Andrew Roberts — Why Hitler lost WWII, Churchill as applied historian, & Napoleon as startup founder

1. 0:00 – 10:57

   Post WW2 conflicts

   1. ARAndrew Roberts0:00

      One of the reasons I’m proud to be a historian is that Churchill was one. History was a constant echo for him, it gave him endless signposts.

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel0:08

      In the startup community, there is a cult of Napoleon that- that has slowly emerged.

   3. ARAndrew Roberts0:13

      Is there? I didn’t know that. Seriously, is there?

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel0:15

      Your biography is- is part of the canon here.

   5. ARAndrew Roberts0:17

      (laughs) If MacArthur had used nuclear weapons against the Chinese crossing the Yalu River, then yes, he might well have actually won that war, but it would have lowered the- the moral barrier so significantly that nuclear weapons would have been used an awful lot more. In the future, war will be fought between two sets of drones, and the humans won’t be in the loop because decision-making has to take place far, far faster than the human mind can work.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel0:50

      Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Andrew Roberts, who is most recently the author of Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. And, um, this book is like Churchill’s, uh, histories of the Second World War, the First World War, in that one of the principal actors in the conflicts discussed here is the co-author, General David Petraeus, who commanded the, uh, US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as one of your co-authors. And speaking of Churchill, uh, Andrew is also the author of some superb and magnificent biographies of Churchill, Napoleon, King George, and an excellent book about World War II. But first, let’s begin with Conflict. Andrew, welcome to the podcast.

   7. ARAndrew Roberts1:36

      Thank you very much indeed, Dwarkesh. It’s a, uh, honor to be on your show.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel1:40

      So my first question is this: when we look at the first half of the 20th century, it seems like we got unlucky many times in a row, you- you know, World War I, World War II, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Maoist revolution in China. All those things, um, seem like they didn’t have to happen from reading historians about those topics, that if you reversed a bunch of contingent factors a few years back, they- any one of them could have not happened. And in each of those cases, tens of millions of people died. When we look at the second half of the 20th century, which you write about in these books, it seems like we got lucky again and again, right? So the Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t go nuclear. We have all these proxy wars that don’t go nuclear or result in a world war. China and India liberalize. Communism falls. What explains why we had such different luck in these two different parts of the century?

   9. ARAndrew Roberts2:27

      Um, the invention of the nuclear bomb.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel2:29

       (laughs)

   11. ARAndrew Roberts2:29

       Uh, it’s- it’s- it’s pretty much as easy as that. You have all of these wars take place in the post-nuclear age after 1945, and so as a result, you have an umbrella under which everybody acts. But although there are hundreds of wars that break out, about 140 wars, they have to be fought in a essentially limited way because of the, uh, existence of nuclear weapons.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel2:56

       But couldn’t you have said the same thing before World War I? And in fact, many did say that about before World War I, where we have all this heavy artillery, we have these… you could kill millions of people even then, and they still went to war. So how- how much does nuclear war explain the- the absence of something escalating?

   13. ARAndrew Roberts3:11

       Well, you’re right that the First World War did come about, um, in part because of the- um, the arms race. But, um, the knowledge that the nuclear bomb could obliterate the entire planet is something that has, uh, always managed to make wars limited post-1945. What happened in 1914, the most people you could kill in a single moment would be as the result of a- uh, of an artillery shell, and, um, that’s nothing like a nuclear bomb, frankly. So it’s- uh, it’s- it’s apples and pears, I think.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel3:49

       It’s really interesting. In this book, you write about all these conflicts that happened since World War II, and in many cases, they’re counterinsurgencies or civil wars, and it’s interesting when one side gets to say that they’re the legitimate force, uh, fighting for the country’s independence against foreign aggressors when both sides are getting foreign funding and support, you know? Uh, so I- I’m curious, how come the US has been bad at the propaganda here, where Ho Chi Minh or the Taliban get to say that they’re the legitimate forces fighting for their country? Uh, or h- how does that determination get made?

   15. ARAndrew Roberts4:20

       Yes, that’s a very good point. It’s, uh… I mean, I think in both cases, obviously Ho Chi Minh and the Taliban both, uh, were- were local inhabitants in a way that the United States obviously wasn’t in either place. Um, but whether they represented the majority of the people in, uh, either North Vietnam or Afghanistan is a completely different issue. So it’s much more a question of whether or not they are totalitarian powers who are able to, uh, establish dominance and keep it in a- um, in a difficult and dangerous part of the world. And that’s what both of them were able to do. It didn’t mean that they have a, uh, legitimacy in the kind of Jeffersonian democracy that one would, uh, like in a utopian world. But if they are the people, um, that are wielding the power in the sense of a, um, Marxist-Leninist clique, of course, uh, in- in North Vietnam, you have to deal with them, and they are the- they are the established government.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel5:23

       But it’s interesting that South Vietnam or the- uh, the government in Afghanistan didn’t seem to have that same sort of legitimacy that- that these other insurgencies had, even though they were still local governments.

   17. ARAndrew Roberts5:36

       Um, do you think not? I- I rather think they do. I- I, uh… I mean, obviously they’re both immensely, um, inefficient and useless and corrupt, but nonetheless, I don’t think that that detracts from the fact that they were more legitimate than the- uh, than the forces that were rising up against them.

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel5:56

       Yeah. And in fact, this might be a good opportunity for you to discuss the four key, uh, tenets of strategic leadership that you discuss in the book.

   19. ARAndrew Roberts6:03

       Yes. Well, what we found in the book, w- very much, very strongly, and it's interesting you should have mentioned the Chinese Civil War because you get that very powerfully as well, is that the side that, um, wins wars very often is not the one that controls the cities, or has the largest amount of men, or, um, has the best weaponry. As you mentioned, the Chinese Civil War, let's look at that for a second. It's, uh, the Kuomintang nationalist, uh, forces at the outset of that war had all the major cities. They had four or five times the number of men, and they also had all the advanced weaponry that they'd taken off the Japanese at the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945. Yet, they still lost that war. One of the reasons was that they didn't have very impressive strategic leadership. And, um, Chiang Kai-shek, even when he did come up with good, um, plans, often had warlords below him that refused to carry them out. So, what we, uh, discovered in war after war is that the thing that matters most is this concept of strategic leadership, by wha- which we mean having a leader at the, uh, top, either civil or military, um, but the ultimate decision-maker. And it's usually best when there's somebody who's... represents the civil and somebody who represents the military and they get on. And they need to get the big idea for the r- war, right? They need to then be able to communicate that, um, to their lieutenants effectively, and indeed, to the wider, um, country. They need to be able to implement it, um, aggressively and, uh, and efficiently. And then they need, as the fourth of the, uh, of the, um, levels, to continue to adapt the, uh, big idea to, uh, circumstances on the ground and to the way in which the war develops. Because obviously, you know, the war... no war carries out according to plan. Um, the enemy always has a say. So, uh, and then, and then to, uh, refine it again and again and again. And so that is... It's the people who are able to do that are very often victorious, even though they, uh, start off the, uh, the campaign with, um, many more disadvantages than their enemy.

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel8:22

       You know, I think this might be a good opportunity to start talking about Iraq and Afghanistan, which o- obviously your co-author c- can speak to like nobody else. I found it really interesting in reading his accounts of what happened in those two countries, um, e- especially Iraq, which was a premeditated invasion. It wasn't something we had to just immediately do, right? It had a completely different casus belli with the weapons of mass destruction than 9/11.

