As regional conflicts spread, this panel discussion of experts will consider the big question of how wars end from a historical, political and cultural point of view. With Professor Sir Richard Evans from the University of Cambridge; Dr Uilleam Blacker from University College London; Professor Kristin Bakke from University College London and Professor Ayse Zarakol from the University of Cambridge.
Award-winning BBC presenter Chris Mann, a former Moscow correspondent during the Cold War, will chair.
Professor Sir Richard Evans is an historian of modern Germany and modern Europe, and has published over 20 books in the field, most recently The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1915 and Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History. He was President of Wolfson College from 2010-2017. He is the former Provost of Gresham College, City of London.
Ayse Zarakol is Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Emmanuel College. Her most recent book Before the West: the Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders (2022) advances an alternative global history of world orders centred in Asia and interrogates the meaning of international decline. It has won six international book awards.
Dr Uilleam Blacker is one of Britain’s leading literary translators from Ukrainian and was on the judging panel of The International Booker Prize 2023. He is Associate Professor of Ukrainian and East European Culture at University College London and the author of Memory, the City and the Legacy of World War II in East Central Europe.
Kristin M. Bakke is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at University College London (UCL) and Associate Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
E e e e e e e e e e than e comfy you’re in there and you two here thank you good evening everybody Welcome to our event from first thebody from science fiction to science you’re welcome to be here t-shirt but enjoy your evening CHR hello everybody evening welcome how are
We all everybody good can you hear me all right yeah welcome to the oldest continuous debating chamber in the world which is a nice place to be it’s a bit of a treat for us we have I know there’s one missing at the moment we have four
Top academics to talk to you uh Professor Sir Richard Evans is fighting his own battle uh with the m 11 I think I’m just seeing him coming in the the door right now actually so he’s been stuck in a traffic jam we’ve just been holding off for Richard to arrive now um
And then we’ll get underway um wanted to ask if you we’re obviously going to talk about how the wars end I wondered uh if I just ask you anybody want to guess how many according to uh the official figures of the the Geneva academy how many wars there are right now going on
In the world anybody want to guess I asked in the office earlier on and I got five and six and 10 and 20 as the guess is anybody want to guess how many wars there are in the world at the moment 50 50 any advance on 50 100
110 is the official figures right now Richard welcome nice to see you sir please have a seat Richard Evans everybody I didn’t mean to make an entrance but I was held up on the 11 by a hug traffic so um just getting everybody warmed up so there’s 110 conflicts at
The moment that doesn’t include those going on inside the conservative party obviously uh some of those have lasted a few months sums have lasted 50 years there’s 43 in the Middle East and North Africa 35 in uh the W of Africa 21 in Asia six in Latin America seven in Europe the
Longest war in history and you want to guess how long that was do we know uh it was 781 years it was the Reconquista between Spain and the mes and the shortest War ever lasted for 30 minutes one afternoon in 1896 uh Britain turned the gunboats on zanar and it was
All over very quickly 500 people died in those 30 minutes but that’s the shortest War ever there’s Wars obviously happening all over the world right now and there’s been even just since this debate was organized and the panel was chosen there have been many more to join
That list sadly so what we’re going to try and get to over the next hour and a half and we’re going to invite you to to ask questions very shortly by the way so please store those up and get ready to ask but we’re we’re we’re going to try
And get to the bottom of uh how Wars end what happens when the end uh how best we can cope with that and the sort of cultural and other differences that happened in that time so our our last arrival is going to be our first guest he is
Uh former um president of Wilson College Cambridge uh he is the Emeritus regious professor of modern history and um I I GN knowledged greatest expert living expert on Nazi Germany um and his latest book Richard is the pursuit of power Europe 1815 to 1915 so Professor Richard Evans is going
To kick us off with eight minutes please eight minutes right I don’t guarantee March seventh might be nine okay no long we’ll settle for eight all right well first of all again apologies for uh turning up at the absolute last minute um Edward a car crash which did not
Involve myself but but held everything up on the M1 okay right so how do Wars um how do Wars end um roughly there’s just a very few ways of course this is a very big generalization but first of all and most obviously Wars End by the outright complete and total victory of
Of one side over the other and we can look at 1945 for this the Allies defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945 these are two uh different dates but it’s a global conflict World War II uh and it was of course based on unconditional surrender demanded by the
Allies of Japan and then before that of uh of Germany you could think of plenty of other total victories uh the victory of a different set of allies over Napoleon for example in 1814 and then briefly again at the Battle of wo in 1815 that obviously that complete
Victory is what the participants in Wars all hope for that’s what they want when they uh when they start that’s uh what certainly Vladimir Putin hopes for over Ukraine his aim is to completely occupy Ukraine and incorporate into Russia that is what uh the ukrainians hope to do uh although
That the kind of Victory they wanted simply to expel the Russians from their territory in Gaza uh and those two I think are the major conflicts relatively close to us at Britain uh in Gaza the uh uh extreme right-wing government of Benjamin n Netanyahu and his allies uh hope to
Completely defeat Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip Hamas is a little unclear less clear but essentially they want to wipe Israel off the map you can see that in the 1988 Covenant for example and it’s a a war aim of at least some of the Palestinian groups that support them
Uh the problem here is of course uh that the uh complete Victory is not what’s likely to happen either in the Ukrainian conflict or in Gaza but at the moment that seems to be the aim and of course the victory the achievement by one side obvious aims and a conflict with another
Is more common if the aims are limited if it’s a matter as in for example 20 2013 to 14 of Russia simply taking uh taking Crimea from Ukraine but that’s one way in which Wars end then secondly you can have a negotiated peace of course uh there many
Different ways in which both sides agree to negotiate a piece it was more common perhaps in the 18th century with um excuse me with cabinet Wars with relatively clear and limited aims for example fredi the great fed II of Prussia in 1740 uh taking the province of salesia
From the Habsburg Empire and calling it a day there and of course bismar Wars of German unification were uh clearly clearly directed at unifying Germany under Prussian leadership the generals who when they defeated Austria wanted to go on and occupy Vienna were stopped from doing so by bismar Who had who realized
Of course that in the future Austria had to be an ally of of Germany or Prussia Germany so uh limited aims both sides in the end agreeing uh they in many cases that they’re excuse me not to achieve their objectives 1918 the end of World War I here the generals in
Germany realized they were’re not going to win uh in the face of huge numbers of American troops coming in Mass massive Allied superiority in production of Tanks which had overwhelm them in 1919 so they they concluded a piece before and at a time when German troops are still occupying parts of France and
Belgium uh so a negotiated piece that I think is probably in the longer run the most likely outcome in Ukraine and Gaza but the moment there’s no sign of any of the competant realizing they’re not going to achieve their aims then you’ve got outside outside intervention sometimes the Balkan Wars of the
1990s which incidentally everybody seems have forgotten about now saying that Ukrainian conflict is you know the only war in Europe since uh since second world war or um that but the Balan wars in the 1990s and an H country Coalition including Russia and the United States forced a settlement on the Waring
Parties above all Serbia in 1999 and that’s of course can happen only where the outside forces are too massive to be resisted or um to bring my brief sort of list to an end I’m sure it’s not complete um you can have a kind of gradual uh
Subsiding of conflict when some kind of stalemate is is ended so in the Iraq War the first Gulf War in 1993 for example Saddam Hussein was expelled from Kuwait but uh the uh allies did not go on to then try and change the regime by
Toppling him uh and was a kind of an uneasy armed peace settle so those those are the ways in which Wars end it’s not very neat it’s uh pretty messy but that’s my rough list of how they end thank you Richard ladies and gentlemen Mr Richard Evans six and a half minutes very
Impressive I’m going to say there’s some water there Richard if you want to thank you for rushing in from the from the M11 H now I didn’t mention earlier on but I was a an eyewitness to a war I was a Moscow correspondent in the 80s so the
