The discussion draws parallels between Kaiser Wilhelm II and Donald Trump, highlighting shared character flaws like vanity and incoherence, and argues that Trump's actions are systematically dismantling the rules-based international order, posing a significant threat to global stability.
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What is terrifying is that Trump is
systematically dismantling the world,
the rules-based world order. And when
Trump told a New York Times interviewer
the other day uh that he didn't
recognize any morality but his own
instincts, Trump is making up the rules
Hello, I'm Tom Switzer. Welcome to the
program today. Max Hastings, the
distinguished military historian, war
reporter, columnist, and former longtime
editor of leading British newspapers.
Sir Max is author of several
best-selling and award-winning books,
including Catastrophe:
Europe Goes to War 1914,
All Hell Let Loose, The World at War,
1939 to 45,
The Korean War, Vietnam, an epic
tragedy. Max, lovely to be with you again.
again.
Let's start by putting on the screen
something you wrote recently in your
Bloomberg column. Quote,
a senior naval officer writes of a world
leader who is familiar to us and this is
the quote. He is vanity itself
sacrificing everything to his own moods
and childish amusements and nobody
checks him in doing so. I asked myself
how people with blood rather than water
in their veins can bear to be around
him. Now, Max, uh, some of our viewers
might be thinking you're referring to
Donald Trump.
Never. No. Um, I was cheating by doing
it that way round. Um, those were
actually the words of a German admiral
called Albert Hopman, um, writing in
1914 about Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.
And um um I as I'm sure uh many
historians and I know you do all the
time, I'm exchanging emails all over the
world all the time with fellow
historians and um one of the comparisons
we've been discussing is the comparison
of Donald Trump with Kaiser Wilhelm of
Germany and what they have in common um
let me start by saying it's Kaiser
Wilhelm played a large part in starting
the first world war. Now, um I don't
think we believe that Donald Trump is
likely to start a third world war
anytime very quickly, but there are the
same huge character flaws. Uh first of
all, it was said by many of those who
lived with Kaiserville Helm, he did seem
mildly deranged. Uh he was often u
incoherent. He was um this this huge
manity. He loved dressing up in
uniforms. He loved posturing. He loved
showing off. um and um he frightened
many of those around him by um his his
capacity. He was obsessed with
masculinity, vility in that for instance
um he despised the French whom he called
a feminine race, not masculine like the
Anglo-Saxons and Tutons. And Trump, I'm
afraid uh many of us think uh is in the
end a white supremacist who wants to see
the world run by white men. Um and this
verility thing, this um um incoherence
um it is very scary and um there's no
doubt that Kaiser Wilhelm, who of course
he reached his position simply by being
the son of his father. Well, in Trump's
case, he's been elected. But Trump is
much more dangerous than Bill Helm
because Trump is the most powerful man
on earth whereas Wilhelm's instability.
And yes, I I think many of us we we have
to say this um that we do think there is
a mild derangement about Donald Trump
that um some of his remarks and his
lapses into incoherence are pretty scary.
scary.
>> Yeah. So, so there are quite a few
similarities then between the Kaiser and
Trump. Tell us about the story of
Wilhelm that you say is absolutely
relevant to Trump. This is about the
time when the Kaiser received Ceil Roads
who of course was a great British
imperialist. Tell us that story.
>> This this was um Ceil Roads the famous
or notorious uh British imperialist
tycoon um went to visit uh the Kaiser
one day at his palace in Berlin and uh
Wilhelm said to him he said now roads
tell me. He said uh I am very unpopular
in Britain. Why am I so unpopular? what
should I do to become more popular?
And roads responded uh s you could try
doing nothing
and um the trouble is that just as the
Kaiser was incapable of taking that
advice so is Trump. Now, one of the
things that I think many of us find
alarming, um, here are we at a certain
age, and we've grown accustomed to the
idea that there have been good
presidents and bad presidents in the
White House, but over the decades, very
often, even those of us who are keenly
interested in world affairs, from one
month the next, we don't think much
about who's in the White House, we don't
think very much about what the United
States is doing. We now live in a world
in which literally every day we find
ourselves forced to think and talk about
what the president is doing because
almost every day Trump embarks on some
new initiative at home or abroad which
scares the pants of us. And um he is
this is part also of the Kaiser this
this um this narcissism this obsession
with himself. Everything has to be about
Trump. And I was talking, as you
mentioned Bloomberg just then, I was
talking to my Bloomberg editor the other
day and I was saying, "Well, don't you
think I I should probably write a column
about something other than Donald Trump
for once." And he said, "Well, how?" He
said, "Well," he said, "Well, how can
you?" He said, "In the end, um um world
affairs at the moment are all about
Donald Trump. Trump." And it's
terrifying. You talk about the
similarities between the Kaiser and the
Trump, but what about the similarities
between 1914 Germany and today's America?