   21. ARAndrew Roberts8:46

       Well, and, and, and also the surprise attack on Kuwait, of course. I mean, the ult- That's the ultimate reason that, uh, that this took place, the... what had happened, uh, 13 years before and the, and the 13 years in between, you know? Uh, it wasn't just WMD.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel9:01

       Yeah, yeah. Although, the... I guess that still... 13 years still doesn't leave us enough time to have a plan of what to do. And I find it interesting that, you know, you're discussing that after the coup... uh, the regime has been changed, you realize that there's not a plan for how to ensure security and stability in the country. And I, I just can't imagine. I mean, you have... O- Obviously, you have really intelligent people like David Petraeus th- there who are working on this. How is it possible that there was an invasion of these countries without a s- good plan of how to secure them afterwards?

   23. ARAndrew Roberts9:30

       Well, he wasn't working on it. He was working on how to, um, destroy the Iraqi army and get to Baghdad, and the people who were working on it were a completely different set of, uh, of, um, generals who were failing to work out what to do once you had got to Baghdad, and they assumed that the thing to do would be to get rid of the Ba'ath Party, which essentially ran the country, um, down to the sort of fourth level. It was all very well getting rid of, uh, Saddam's sons and, uh, and some of the other people at the top level. But when you do that and also you, uh, essentially send the army home and not tell them how they're going to feed their families and allow them to keep their weapons, you've got a, um, recipe for disaster. And, and sure enough, disaster happened. But, um, that can't be blamed on the sort of, uh, soldiers at the point of the spear, who did an extremely good job, who overthrew that, uh, regime in, um, in double quick time.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel10:32

       Now, speaking of strategic leadership, uh, why is it that we don't have a figure natively in Iraq and Afghanistan who had that level of leadership themselves, you know, uh, a Zelenskyy in Iraq and Afghanistan where, in the book, uh, uh, General Petraeus discusses the endless frustrations he had with, um, Maliki in Iraq and, of course, Ghani leaves, uh, Afghanistan when the Taliban start routing

2. 10:57 – 16:33

   Ukraine

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel10:57

      the Afghani forces?

   2. ARAndrew Roberts10:57

      And Karzai, of course, also in Afghanistan. Yeah, these guys come in for a bit of a pasting understandably in our book, uh, um, because they are not, uh, the sort of Churchillian figures that, uh, Zelenskyy is. Um, I think it partly, uh, it's down to the sectarian nature of, um, Iraqi and Afghan society, tribal nature of, um, of society, where however good a leader is, he doesn't automatically command the, um, the, uh, attention and, um, loyalty of other people in the same country, you know? The thing about Zelenskyy was that it was very clear very early on that he was speaking for the huge majority of the country, and it's very difficult for an Iraqi or Afghan leader, however good they are, and I'm not saying for one minute that Maliki and, um, Karzai were, were any good, let alone the last chap who gets into his, uh, helicopter way down with suitcases full of money and, and hightails it out of there, you know? Um, by complete contrast, you do have Zelenskyy, who, uh, who shows all of those four qualities of leadership that I mentioned and also, of course, who, uh, decided he was going to stay in Kyiv, fight in Kyiv, his family were gonna stay in Kyiv, he wasn't going to let any, um, military-age...... male Ukrainians, uh, leave the country, and his big idea was, um, "I need ammunition, not a ride."

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel12:23

      What is our big idea, uh, the Americans' big idea in Ukraine? What is the, um, ceasefire or end arrangement we are driving at which we think would be plausible for both sides to accept?

   4. ARAndrew Roberts12:35

      Good question. I don't think Biden has, uh, has articulated one properly yet. Um, Zelenskyy has, which is the, uh, obvious one, which is that we're not going to allow 18% to 19% of our country to forever be under the rule of the, um, Russians, and we're going to throw them out. And when, um, when David and I visited Kiev about four months ago, we came across a huge, um, level of national unity over that big idea. The, all the generals, of course, and the, uh, ministers who subscribe to it, but they're sort of paid to, it's part of their job. But so also did everybody on the street and everybody that we spoke to. Um, they all absolutely believed in, um, ultimate victory. They didn't know how long it was going to take, they didn't know, uh, how much more blood was going to have to be shed, but, um, they all believed that this would not stand and that they were going to ultimately be victorious, even if you, the Americans cut off their, um, their funding after the next election.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel13:44

      Right. So then, but what is the answer to the American question of what, what is our goal? Is that the same as the Ukrainian goal?

   6. ARAndrew Roberts13:49

      Uh, no, I don't think it is at the moment. It seems to be to wait until other countries, such as Britain, uh, give, um, a new set of weaponry, then to give much more of the same kind of weaponry, then to wait until somebody else gives some more advanced weaponry. You saw this with anti-tank weaponry, uh, later with tanks, then with, um, artillery, then long-range artillery. Now you've been giving them this, uh, ATACMS, uh, which are, uh, very impressive. But, um, you've hung back a bit with, um, with fighter aircraft and so on. So it's, um, it seems to be a piecemeal approach where you, where you wait until the Russians don't respond and then you give a, a bit more. Um, frankly, it would have been much better, I think, to have, um, to have armed the Ukrainians earlier with the, with the, you know, Leopards essentially and the tanks that they really needed for this big, uh, southern counteroffensive, and, um, and come out wholeheartedly for them. Now, you've given them a lot of money, obviously, 44 billion is a very significant amount of money, and the Europeans have given as much or slightly more now. But still, the Russians are in, in control of 18% of the country and they've been building what the Ukrainians were expecting, hundreds of yards of minefields. In fact, there are mi- miles of minefields down in the south there. And so I'm afraid it is a, it's a long and bloody slog. But we've seen wars like this before. This is one of the things that, uh, we write about, uh, the Korean War being a classic example, where you just have to, um, have to thrash it out.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel15:27

      Actually, I want to ask you about Korea in a second, but yeah, this, I guess you might have just answered this question right now, but it does seem weird that w- we're slowly funding a war of attrition. You know, it's classic Clausewitz to focus your effort on the point of attack. Why... If you have, if you're slowly doling out this equipment, why not just give it to them all at once so they can have a successful counteroffensive?

   8. ARAndrew Roberts15:47

      Because I don't think you've got the political will in the United States to do that, frankly. I think that, um, yes, you, you have a sort of nominal majority in, um, both Houses, but especially with your lower House at the moment, (laughs) what's going on there? You, you, uh, you don't have the, uh, the sense of, um, of national will to, to do that. And so as a result, these poor, um, uh, Ukrainians are, you know, fighting and dying. When you do give them stuff, it's extremely helpful and, and useful. But, uh, but as I say, the, um, the key point is that they will carry on fighting and dying even if you didn't give them the stuff, because they're not going to have America essentially, uh, dictating to them, um, what their national destiny

3. 16:33 – 22:49

   How Truman Prevented Nuclear War

   1. ARAndrew Roberts16:33

      is.

