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below in welcome to cross talk we're all things are considered on peter lavelle history is never really dead as long as it's with us the start of the first world war one hundred years ago is a case in point in numerous ways the beginning and conclusion of that conflict shapes our world today. to cross not the legacies of world war one i'm joined by my guest george said uli 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 ivan eland he is a senior fellow and director of the independent institute and in new haven we cross to pierre perceval he is an associate professor at the university of warwick and president of the international society for first world war studies all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want i very much encourage it i mean a lot if i go to you first recently wrote an article world war one rather than

world war two is key for today's foreign policy why did you write it and what is it me well i just said that we always go you seem to hear politicians talk about the munich one nine hundred thirty eight model where we must stamp out any aggression anywhere in the world or it will snowball into a hitler like. you know threat to our security when actually we don't go back far enough and i think world war one the real. them was that the us made its first major mistake if we say that the spanish-american war was a minor mistake a major mistake was in world war one when we jumped into a war that we really didn't need to be and i think also the british probably didn't need to be in there either and that's what led to the united states being in there but a lot of things happened as a result of that we i think world war one really was sort of world war two the

world war part one and then world war two is world war two because world war one clearly a lot of the factors led to world war two so we wouldn't probably have had world war two if the united states had jumped in on the side of the allies in world war one george how does the first world war remain with us because i've anyone who's mentioned quite a few facts here i like the appeasement thing that's very important here but if the first world war hadn't ended the way it did we wouldn't have probably had munich problem in one thousand thirty eight we probably wouldn't even had nazi germany go ahead george. i agree with you. and i and i agree largely would i haven't said i think that when america got into that war in one nine hundred seventeen it ensured an allied victory whereas if america hadn't got everything when the most likely outcome of the war would have been a draw on the western front and the german victory over russia on the eastern front

but that defeat of germany and then the agreements that followed then later led to the extraordinary anger and resentment on the part of the germans that they had been singled out for blame for world war one that they had been unnecessarily polish and that of course fed into the rise of naziism because although. germans did not necessarily sympathize with hitler they did sympathize with hitler's agenda so i think that there's no question you know well the out of a world war one was world war two. the one thing that i would say is that i would be very careful about then deciding. to about overturning the agreements that followed. world war while and i think that may be something we can get into later but it's now becoming fashionable to say well these were very bad

agreement so let's just simply throw them into the wastepaper basket and there i think. we were going to be very very careful as to where we're going to scour of the first world war i mean what is it in your mind what is its significance most important significance for us today. but what is very clear as you rightly point out peter is that the war will even today's last year product of the first war you only need to look at a map of europe or indeed a map of the middle of this and you can very clearly see that many of the flashpoints that we discussed today are largely the result of. this conflict you know you can you can think about. the balkans of course you can think about the conflicts in palestine or in or in syria but i think there's a danger to project back onto the first war or interpretation of what follows after wards and of course we do this with the benefit of hindsight of course but we need

to be a little bit careful and there are a few things that like to to to to to respond to if if i may i think there's a danger to forget that first of all back in one thousand fourteen war is seen as a legitimate tool of foreign policy in the way that it is large enough to case today so that's a first thing to bear in mind second there is this vision that this war could have been avoided and of course we will agree that such a tragedy should always be avoided that we would leave you know happily ever after . that's a very subjective argument but that's also a very misleading one and that i think is largely overlooking the nature and only of the international system back then but also the nature of the political regimes opposed during during this war the reason why the the the british and indeed the american got involved into this war was in response to what they perceived in

the judgment i would say as a strategy. frets by the central powers and largely bored germany. france and there at the national the national interest and indeed threats and there are. on political models the other thing that i would like to say is of course the huge simply cannot understand the second war without one the second is launch a product of the first but again these are not part of the same conflict there are very clear differences and also war was not and war is never one of the policy makers may like us to believe inevitable and in fact into war years we know the treaty of versailles and the league of nations failed but this is only after phil and it's important to remember that at the end of the day the second war like the first was a product of failures by policy makers. drastically exactly and i

wonder if we've really learned from them ivan eland we just heard here that you know we have france and britain in getting involved the world out of now a nationalist sort of perceived national interest but the war ended really as. a net loss for them it wasn't thought of at the time because they got to start colonizing the middle east but it was the united states that eventually became the great hedge of man and the rise of the soviet union another unintended consequence . well of course the us became the hedge of money because britain and france although winning to on the winning side of two world wars spent them still world war one but of course that was an overextension really their empires eventually vanished because they couldn't afford them anymore the other point i think is nobody is saying that if we hadn't the united states hadn't gotten into world war one that everything would have been great but the us it stayed out of all the european wars up to that point. with the exception of the war of eight hundred