>> I don't think we should push it too far
in that um whereas many people in 1914
did see a very real and imminent danger
of world war. I don't think it's so much
that. But my hero among historians and I
think yours too, professor Sir Michael
Howard who died a few years ago, very
close friend of mine,
>> Oxford University.
>> Yeah. And I remember Michael saying um
six, seven years ago during Trump's
first term. Well, he said two things
that are important. The first he said we
must never allow anyone to try and
persuade us that what's going on is
normal. It's not normal. It's a terrible
perversion of democracy. And secondly he
said everybody talks too much about
peace. He said peace in a way is a
nothing word. He said what matters in
world affairs are order and stability.
And what is terrifying is that Trump is
systematically dismantling the world the
rulesbased world order. And when Trump
told a New York Times interviewer the
other day uh that he didn't recognize
any morality but his own instincts. I
think a great many of people, I'm sure
in Australia as well as in Europe were
um appalled by this that uh Trump is
making up the rules at every term. He
says, "I don't care what the traditional
rules are, but um this is what what's at
stake. It's the terrible instability of
where we are now." And um it's not
knowing what on earth's going to happen
next. And of course, part of this
terrifying um to call it selfishness is
inadequate narcissism at trumps. What
most of us want every day is to be able
to go to bed at night reasonably
confident we're going to wake up
tomorrow morning finding the world's in
roughly the same state it was before. We
want um we want some degree of
tranquility. We can't ever have total
tranquility, but we want some peace of
mind. And that is what Trump and his
people are destroying for Americans too
because what's going on in Minneapolis
for example. How can you I just had an
email from somebody I know in
Minneapolis who said um he said some
people are saying oh well um if you
don't get involved in the protests at
life in Minneapolis is pretty normal. He
said it's not. He said we're all scared
out of our wits and this is Trump's
doing and it is almost exclusively Trump.
Trump.
There are other dangerous forces in the world.
world. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> So he's not like Kaiser about to
precipitate a world war. I think you
mentioned that. But you you are worried
that he's, you know, tearing down the
pillars of the rules and norms of the
the liberal international order that has
been in place for decades. And that
sounds a lot like the Canadian Prime
Minister Mark Carney in his speech at
Davos recently where he called for
solidarity and honesty over US threats
and the need to stand up to lie. So I
take it you'd agree with with Mark
Carney's statement about well he didn't
mention Trump but about the state of
play in Trump's
>> I wrote a column for the times uh saying
that uh as many other people did that
Carney's speech was the speech of the
week. It was the speech. It was a voice
of civilization when um we need all the
civilization we can get and it was a
great speech and you don't often get
that sort of thing that um I think we've
got to see this. There are two aspects
of this. Um we can't blame everything
that's going on on Trump. We can say
that he's made things far worse. But the
world is anyway a dangerous place
because you've got people like President
Putin and the invasion of Ukraine. Uh
you've got um China constantly pushing
out in a way that you down there in
Australia of course are acutely aware
of. Um and I'm afraid um I think
Australians are more awake than a lot of
us in Europe are to the dangers. And the
kids, for example, there's a terrific
anti-militaristic mood in Britain in the
universities, for example, uh insisting
that uh all their investments are
withdrawn from defense companies. Um the
refusal of the the young say, but we
don't want to fight anybody. Now, part
of the message that some of us are
trying to convey all the time is it
takes two to tango or rather not to
tango that it's not good enough to say
we don't want to go to war with anybody.
We are up against people.
