closely at russia an alliance with france and felt themselves to be and. so that's the extent to which what was her nineteen fourteen from the german perspective was they were striking out against and circumvent they were a done well but they felt that their position was was correct what was the proper perspective so it's not a strict easy compares ok but your input george the chinese would say today the

chinese would say they are being encircled ok and they're borrowing money. money from united states for the american system around their country militarily it's interesting scenario. well i think that that that may well be the case. however there's doesn't seem to be any real evidence that the chinese are really interested in becoming one of the great powers in the in the sense of being a colonial power of dominating other countries or other continents and i agree with the point that david made just now about germany and i think the parallel between. imperial germany and the united states i think is much more apparent because i think that germany in one nine hundred fourteen did believe that it was now a power in decline and that russia was becoming increasingly powerful

france was also much stronger than it had been when it easily defeated in one hundred seventy in the franco-prussian war and the germany had to do something in order to change the balance of forces and that's why it came up with this idea that if the austria-hungary can knock out serbia then austria hungary will be will be thriving power and then that would somehow. reinforce germany's role in europe and i think what good having here now is i think the united states is increasingly anxious that this unilateral moment is the enjoyed since the end of the cold war is china is certainly are the a rising power. russia is also you know reemerging from its. weakness and feebleness in the post cold war era and i think there are that's where i think the danger lies in with the united states believing that it needs to do something to shift the balance of forces in its favor and in favor of

a bloc that it dominates. that's exactly what the united states is doing with its pivot so-called to the pacific but at the same time you have. sign and saying that it's going to enforce its own. fly zone close to its borders which we all know that south korea did it unilaterally japan you did it unilaterally the united states it unilaterally and then everybody gets upset when the chinese start doing the same thing the u.s. certainly does feel threatened in the pacific that's why it's moving it claims to be moving so much military hardware there right by twenty twenty sixty five seventy percent of the u.s. navy will be will be in the pacific and will be in the area around china around japan around korea the asia pivot is obviously a big geo strategic shift not because the us doesn't also want to dominate the oil rich middle east it does i mean we clearly see that but what's going to i think

destabilize the situation the global situation will take place in asia if there is a major destabilization as happened prior to the other major wars and what we can see now clearly is the rise of japan as a desiring to get rid of article nine of the constitution become a major military player enter into collective security agreements become a nuclear power that will become the tipping point i believe war the destabilization of the region as japan functioned as a junior partner for the united states against the soviet union against china that was one thing but today japan is asserting its own independent imperial designs of course there's a debate in japan the japanese people are for it but i think that can be the thing that would shift the situation in a way that makes it out of control it's been under control by the united states it could go out of control korea south korea north korea and china of course are very concerned as they should be about this development do you david do you agree with

that the peril of going back to the beginning of the twentieth century and so you have these these alliances here the united states has promised to back up but through treaty agreements japan and. we just heard from brian there it wants to be more assertive and i use that word very carefully there but the it would make the people do worry that the japanese will feel assertive enough to take on what they believe would be a threat from china and the united states has no choice but to back it up going back to the scenario of august one thousand fourteen. there are parallels in the sort of alliance dynamics that we see in the station with the way it was operating in one nine hundred fourteen you can read it more than one way it seems to me. part of the problem in one nine hundred forty was. both sides being uncertain whether the alarm systems would actually operate and therefore creating the illusion particular on the german side that it might be possible to stage

a localized more without scale ating into a general conflict what's important in the present situation is that the united states does seem to have made it clear at the time of joe biden's visit to beijing and tokyo last autumn that the united states would if you its security treaty with your partner supplying to the disputed islands in the east china sea other words the americans to seem to be giving a warning try to prevent any kind of miscalculation happening setting out their position is that they would feel obliged to come to assistance. in the event of a chinese japanese military confrontation since the americans gave that warning it seems as if the scale of the confrontation seems to me. all right gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussions on parallels to nine hundred fourteen stay with r.t. .