twelve a sort of part of. the european wars but it was a minor part and so the united states had a tradition of staying out of war which vanished after world war two and. and so if it hadn't gotten into world war one. it probably wouldn't have that tradition probably would have continued the other thing i think is that when we say that germany presented a real and austria-hungary presented a real threat if you look at the g.d.p. numbers the germans were scared that things were not going their way as far as. relative power they were declining as a power and so they probably reached their apex as a power in one thousand know five or so or somewhere around in there and i think if you look at the g.d.p. the g.d.p. rate against them you know dwarfed them and every war since the us civil war the.

side with the biggest g.d.p. is one so i think that the the the threat and just the the outcome of the battles in world war one indicated that the sides were pretty evenly matched at least on the western front until the us entered the war and the us of course was the dominant power in that entered in that's why everybody the allies won it on their side georgia that's probably the most important outcome is that the united states became the hedge amount of the world and if you look at it you know they conquered you know most of the western hemisphere had control of it and then we had the expense of the united states it was the next logical step for the united states in many ways. yes that's absolutely right i mean that's exactly it was the outcome and it thought me. manifested itself very much after world war two when all of the victorious powers or all of the european powers were pretty much spent with the exception of the united states and the soviet union which is to go back on the

point that i've been made i mean i think it's very important that to remember that germany you saw it before nine hundred fourteen as a power in decline and i think germany was right to do so because france was becoming a ever stronger. russia was industrialising very rapidly and given the franco russian alliance that had been signed some twenty years before the outcome of the start of world war one germany did feel encircled it did feel that really its only ally in europe was austria hungary which had so many. nationalities problems that it was a really more of a hindrance than an advantage and they germany had some kind of a strategic plan of getting itself out of this circle and so the idea that somehow the england and france really saw themselves as being under threat from

germany i think is. that's a rather false picture. i think germany certainly played its hands foolishly in one nine hundred forty eight but the fact is that once the war started germany generally wanted to go back to the status quo ante provide one hundred fourteen and it was england and france that didn't want to go back to the status quo. those upon last opportunity really to do in germany as a as a great power and they did for a time ago ok gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the first world war stay with r.t. . please.

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on the. science technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia we've got the future covered. welcome back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the legacies of the first world war. ok i'd like to go back to perry newhaven here i think one of the most important legacies of the first world war that is very much with us today and problematic is

the wilsonian principles of self-determination and sanctity of sovereignty we still haven't gotten it right. no indeed but if if if i may just like to go back very briefly to what was said earlier because i think there's a few things that need to be corrected about the relative position of german international system in one thousand nine hundred in germany is actually a power on the rise and certainly not declining buff economically and trajectory and that it's part of the younger german going to them at the time by contrast france of course is still reeling from the impact of our defeat against germany in one thousand seven hundred seventy one. knows a serious economic and demographic crisis and and of course russia was defeated in one thousand zero five by the japanese and had to deal with subsequent revolution as far as the notion that there's no strategic interest for france and for france and britain to get into this war let me just remind you that belgium and france are

invaded in august one thousand nine hundred ten presenting britain specifically with a strong strategic frets and this tragic case for france and indeed belgium will remain. overwhelming up until the end of the war the enemy sits deep in national territory so i think we need to get a few thanks right before we can discuss the legacies of the war and you're absolutely right the notion of self national service from a nation is a particularly key point here because of course even though. wilson was extremely abts and when they were i guess this guy just. going to go in and say this is cross talk to him just.

come. dorian ok go ahead you know i know i didn't go ahead ivan eland jump in. self-determination in saying. that if anyone wants to yeah yeah i agree with what george said i mean i think france actually was egging rusher on a live in before the war and i think it really wanted russia to be on their

side against germany because they feared germany and the brits a lot of people in the british cabinet thought well yes belgium probably will be invaded but as long as the germans just go through the southern part and then a lot of the people in the british cabinet thought that well yes we've all pledged belgian belgian neutrality but it's it should be collectively and and force not just. you know the allies coming to belgians belgium's defense and i also think you know many of these. much of this hostility to germany was fairly recently fairly recent right now near the war because britain and britain certainly had a worse relationship with russia over and over the nineteenth century then with germany and also i think the russians in germans had a fairly good relationship as well or certainly at least not

a hostile relationship but everyone formed alliances in the german sort of got left out and if you recall the german rate germany was regarded as a progressive country and has certainly been built fide since then but it was had the widest voting franchise in europe and was. the you know the kaiser had a less power than woodrow wilson did and so you know this idea that they were autocratic in the kaiser was running everything and not even in the foreign policy was that true and i think you know this the the victors write the history and unfortunately i think germany's got in there. the short end of the stick on that ok let's talk about short ends of sticks here pierre let's go back to self-determination here because we have these principles and sanctity of borders but that was only for some countries because the middle east was colonized and as we speak right now we see the results of that colonization o'neill colonization of that region unraveling as vents go on in iraq syria and further afield.