Vladimir Putin has three assets. He's
got oil, gas, and a willingness to use
extreme violence. And it's quite
extraordinary how he manages to leverage
it. And whatever we may want or not
want, the Trump has been right about one
big thing. Europeans have allowed our
defenses to atrophy in the most
terrifying fashion. And even now when we
see the threat from an unstable America,
an unstable Russia, um a dangerous
China, many people in Europe are
completely unwilling to face up to this
by rearming. and and some of us find
this um a very scary um other part of
the whole Trump equation.
>> Let's put this in some sort of broader
context. I mean, if you go back to the
1990s, Max, and you were the editor of
the London Daily Telegraph, and you'd
remember that with the fall of the
Berlin Wall and the collapse of the
Soviet Empire, collapse of communism,
there was a widespread view that liberal
democracy was the wave of the future.
the so-called end of history proclaimed by
by
there you go. Now almost every nation
was bound to become a liberal democracy.
This was the argument. The consensus was
that it would be relatively easy to
create this liberal international order.
I think President Bush senior called it
a new world order because spreading
democracy would meet little resistance.
Again that was the widespread expectations.
expectations.
Yet well before Trump, the number of
liberal democracies was already
declining. So again, pushing back to
Mark Carney and Max Hastings, is it
unfair to blame Trump for the rise of
authoritarianism that's helping unravel
the liberal international order? Max,
>> I agree with you entirely and Carney was
absolutely right in appealing for
solidarity, but it's so much easier to
talk about this than it is to get it. we
are seeing uh for example Victor Orban
the leader of Hungary um and even to a
lesser extent Georgia Maloney in Italy
they're not going to have anything to do
with any European initiative that
involves a direct bust up uh with Trump
because they've got their right-wingers
and they have good relations with Trump
and achieving any sort of solidarity. Um
I think it was the Spanish prime
minister who said about a year ago he
said you needn't think that we are going
to take um um one farthing or one euro
away from our welfare budgets in order
to pay for rearmorament. So achieving
solidarity is very difficult. But what
is I I think one of the things those of
us um we have a platform. We don't have
in in the media we we don't have power
but we have a platform. And one is
shocked by the reluctance of politicians
to try and educate our peoples to um we
so seldom hear um a major politician in
our country in Britain. Um, and I think
it's a bit better in Australia. Um, who
who makes a speech or gets on television
and says to the British people or the
Australian people, "We're living in a
dangerous world." And although we hate
spending money on vastly expensive
weapon systems, we have to do it to
preserve all the things we hold dear. We
have to be willing to defend ourselves.
And if we're not willing to defend
ourselves, and of course there are more
than one way to defend yourself. In
Europe, another of the major problems in
seeing off Vladimir Putin is the
Europeans when they cancelled uh nuclear
power, they also committed themselves uh
to a dependence on Russian gas um which
is still there. And even though we're
now three or four years since the four
years since the invasion of Ukraine,
still um Germany, most of Europe has
this terrific dependence on Russian gas.
Now, if you want to defend yourself, um,
then you do something about ending that
dependence. And they're not doing it. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, when you mention Putin, it brings
to mind the views of a another prominent
historian, Steven Cotkin, who's a
biographer of Joseph Stalin, as you well
know. Now in the latest issue of foreign
affairs magazine Cot he this is his
argument that the world's strong men are
much weaker than they appear partly
because repression is the enemy of
economic and technological progress and
Cochan says that authoritarian systems
suffer from corruption cronyism and
overage and he says that the US will
escape becoming a dictatorship. So Max,
do you share Professor Copkins confidence?
confidence?
>> I read his uh piece very carefully and
he's a very clever man and uh one thing
we all have to maintain hope. I don't
want um although some of what I'm saying
may sound like despair. I don't believe
in despair. I believe that um I
passionately believe in wakeup calls. I
believe we got to wake up and and do
more for ourselves uh if we are going to
have a future. But we owe it to our kids
and our grandchildren um to have hope
for the future. So um I greatly admire
Hopkin for um uh writing a piece that it
that does have hope. But there are
various forces that I think he neglects.
Now one of them in the domestic context
when he says he doesn't think America
will become a dictatorship is the
terrifying power of social media. Um and
of course Trump um has forged a close
alliance with these tech giants and any
attempt abroad when the Europeans um
attempt to find um these American tech
giants for some of the ghastly stuff
that they're putting out online um
America immediately leaps in and the
American Secretary of State says this is
an attack on on the American people.