Cold War which I think the American say is the most expensive war of all time8 trillion dollar and and Counting because it’s started up again hasn’t it so I’m really looking forward to hearing our next speaker speaker Isa zarak is Professor of international relations at the University of Cambridge Emanuel
College and her most recent book is before the West the rise and fall of Eastern World orders which is one Huger uh Acclaim around the world and is one a lot of orders and she um a lot of prizes and she’s going to talk to us about what
Happens to uh countries after a war Isa yes thank you hello everyone um so um I’m I’m I’m in international relations but I’m not a conflict resolution scholar what I work on is uh one of the things I work on is uh status and state identity and Grievances and humiliation
Narratives uh so uh what I want to use my time for is to talk about uh not how Wars end but why Wars do not end and uh and why they keep uh flaring up uh again and again um and that has something to do with I think identity and uh status
So uh you know when we look at uh conflicts around the world we have a tendency to think of them as very old there’s often a this talk about you know these are ancient hatreds these groups of people have been hating each other forever but in reality most of the
Intractable conflicts and wars that we see flare up over and over again around the world they’re relatively modern uh conflicts and the idea of them being ancient centuries old thousands of years old is usually projected back in time if you actually go back and study as a historian these places uh you either
Find coexistence or other types of conflicts that don’t cut across the same identity lines so why is it that uh you know modernity creates these uh intractable conflicts that seem very old uh and have a tendency to uh flare up again I mean in some ways modernity has
Made the world safer less conflict prone but in other ways the conflicts and the wars that we have are difficult to resolve and I think that’s because uh modernity has uh changed how people emotionally relate uh to Wars and that has something to do with nationalism and
The nation state again we tend to think of Nations as very old things but the the Nations that we know and that we experience personally they are relatively uh of they’re of relatively Modern Vintage uh and uh the way uh Wars gets inflicted uh through nationalism is
That uh even if something is not happening directly to you you feel that it is because you feel that you’re part of this larger group uh so it’s my countrymen members of my nation members of my group that are suffering uh and if even if I’m not directly uh affected I
Feel emotionally connected to to the to their suffering and not only to their suffering but also uh people who’ve lived before me in the same Nation so it may be that my grandparents were harmed but somehow that affects me it seems to affect me uh directly now compare that
With older Wars it would be the king’s war or some Aristocrats War you know you’re not you know you may fight in it you may suffer from it but it’s not you know you fought in a conflict that you don’t emotionally necessarily feel uh a part of so that emotional connection
Makes Wars very uh uh intractable and that emotional connection I mean we can debate you know what nations are but uh the nation state uh often uh controls you know the narrative uh of you know how these wars were experienced by the group uh and then reproduces that
Narrative through uh you know historic curricula or like the way uh specific conflicts are uh explained uh creating uh you know a collective memory about even if you were not directly there you have a you seem to have a collective memory as part of the nation uh and uh
You know if if the idea if the war ends in a way that the nation states want to um make a story of humiliation or revenge or status loss or or something you know that is constantly reproduced in textbooks uh in anthems off uh that this you know very from very young age
Children uh partaken so that it becomes part of the socialization of the nation uh and then that makes it very intractable because it means like your identity is involved in that conflict doing something about it getting revenge uh getting even so uh if we want to take lessons
From that General story for like how the wars end how do we make sure that uh the war doesn’t become a part of a country’s a nation’s identity we have to somehow dis disrupt that process of uh narrative building and reproduction uh in a way you know um people’s identity and
Their status and their sense of being in the world is not involved necessarily in that war so one way you can do that is if an outside party for instance comes in and starts uh controlling or shaping uh the postwar narrative I mean to some extent this has happened uh in you know
Japan in Germany right you know it’s you don’t let the defeated party write history from scratch or like an account of the war you make sure that you know there is there is a kind of an accounting or a narrative that is uh uh Rec you know that makes peace possible
Otherwise you know the story of loss defeat humiliation again becomes part of the post-war story uh or you know you spin uh the humiliation or defeat narrative into something productive towards pacifism like a new state identity learning something from it atoning right a a positive message has
To be given uh one way of doing that is allow you know creating a settlement uh that does not allow for a humiliation narrative right uh if if if the defeated party you know preserves some degree of dignity some kind of can concoct some kind of
Story out of it from which they can still preserve their like self-respect again that might be a way of disrupting that uh you know this this was so humiliating for us we must get back and get revenge narrative it’s not a guarantee because sometimes these Revenge narratives are also uh
Relatively untethered from what happened you know it may happen that the the Central State still wants a Revenge narrative but it’s one way of you know increasing the s uh allowing uh the defeated side to have uh uh some kind of positive Spin and the and the third way you know of disrupting
That process is uh you know maybe disrupt that link the regular people have with the state and of course you can’t really disrupt their link with the state or the nation but maybe at least the leadership so there is there is this um strong tendency to blame the all
Group because sometimes they deserve it I mean theyve participated in this war they’ve supported it uh but uh you know it it is perhaps more productive to allow them and out the regular people and out uh so that they will accept accept the peace and not seek revenge
Blame you know pick some scapegoats and make them responsible people may have ethical problems with that but in terms of creating long-lasting PE piece that doesn’t get mired in stories of Revenge and humiliation that’s one way of doing it and those are my three points thank you thank elegant put so two senior
Professors from Cambridge University fantastic thank you thank you Isa um I don’t know if all of you realize but there actually are universities outside of Cambridge and uh we’ve got two representatives from uh University College London I’m delighted to say uh first of all William Dr William blacker is of Britain’s leading
Translators from Ukrainian uh where would you find one of those well he grew up on the Scottish island of Bara naturally um uh he’s written uh well he was actually an international Booker prize uh judge uh last year but associate professor of Ukrainian East European culture at University College
London and the author of memory the city and the legacy of World War I in East Central Europe William uh thank you very much Chris and thank you so much to the the Cambridge festival for the invitation um so I’m going to speak specifically about the war in Ukraine
Because that’s what I know about as a a scholar of Ukraine its history and its culture um the first thing to say about how how does the war in Ukraine end how does Russia’s war against Ukraine end uh the first thing to say is that most likely it could have ended by
Now um if things had been different in the first days weeks months of the war of of the um after the fullscale invasion of February 2022 if the reaction of the West had been more decisive things could have gone differently uh we saw how the ukrainians themselves with no assistance managed to
Push back the attack on cave with limited assistance they managed to make huge gains in occupied parts of the country around harv and Kon um there were moments when it looked as if the Ukrainian Army really had the advantage and the Russian army was in something of uh disarray
But the chance to throw ourselves behind Ukraine to give it everything it needed was not taken you know I was standing on just outside Downing Street in the first days one of the chants was close the sky you know people wanted a no fly zone uh people wanted anti-aircraft
Capabilities those things were not forthcoming then when they were forthcoming they were only partially forthcoming um if we had been quicker if we had thrown ourselves behind Ukraine we don’t know but I think there’s a good chance that Ukraine could have actually driven the the Russians back uh at least to the uh
February 2022 lines um and I think that question of decisiveness of Courage um and of commitment to your aims is very very important when thinking about how a war is going to to go because hesitancy fear timidness doesn’t seem to pay off especially when you’re facing an
Opponent like Russia which can smell uh timidness which can smell cess how will it end um well I don’t know but people talk about negotiation people talk about compromise I think we have to think about what that means you know it’s it’s nice to talk about let’s all sit down