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel16:33

      Now, speaking of the Korean War, the, the chapter you wrote about this in your book was really interesting and great, and I wonder if Truman had decided to use a nuclear bomb in Korea, had agreed with MacArthur to do so, whether the taboo that we have against nuclear weapons, would, against tactical nuclear weapons would not have emerged in the first place, and so, you know, the Soviets would have used it in Afghanistan, we would have used it in Vietnam, um, and Thatcher would have used it in the Falklands-

   3. ARAndrew Roberts17:00

      (laughs)

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel17:01

      Uh... (laughs)

   5. ARAndrew Roberts17:01

      No, I don't... I don't... I wouldn't go that far, 'cause Mark, 'cause that would have wiped out the Falklands when we were trying to-

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel17:07

      (laughs)

   7. ARAndrew Roberts17:08

      ... uh, to, to win back the Falklands. But, um, yeah, no, you're quite right, of course. If, um, MacArthur had used nuclear weapons against the Chinese crossing the Yalu River, then yes, he might well have actually won that war, but it would have lowered the, the moral barrier so significantly that nuclear war, nuclear weapons would have been used an awful lot more as it is today. Although there's lots of saber-rattling by, uh, Lavrov and, um, Putin, it doesn't really look as though... I mean, yes, there might be a, um, a catastrophic disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, but it's very unlikely for, um, Putin actually to use tactical nuclear missiles in Ukraine, not in the east, of course, because the Chinese don't want him to. But, um, but had they been a regular feature of the, of warfare in the 1950s, '60s, '70s and so on, then, then, uh, yeah, he, he might well do it.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel18:06

      I just think it's important when you're looking back at history to give credit, uh, at, you know, decisions that are not often discussed like this, where we- Truman just decided to lose Korea rather than... At the time, the taboo didn't even exist, but rather than to create a taboo...... uh, against nuclear weapons.

   9. ARAndrew Roberts18:24

      Exactly. He did, he did create a, um, as did Clement Attlee, actually. To give him his due, the British prime minister flew over to Washington very concerned about this talk, um, to, to, um, MacArthur's talk about the, um, using the nuclear bomb. Um, and so he needs to get some credit as well. And also, actually, Truman needs credit for sacking MacArthur, um, in the first place because MacArthur did have some, um... I mean, he was a charismatic and impressive figure whose island-hopping policy in the Second World Wars was, you know, inspired and so on. But he was the classic example of the general who becomes too powerful, an over-mighty subject, who, um, who had political ambitions himself, who got the, um, uh, the Chinese involvement in the war completely wrong, got the big ideas wrong essentially, and had to be, um, and had to be sacked.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel19:17

       And that, that's also another interesting point, uh, how overwhelmingly popular he was. And I remember reading in, um, uh, Lyndon Johnson's biography that when MacArthur came to Congress to speak after he was sacked about the Korean War's progression, somebody said, you know, this is the closest thing... If he had wanted to, MacArthur was so popular that he could have just said, like, "We're gonna sack the Capitol," and people would have just followed him.

   11. ARAndrew Roberts19:37

       Um, well, I mean, having seen what... Uh, having, having seen what happened on January the 6th, um, of, uh, of last year, it's obviously not, uh, completely impossible.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel19:47

       (laughs) Um, okay, going back to Iraq and Afghanistan, how much have those conflicts, those counterinsurg- insurgency operations prepared the American military for war with a peer competitor, like China?

   13. ARAndrew Roberts19:59

       Um, a, a great deal obviously. Um, but that's, that's true of most wars. It's interesting. Of course, China hasn't actually fought a major, um, war for a very long time, really, and, um, since the 1960s against India. So actual practice is an incredibly useful thing. If Ukraine were ever to be allowed into NATO, for example, we'd have 900,000, um, troops on the southern border of, um, of NATO. It would be a, uh, huge addition. So actually having troops that have fought, um, is a, uh, it's there's no amount of training that is the same as, uh, as actual war fighting. Um, what you mentioned earlier, actually, I was just thinking about, um, that, that good question you asked about, um, nuclear bombs. Of course, what we're seeing today in Gaza is a, uh, classic example of limited war in that, um, however vicious and ghastly and, and painful and bloody it's going to be, um, it is the story of a, um, of a group fighting against the country which has got the nuclear bomb alone of all the countries in the, uh, region and, um, is, uh, on moral grounds, not prepared even to threaten the, the use of it. Um, so in that sense, um, the Netanyahu government has, uh, a... I- it's not doing what Lavrov and, um, Putin are doing by, by saber-rattling the, um, the nuclear option, which does exist. You know? I mean, so much of what is happening is as a result of, um, Tehran, uh, wanting it to happen, and, uh, Tehran doesn't have the bomb and Israel does, and yet Israel is not threatening, um, Tehran.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel21:48

       Yeah. And, and that's a really interesting point. I mean, eh, as early as, like, 1973, you could have had i- uh, Israel, uh, you know, nuke the Egyptian beachheads. Um, it, it was a war of self-defense. It was like, you know, you, you either you die if you don't use it or you, if you lose the war.

   15. ARAndrew Roberts22:04

       Exactly. '73 was an existential war in the way that this one at the moment isn't. Now obviously we don't know what's going to happen within Israel, with the West Bank, with Hezbollah, uh, with the Iranians and, uh, Syrians. It's not impossible that this could turn into a existential war for, um, for Israel. But, um, but the possession of the nuclear bomb hasn't, you know, done Israel any favors. Equally, it hasn't weakened it, Israel, either.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel22:32

       Is, uh, is deterrence dead? So speaking of Israel, you know, Iran funded these Hamas terrorists to conduct this attack, and w- as far as I know, there's no serious repercussions on Iran itself for doing this or funding Hezbollah, of course. Is deterrence as a doctrine... Is,

4. 22:49 – 27:15

   Taiwan

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel22:49

      is that dead?

   2. ARAndrew Roberts22:49

      No, um, 'cause it's working very well in Southeast Asia, in, uh, Taiwan. Um, it is only dead amongst people who are so irrational and illogical that they don't, uh, they don't, um, mind essentially being extirpated in the way that, uh, the Israelis might soon be trying to extirpate Hamas. So if you, if you sort of don't care, if you believe that, um, God has, has given you the, uh, right and duty to kill Jews, then you're not going to be deterred in the same way that a much more rational and logical, um, actor such as Xi Jinping, um, is. Where he wakes up every morning and thinks, "Right, should I be invading, um, Taiwan?" And he recognizes, looks to the world situation, to the s- might of America, um, in the South China Seas and looks to all his neighbors, all but North Korea of which hate and fear him, and, um, recognizes that today is not the day to do it, and that is, that is what d- deterrence is. It's incredibly expensive, of course, deterrence, but it's immensely cheap at the same time compared to the alternative, which is war.

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel23:59

      So yeah, this is one of the points you make in the book is that deterrence, money spent on deterrence is seldom wasted. But deterrence also has to be credible. Now regardless, uh, separate from the question of whether America would actually intervene if China invaded Taiwan, is it rational for the Chinese to believe that America would in- uh, intervene on behalf of a island with 20 million people, have a kinetic war with China over an island off the coast of China?... does, does that make sense? Like, is that deterrence credible for Chinese?

   4. ARAndrew Roberts24:30

      It is. It certainly is, because, um, there is what's been called strategic ambiguity in the American stance, and that is something that no rational actor wants to have to deal with. Um, a, uh, an America which could be sucked into a major war, an America that could... that would have a, um... maybe act irrationally, (laughs) um, over, over, uh, Taiwan, or which one... which, um, as you can see with the AUKUS, uh, Treaty, has got, um, ambitions to stand up to China, um, and feels that it needs to carry them out. The public, um, statements are obviously not intended deliberately to provoke China, but they're, uh, they're pretty, um, straightforward in, um, in being ambiguous (laughs) enough that China doesn't want to take the risk. Whilst, obviously, um, the United States, uh, military budget is so enormous, so vast, um, it's ga- it's capable of, of, um, deterring China. If it was to, uh, to send the wrong messages, taking ships away and so on, then, um, it, uh, it might not. Look at what America's done in Ukraine, and, um, Xi recognizes that it's led a coalition which has, um, has fought very hard and so far hasn't lost, and so, uh, without a single American serviceman being involved. Were American servicemen involved, which they would be in a, uh, Taiwan confrontation, the, um, American president would be much, much more likely to, uh, go all in.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel26:14

      Yeah. Although for... i- i- if, for example, China blockades Taiwan and puts the onus on America to launch the kinetic war to break through the blockade, I, I, I wonder if then, put in those terms, an American president would not intervene and... or at least the Chinese wouldn't expect an American president to s- launch the kinetic war to break the blockade.