Well, of course it's not. that this
alliance between the tech giants um and
the the poison that that they are
spreading and the fact that many of
these Trump the 40% of Trump's base
these people they don't read the
Washington Post or the or or the even
the Wall Street Journal or the or the
New York Times they take all their news
from Fox News or from u or from uh Trump
social media. So, I think the danger of
the United States becoming an autocracy,
we're seeing, thank God, a push back as
a result of the ghastly happenings in
Minneapolis, but that's a worry. Um, as
far as the world scene goes, um, nothing
is inevitable. There is still, as Copkin
wrote, he said, there is um, there is
hope that some of these strong men are
vulnerable, but there you've got Putin.
Putin's going to fall. Yeah. um sooner
or later. But many of us and people who
know far more about Russia than I do,
they said, "Don't hold your breath
hoping that what follows him is going to
be better just
resilience of American democracy." Are
you downplaying the checks and balances
in the US government? You got the
executive branch which as you know is
the presidency that is still being
checked and balanced by if not the
legislature, the Congress, certainly the
courts and the judiciary, most notably
the Supreme Court. I mean they may well
strike down President Trump's tariffs.
So are you overstating these threats to
I'm heavily influenced by my American
friends uh some of them an awful lot
cleverer than me who are scared stiff
and in particular the Republicans and
the Trump people have packed the Supreme
Court. So the Supreme Court has come up
with a succession of terrifying
judgments and in fact I quoted in one of
my columns um the comparison um that
Chavez in in Venezuela um uh when he was
dictator he packed his Supreme Court. So
I think during his term the the Supreme
Court in Venezuela delivered I forget
how many thousand judgments and they
were all supporting Chavez. Well I will
believe that the Supreme Court is doing
what it's there to do on the day that it
starts calling out judgments if it finds
against Trump on tariffs. Then I will
start believing the Supreme Court is an
effective check. We should be grateful
that the federal courts, the lower
courts in America are doing great and
standing up to >> Yep.
>> Yep.
>> But aren't aren't elections the ultimate
check on wayward and abusive presidents?
And in November, as you well know, the
US faces these midterm congressional
elections, which are likely to elect the
Democrats to the House of
Representatives. Isn't that a check on
uh a a president who's um who's
overreaching to put it mildly?
I think it's horrifying. Those of us who
are keen students of American history,
um, one always been impressed, for
example, during the Vietnam era, um,
there was a remarkable degree of
bipartisanship in the in the Congress in
criticism of what was happening in
Vietnam, um, and on many other issues.
And um one of the things that Churchill
during the Second World War, he tended
to forget that Roosevelt um had far more
trouble with the Congress during the
Second World War than um than Churchill
ever had with the House of Commons. Um
and yet today we're seeing this this
Congress um apparently paralyzed. Um and
the other thing that the degree to which
political dialogue and this is not
unique to America but it's worse in
America has become coarsent that maybe
it's hopeless to plead for a return to
civility but one of the many reasons
regarding Donald Trump with contempt is
that his absolute lack of respect
respect for other people and other
nations is fundamental to any sort of
civilized conversation whether in your
own home or in your own country uh or
abroad. And this Trump has willfully
destroyed. Trump is insulting people
every single day. And we have got to
call this out. We've got to keep saying
um this is the behavior of in fact again
American commentators a mafia boss. This
is how Tony Soprano behaves. In fact,
Don Kolleone had better manners than
Donald Trump. And I say that having
thought carefully about the language of
Don Corleone and the language of Donald Trump.
Trump.
What about Trump? I mean people put him
in the category of an ultra nationalist
which he is. I mean merit make America
great again. But going back to the theme
of the 1990s when globalization economic
interdependency was all the rage and
many people thought that nationalism was
fading. Some even thought that the
nation state itself could be in retreat.
Yeah, you had this popular surge, as you
well know because you covered it in
various columns throughout the 2000s and
2010s. You had this popular surge all
across Europe that suggested otherwise.
Brexit, which you strongly opposed in
2016 that predated Trump and it was
driven in part by a desire to reclaim
sovereignty from Brussels. So again,
doesn't that complicate the Carney
argument, the essential Carney argument
that Trump was a prime mover behind this backlash?
backlash?