And and talk things through and find solution um but what does that mean what positions are the negotiating sides negotiating from positions of strength or from positions of weakness what does a compromise mean people often talk about territory in Ukraine you know let’s give Russia a bit more territory
Than what it already took in 2014 um well territory first of all isn’t just territory it’s also people people live on the territory if you uh let those people um if you let those territories go to Russia those people go to Russia and they live under a system which denies
Them their rights which will try to destroy their cultural identity um which operates with torture with filtration camps with concentration camps with rape as a as a weapon of War um so if we talk about compromise on territory and people we have to understand that that’s what we are
Proposing um but also the thing I think to remember about compromise is that in a compromise both sides get something that means that the aggressor gets something so the aggressor is rewarded for the aggression this happened this has happened with Russia multiple times recently it happened after 2014 there
Was really no real consequences for Russia after annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine we continued to buy its oil we continued to trade the sanctions were you very mild Russia basically got away with it it was rewarded for the aggression uh but we can go back further
We could talk about Syria we can talk about Georgia we can talk about cha this is a pattern it’s a pattern for Putin and it’s a pattern for Russia um so if we compromise we reward the aggressor and we’ve seen that this is how precisely how not to end Wars this
Is how Wars do not end if you reward aggression you encourage further aggression you encourage further War that’s what’s been happening with Russia it’s a very very clear pattern um what happens if and when this war ends I mean I guess it will end at some point we
Have to think about how to break that pattern um and I think here you know just to refer back to some of the things that Aisha was talking about we have to think about the cultural historical the social sides of uh of wars and of the
The soet societies that go to war you know Russia went to war not just because Putin wanted to go to war he was able to mobilize the Russian Elites political Elites the military and large parts of the population of course you know we can we can debate to what extent we can be
Sure that there is support for the war but I think it’s politically clear that there is some if not significant degree of support uh for the war how was that possible um and we have to look back at the history that allowed this to happen you know we
In in the UK we’ve been going through sort of torturous discussions about our own Imperial past uh if we think about um you know with greater or less lesser degrees of success we could think about Germany and how it’s again with all the problems and and blind spots and faults
Of the the process by which it came came to terms with its P after the war these processes happen in various contexts but they’ve never happened in Russia um and this is certainly one of the things that makes it possible for this this this type of aggression for the wars to keep
Recurring with such regularity so Russian if we want the war to end somehow from somewhere there has to be um a process of decolonization deimperialization in Russia uh coming to terms with the multiple acts of aggression that it’s committed against its neighbors throughout not just um not just in the post-soviet
Period but the Soviet period as well the pre-soviet period as well um there has to be a deep process of historical Reckoning it’s very very difficult to see where that’s coming for because the people who tried to do that in Russia like the representatives for example of
The memorial Society um these people end up in jail you know it’s interesting that Russia really targets the people who tried to do these things um but if it’s not going to happen again it has to this is a proc that has to happen and that that’s something that has to come
From um from Russian Society itself um from Ukraine’s point of view what has to happen so that war ends decisively it needs a geopolitical security so it needs uh integration into NATO and into the European Union to deter further aggression from Russia it needs um defensive capabilities so it
Needs something like an Iron Dome type system it needs to fortify its borders it needs the support of NATO Partners um and it also needs um a lot of investment for a fair and comprehensive reconstruction process so that it can uh Thrive as a postwar uh Society but
Before we get anywhere near any of that we have to go back to the first steps and and and the beginning of my remarks and that is the importance of arming Ukraine right now because we’re still dragging our feet with the aircraft with the long range missiles and if we don’t
Take those steps we’re not going to get anywhere thank you [Applause] William and just a reminder we’ll take questions uh shortly and I I see some people from Ukraine uh sorry C for Ukraine in in the crowd this evening very pleased to welcome you our fourth speaker also from UCL is Professor
Christen bcka who the professor of political science and International Rel ation at University College London but also works at the peace Research Institute in Oslo and is going to talk to us about the the legacy of Wars uh thank you thank you for the invitation thank you all for for being
Here um so I spent the last few years working on uh the legacies of armed conflict in different ways uh looking at particularly how it affects Ordinary People ordinary people’s attitudes uh during public opinion surveys in places that have experienced armed conflict and that are undergoing armed conflict like
Ukraine um and and we know that armed conflicts have legacies and people experiences of violence affects political trust it affects Community Trust it affects people’s views of of the other the groups that they’ve been fighting against it affects political identities long into the future it passes through
Generations uh so Wars uh you know there’s not a neat boundary between you have a war and then it ends and everyone lived happily ever after it’s Wars have long lasting legacies on people’s attitudes Wars also have institutional uh legacies and I’ll talk I’ll spend most of my time not talking about uh
Some of those so Richard talked about the various ways in which Wars can end we can have military victories and we can have peace settlements and then we can have these these kind of in between or no solution outcomes where there is um there’s a military stalemate but there’s no no one
Clearly wins there’s no peace agreement so the conflict at the heart of the war remains and one variety of this is what leads to the emergence of So-Cal de facto States in International System so we tend to think of the state system as existing of 192 States they’re nicely
Portrayed on the isa’s dress here we have the map of the world but then we have since World War II we have about there’s been the birth of about 20 of what we think of as de facto States or un recognized States and these are typical entities that are Geographic uh
Political entities that are born out of violent struggles so they’re territories that want to split from the state that they’re part of they fight a war often long lasting brutal war and no one clearly wins and there’s no peace agreement yet the state that these entities are trying to split from so
Think about nagorno kabak officially part of aeran and now has been recaptured fully by aeran abasia and Georgia Som Al land in in Somalia the so-called parent state that they’re officially part of has no control in that territory any longer but these entities are not recognized by the rest
Of the states in the National system as States so they become unrecognized States but they they look like States they function like States they have national anthems they have military some of them have their currency they have education systems but the rest of us don’t recognize them as States so they
Become these kind of in between in International System like and the rest of us don’t quite know how to deal with them so that is one sort of unusual outcome uh of um uh of Wars particularly of separatist Wars or territorial Wars but it shows you know that it’s it’s
About these legacies institutional legacies and some of these entities last for years or Decades of on end um there’s really only two ways in which you can sort of die as a defao state either you become an independent State like South Sudan did um or uh so so
You’re no longer an unrecognized State um or you are recaptured by the parent state which H which happened to Cheta it happened to nagorno kabak uh in the fall last fall another uh Legacy of sort of institutional Legacy sort of short of um de facto state is that in many in many
Armed conflicts we know that we we tend to think of the Armed actors in um in civil wars in particularly we we talk about them as the rebels and we’re focusing on the violence that they’re committing but most armed actors or many armed actors also engage in ruling while
They are um during the war and that can have long lasting legacies so a few years ago um I was doing a survey in Northern Ireland about people’s attitudes to the peace agreement and I was talking to the survey company about you know how we were going to sample and
You know to get a national representative survey and then they said yeah there are certain neighborhoods um in Belfast and da London da where we’re going to have to particularly in Belfast we’re going to have to negotiate with a paramilitaries about getting access to certain neighborhoods and I was like
What like I was I was completely shocked that there are areas in Belfast you would have to negotiate with a paramilitaries more than 25 well at the time more than 20 years after the uh the the peace agreement to get access to so I started looking into this much more