   6. ARAndrew Roberts26:33

      Well, they've obviously, um, war-gamed this a million times in the, uh, Pentagon, and, um, and I think that, um, your, your remark about, um, 20 million people is obviously an apposite one. But do let... also remember that, um, Taiwan has 80% of the, um, semiconductor industry, or at least the high-level semiconductor industry. There w-... lots of good things are being done to, uh, mitigate that, uh, against that now, but nonetheless, it would be catastrophic for, um, China to be able to snaffle all of that in a, uh, single coup de main, and, um, obviously, uh, the Biden administration knows that.

5. 27:15 – 35:11

   Churchill

   1. ARAndrew Roberts27:15

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel27:15

      Uh, before we return to conflict, I do want to ask you some questions about, um, uh, Churchill and World War II. And in fact, uh, this is actually a good jumping-off point because, you know, speaking of rational leaders, I, I'm struck when reading your biography of Churchill of, uh, how much of his thinking is more emotive, le- less probabilistic, much more principled. And wh- when I try to back test how I would have reacted given my mindset to World War II if I was in Britain, I have to admit I like to think in terms of probabilities and expected value. I would have said, “You know, what's the expected value of, uh, fighting Germany in 1938 over Czechoslovakia? What's the... uh, what would happen if you just didn't?” Uh, it looks like probably- uh, it probably might just be best to, uh, run our odds with appeasement. And I wonder if this is just a one-off case or do you think in general that illustrates a weakness in the more, uh, sort of probabilistic way of thinking about geopolitics compared to Churchill's more emotional, oratorial, principled way?

   3. ARAndrew Roberts28:12

      I don't really agree with you. I think with the... with the premise because I think that Churchill, yes, he was emotional and, uh, and principled, but also he recognized that the advance that the Germans, um, uh, made between the, uh, Sudeten crisis, uh, which ended in Munich in, uh, September 1938 and the outbreak of war a year later in September th- 1939 was so huge, especially in, uh, in their creation of, um, of bombers and, uh, and tanks and, and, uh, so on. Um, and also it was helped so much by taking the Skoda factories of the Czechs, um, from Czechoslovakia and churning out, uh, tanks for Germany, that it was a rational thing to have tried to stop Germany, um, invading Czechoslovakia. So w- what Churchill was doing, yes, he was emotional and, and, and a great rhetorician and so on, but he was also making a very, very hard-nosed decision, uh, with regard to balance of power, recognizing that, in fact, Germany was in a much stronger position a year later than it had been at the time of Munich.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel29:27

      Now, uh, it- it's remarkable to what extent Churchill had read, and not only read but written, a tremendous amount of history. And I'm curious how concretely that history informed his decision-making as a leader Was it at the level of tactics and geography where you see how old battles in the same places are fought? Was it a level of grand strategy? Was it at the understanding of human nature? Wh- wh- what level did that understanding of history help him?

   5. ARAndrew Roberts29:52

      All of those and more. All of those and more. I... one of the reasons I'm proud to be an historian is that Churchill was one.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel29:58

      (laughs)

   7. ARAndrew Roberts29:58

      And he used his... he used... uh, he was... I mean, primarily that was his job, you know, in the, uh, in the 1930s when he was out of office was to write history books.And, uh, the one of his great ancestor, um, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, is a, um, it’s almost like an autobiography of (laughs) the second World War, when he’s actually writing about his own ancestor, um, 200 years beforehand. But it is extraordinary how many things to do with, um, with tactics, and, uh, and strategy of course, but also with how to deal with allies and how to deal with domestic political opinion and so on. All of these, um, things are gone into, and then only five years after the, um, publication of that book, he is prime minister and fighting a world war himself. History was a constant, um, echo for him, it gave him endless signposts. It’s mentioned in some 10% of his speeches in the second World War. He, he… Uh, 10% of those speeches do have, um, references to history. He was basically telling the British people that, uh, “Look back at the Spanish Armada, look back at, uh, Napoleonic Wars. We have been in this dangerous situation before. The country has seen great perils before, Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada, for example. And, um, and we’ve come through them and been victorious.” So yes, he, he recognized the sort of political power of, um, historical analogy and, uh, and he bent it to his, to his overall- overarching theme that we have to stand up to the Nazis.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel31:39

      A- a- actually, so speaking of this, I think if, if we think of Churchill as an applied historian, um, this isn’t a question I was planning on asking you, but, you know, you are in the House of Lords, you’ve written about these, uh, I guess, uh, basically everything that’s happened in the last few centuries across your 20 books. (laughs) Um, would you ever consider getting more involved with politics?

   9. ARAndrew Roberts31:57

      Well, I’m a politician. I mean, (laughs) I- I go to the House of Lords from Monday, uh, to Wednesday, lunchtime to dinner par- uh, dinnertime. I, um, go and vote in the divisions, you know. And, uh, no, uh, other than, other than… I can’t see how much more involved in politics I can be than speaking and voting (laughs) in, in one of the parliaments of our- chambers of our parliament. (laughs) If you want to refine that slightly, do, uh, talk is. (laughs)

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel32:26

       Yeah. Uh, let- let me restate the question. Would you, uh, consider r- running for, uh, aspiring towards a leadership position in the UK, uh, g- given how successful past historians have been at- at that endeavor?

   11. ARAndrew Roberts32:39

       Um, well, I… We- we’ve just mentioned one past historian who’s been successful. I can assure you that there (laughs) are an awful number-

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel32:45

       (laughs)

   13. ARAndrew Roberts32:46

       … of other ones who haven’t. No, I, uh, I’m- I’m very happy with the extent that I, uh, involve myself in, in politics in the UK. I- I’ve got to get back down to writing history books, frankly, is the, uh, is the, um, reason I was, I was being put on Earth really.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel33:03

       Now, uh, tying back Churchill and your, your most recent book. The- there’s this interesting thing where wartime leaders, uh, very successful wartime leaders, are kicked out of office (laughs) after they, they win their wars. Churchill in 1945, uh, de Gaulle resigns in ’46, he led the, the French against the Nazis. And then more recently in the, uh, which you discuss in your book, you know, George H.W. Bush, uh, possibly has the most successful foreign policy since World War II. Uh, the unification of Germany, the fall of the Soviet Bloc without a single shot being fired, a- and many others, but-

   15. ARAndrew Roberts33:35

       Uh, David Lloyd George is the other, um, classic example, of course. You know, David Lloyd George led us to victory in the First World War, he was- he was out by 1922.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel33:44

       So what- what is this? Why- why- why are we- why are we in democratic countries, uh, keen to kick out the people who win us these, uh, these wars and foreign policy wins?

   17. ARAndrew Roberts33:51

       Because we recognize that the skills you need in peace are completely different from the ones you need in war. And, um, what the Labor Party was offering in 1945, uh, for example, this sort of new Jerusalem of, um, of socialism and the welfare state, and nationalizing the Bank of England and, uh, free stuff, essentially, um, National Health Service, um, was, um, going to be given by Clement Attlee. But, um, although much of that actually was going to be done by Winston Churchill as well, they recognized that the Conservatives didn't have their heart in it in the same way that the Socialists did. So it’s completely rational, isn’t it, for in a democratic country to go for, when you’ve got a choice of leaders, to go for the one who’s going to, um, lead you through the peace, eh, however well the person who led you through the war, um, did.