>> I think uh we tend to be overcautious
about admitting the importance of the
role of race in a lot of the rise of
populism that uh in the end in Europe
especially, I don't believe that
populist movements would have gained the
grip they had if you were merely
threatened with waves of frankly white
immigration. It's because an awful lot
of people um who we we hate to say this,
but I'm going to say it. Um there is
still a depth of racism that does not
want um large scale um black or brown
immigration into Europe and who actually
coveretly agrees with JD Vance when he
says you're destroying your own
civilization. And um although um
sensible commentators are constantly
saying look for a start we need
immigration in order when we're our own
birth rates are falling uh in order to
keep our economies going. That at the
root of populism is the migration. And
if you study I've just been reading
online this very morning um a big piece
in America about the language of the
MAGA people which is ex in many cases
explicitly a white supremacist. So I
think in combating the populace and in
particular in combating we have to
recognize how far this is about race and
we're a bit um
>> think about border protection and
protecting the sovereignty of the
borders because as you know in Australia
uh John Howard in the early 2000s put in
place a tough border protection policy
to boost public confidence in what has
been largescale non-discriminatory
immigration and by most accounts immig
immigrants have integrated very well in
Australia. In Europe, you haven't had
that tough border protection to boost
public confidence, but you're saying
it's more about race.
There's another aspect. I think two
forces are linked. And again, um many
politicians, many I I've always never
made it bones. I am a centrist liberal.
Um but we have to face the fact we've
got two linked problems. Um, one is uh
the racist problem of the of the
passionate hostility to mass immigration
from the southern hemisphere. But linked
to this is economic stagnation. Uh, the
fact that people are not getting richer
up here and um there is um people are
pretty unhappy about this. And what's
more, this is not a short-term issue if
you look at all the numbers of
productivity and all the rest of it. And
one thing that always dismays me, I
think one thing we have to face about
America, I would say with pride that
Britain is a nicer country than America.
We just we don't go around um killing
each other in the numbers that Americans
do and so on so forth. But I'm afraid I
also think we become too nice as a
country. I think u one reason that
America is so effective economically is
because of its ruthlessness and the fact
that now we don't want to be nasty at
anybody. U the fact that we've got this
grossly bloated
undiscriminating welfare system which is
ruining the country and the fact that
nobody is willing to come to terms with
this. So I think these two linked issues
and I again haven't forgotten uh Michael
Hard saying uh maybe 10 years ago he
said we have entered our VHimar period
now the Vhimar period of course in
Germany was 1930s was the period of the
1920s before the rise of Hitler what
the early 30s yeah
>> VHimar has become a um become a symbol
um for um in effectual collapsing
government before the rise of autocrats.
And I must say when I look around and
the danger that in Britain we might end
up with somebody as completely
irresponsible as Nigel Farrage of reform
as prime minister and I keep ha being
haunted by Michael's words about the
VHimar period that um this lack of um
effective politicians of the center and
you wonder I mean I sometimes tease some
of my friends by saying you and I have
to face the fact that 20 30 years ago um
we didn't like the Right. But um we
weren't frightened of them because we
never occurred to a state whole part.
And yet
and a lot of these other But in fairness
to Farage and a lot of these populists
that are resonating across the European
continent, aren't they tapping into
legitimate anxieties about uh open
borders, but also declining living
standards. I mean, the Trump
administration's national security
statement that was published in
December, I mean, this figure is just
quite striking, Max. It said that in the
early 1990s Europe accounted for 25% of
global GDP. Today it's 14%. Terrifying.
>> So doesn't that indicate that Europe's
in serious economic decline and ordinary
Europeans and Brits are turning to
people like Farage and Le Pen because
they're a cry for help?