And in Northern Ireland since every year there’s about aund in certain areas there’s about a hundred so-called paramilitary style attacks or punishment attacks and those are attacks by paramilitary groups um on members of their own community so they’re trying to sort quote unquote police their own communities often going after drug
Dealers it’s a bit unclear whether they’re you know concerned about drug dealing or really want to control the drug dealing themselves going after people for antisocial Behavior but but about a 100 attacks and that’s you know the reported attack so clearly you know the number is probably much
Higher um and uh and I started looking well why is this and where is this and you know how how do we explain that this is persisting in in in this postwar society that in many accounts we see as a successful postconflict Society a peace agreement we see as successful
Because there hasn’t been a recurrence of the armed conflict um and we looked into you know we collected data on where these attacks are happening um and then we mapped them on to where did paramilitary groups control areas during the trouble during the troubles during the 30 year long
Conflict and we saw you know there’s a correlation between the areas they control during the conflict and that they’re seeking to control uh today that still sort of begs the question well you know why why is this and there’s a couple of mechanism one there’s a top- down mechanism you have
Armed groups that for either political or criminal reasons reasons want to control certain areas and they look to areas that their paramilitary predecessors used to control um and they seek to control them today there’s also more of a bottomup sort of mechanism kind of a socialization mechanism and that is that
If for some people who for 30 years lived in areas that were controlled by paramilitary groups groups during the troubles and um they got used to the fact that there were certain tasks that were conducted by the paramilitary groups as opposed to the state so in 1969 when the conflict in Northern
Ireland um flared up and the Army moved in the police moved out of certain areas but people still of course needed policing um so they started going to the paramilitary groups for antisocial behavior for example in certain areas and if that happens for 30 years there’s like this Norm developing in certain
Areas that that’s kind of what you do you just don’t go to the police and you know I’ve spoken about Northern Ireland I’m going to wrap up uh now but this is it’s not just about Northern Ireland this is something we see in many postwar societies the social control that armed
Groups have during conflict remains often in the aftermath uh of of uh of armed conflict so you know we talk about wars of and then we talk about the postconflict period but the you know it’s a it’s a blurry boundary and Wars have have long lasting uh legacies thank [Applause]
You all very interesting I’ll take your questions in a moment or two I wanted to ask the the panel you mentioned Northern Ireland at the end I mean that partly came to an end didn’t it because the Big Brother of America got involved and uh put their money in and their resource uh
Although the IRA clearly wanted a wanted a solution to it all um that picture isn’t it that’s that we can see there that how the war’s end is the AR of triumph which was you know inspired by Napoleon’s attempt to conquer Europe and there it is I think that’s from the
Second world war it’s an iconic picture isn’t it when it was liberated the day when uh the Americans the British liberated after the German occupation um and it was said then that the United Nations or the League of Nations before would help stop Wars that that hasn’t
Happened so can the panel give me their views is there some way that a bigger force can stop Wars or or get involved to be the referee like the American have been in Northern Ireland Richard it depends of course um you’re on yeah uh well uh of course a larger
More powerful force can end a war uh as I said in my introductory remarks uh as of the Balkan Wars of the the 90s I mean the an alliance of eight of the most powerful countries in the world uh is is in a position to force very small uh
Countries like uh like Serbia to to bend to it will and and and stop the the uh stop the fighting um I think that uh that shows that really there’s no I mean what what the inter War years the League of Nations which was designed to stop
War it was meant to be a a kind of negotiating forum for to to resolve conflicts and it was a failure almost from the very beginning it had no teeth it didn’t have any Armed Force of its own uh the United Nations does but it hasn’t been a lot more
Successful and it always has to be uh either an intervention from outside an overwhelming force or a compromise between the Waring parties and and when you have as in World War I or now as in Ukraine you have uh you know each side has uh backing from larger larger
Entities whether it’s America or whether it’s China or India uh then it gets a lot more a lot more difficult thoughts on that I mean the Middle East fueled by big Powers is it not continuously could could they not do more to stop it yeah I mean um certainly more um
Pressure could be brought to bear um but I think that what that accomplishes is is perhaps a pause uh things have to change on the ground for for there to be a lasting uh piece yeah any evidence in in your studies of outside forces you know could should do more can achieve
Things well there’s lots of research on this and the and the research is some of it is uh divided but there’s a there’s a fairly recent study by um Howard and Stark and they looked at the you know these various outcomes that Richard was talking about military victories negotiated settlements and they show
That the trends how this develops over time depends a lot on what the Norms in the National system are for the preferred outcome for Wars and that depends a lot on what’s the preferred outcome of the major Powers right so in the Cold War period you had large number
Of conflicts ended at civil wars in particular ended in military Victory because that’s what the great Powers were preferring from the post endid Cold War till about 911 um there was a rise in negotiated settlements cuz that’s what the major Powers clearly the United States wanted but then after 911 there
Was more of the rise of we don’t want to negotiate with terrorists so we saw a decline in negotiated settlements again so you know what the major Powers want really influences have wars and I mean we saw the vote in the security Council today right I mean don’t need money um clear
Example yeah I mean I think with with Ukraine bigger partners could make a difference and they they are they are making a difference obviously the support of the US the EU um is helping Ukraine but like I said there’s is a certain timidity hesitancy um the Russia is already
Presenting the war in Ukraine its war against Ukraine to its own public as a war against the west and I think the West has sort of cut been caught you know if if we understand the West as basic you know the the US NATO has has
Found itself caught in this kind of of trap of not wanting to fulfill that and make that true um and being hesitant for that reason um is that a tactic you would Eno endorse well I mean everybody nobody’s ever forgotten the outbreak of the first World War I think it’s
Probably true to say the historians uh expend huge much hugely much more of their energy and and intellect on figuring out how Wars start uh and not that much on how Wars end uh which is one reason why this is really interesting interesting meeting um but World War I everybody knows started with
Uh the Serbian backed it seems uh assassination of the air to the Austrian throne and then the austrians wanted to punish Serbia and then the Germans back them and then the Russians back the serbs and just within a short space of time you have a World War and that is
What people nowadays are really really worried about so that’s a major reason for NATO’s hency about uh getting involved in the Ukrainian conflict because then if you can escalate it you’ve got nuclear Powers involved and that is that’s nobody wants that whatsoever there’s another factor which of course is ideologies and the Northern
Ireland in confli is a much smaller kind of scenario of course religion is a driving force um it’s uh you know Protestant versus Catholic which is we find very difficult to understand but that’s what it seems to be I mean I I uh I was in Northern Island in
1969 uh I was on a cycling tour and I got into the back streets of Derry into a Protestant area and 1969 I had no idea that the Protestant extremists were so fanatical uh and that was when the uh the moonlandings were just about to happen and I could see graffiti on the
Walls it BOS Dar great places for graffiti at the time and one said keep the pope off the Moon and the other one said put the pope on the moon and uh this kind of obsession that relates everything to your your ideology U final question before we go
To your questions in the audience uh I try and get straight answer out of you you mentioned um Putin and his threats so he says that he’ll use nuclear weapons what do you say to a man that threatens you with nuclear weapons who’d like to go first on that would you do
You call his Blu think you were interrup BL yeah you call is Bluff um I mean it depends what you mean by call is Bluff but uh you want to do I think I think you don’t back down I think you don’t back down because that just means that
The the threat works and it has worked I I mean I just picking up from the last discussion I mean it’s it’s not just that there is an fear of spiraling the American domestic uh like Americans are not behind the war wholeheartedly and therefore Europe is I think a bit
Hesitant to act on its own without the Americans so yeah I guess ideally you know there would be um a stronger front which would act as a deterrence but Puttin smell’s weakness as you said yeah Kristen I think these two have good answer already so you you call his bluff do you