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel34:44

       Although those particular exam- uh, that particular example of, uh, of socialism in Britain doesn’t seem like the- the rational choice for the British population to have made.

   19. ARAndrew Roberts34:51

       Well, it did after six years of grueling warfare, where people wanted, um, to have a- a sort of more healthy and better life, and they assumed that socialism was going to be able to do that, uh, for them. It took us th- half a century before we grew out of that particular, uh, miasma.

6. 35:11 – 39:05

   Gaza & future wars

   1. ARAndrew Roberts35:11

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel35:11

      Now let’s talk about future wars, which is, um, something interesting that you and, uh, General Petraeus survey in your most recent book. You mention that the diff- uh, the balance of power has shifted more towards defense than offense, uh, recently. Wh- why- why is that?

   3. ARAndrew Roberts35:27

      And we’re seeing that, aren’t we? Or we will be about to see that, I fear, in, uh, Gaza. Um, that, uh, in- in Napoleonic times, it was one in three, you needed three attackers for every defender. In the, uh… That probably stays true until the second World War. But, um, frankly with, uh… I mean, taking Gaza as a- as a indication, you know, with IEDs, uh, with booby traps, with, um, certainly with all these tunnels, and with, uh, the capacity for ambush, it’s, uh… And for, uh, for sniper fire as well, which has, uh, has come on leap- leaps and bounds since the old days of Stalingrad.... you need, uh, you need more than, certainly more than three to, uh, to one in offense. It's a, um, it's, uh, um, an interesting fact, you know, that, uh, that when Clausewitz was, uh, was writing, three to one was a, was a perfectly, uh, reasonable, uh, ratio, but I think that's gone, um, gone to the birds now.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel36:32

      Oh, interesting. Uh, this just re-empted, and I guess answered a question I was about to ask you, which is, it was, it's remarkable to me that a three-to-one ratio, which Clausewitz first came up with, has, uh, stayed consistent for... Uh, I would, I, I guess the answer is that it hasn't, but I was about to ask, well, it's weird that for hundreds of years with all these new technologies, that th- that, that ratio is still the one that people use, uh, that technicians still use.

   5. ARAndrew Roberts36:53

      Yes, well, they, that is to say, they did until, until sort of well into our lifetimes, but they'd be mad to, uh, today, because, um, because that has altered, especially, of course, in, um, built-up areas, in the, in the kind of, um, situation which one gets in, um, in Gaza with lots of, um, high-rise buildings, fewer now (laughs) than there were, um, than, to be frank, but, uh, um, lots of, um, of built-up areas. Uh, you can look at, for example, um, the Battle of Monte Cassino where, because the Allies flattened the, um, the whole, uh, the, the monastery, um, actually, the rubble was more easy for the Germans to defend with, um, machine gun nests and, and so on than if the actual, uh, building had been left standing. So there is an argument, actually, that you do better if you don't, um, blast the, uh, blast the buildings and as you saw also in Mariupol, which you mentioned earlier. And, um, and then there's, of course, Stalingrad, where they fight something called Ratskrieg, which is essentially rat's war, because people are, uh, are fighting down in the cellars, um, you know, it's hand-to-hand stuff, it's extremely vicious, where every building, every room, um, has to be fought, sometimes down with, with bayonets. So, um, this kind of fighting, which, of course, is heavily, heavily, uh, full of, um, high casualty rates, might well be the one that we're about to, um, to see the IDF, um, enter in Gaza.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel38:30

      That's a scary comparison, th- that Gaza become Stalingrad. I, I, I didn't think of it that way, but that's wow. (laughs)

   7. ARAndrew Roberts38:36

      In my, um, in my, um, house in, um, in London, I have an actual copy of one of Winston Churchill's speeches with his handwritten annotations, and one of the sentences, um, is that London, fought street by street, could engulf and devour an entire hostile army. And, um, one hopes that doesn't happen, obviously, to the, um, IDF, but, uh, you know, that's the, that's the reality of, um, house-to-house fighting.

7. 39:05 – 48:00

   Could Hitler have won WW2?

   1. ARAndrew Roberts39:05

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel39:05

      Uh, actually, while we're on the subject, I, I have a few other questions on World War II that I wanna ask you before we return to future wars. You know, you have this really interesting book, I, I think probably my favorite book about World War II, uh, The Storms of War, which I highly recommend, and in it, you, um, in it, you make the claim, (laughs) uh, you make the claim that w- were it not for the ideologically-inspired blunders of Hitler and the Nazis, that they could've won World War II, and then you detail a lot of the mistakes they made. But when we step back and look at, after America joins the war, the overwhelming out- industrial output of America, even if they didn't make these mistakes, is there really any chance that, uh, you know, you have such a, a country that has, like, 2X the GNP and is outproducing the rest of the world combined in ships and planes, that you could've really stood up to that?

   3. ARAndrew Roberts39:53

      Well, why did Hitler, um, declare war against America? That there wouldn't have been a war if he hadn't declared war against America. You'd have fought a war against the country that, um, attacked you, Japan, and so, um, and the reason is, uh, because, uh, he was a Nazi, because he believed that, uh, Jews and Blacks dominated the, um, American decision-making process, which, by the way, is completely absurd when one looks at the Roosevelt administration, (laughs) um, it had, it had very, very few Jews or Blacks, um, but nonetheless, the, uh, the Nazis didn't sort of, um, uh, do their, their factual, um, accuracy. It wasn't, it wasn't always their highest, uh, um, attribute. And, um, they also thought that Americans, uh, were cowards and wouldn't be able to fight very well, which is extraordinary considering that, uh, the Americans had fought very well indeed in the First World War. They, um... Adolf Hitler told Molotov when they were in a, um, in a bunker in 1940 in Berlin that the Americans wouldn't be, if the Americans did come into the war, they wouldn't be able to actually, um, put any troops into, um, the western theater until the year 1970. (laughs) And as it was, needless to say, by November 1942, you had a quarter of a million GIs storming ashore in North Africa. Um, so, so this, uh, this sense of ideology, you'll see it also, of course, six months earlier, in the June of 1941, where, um, Hitler, uh, invades Russia in the belief that the Slavic people can't stand up to the, to the great, um, German Aryan, uh, master race, and is, he, as Goebbels said to him, "We'll kick in the door, and the whole rotten edifice will come crashing down," talking about the Bolshevik state, but, um, but that's not what happened, of course. And, uh, and the Russians fighting on their own territory, i.e., when they're not fighting an adventure, a foreign adventure like in Poland or in, um, Finland or now in Ukraine, are actually very good, um, soldiers. So, uh, he got that wrong. Again and again, um, Hitler put his Nazi ideology before the strategic best interests of the, um, of the German Reich.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel42:16

      Yeah, it was fascinating to read the different mistakes that Hitler made. Um, obviously from liquidating six million of his most productive, intelligent, and well-educated, uh, people, um, to the timing of Operation Barbarossa, or launching it in the first place, um, to the timing of launching World War II in the first place. But y- even if he hadn't declared war on America, the, uh, the Lend-Lease aid, on whose basis the Soviets were able to drive back, uh, the Germans would still have continued. Uh, and that was, of course, a meat grinder where the overwhelming majority of German troops died. Uh, y- so, you know, I- I guess you could say, well, then- then he wouldn't have done Operation Barbarossa at all, uh, but then are- are we still talking about the same war?