>> But you're absolutely right. Um and
those numbers are sort of imprinted on
the brains of some of us. And of course
also is the key fact that you've got
this huge dominance of the giant tech
companies in the United States. And not
only do we not have anything to match
this in Europe, but there's no sign that
even a decade from now we're going to
have anything that matches. So that
power of the tech companies and the
influence on the economy is enormously
important. I think one hopeful indicator
and certainly I hear I'm quoting my
American friends um is that at some
point even the devoted Trump supporters
are going to wake up to the fact that
MAGA um is not actually about making
America great and rich. It's about
making the Trump family um great and
rich. um that the degree to which this
is and again uh I quote many American
commentators who've seen the mafia
comparison that if one looks at at every
turn in Trump's policies there is
something what's in it for Trump Trump
personally whether it's getting
airplanes from GA whether it's his
family getting percentages of deals and
so on and at some point the level of
corruption and we've never seen anything
like this among American presidents at
some point I think uh the penny or
rather the dollar is going to drop um
with um American people and even his
supporters are going to realize he's not
running a country for them. He's running
a country for him.
>> Yeah. Well, Jacob Hellbrin, the editor
of the National Interest Magazine in
Washington, which actually published
Francis Fukyama's The End of History in
1989. Jacob Hellbrin was a guest on this
program, Max, a couple of weeks ago
talking about Greenland, and he made
precisely that point. But let's talk
about not so much Greenland but Europe
and Trump. Now I found this wonderful
quote just recently. You'll love this
Max. This is Charles de Gaulle in 1969
uh just after he left the presidency or
as he's leaving it. And he tells his
friend Andre Malru quote that America's
desire and one day it will satisfy it.
Its desire is to desert Europe. You will
see. Now, it's taken nearly six decades,
but do you think de Gaulle's prophecy
now looks uncomfortably close to
fulfillment and that Trump may well pull
the United States out of NATO?
I think we've not heard the end of the
Greenland issue because like all
bullies, Trump falls on weakness and he
can see that there's no way the
Europeans or the Dan are going to get a
war over agreement.
and in the last resort if Trump really
remains even though the polls are
showing that Americans are not very
interested in Greenland um what we're seeing
seeing
I mean one of the things we have to
laugh about um all of us who um think
we're so wellinformed and think we're so
clever and if you look back to let's say
2000 and all the things we thought might
happen in the 21st century well one or
two of them have the rise of China the
rise of computing blah blah blah
But what we would never have guessed, we
knew we had to reckon with an unstable
Russia and an unstable China, but we
never realized we'd have to um deal with
an American rogue state. And every
single, for example, every single
defense document in Britain for the last
20, 30 years that I've ever read, uh all
the strategy papers and so on, all
started on the assumption that Britain
will never again have to fight, um other
than alongside the United States. So,
um, we're dealing with completely new
assumptions. Now, I I I I'm afraid
there's some European leaders who think
if we can just hold out somehow till
2028, Trump will go and something more
sensible may replace him. I don't think
we can work on that assumption. I think
we have to assume we're seeing a
historic change. Um, the historic
change, Europe looks weak and
vulnerable, uh, both economically and
militarily. The United States looks
incredibly strong uh economically as
well, whatever's going on in China. And
I think that the United States will
continue to use its power in ways that
we find deeply painful.
>> The Europeans and the Americans ever
really been natural allies? I mean,
you're an historian. You'd know that the
United States, listen, I'll put this to
you, keep you on your toes. The US has
remained only deeply engaged in Europe
when core, you know, US interests at
stake. You think of the German submarine
warfare in 1917.
Um to Pearl Harbor and Hitler's
declaration of war on the United States
to the Soviet threat during the Cold War
and it's been 35 years max since the end
of the cold war. So it's not just Donald
Trump's perspective. a lot of ordinary
Americans thinking, why should
Washington remain so heavily committed
to Europe?
>> One of the um little facts that I like
to bring out in my books about the
Second World War, the United States was
the only nation that made a cash profit,
a very large cash profit out of the
Second World War. Um that everybody else
it cost us in many cases it cost us
ruin. um and the Americans. Um Churchill
um he disguised the reality of our very
tough and often abrasive relationship
with the United States in World War II.