Yeah Richard has the expert on Adolf Hitler what do you say oh right well that’s a different I was just about to say 1914 everyone was calling everybody else is Bluff and you end up with the biggest war in history so at some point people have to be different prospective combatant have to
Be prepared to compromise uh and and you know politics is the art of the possible as bismar once said so um as for World War II that’s an example of the importance of ideological fanaticism Hitler uh wanted believe it or not to conquer the world he said at one point
In 1930 before he came to power that the previous division of the world in the soal so-call Scramble for Africa uh had excluded Germany Germany only got the kind of um least important bets of the division of Africa but next time he said it’s going to be different we are going
To control the world world and there’s indications that had he won in uh in Europe he would have gone on to launch a uh a campaign against America so it’s kind of Limitless without limit of time or or space the other thing is what’s it’s also important preparedness to live
Without war and for Hitler of course the uh War Perpetual continual Warfare was the only way in which a race as he thought of the area German race uh could actually survive and prosper and for Putin I think having a war rumbling on is quite useful internally uh he’s not
Doing very well within Russia itself the economy is falling to bets uh he’s applying more and more kind of authoritarian methods but it’s telling all the Russians oh we’re fighting against a uh a real enemy Russian soldiers are losing their lives and what for that’s a good way of getting them to
Back you thank you all right it’s your turn now questions please who’d like to ask the first question I recognize the lady there Anna stasavich who’s Ukrainian who lives in Cambridge and is part of the Cambridge for Ukraine good evening thank you thank you all of you for your speeches
Especially Dr blacka for saying it as it is um and I would like to ask about international law and I will downscale my question to um normally when we have crime crime within a country we have um ready processes and procedures on how to deal with with criminals uh we go to court
And we bring them to justice so with the example of Ukraine um it’s important to remember the referendum uh the memorandum in Budapest in 1994 when Ukraine signed the agreement that we will give up the nuclear power we were the third power in the world um with
That but instead um we will get the uh reassurance um that our sovereignty and our borders are protected and the UK the US and Russia signed uh the referendum so I guess my question is well I had two questions one is from your experience and from history was there an an example
In history where a war was prevented by imposing international law or was quickly stopped um after it was started by imposing international law and my second question is probably a little bit simple in its nature but it comes from frustration so excuse me uh what’s the point of the international law if it
Doesn’t work thank you William yeah I think this is a really really important um question and it’s why the question of Justice post-war Justice is going to be so crucial I mean it’s what you know we’ve talked about how to stop Wars recurring and how to stop them not just stopping and then
Starting again um we have to punish the people who start the wars and we have to punish aggression um you know currently Putin is wanted for kidnapping children um he has kidnapped thousands of children that’s true but we need more than that and we need more than Putin and a few
One or two people around him to be on on those lists so I think that’s going to be really really crucial you know we ideally we’d like to see a sort of Newberg for Putin um um after this and that would be one way to show that international law does work because
International law hasn’t prevented the war um but it could act if it is if the international law is applied it could act as a deterrent to Russia in the future Kristen so you study legacies at the peace Research Institute does your research show that Newberg type trials
Put people off from starting Wars or Behaving Badly during Wars um I haven’t looked that in my in my in my work and there is work on um on that I actually don’t your question was very specific an example where international law has actually prevented uh a specific conflict and I’m
Now like really trying to it’s very hard to prove a counter I mean you know we don’t know what it prevented in a way like if it prevented it didn’t but yeah I mean this is a big debate in international relations whether international law actually accomplishes anything and there are people who would
Say no it doesn’t you know because everybody does whatever they want anyway there’s no enforcement mechanism at the same time the fact that we have international law like the fact that countries have to at least go through the marshals they sign things it is probably a constraint I mean even like
Elections like Putin has to go through the motions of having an election it’s fake it doesn’t but still it’s it’s something it’s changing Behavior it’s having something kind of impact it goes to legitimacy it goes to how you know you aass popular support all of that removing international law the world
Would probably be worse it wouldn’t be like international law is not perfect and it’s not like the solution to problems but a world without it would probably be even worse that’s that’s probably all we can say Richard yeah I absolutely agree with that I mean the
The Newburg uh war crimes trials and all the many many hundreds of uh uh trials now forgot for of of Nazi war criminals in Poland and uh uh France and many other countries after the end of world war they were able to achieve something despite the fact they were flawed um and
If resolved to start with the president the the presence of vinski the notorious R Soviet um prosecutor in the show trials in the 30s on the on the panel of Judges was a bit of you know sort of affect his legitimacy but they did achieve something why did they achieve
Something why did the Bosnian the the the the Balan Wars tribunal achieve something well because um they they reflected a position in which the people backing the trials were in a position had absolute power I mean milosovic and others had had no way of of countering their trials the Nazi war canals they
Had no way and when you’ve got somebody who stays in power uh like like Putin it’s not realistic to expect him to be prosecuted for war crimes but the Good Friday agreement specifically allowed terrorists to walk free they were released from prison and others were not prosecuted on both sides and the
International Court of of justice has only succeeded in Prosecuting mostly African uh African Statesmen African political leaders who are in no position to resist it question from this side please somebody with a hand up was there somebody there who’d like to ask gentleman here hello uh two two
Questions uh first how does the panel see the options ahead for nato in the Ukraine context and the second question what’s your general assessment taking a historical view of the level of geopolitical risk we face today right who’d like to go first opt those options are had for nato in yeah
NATO and geopolitical have you got a particular iron in this fire is it no just interested good please I mean I can say a little bit about uh I’m not going to give you my view on NATO but I’m going to give you survey evidence on
Ukrainians views on on NATO uh so I did a survey in Ukraine in 2019 it was a big project on geopolitical orientations in Russia’s near abroad and we had said when we applied for money we wanted to do a followup because we thought big things were going to happen in the
Region obviously didn’t anticipate the disaster that has happened and then we did a survey and so that showed that about 40% of ukrainians wanted uh NATO membership and that’s consistent with lots of surveys over time uh so you know enthusiasm but not wild enthusiasm uh for NATO when we when we ask more
Specific questions do you want NATO troops station in Ukraine it was much more lower support for it and then we did a survey of the same people or as many of the same people we could contact again in in 2022 so into the war and that was a particular in October 2022 it
Was a very violent uh month and of course you know the data shows like we could all anticipate that you know support for NATO is higher than it has ever been uh you know ever been before we’re in the process of doing another round now so I mean you asked us what’s
Our view but it really isn’t you know it’s it’s about what our ukrainians view is the central I think Point here about what what today want but you know Russia was going toward to uh well allegedly to to want to you know to stop Ukraine from
Moving towards the west but on any kind of indicator you could look at on how ukrainians are position between Russia and the West they’ve of course moved much further towards the West in their in their views Isa would you like to answer the question about the geopolitical situation would you just
Repeat it again sorry thank you so so the second question is um the panel’s um General assessment of the level of geopolitical risk in the world today is you know rather of how do Wars end how how does the the world end oh okay how
Close are we to midnight I thing is the question isn’t it yeah um yeah I mean I think the general consensus is well I to the extent that there’s a consensus among IR Scholars is that uh that we are in a period of disorder uh and GE political risk is increased greatly
There are more Wars now than there were uh um the ago uh and uh they they are not because the world had become very connected uh conflicts that would have been in a previous time disconnected are connected so uh Russia and Ukraine in the for instance in the way like the