   5. ARAndrew Roberts42:57

      He would've invaded, uh, Russia and be caught on, in this enormous, uh, war. And, uh, but if he hadn't declared war on the United States, it's very difficult to work out how Roosevelt would've been able to have declared war on him, especially if you're fighting a full-scale war against, uh, Japan, which by that stage had, uh, by early 1942, covered one-eighth of the, um, world's surface. It's a, it's a, it's a huge undertaking. Um, but by, by the calendar year 19... You're absolutely right about the might of American production. By the calendar year 1944, when the British produced 28,000 war planes, the Russians and the Germans both produced 40,000 each. The United States produced 98,000 war planes. It's almost as much as the whole of the rest of the world put together, you know? They were m- building Liberty ships at the rate of one a week. It was just a truly extraordinary, um, uh, thing, uh, in terms of just sheer production. So, of course, that was going to give them the, um, the final say over who commanded at D-Day, you know, when D-Day would happen, um, and, uh, what would happen once they landed, um, in, uh, in France. Uh, but it also had huge implications for, um, for everything else really in the Second World War as well. And you're also completely right to say for every five Germans killed in conflict, I- by, I don't mean bombed from the air, I mean killed on a battlefield, four of them died on the eastern front.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel44:27

      Now, um, uh, given how misled Hitler was by Nazi ideology, why weren't the Soviets as misled by Communist ideology in the waging of World War II?

   7. ARAndrew Roberts44:37

      Because, um, Communist ideology hadn't, uh, affected actual, um, politburo, the way in which the politburo worked under Stalin. Um, there was no sort of dictatorship of the- (laughs) of the proletariat or, uh, or anything, uh, like that, uh, let alone any equality. Um, he- he was a, obviously a totalitarian dictator, but what he did learn was, um, that the Hitlerian way of fighting the war, um, was not the most productive one. So, what you get after Operation Barbarossa in which, after which he had some kind of a mini mental breakdown in the immediate hours that he learned about it, how the one man he trusted in politics, Adolf Hitler, betrayed him. For a paranoiac, you know, that's a, that's a difficult, uh, moment (laughs) uh, for- to take. But then what he does is to start to lean on those, um, marshals such as Konev and- and, uh, Zhukov and Rokossovsky and others, and, um, and gives them a lot more power than they ever had before and listens to them and takes their advice and actually, um, has a- a much more kind of Western view. Um, Western, the relationship between Churchill, Roosevelt, um, Alan Brooke and George Marshall, which I write about in my book Masters and Commanders, um, is a, uh, is a- a- a big sort of give-and-take, um, uh, much more sort of democratic and Western way of, um, of coming to military decisions, and that's the one that Stalin adopts, and quite rightly. And completely contrasted from what's going on in the Wolfsschanze, 18 miles behind the- uh, 1,800 miles behind the German front, which is, uh, actually the- the Führer listening, sometimes for hours to his generals, most of whom know strategy far better than he because, uh, they actually went to staff colleges and, um, they fought, of course, as officers in the First World War rather than just as a corporal. And, um, men like, uh, Rundstedt and, uh, Guderian and Manstein and so on, these, uh, these people would be listened to by, um, by Hitler, and then right at the end of the meeting, um, Hitler would sum up and, uh, and say that they were gonna do exactly what he'd originally said right at the beginning of the meeting (laughs) . And we have the- we have, um, the- every word said by everybody at the Führer, uh, conferences because the stenographers, you know, took down every word that was said, and it's very clear that they would go into tremendous detail, um, but ultimately the- the Führer was the, um, his way was the way that, um, the Wehrmacht went.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel47:33

      Th- this is actually interesting and this is one of the points you discuss in Conflict about, you- you talk about the different ways in which democracies versus dictatorships are able to execute wars and World War II is obviously the- the perfect example to evaluate this.

   9. ARAndrew Roberts47:47

      Well, except for the Soviet Union was not a democracy, of course (laughs) , and it was on the winning side, you know? There- there is that go- sort of glaring, uh, glaring glitch in the argument (laughs) .

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel47:57

       Right, right, right. Uh, fair enough. Um, but, so

8. 48:00 – 59:33

   Surprise attacks

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel48:00

      you know, you have the Allied, um, the- the Western democracies have this strategy by committee. I think you described it in the- in Storms of War and, um, that- that obviously means that, you know, something as stupid as Operation Barbarossa never happens. You have to come to consensus between all these, uh, leaders. Um, at the same time, in your Napoleon biography, uh, you have this singular genius who was able to execute these moves that even his advisors, uh, and- and of- often are like, "Well, you shouldn't do that." I guess in the case of Russia, they were right, but yeah, so th- this, um...Uh, g- m- maybe just you can talk generally about the, the merits of strategy by consensus versus strategy by a singular, uh, mind.

   2. ARAndrew Roberts48:41

      Yes. Uh, actually, the interesting thing about Napoleon in 1812 is that he wasn't warned by his, uh, generals that it was a big mistake. What he... And this was partly because he and they thought that this was going to be a three-week campaign, and it was only going to go about 50 miles into Russian territory, uh, before the Russians capitulated or came to a big battle and were defeated. And he had absolutely no plans at all to go all the way to Moscow, uh, in 1812. That would have, um, that would have seemed, as he was crossing the, uh, Neva River, as, um, a complete absurdity. But he was drawn in, more and more into the Russian, uh, heartland, until, until finally, um, they gave, um, battle in September 1812 at, uh, Borodino. And, um, and then he, he went on and, and took Moscow. But he left enough time to get back from, uh, Moscow to, um, uh, Smolensk. Um, it was, uh, i- in fact, more time than he had taken to get from Smolensk to, to Moscow. There are other reasons which I go into in the book, um, about why the retreat from Moscow turned into the catastrophe it did, but it wasn't actually primarily the, um, the weather at the beginning at least. So, um, so yes, Napoleon is the classic example of the single mind, uh, strategic, uh, leader who, um, like, you know, Alexander the Great or, or Julius Caesar, has the, um, has the whole centrality of the, um, of the campaign in his head essentially. But of course, he does lose (laughs) and, uh, and after 1812, you have the, um, the various coalitions of 1813 and 1814, which forced him to abdicate. Then he comes back, of course, in the Hundred Days and loses there as well. So, um, that is, um, by, um, uh, in, in contrast to the much more collegiate way that, uh, Wellington and Schwarzenberg and Blücher and so on interacted with, uh, with one another. But yes, your, your, your overall thesis, I think, is, um, is, is absolutely right about democracies being better at fighting wars. But dictatorships, of course, and totalitarian, uh, ones are authoritarian as well, are much better at starting wars because they do have the element of surprise very often. One looks at the Yom Kippur War, of course. You look at 9/11, at, uh, Pearl Harbor, Barbarossa that you mentioned earlier, the Falklands, the, um, attack on, um, on Kuwait by Saddam. You know, there's (laughs) there's a great line of-

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel51:26

      The Chinese sneaking into Korea.

   4. ARAndrew Roberts51:29

      It's not... The, the, the Chinese crossing the Yalu, absolutely, uh, Yalu River, 160,000 of them in the, at the dead of night. I mean, it's the most extraordinary surprise attack. And there's that wonderful line of Paul Wolfowitz's who, uh, when he said that, um, "Surprise, uh, attacks take place so often in, uh, history that the only surprising thing is that we're still surprised by them." Um, and, uh, and, and that is right. Um, democracies can do surprise attacks. Obviously, the, the major exception to that rule is when, um, is when Israel did successfully carry out the, uh, Six-Day War surprise attack at the beginning of that, um, of that conflict. But otherwise, democracies tend not to. And by the way, it's a good thing not to, because what it does do is light a fire under the, uh, country that's been surprised, classic examples was of course being Pearl Harbor, and makes them feel outraged and, and, uh, uh, and angry. And as a result, they, um, uh, they tend to extract, uh, revenge. And by the way, Hamas, what Hamas di- uh, did on the 7th of October is a classic example of that. Of course, that's a surprise attack, which was, uh, by its own lights immensely successful, but which, uh, will have, um, have lit a fire under Israel that, um, is going to, uh, is gonna be very dangerous for Hamas.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel52:54

      This is actually an excellent opportunity to ask you about, uh, bring us back to the future of war, which you discuss in your newest book, Conflict. Uh, the question I have is, given... You discuss in the book, um, we have, you know, the satellite reconnaissance and drones and all this cyber espionage. Given how clearly we can see the world now, these new technologies, are large-scale surprise attacks a- ever going to be possible again?