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a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines to cause a report on. the u.s. military was built to square off against the soviet union over western europe but when you take that conventional military and now try to read task it as a counter-insurgency force it creates a lot of gaps and that's the kind of private sector stuff.

welcome back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle true mind you were discussing parallels to nine hundred fourteen. ok george michael back to you in new york i think we could all agree that the in two thousand and fourteen we don't have to worry about a major conflict between the great powers today that's probably not in the cards right now we'll talk a little bit more about china in a minute but let's go back to alliances here the united states has a lot of treaty obligations. with countries like saudi arabia with israel and it wants to have some kind of diplomatic opening hopefully knock on wood with iran and because of its untangled in relationships and treaty obligations it makes it very very difficult and actually you can have the junior partners pushing forward

a relationship that may not be in the interest of washington. yes that's certainly . possible however i do think that. to go back to the parallel with nine hundred fourteen that it wasn't so much the junior partner if we if one thinks of austria-hungary as germany's junior partner. push germany into the war i mean i think that germany wanted hungry to issue its ultimatum to serbia and thereby shift the balance of power in favor of austria-hungary and i think the same thing applies today i don't think israel just doing its own thing would drag america into a war i mean i think america and israel in collusion could lead to a major conflict but i have and i think that that is certainly a danger of the extent to which the israeli military and political elites and the american military and police military and political elites are in tangled with one

another each going to exit exit on the other into more and more foolhardy policies and i think they are i think it's the danger lies yes well let's hope that this. iranian opening will will be successful but it's by no means the certainty of this will happen and you know i actually tend to be rather pessimistic and believe that they'll be enough powerful forces that could undermine this brian if we can stay with this theme here because i mean there were a number of senators who are getting together about a week or so ago to our sensually give war powers to a forum country israel i mean this is the extent where you have such an entanglement relationship where the united states if it wants to change policy gets caught by the establishment at home in lobbies from abroad i mean this is one of

the dangers were you have just mixed miscalculation because when you look at poor. and countries will say that mr obama is not nearly as powerful as the commander in chief should be and it gets far more more complicated in the it gets about gets down to miscalculation again going back to the one nine hundred fourteen scenario and each that we're not prepared for consequences of their previous agreements. well it's it is hard to underestimate the stupidity of the u.s. congress is guys are you know millionaires and plain like they're the imperial congress a two to share with the imperial presidency they're sort of global enforcement of of of power they are ridiculous and sometimes useful though for the obama administration when they play bad cop good cop in terms of u.s. policy we see this happening for instance in the case of iran. the u.s. government though has i'd say when we look at the global situation they are concerned

about china of course not because china is a military threat because but because the u.s. wants a gemini everywhere it it has functioned as an empire since the end of world war two it's thinking it's foreign policy establishment the creation of the the un in the world bank and in the i.m.f. all of that was the new world order after world war two to take the place of britain is the dominant power it was challenged unrivaled by the development of the socialist bloc and now that the socialist bloc has has been vanquished essentially in this global struggle the u.s. government is kind of finding its way about how to enforce its domination so it's concerned about china in that sense it's concerned about priscilla russia india the brics countries coming together in some way but fundamentally we're still in an era where the u.s. feels they can go on a role to destroy the anti colonial or or nationalist or independent governments

that came to power after world war two because of their assistance the assistance military economic and diplomatic assistance they received from the socialist bloc that having been vanquished the u.s. is now in sort of this wrecking ball against those governments iraq libya syria it would like to do so. in oil rich regions but in the in the east asia you see a new assessed him of alliances. growing which is clearly designed to contain china therein lies the greatest source of danger as i said before because vietnam philippines korea they all have independent interests but dominant interest of the japanese militarists clique that's running the government right now in opposition to japanese sentiment that represents the new danger i think for the disruption of the existing global order david how do you weigh in on that because if the nine hundred fourteen scenario has validity today it is playing out in the pacific right now i mean to what degree is do you think the united states could be pulled into

a conflict in the region because it has so many treaty obligations for so many countries right now and china itself is the expressing its interests of not being contained and i'm not saying it's being aggressive it just it why should it be contained again if we go back to our treaty obligations you know to what degree is the united states opening itself up to danger. well i think the parallels with nine hundred fourteen i mean you're right that the area in the world that is most like pre nine hundred fourteen europe is now east asia rather than europe itself or the middle east so that's rightly where we should be focusing on. there's been several references to miscalculation in one nine hundred forty two you talked about the one nine hundred fourteen scenario what you need to understand about nine hundred forty is the one level there was a miscalculation in the government's particular german government totally possible