Global South is perceiving like that’s not disconnected from uh Israel and Gaza and other so they’re amplifying uh each other’s effects uh and that creat playes for a very volatile uh uh environment unfortunately so the risk is very high yeah yes if I may add to that in addition to this
Growing Trend in armed conflicts there’s also a concurrent trend of democratic backsliding so we’re seeing you know more autocratic States and Democratic rights even being under threat in wellestablished democracies like ours um and that’s you know obviously bad bad news for uh for for peace
William yeah I was um last year I spent a bit of time in Japan um and I was very interested to see how the Japanese were watching Ukraine very very carefully and were very interested in it firstly because they’re just concerned about what’s happening but also because they’re worried about what happens if
Russia is successful and China takes this as a precedent for attacking Taiwan what happens to Japan with its US military bases there does that mean that the whole region um descends into war so you know again to what I was saying about the the danger of allowing aggression to be successful
Rewarding aggression you know it’s not only for that aggressor it’s for other potential aggressors to see just very quickly yeah um well I I I get really a bit cross as a historian about how short people’s memories are so uh it’s often said now that we live in a
Time of unprecedented danger and threat thre and War and so on try living in the 1930s for example uh when the or even in the whole period of the first half of the 20th century pretty much uh you’ve got sometimes we sometimes forget that the first and second world wars were
What they what it says on the 10 they were world wars and so huge amounts of the globe were involved in the wars because they’re between Global empires not between nation states I didn’t no no know it wasn’t wasn’t you at all so and and the lesson of that is
Right now well I think what makes it makes it more difficult to judge and what makes a difference of course is nuclear arms which are vastly more dangerous than anything we saw in uh in 19148 or 1939 to the summer of 1945 we can we know we have the
Potential to destroy life on Earth uh which was not the case with those W do you gloomy about that Prospect I mean do you think Nations might use it or Terror groups might use them uh I I think it’s possible so far we’ve managed to avoid it but it’s a certain certainly a
Possibility I’m afraid maybe we’ll return to that subject a question oh right gentleman here hello hi good evening um two two uh items i’ like to uh post to the to the panel the first one is we’ve had the notion of a just War for a long period I
Mean even I think under the Romans there was a notion of of just War so how much does this help to you know prolong the war because you think you’re riding the moral high horse you have the legitimacy to continue the War uh your aims are you
Know just are Justified and so on the second one for me is the title is how War do Wars end but I think for many people the question really is when does peace begin um and for me you know more personal experience I I can only see one
In relative recent history and and that is the the long enmity between France and Germany ended now after 1945 with the formation of you know essentially predecessor to the European Union um and the friendship between France and and and Germany that then finally started after 45 because maybe
Both parties were finally too exhausted uh of their of their enmity to continue let’s go to the the peace research institutes Christen for the first one of this if you wouldn’t mind please yeah or can I actually do the second one oh that and one when because this is one of the
Things I wanted to talk about but I didn’t have time in my eight minutes so when do piece uh begin I me I think this is a very good good question and I think even how we talk about wars and how you you know how do you know a war when when
You see it and I know that sounds like a stupid question because you know we can all you know think of it but it’s like you have to decide when do you consider an armed conflict to be an a war and typically you have some arbitrary threshold okay when when it reaches more
Than so and so many battle related deaths and then we talk about it as war and then you know it it goes below that level and we don’t count it as a war any longer but that doesn’t mean that the violence isn’t there right we know that in many postwar societies you see
So-called low levels of political violence continue for years on end right for the people living in those societies that doesn’t necessarily feel like peace right even though we might talk about it as a postwar or postconflict Society we also know that in many societies that have experienced long and drawn out
Armed conflict criminal violence might be might be higher because you might have you know State capacity might be reduced uh and again that doesn’t feel like you know your question is when does peace begin that doesn’t feel like peace for the people who are living uh in in
In those uh societies like we tend to want to make these sort of neat boxes War peace you know War or conflict postc conflict and again the the boundary there is quite blurry and um yeah certainly for people living in these places Isa when does peace begin in your
View um I mean I as I said in my opening remarks like when people can kind of forget and move and they’re not kind of dwelling in uh the the uh the emotion of of it but could I say something about the just for question yeah I’m just
Thinking I’m a Scotsman I’m still dwelling about 1746 but you know dwelling is an interesting concept there isn’t it you never let it go dwelling I guess uh yeah please say yeah I mean the so the just for Doctrine uh has a particular history that’s like root to them a particular European Christian
Tradition and I think it was uh kind of a laudable idea to you know generalize it and make it you know a way of evaluating like when our war is just but it I don’t think it ever like took hold for that reason because it has that particular history it’s not cross
Culturally shared having said that I mean I think when people engage in Wars they like nobody thinks my war is unjust like people always think what they’re doing is Justified somehow like uh otherwise they wouldn’t do it you know so it’s yeah uh it’s very difficult to
Persuade uh like if you’re in war conditions like you have to believe what you’re doing is uh is just um so it’s it’s it’s hard to make that like kind of a lmus test of yeah uh of behavior I think Richard always does everyone always think
They’re justified in a war um well uh it’s a complicated question when you start looking at the Nazis because there’s a couple of notorious speeches in part of occupied uh Poland Inon by Harish himler head of the SS the main architect of the extermin of six million
Jews and he tells his SS men uh nobody’s going essentially what we’re doing is really difficult it’s necessary uh it is historical and racial necessity but nobody is going to thank us for it uh and they know you know he knows that it’s generally across the world regarded as
Unjust um but we have to do it anyway uh as far as Wars are concerned I think Putin again appears to believe that his Justified he seems to have entertained the illusion that the ukrainians are all all actually Russians and they’re just misled by a bunch of of um Nazis or neo-
Nais at at the head which is an absolutely ridiculous idea of course it’s completely Fantastical but that he seems to believe that genuine you look at his bizarre uh lectures on World War II for example so um it’s generally true of course each side the war believes
That what they’re doing is Justified and William of course the trouble is that the Russian public uh will are being told that it’s Justified and there’s no way of them knowing any different is there because they don’t get the kind of information that we
Do I mean yes I uh I think there is a question of access to information there’s a question of the effectiveness of propaganda um but people do have critical faculties I think if they want to think critically about what they’ been told they can um I don’t think
Everybody is necessarily fooled by this I think a lot of people choose to believe because it’s a lot easier to believe than it is to not believe and then face the possibility that you might have to act on that lack of belief in what you’re being told um so I think the
The idea that people are just people just don’t know the truth they’re just fooled they’re just brainwashed I think that takes away the agency of people and I think people in Russia also do have agency and of course it’s a very complicated question it’s very very difficult has to be organized doesn’t it
It has to be organized and and Putin has obviously done as much as possible to to make that uh to make that impossible uh you know we saw Alex nley dying in prison recently but you know this was not something that happened overnight Putin’s been in power for a couple of
Decades people knew what type of ruler he was from early on it’s a creeping process people repeatedly did vote for him did endorse him you still find a large degree of support for Putin and Russian Society so you know the question of is Putin uh you know is Putin just ruling
Over Russian Society with an iron hand did he sort of appear out of nowhere and and and take up this position of dominance um I’m not sure and there’s also the question of where does Putin come from he didn’t come out of nothing you know in many ways I think we have to
We have to consider how Russian Society produced Putin as well the dark Forces of the KGB never went away certainly yeah who uh gentleman here at the front we got a microphone there thank you here thanks very much indeed thank you I’m intrigued by the Russian people um when gof was in power
He gave up huge territory whole countries and the Russian people didn’t Rebel they said you know if Poland wants to have be free that’s fine we’ll get on our Liv and they get on with their lives um so if Putin was replaced by more gorbachov like figure and the war and the war