   6. ARAndrew Roberts53:19

      That's a very good question. I, I'm, I'm tempted to say no because you're quite right. Uh, thing... Everything can be spotted on the, um, on the battlefield today. Obviously, the Hamas surprise attack, uh, was a much, much smaller scale than a, a complete, um, you know, nation-on-nation kind of attack like Barbarossa or, uh, Pearl Harbor. But nonetheless, um, it is much more difficult to hide, hide troops, um, today than it, um, ever has been in the past. That doesn't change, of course, the psychology of what happens when you are surprised in the way that, uh, Israel was. But, um, yeah, the... We've... In the 10th chapter, the last chapter of our book, we call it, uh, The Future of War. We look at, uh, areas like cyber and space, but also sensors, uh, AI, robotics, and drones, of course. You know, in the future, the, uh, war will be fought between two sets of drones, and the humans won't be in the loop. They'll be on the loop, they'll have written the algorithms, but of course... But they won't be, um, uh, in the loop because decision-making has to take place far, far faster than the human mind can work. When... Uh, if, if a human is, um, is involved and at the controls of, uh, weaponry of the future, then he'll lose.... it has to be fought between, um, two sets of machines. And, of course, that has great advantages in terms of speed, but also, um, machines have no conscience, they don't feel fear or cowardice, they don't feel remorse or regret or pity. Um, it's going to be a much more, um, dangerous world in that sense.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel55:05

      Yeah. W- and that has all kinds of interesting implications, you, from the technical, which you discuss in the book, that the electromagnetic spectrum will be under much greater contention because then you can jam the electronics and the communications between these devices, to the strategic, I mean, you have these examples, I give- uh, famously, like, let's say in the 1980s when the stock market crashes because, uh, an algorithm malfunctions, if that leads to a world war, the- whatever that was, the equivalent of that lead to a world war. So, what, you discuss in your Ukraine chapter that, you know, tech entrepreneurs are now having a- a much bigger impact on the- uh, on the waging of war, where obviously you have Elon Musk providing Starlink services to Ukraine and notably refusing to provide, uh, the service, uh, to help with the surprise attack, the naval surprise attack that- um, uh- Ukraine was planning on launching in Crimea. Now, how will the ability of tech entrepreneurs to dictate where and how they will get involved in the- um, in lending their technology to governments, how will that play into the future strategy? Will they be a force for peace or will they b- not be a force at all because if the government really wants your technology, in the end they can just expropriate it?

   8. ARAndrew Roberts56:24

      Um, I don't think they'll- they'll do that except for in times of, um, extreme stress but- uh, and crisis. But, um, no actually, there's a- there's a very wide and I think overall very positive, um, area that- uh, that tech entrepreneurs can play here. Um, and, uh, Starlink, yes, it's true that Mr. Musk did, um, refuse to help one attack in Crimea, but overall Starlink has been, uh, invaluable in this- uh, in this war. I mean, in a way it is the first proper internet war. You know, people with iPhones on the battlefield can upload, um, both images and- uh, and obviously also, uh, map references which can prove extremely useful to- um, drones and- uh, and artillery. And this is one of the reasons that Kiev didn't fall in the opening, um, parts of the- of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Um, because the- uh, because, um, Ukrainian artillery was being given- um, uh, the accurate information on all sorts of open intelligence- um, open sources. It's- uh, it- it was a new kind of warfare, uh, which the Russians took a very long time to, uh, catch up with. And of course because they didn't have their own, um, people on the ground, whereas Ukraine, uh, did, the native population was 100% opposed to- um, uh, the Russian invasion in every a- area apart from four Donbas oblasts. You essentially had, um, just a, um, you know, multitude of information sources that were proving to be incredibly useful. So- so that's one aspect of- um, of the modernity. The next one obviously is drones, and- uh, and the use they've been put to, um, by the Ukrainians. But- um, the- the sort of innovative, uh, stance of the Ukrainians has been really extraordinarily impressive. And when- um, tech, uh, people all across the world, not just obviously in the United States, um, came out very actively in support of Ukraine, it really did, uh, move the dial. And so I think with companies like Palantir and others that are- um, are really making huge advances, it's- and the cutting edge still being with the- um, uh, with the West in terms of- uh, uh, tech entrepreneurial ability. Um, this is a good thing for the West, and- um, that some individuals are going to be pretty much, like Mr. Musk is, the- um, the most important private individuals, I would say, to actually affect warfare since- um, Thyssen and Krupp, uh, back in- um, before the First World War. So it really is- uh, a- a new world, but it's not- not a, you know, bad new world. It could actually be an extremely good new world for- for the West and for democracy.

9. 59:33 – 1:14:06

   Napoleon and startup founders

   1. ARAndrew Roberts59:33

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel59:33

      Yep. Um, speaking of tech entrepreneurs, a- and their personalities, uh, let's discuss your biography of Napoleon. So I'm not aware if you're aware of this, but living in San Francisco, there is- um, in the startup community, there is a cult of Napoleon that- that has slowly emerged.

   3. ARAndrew Roberts59:52

      Is there? I didn't know that. Seriously? Is there?

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel59:54

      Your biography is- uh, is the part of the canon here.

   5. ARAndrew Roberts59:59

      (laughs)

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel1:00:00

      (laughs) Uh, w- so in- in the person of Napoleon, I think s- startup founders see the- the most- the best aspects of themselves resemble, you have somebody who is a young upstart, just stupendously energetic and competent, much more efficient than the- the bureaucracies and old systems around him, a reformer, uh, tremendously intellectually curious, an autodidact, y- you can just go down the list. What is your reaction? (laughs)

   7. ARAndrew Roberts1:00:25

      I love that. I love that. That's exactly what- uh, yeah, absolutely. It was- uh, he was totally fascinated by every new thing. Um, he flung himself into- uh, into, you know, ideas for- um, balloons and- uh, submarines, and anything that could- um, be useful for agricultural- um, development. He was fascinated by trying to build bridges faster and better and- and cheaper. Uh, he was a- um, he was a real go-getter when it came to-... giving prizes for new chemical, um, components and so on. This was, uh, this was somebody who created the Legion d'Honneur not just for soldiers, but very much for inventors and, and entrepreneurs, and people like that, who he felt were going to help France, um, outstrip Britain essentially, uh, which had a head start on France in the Industrial Revolution. So it was, um, so there was a very strong sort of national, nationalist, um, reasoning behind, uh, his embrace of, uh, of science. But, you know, he got, he was made a, um, a fellow of the, uh, of the French Academy on the basis of his genuine interest, not just because he was, um, the first Consul of, of France. And he used to attend all their meetings, you know? And this was, uh, an extraordinary thing. If there was going to be a meeting on, I don't know, electricity, um, sitting in the front there would be the first Consul, um, uh, taking notes. So I can understand why, uh, why young tech, uh, um, entrepreneurs might, might like Napoleon, and I'm thrilled that my book might be helping with that.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel1:02:09

      Yeah. No, I, I think you'd be surprised, uh, to the, the extent of it.