And Churchill cloaked this and he had to
do this in wonderful rhetoric about um
his dear friendship with uh with
Franklin Roosevelt and so on. I've
always believed um in 1945 when
Roosevelt died, Churchill didn't go to
his funeral. Now he cited reasons of
state. I personally always thought that
the reason was by that stage he'd had so
much of American and specifically um um
Roosevelt bullying of um Britain in the
Second World War and of course early in
the war that um all this stuff about the
generosity of American arms aid to
Britain. We had to pay cash for
everything. an American cruiser
collected our last 60 million in gold
from Cape Town. So the Americans have
always played tough and I'm
>> well if the uh successor Harry Truman
abruptly terminated lend lease what in
45 46
>> I never forget even these days I mean a
friend of mine who's a very successful
film producer and he said I used to get
the money from Hollywood um but he said
I always found with the Americans they'd
be incredibly nice to you and they'd ask
you at the Oscar ceremony and you'd have
a lovely time lots of parties and then
just before you were due assigned,
they'd shaft you. And he said, "No, I
deal I get all my financing." He said,
"No, I get all my financing from the
Gulf States cuz I find the Arabs are
better of their word."
Well, you I mean, you always hear about
this special relationship between the
United States and Britain. But you'd
remember I mean, you were very young,
but in 1956, the Suez crisis when the
Eisenhower administration used financial
pressure to force Anthony Eden's
government out of Suez, right?
We have many interests in common with
the United States and even now we have
to struggle not to quarrel headon with
them. I mean I I took part a fut I made
the futile gesture of marching in the
demonstration against Donald Trump when
he came on his state visit to Britain
>> late last year. Yeah.
>> Exactly. And of course all my friends
laughed and said it was I must say some
of the people on the demonstration they
said I never thought I'd find myself on
a demonstration with Max Hastings. Um
but I felt that I wanted the telegraph
on the telegraph.
>> I wanted to be I wanted to be able to
tell my grandchildren. I wanted to be
able to say I was one of those who made
some gesture to say one realize what a
dreadful man this is. But if I was in
Kostama's position as prime minister, I
would feel that I had to keep struggling
to get along with this dreadful man. He
is the only president the United States
have got. But we as citizens are in a
different place. We can say this is a
dreadful man who threatens everything
that Western civilization stands for.
>> Okay, I I get all that. But what about
from the US strategic perspective? Uh
Trump's people would say that NATO
expansion has just pushed Russia closer
to China. Question Max. Does Putin's
Russia, yes, it's been a thuggish regime
that invaded a sovereign state twice.
Crimea 2014 and Eastern Ukraine in 2022.
But does Putin's Russia really meet the
threshold of the Soviet threat that
bound America and Europe together for
more than four decades?
>> We must recognize Russia is not um
today's Soviet Union. Um, Russia,
funnily enough, is is more like um the
American autocracy in that whereas the
Soviet Union was driven by ideology, um
Putin's Russia, um to a remarkable
extent like Trump's America is driven by
money. That Putin, we know, is one of
the richest men in the world. But he's
also obsessed with the vision of of of
Russian greatness. He wants to um expand
Russia's um threshold. Now what I think
I've always been told all the great
strategists whom I respect they've
always taught the lesson never give
guarantees to any power unless you're
willing to make good on your word and
the big mistake that was made after the
cold war was all sorts of guarantees
were given including to Ukraine by NATO
which nobody in Europe really had the
bottle to actually make good on. And
even now, as I say, we go on a lot of
fine words about Ukraine, but the
Europeans support um in practical terms
uh um the the level of weapons that
they've sent to Ukraine. Yes, there was
a great surge of sentiment back in 2022.
But in the end,
Putin is gambling first that his will is
stronger than ours, and secondly, that
Trump doesn't give a damn about Ukraine.
And some of us feel it's vitally
important to demonstrate that he's
wrong. But it's very difficult because
there's no doubt Trump does not care
about Ukraine. He does have a curious
very odd um um eagerness to make create
a partnership with Russia which some of
us find absolutely baffling. But also
even now four years into this war um
Europe has not really the Nordic states
and Poland are rearming. Nobody else has
done a damn thing.