Ended I don’t think the Russian people would really Rebel and say this is terrible we need somebody like Putin back I think they’d accept that and I think they’d let the ukrainians get on with their lives okay uh but obviously the land that he gave up you mean the other
Republics the so it was the Soviet republics that he gave up Richard a thought on on that I think you know more about it than I do actually as a former Moscow correspondent well I mean I I I don’t think people um put up with it and
Because they went back to the old ways and the people you know the ordinary people didn’t really have a say it was the the people in power who uh who were very unhappy with it the way uh things went and what we’re seeing now is a reaction to that it’s swung the entirely
The other way because they’ll never let it go again so I as as much as I’d like to think that’s a nice idea it just won’t happen because the people that have a strangle hold over it all are waiting to take over when when Putin leaves would you agree
That yeah I mean there’s not a liberal arm to the to the Russian government is there really uh you know whether Russian people are liberal or like they like you know I think when people are feel stuck in a situation they become a bit uh fatalistic and then like um and then
If you can’t really help your situation you don’t see a way out you kind of like want to it’s that it’s you have to deal like even if you’re not happy you have to deal with cognitive dissonance so you kind of create this fiction of having
Chosen it uh I think some of that is uh going on with the Russians of State I mean some wanted with their feet they left uh others maybe genuinely like support what’s happening but others you know as you were saying William like it’s you you the agency is in kind of choosing to
Believe because not believing would make you very unhappy so like you say oh this is my choice like I like what is happening like it’s easier to live with that than to be like constantly unhappy like if you don’t think you can actually change stuff um yeah it’s a way of
Dealing with dissonance and I think the only reason that gorbachov gave up those territories because he he knew he was losing the Cold War and it was quite clear the Americans were so far ahead and and militarily they were losing but also economically they were being
Crushed as well so that’s why he took the choice that he did a man of the moment yes um just first of all you know the question of the Soviet Union or goov giving up lands of course the people in those in those places did a lot to take
Back their own countries um you know it was is is a kind of two-way process um but I think that you know the Rebellion Putin is the Rebellion the fact that Putin came to power is the Rebellion against the loss of the empire and Russians haven’t learned to to have a
Sense of national identity that isn’t based on Empire that isn’t based on you know greatness and dominance over their you know supposed sphere of influence and that’s the problem Putin was the Rebellion against the loss of that pet a great another question please there’s a gentleman over there just against the
Wall would that be all right and then another one is there one over there afterwards yes thank you this gentleman first though please okay um um could you speak into the microphone thanks can you hear me okay no could you speak into the mic thank you um on the
Ukrainian War um how do the panel see the the possible Dynamic changing um should God forbid um Trump get into power for a second term in America where he’s known for his America First policy and he’s known um and he’s voiced an opinion that uh the state
Shouldn’t be supporting na NATO so it could undermine the power of NATO and also um with the attrition of funding from European countries how do the panel see um you know a laudable outcome as the gentleman there spoke about is that overwhelming Force pushes back Russia
And that’s what we’d all like to see but unfortunately you could end up with a situation where you’ve got an absolute um tyrant in charge of Russia and you’ve got um an idiot in charge of America and they’re two very dangerous people and it all comes down to who’s in charge of the
The powerful Nations thank you for your question thank you very much indeed for your question so Donald Trump has said that he would uh end the war within the first 24 hours of being president is that is that hot air or does he does he
Mean it do you think and could he do it no I don’t think he could do it um I mean I think with Trump you know I think we we’d have to wait and see what really happened with Trump I think it’s not it’s not going to
Be good for Ukraine either way um but to what extent Trump would really go in for sort of really overturning you know America’s relationship with NATO and so on I’m I’m not sure that he would go that far and think you know I think that
Um there is a lot of there is an element of hot ear to this but it certainly wouldn’t be we wouldn’t be in the position that we’re in now I think it would be a lot more difficult um for Ukraine it would be much much more difficult for Ukraine without uh without
American backing maybe we would have to see Europe step up a bit more in this you know and fill the vacuum I think it could do more um it would be a huge it would be a huge challenge for Ukraine but you know I think even in that
Situation Ukraine will keep fighting um we will just probably see a different type of war and we’ll see how much longer War Richard Evans yeah I mean U I’m not ter good at predicting the future um I remember I published an article in uh saying that uh um Germany
Was never going to be reunited in my lifetime and it came out in August 1989 and ever since ever ever since then I’ve been very wary but I think uh you know Trump I think we should take Trump seriously that’s one of the problems I think uh over the past few years that
People have not taken him seriously but uh he has the ability to win massive support and also to push some of his even his crazier ideas through um if he comes to if he’s elected which is absolutely defin you know it’s it’s a real possibility that he’ll get elected
Um in in November uh and then I think you get the youth vote sorry you get the youth vote well being the younger man I don’t know yeah well I mean he he’s he looks a lot seems and acts a lot as if he’s a lot younger than Biden whereas in
Fact he’s actually not well we’ll have have to see um I think what would happen if he might pull pull out all American support for Ukraine it’s perfect possibility we should not dismiss that as just hot air and if that happens as you say the war will continue a
Different form if Russia Russian troops occupy Ukraine then there’ll be a long widespread Guerilla Warfare I think because one of the effects of this uh War has been to really boost Ukrainian sense of national identity and national pride I think it’s had that kind of effect and that it’s not going to go
Wherever night I say your Brook is about uh alternative global history of world orders so if Trump gets in and he does this might we see that shift of of the plains as is predicted in in World Order yeah I mean my my work is historical but uh yeah I think there is
A very um strong chance that Trump will get elected and uh he will I think we use the threat of withdrawing support to force Ukraine into some kind of settlement that uh ukrainians have said they won’t accept then the question will become like what will Europe do uh
Because I think the rest of the world also wants some kind of negotiate settl they want the war to be over they want Ukraine to accept some losses uh they want to move on you know they are not on board with this in the same way like
Europe is or rhetorically Europe is so yeah and then that just leaves Europe Europe and I I yeah I’m a bit pessimistic that Europe will actually step up uh because they they say a lot but with the exception of you know Eastern and Central Europe you know
There I don’t think the level of commitment is there uh like genuine commitment so the most likely scenario is yes some kind of uh settlement that will make everybody unhappy and another you know loss for like the West Kristen what’s your analysis uh well I’m I I
Agree with my my fellow panelists what they’ve said um one I mean I guess one big question is what is it what does it do to morale in Ukraine in the survey we did in 2022 we asked people if they thought Western support would continue and at that point more than 60% thought
That Western support would continue at a higher level than it was then I don’t know what it is now we’re in the process of doing another round of survey I would imagine that there’s more pessimism uh right now and I think but what we don’t
Know much about is what does that do to sort of morale what would it do to people’s uh support for the war effort I I certainly think the war will continue in a different form but does it mean would it mean that people are think differently about you know possible
Outcomes I think these are things we don’t know but it will have you know obviously effects on on people’s attitudes in Ukraine as well just five minutes left or so the next question is there thank you very much indeed sir um we talk about the war as being fought on
Several fronts on the battlefield um economic and PR uh by PR I mean the media and the social media what um what we’re seeing that is what I feel we’re seeing is that the me that the social media media tend to have a big influence not only on the
Countries that are War but on the countries that are backing the war and that moves everybody’s position and I wondered how the panel saw the future going with with the influence of of social media and the fact that media is influenced by the country it’s in you’re talking about Ukraine here I’m I’m