yes here and on this very this very question i mean that brings us back to region that we haven't really discussed which is central to the outbreak of the war which is of course the balkans were austria-hungary which is the power there is just as responsible for for the war as as germany is attempted to suppress serbian nationalism in particular and what you see there of course is during the war and after the war or empires multinational political system trying to deal with the frets. posed in their view at least by by national movements and of course the very the difficult point for for wilson and the allies during the peace negotiations and into war period is to reconcile the interests of great powers that all colonial powers including of course the usa with the principle of self discipline nation

and the league of nations came out with this rather elaborate system of monday's different mind days that recognize different to differentiate the abilities of certain groups nationalities to look after themselves as it were including in in in the middle east of course i suspect that border problem in the middle east is the fact that the the those newly created entities. were created on the basis of largely the interests of great powers with very little understanding of the actual social entrepreneur whole nature of those very communities and when it comes to ethnic identities religious identities and so on we see these day i important it is for us for spottable for political entities to coincide with with of social and religious and political identity as well georget what we just heard from here it was really stands in two thousand and fourteen doesn't

a great power still determine borders even determine your identity and if they don't like your identity or your borders they'll change it and they'll change it with extreme violence. that that's absolutely right and of course there's now a lot of talk about oh well let's just get rid of some of the agreements that were undertaken after world war one the the boundaries that were drawn up after world war one i mean the clearest example of that was the destruction of yugoslavia in which the europeans and the americans just said oh well forget forget yugoslavia let's just break that up now there's a lot of talk about let's undo the various. ways of the states such as iraq that were created in the aftermath of world war one. much of this is an absolutely disingenuous and hypocritical because the west is only in favor of undoing those borders that you know that embodies states that are somehow seen as adverse to

western interests. the west is perfectly happy to see the yugoslavia destroyed perfectly happy to see iraq destroyed probably they'll be quite happy to see libya destroyed into tiny little warring states and fiefdoms but heaven forbid if they should be any changes to the boundaries of ukraine i mean they're suddenly you know khrushchev's arbitrary handover of crimea to ukraine. is written in stone how can anyone possibly undo that the arbitrary border that was a created in the east you know the a chunk of ukraine was a chunk of russia was just handed over to ukraine after world war one with no real respect for the ethnic. groups that were living there that also must be absolutely set in stone so anything that is adverse to the interest of.

the west that must stay in place but everything else well hey let's just the toss those boundaries into the wastepaper basket i really it's. really interesting because we came up with these principles after the first world war but great powers to continue to do whatever they wanted anyway and i think this is what conses so much friction here because when you look at the arab world after the first world war all the way to the present they're not given much choice and self-determination is modifying the west to first dictators they can control their people you know i agree with george there's been a great deal of inconsistency between the rhetoric and what's happened wilson had a lot of rhetoric and to some extent the principle of self-determination has in certain respects made some progress did the decolonization of french british and other other empires but of course as you point out when the when the great powers want to adjust those boundaries you know much of the conflict in the middle east is

caused by the fact that the boundaries are artificially drawn to get the oil by the british and french after world war one and so i think. you know when you have when you have artificial boundaries that don't match the ethno sectarian lines here you're going to have either violence or or you're going to have to have dictators to hold the countries together and neither is a very neither is what you would call you know self-determination in the will sony incense here i'm going to give you a last program word of the program here what's the most important lesson we should learn from the first world war. oh that's a very difficult question trying to wrestle in you know in a few seconds of course but i think we should be aware of perhaps a couple of points first of all that policymakers are first and foremost making choices and it's important for us as citizens to make sure that we have the kind of policymakers that are able intellectually to to meet the challenges of their time

and i think part of the prime in one thousand fortune that the policymakers involved large in austria and germany were simply not up to the task and i think that's something to bear in mind today second is to be aware of the ways in which history is being used in many collated to fit whatever convenient political project or agenda is is running ok i second going to here is we'll run out of china gentlemen many thanks and i guess in new york washington and in new haven and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember crosstalk.

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