>> Yeah. Is there is there a danger we're
overstating the power of Russia? After
all, it is still four years into war,
but it's bogged down in Dombas. It's got
a demographic death spiral. And on
China, you know, not so much you, Max,
but a lot of historians and columnists,
I think of Ed Loose from the Financial
Times, most notably. They all too often
highlight America's weaknesses and
limitations. But what about China? You
know, the property bubble, the high
levels of youth unemployment,
demographic decline. What's your views
China is incomparably richer and more
powerful than Russia and um if if you
take a long view of history um far more
dangerous than Russia. Um, of course
it's absolutely right that um that China
um has a range of problems of its own
and I personally um in fact I've just
been writing some writing a piece for
the Sunday Times um in which I suggest
that I personally think that um that the
American genius and that it is a genius
uh economically and technologically
um I don't believe that uh China will by
any means necessarily overtake the
United States in the coming decades. Um
but um China
China is also because it's not that
there is no public opinion that counts
for anything in China. Um that there is
this huge instability
and how could China resist? How could
President Z not be tempted when he sees
that Trump really doesn't care that much
about Taiwan? when he sees that Trump is
pretty indifferent to what's happening
in Ukraine. How could he not be tempted
to gamble? So this is what one means
about living in an unstable and
dangerous world. So yes, I think it's
true China is not all powerful. It does
have vulnerabilities, but nonetheless,
it's still a formidable prospective enemy.
enemy.
>> Okay. Now, finally, we started talking
about the liberal international order
that really came about uh at the end of
World War II with the United Nations.
And um you were born in late uh 1945. I
think you share the same birthday as my
daughter. So, whenever my daughter has a
birthday, I always send you a birthday
cuz it's the same date. But you just
turned 80. Looking back across your
career, Max, as an historian and a
journalist, what do you most wish you
had understood earlier about life and
power and the way the world really
works? How was that for a question?
>> Although it's not an original phrase of
mine, I do believe in the that we've all
learned that most things in life turn
out less well than we hope, but less
badly than we fear. And so I hope it
will prove with the world. My father
wrote me a letter when I was three days
old um on New Year's Eve just the end of
1945 which he gave me when I was 21 in
which he wrote then about the incredibly
dangerous world in which he felt they
were living with the atomic bomb um
newly exploded at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Um he said um his exact words
were he saidn nothing is easier than to
believe that by the time you read this
that Russia and America will be at war
and he thought our whole lives would be
overshadowed by the atomic bomb. And
actually we proved to be the most
privileged generation in history. We've
had fantastically privileged lives um in
which we've been more prosperous,
healthy, better educated than anything
that went before. So um um I do feel
able therefore to say to the
grandchildren of course you're going to
face different challenges but um but
nonetheless the challenges can be
overcome and um the the one thing we
mustn't do um and in fact my wife
sometimes teases me because if I've just
been reading some huge article in
foreign affairs if I've got the
grandchildren coming and she'll say now
you're not to tell them we're all doomed
and of course this is absolutely
I've been lucky enough to have a
wonderful life. Um, and most of my
generation, dare I say it, have had
wonderful lives. And we realize that we
have so much to be grateful for. Um, but
I do think that so many things you can
make a long list of all the things that
in people's daily lives are much better
today than they were all those years
ago. But what we also learned is we will
our our children and grandchildren won't
have these things unless we fight for
them. I don't mean necessarily um with
guns. Um I mean unless we argue the case
for them, unless we explain um why um
some things matter, why, for example, we
have ignorant brutes in the White House
and they must be called out for ignorant
brutes. Why? Um, treating each other
with respect and the other quality that
the Trump administration lacks, there is
no hint of compassion. And if you don't
have respect and you don't have
compassion, the next world is going to
be a terrible place.
Well, Max, it's always lovely to chat
with you and even test wits with you.
Thank you so much for being on the
program. Just before we go, summarize
briefly your next book and when it's
coming out.
My next book is called Plunder and it's
about the last weeks of the Second World
War and it's going to be published in
Britain in September. And I'm just
looking at the jacket for it this very
morning. And um it's the only thing my
wife says that writing books is the only
thing I know how to do. So I better
stick with it and leave everything.
>> Well, hang on. You're a pretty good
gardener, aren't you? With your wife,
don't you garden a lot?
>> I do. I'm Well, I'm getting a bit old
for the gardening now. You know, one do.
I am u I've loved but there are lots of
things um that um I've loved fishing
I've loved um shooting um I've loved um
gardening all sorts of that that stuff
but um each successive period of one's
life brings um different pleasures and
again actually I would never have
guessed when I was an unhappy bored
teenager as many teenagers are I would
never have guessed being 80 could be so
Max, lovely to be with you. Let's do
this again and all the best with the new
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