Talking about everywhere I’m talking about Ukrainian with with the West is it sees it sees Russia as bad sees sees Ukraine as good Israel we’re seeing America’s influence changing is that because of the media media is it because of social media Gaza has no no way of of
Having any influence with social media so let’s let’s put that to the panel uh who ISO like to say that first is it being fought on X as much as anywhere I’ll try to say something I initially thought about talking about social media in my opening remarks but then I thought
It’s really complicates things so I won’t bring it up but I do I I do think it really complicates things because when I was talking about that emotional involvement you know now we can see like what for like unfold in like real time like it’s as if you’re like there so
That the that really increases in some ways the emotional resonance and makes it much harder to like uh climb back down like if once people have been mobilized like emotionally it’s hard for them to accept any kind of like truth or you know uh you know
Arrangements uh at the same time like so that’s one possible effect but at the same time you know with all the AI and you know conspiracy theories and all of these like weird Echo Chambers there’s also like not knowing like what is happening and like suspecting what you
See so that it makes it very difficult to control the narrative like the narratives that I was discussing postwar narratives it used to be they used to be centrally produced and disseminated through newspapers and textbook now like there are hundreds of narratives about like what is happening who’s responsible
Who’s to blame you know with the like the attack on you know Hospital in you know in the initial month of the Israel Gaza like you know it was who did it like we can find like a thousand theories about like who who did what and you know they’ve been reversed and re-
Reversed and people don’t know so it’s actually I think social media and people’s immediate access makes uh postwar stuff very very difficult and and tricky um zalinski early on had a very good War didn’t he and he seems to gone quiet recently I don’t know whether that’s deliberate or or whatever else
But Ukraine initially fought the F the war very well on social media well zalinski is he’s a media person you know he comes from the world of Television he knows how to communicate and he you know he used he played the president on television before he came
The president you know so he had really very effective sort of training for that um I think yeah the Ukrainian state has used social media uh very well uh you know the Ukrainian Elites these days you know in quite a contrast to the previous generation uh for example speak good
English and are able to communicate on with on the international level very very well whether you know directly or or on social media um I mean I think what one positive thing I suppose about social media in relation to the war in in Ukraine is how it allows people to
Within Ukraine to communicate and organize and mobilize you know it’s it’s my Twitter feed is full of people collecting money for drones for us you know for a particular unit or for tournies or for you know gloves or night vision um or for you know an evacuation vehicle
Um it’s one of the things that ukrainians have really used to shore up the war effort and you know Ukrainian Army is yes it’s a state Army but it’s also a civilian Army which is not only uh made up of civilians but in many ways supplied by civilian efforts and by
Civil society and it’s you know it’s one of the remarkable things about Ukrainian societies over the last 10 years is the growth of Civil Society um um and that Civil Society is depends on communication and organization and and social media really helps that to to happen and the peace Institute have you
Looked at the effect of social media on on people’s War efforts um I haven’t done that but there are lots of people who have looked at this and I’m in general I sort of I share some of Aisha’s skepticism but I let me also point to some of the positive uh
Potential positives of social media so in the case of the war in Ukraine there’s this um initiative by scholars in the US and the UK called data for Ukraine where they use social media accounts to figure out where atrocities are happening and try to figure out document right where atrocities are
Happening who are doing them and linking it back to our s previous discussion of an international law question like you know you potentially that can help holding people to account right um so that is sort of to add to you know a more going away from my inclination to
Be very negative about social media there are ways in which it can potentially help hold people to account Richard the the whole business of claiming You’ve Won and claiming you’re doing the right thing and so on yeah well we’re drowning in a sea of disinformation aren’t we and we’re all
Struggling to find out ways of countering it um and of course one of the most potent forces in spreading disinformation in the Ukraine war is Vladimir Putin uh through his State controlled media Russia Today for example um and the latest thing is trying to ascribe this horrendous
Atrocity in Moscow uh to to Ukraine which is absolutely no evidence uh at all so how do you if you live in if you live in in Russia how do you counter this uh enormous amount of diff disinformation that’s coming out of State controlled Media One Last Question
We only got a couple minutes to go there’s a young gentleman there his hand up keep your hand up there we are thank you get the microphone to you and then some quick far answers from the panel thank you very much indeed yeah um uh the gentleman behind me touched on this
But a lot of the wars that break out especially ones that are concerned with territory like you know most recently we have Venezuela Guana are concerned with feelings of Justice um do you do you feel that Justice is an important prerequisite for peace and if so do you
Feel that those parties should fight for what they feel to be Justice at least through violent resistance in an attempt to break out fullscale War are you thinking of anywhere in particular I mean for example if you were going to pull out um Hamas they brought out violent resistance in probably a way
That was not compliant with international law but also with things like the or Uprising and um violent resistance against slavery do you think those are An important method for peace generally big question we’ll try and answer it in the couple of minutes we got left
Kristen so there is a thank uh thank you for your question there’s a in the last few years there’s been quite a lot of work on the effectiveness of violent versus nonviolent means uh to achieve uh to achieve your goals and it’s still you know research agenda that is there’s
More and more work happening but one of the key sort of things so far is that in general nonv so in conflicts where the goal is regime change nonviolent means there’s bit of evidence now suggesting that that’s more effective towards achieving your goals in the sense that you’re not necessarily
Alienating the International Community if you using nonviolent means it might also be garnering more people domestically might be willing to support you for because there’s less risk when the means are are nonviolent the evidence is less clear when it comes to territorial conflicts whether that’s the
Case uh in fact I think the later suggest that violence actually is more effective there so I’m not sort of giving you a sort of normative sort of judgment I’m just saying what the research is is telling us but it’s a big research agenda quick answer William
Please um I think we touched on the question of Justice before and war crimes trials and so on I think that this just underlines the importance of having these effective mechanisms so that the sense of justice can be achieved without resorting um resorting to violence um but obviously you know
It’s a it’s quite an idealistic hope in many in many cases Isa yeah I mean it’s a it’s a big question I’ll just say I understand like the drive for justice but sometimes Justice and you know peace don’t go together like getting full Justice May PR includes having peace so sometimes we
Need to compromise Richard unfortunately yeah well I’ll just come back to the end of well well one president wson wood Wilson of the United States thought that uh he could eliminate conflict partly by uh the League of Nations but partly particularly by the principle of national self-determination that’s to
Say where you had one National Group like the hungarians or the Czechs whoever it might be you just uh made them independ given their own institutions and so on and the problem was of course he didn’t realize that they’re not in neatly delated areas so every state that was created after World
War I had really large National minorities in it for one thing and that was seed a huge amount of discontent uh and violence and and secondly of course the one state in Europe where that was denied were the Germans uh they lost about 133% of their territory and they
Weren’t allowed to join in with German speaking austrians who basically wanted to join in with them and that of course uh gave enormous amount of fuel and leverage to Hitler when he came when he came to power so uh it’s a very complicated Justice is a very complicated thing when it comes to
Enforcing it or imposing it in practice thank you all uh we um may not have given you the finite answer as to how Wars end but we have come to the end of our conversation can I thank the panel and please a round of applause appuse for
Them thanks to you for being here and being part of the Cambridge Festival I can tell you that been filming up there so very shortly the the tape of this will they call it a tape still uh the will be put put on the recording of This
Will be put on the Cambridge Festival website and you can watch it back gloriously as many times as you want uh there’s another debate ation coming up at 8:00 with the astronomer Royal uh so do come back for that but thank you so much everybody good night