to stage a kind of localized war in the balkans but at another level all the governments concerned were willing to accept the risk of a general war if the miscalculation if the calculation went wrong now if you look at the present situation i don't see any evidence that the chinese or american or the japanese governments want to run the risk of a general war taking place great power of war happening in the pacific so that's something that could change but you're quite right that the danger that i see with the situation is one where if you like american alliances would lose their credibility because of america's own internal domestic political and economic problems declining military strength perhaps growth of isolationism might create a situation where it was tempting for the chinese in particular to use military force of limited scale the would nonetheless raise the question mark of the validity of the american alliance and the american smart that if you have a need to go to war over a larger scale in order to make show support there are a lot of credibility that kind of danger is one that i can see not necessarily is

imminent but conceivable within a few years from now george how do you weigh in on that because i mean it's since the end of the second world now the united states has decided it's going to be number one and it you know we have to remind our viewers that's american defense doctrine right now is to make sure no power can challenge the united states for the forseeable future i mean if you're a foreign power is that your country like china that's not that's not a peaceful. country ok this is a country that will be prepared to go to war at all costs for its reputation again the one nine hundred fourteen analogy right there it's about prestige is well yes or no that is absolutely right and i think this is where the nine hundred forty in the scenario is a political today because the united states is insistent on becoming the dominant force on every continent because it wants to expand nato into right up to china's borders and have nato in africa nato in latin america that it is likely to come

into conflict with other powers now. i think that there is a concern about danger also of that kind of miscalculation here is the united states for it to today flagrantly interfering along with the european union and the to work out of joint at the hips in the internal affairs of ukraine now ukraine is so close to russia i mean geographically historically culturally in every possible way and yet the. u.s. and e.u. politicians go there and nakedly whip up the russian sentiment now this is an amazingly dangerous policy to undertake and this is all part of a much wider policy which has been going on for some years ever since the so-called orange revolution or pushing ukraine into nato now i was over that is a very serious danger that this is a situation that could escalate into

a conflict with russia that along with an almost hysterical anti russian propaganda that you come across in the western media you know it these are this is these are the kind of things that do lead to serious conflicts and i think that i see there is a close spiral of the ninety four the in a kind of india logical russophobia with russell phobic. military and foreign policy you know brian i mean i agree with everything that george has said there obviously but brian when it when we look at calculation and strategy i have to go back to iraq afghanistan libya and that's all recklessness in my opinion in very dangerous costs we on the ground in lives and treasury and prestige everything so why would it be different in the pacific you know the u.s. policy resembles those well the caricature of those western movies where the

drunken cowboys come into town and shoot the place up just because they can another words they just this kind of reckless use of military power in iraq and in the other middle eastern countries which was based on a fantasy first by the neo cons and then reinforced by the by the obama administration because it didn't want to take responsibility for the the eventual defeat of u.s. forces in these countries so there is recklessness and there is i would say also the position i think you mentioned it peter of pride in other words when the it's not really pride but when the empire speaks when it says this must happen and the things doesn't happen then the tendency is towards escalation you saw that in syria where the u.s. almost went to war no gentlemen we had run out of time it was right out of time i'm very sorry but i think the word is hubris too many thanks to my guests in new york in washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember cross talk rules.

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where i. go. in two thousand in time one of the first things released by wiki leaks was a secret video recording that actually looked like a video showing two american actually clicked up just opening fire on a dozen people in iraq and this is going to commence to live in a society of images of violence become normal this is what the sense of isolation lack of empathy look like. when we try and experience them to speak only disassociate our own in body and actions from table but we also have a sense from certain kinds of moral. i absolutely am frightened of the potential of games desensitize people we know they can because the military uses games places.

holden of war it is not simply shoot but it is killing and killing. exacts a penalty of the killer. people for whom it is defined by the popular media that. this is obviously more for the ladies because it's pink. women wanted to avoid rate they really needed to buy guns environ how to use them. this is the one that i want to go with them once again it's the feel of. women definitely the target of the gun lobby you don't kill them not want to kill anybody but if somebody would you would

piss with her. i've noticed that more and more it's really scary marketing tactics which implies that women have some sort of moral obligation to protect their family and young girls shoot out here too so we do have a pink or. more kids young kids choke on food than are killed by firearms if being armed made us safer in america we should be the safest nation on earth were clearly not the safest. right to see. first street. and i think the church. reformers twitter. and instagram.

the in the. peace activists go on trial in the us for taking a stand against a drone warfare campaign. speech and a police officer killed in a hostage crisis. a moscow school carried out by one of its model students. and israeli cabinet ministers here u.s. secretary of state john kerry after his warning that the country could face an international boycott if it fails to take real steps to strike a peace deal with the palestinians. could have become can you.