   9. ARAndrew Roberts1:02:12

      The, uh, it also, it's true that megalomaniacs also love Napoleon. Um, so-

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel1:02:18

       (laughs)

   11. ARAndrew Roberts1:02:18

       ... I'm not saying that there is a massive, um, you know, Venn diagram shaded area between tech entrepreneurs and megalomaniacs, but, uh, it doesn't necessarily, you know, you're... Liking Napoleon doesn't necessarily mean that you're, uh, um, gonna be a great tech entrepreneur, should we say. (laughs)

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel1:02:35

       Mm. O- o- on the point of being a, a futurist, it's really remarkable, in your Churchill biography you discuss the ways in which he for- saw the, um, the influence of tanks and planes and even nuclear energy far before, uh, many others.

   13. ARAndrew Roberts1:02:50

       His best friend was the Oxford, um, professor for physics, uh, Professor Lindemann, and later Lord Cherwell. He was a, um, uh, uh... I mean, when it comes to the people that he had around him, he loved, um, having scientists around him. He said that scientists should be, um, uh, on tap but not on top.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel1:03:12

       (laughs)

   15. ARAndrew Roberts1:03:12

       Uh, so he did recognize that, you know, he didn't want to have a sort of, uh, world run by scientists, but he definitely wanted to know what they were thinking. And as early as the 19, mid-1920s, uh, so a good, uh, 20 years before the, um, atom bomb, he talked about how an entire city could be destroyed by a, by a nuclear bomb the size of an orange. And, you know, that was very advanced stuff, frankly. Um, he, uh, he of course was fascinated by the use of radar in the Second World War, especially at the very beginning of the Second World War, how one could bend the German rays to mean that their bombers were sent off target and, and didn't fly over British cities. He wanted to get into the real nitty-gritty of all of that. And of course, the, um, the ultimate, um, sort of mathematical genius machine, um, the, um, the Enigma, um, the Ultra machine that, that broke the, uh, Enigma code. So, um, so in everything to do with that, uh, he was also really interested in sort of learning and understanding the reasoning behind what was going on. Uh, it's, um, it's a... I mean, 'cause it's very easy to think of Churchill as a bit of a reactionary figure, this sort of tubby Tory, uh, with his cigars and his brandy and wanting to hang onto India and all of these sort of, um, very much sort of set in the past kind of attitudes and, uh, attributes. But really, uh, he was somebody who was obsessed with the future.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel1:04:48

       Uh, but on the point of, uh, Napoleon, it's, it, you know, it's interesting the, the way you describe the way he would micromanage every aspect of the empire, uh, and obviously his energy and efficiency, it's, it reads honestly like an Elon Musk biography where, you know, Elon is micromanaging the engines on his Raptors, at the same time running these five other companies. Uh, I, I wonder what you think a person like Napoleon does today? If, if it, the, that, that, that same set of genes is born today, does he become an Elon Musk, or does he do something else different?

   17. ARAndrew Roberts1:05:16

       No, that's exactly what he... Uh, of course he does. Absolutely. He c- he goes to Silicon Valley and sets up his own company, and, uh, makes a billion out of, um, uh, finding something useful to (laughs) uh, to advance mankind with. That's exactly what Napoleon does today. And, uh, and by the way, um, if he has anything like the same, uh, acquisitive techniques, he probably, um, buys up lots of other, um, companies around him in the way that Napoleon invaded country after country. But when he did invade those countries, what he would do, for example, in, in Italy after the Italian campaign, uh, and he entered, uh, Milan, the first thing he did was to get together the, um, Milanese intellectuals, the writers, the scientists, the chemists, and so on. Uh, he was very interested in astronomy and, uh, um, and so on, and would, um, and would talk to them about, about their thing. So you had an intellectual as leader, which frankly, the Bourbons for the last thousand years of French (laughs) history, it's very difficult to think of, of more than one or two genuine intellectuals, um, uh, as ruler. And so one can understand why he became popular amongst the, uh, uh, amongst the middle class and the intellectuals themselves. And he would also, one of the other things he would do was to go into... Every town he went into, he would go into the ghetto and free the Jews and give them, uh, civil and religious rights and so on. Uh, and I think that was tremendously forward-thinking for that day and age as well, and a very attractive feature about him.

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel1:06:56

       You know, o- obviously the biography of Napoleon, um, must end tragically, and I notice this about many other biographies of great people I read.... is often what makes them great in the first place, is they keep making these double or nothing gambles that, you know, catapult them to, to the top, and then, of course, at some point, your luck runs out. Uh, uh, that's obviously an oversimplification in the, in every single case, but I wonder if this is also a pattern you notice in the lives of great figures. I, I, you could say for Elon, the, the having his reputation and fortune wasted away at the altar of Twitter could be an example of one such thing, but what, w- what is your reaction to that?

   19. ARAndrew Roberts1:07:33

       Yes, of course, um, hubris is the occupational hazard of, um, of hugely successful people, needless to say. I mean, it's probably also the occupational hazard of lots of other people, but we just don't know about it because they're not hugely successful. (laughs) Um, but, um, one, one does tend to get, uh, stuck in one's ways. One can't necessarily, you know, old dog, new tricks. Uh, you can't necessarily, um, reinvent yourself and, um, and therefore, you go down the- the same old path. I would say in Napoleon's defense, of course, not least that idea that when he invaded eight- in 1812, which is the key moment, you know, after that, nothing good happens. That... And before that, lots and lots of good things happened. Um, but the key thing about that is that, look, he had beaten the Russians twice before. He was invo- invading with an army of 615,000, which was the same size as Paris at that time. He, um, didn't... He knew that the, uh, Russian Army was only about half the size of his, and he, um, didn't want to go too far into Russia, which, of course, as I mentioned earlier, uh, changed in the course of the campaign. But it wasn't an insane, hubristic, mad decision to, uh, to go to war against Russia in 1812. What was hubristic, mad, and insane was to try to beat Britain by imposing a continental blockade on the entirety of Europe and therefore attempting to sort of crush Britain by stopping, um, smuggling, which was completely rife, and to stop every other country from entering into, um, free trade with, um, with Britain. It was that belief in, that protectionism could somehow win the war against Britain. That was the mad thing, and that's what led him into the Peninsula Campaign, which cost him quarter of a million soldiers.

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel1:09:32

       Wow. Oh, a- actually, so is, is you ha- if you have somebody like Napoleon, who for his entire life has succeeded in... Who, who is at the to- the tail end of multiple bell curves, succeeded in ways that nobody could've, nobody else is, uh, succeeding or could anticipate, or people tell him, "Well, that's, that's not possible," and he accomplishes it. Obviously, he has to take, you know, advisors with a grain of salt, knowing that he has been able to do things that others have not been able to do. But he also has to recognize his limits. And this is not just a question of Napoleon in particular, but just in general. How do- how does somebody who is at the tail end of multiple distributions not fall back to mediocrity when making judgments about themselves, but also recognize their limits?

   21. ARAndrew Roberts1:10:13

       It's a, it's, it's always a question of, um, choosing the right ad- advisors, isn't it? In domestic politics, areas that he d- knew he didn't know that much about, uh, legal codes and so on. He, um, although it's called the Napoleonic Code, actually, of course, it was his legal experts who, who drew it up and saw it through and, and, uh, passed the legislation and so on. And so areas that he wasn't particularly interested in, he did allow a considerable degree to, um, to be, um, decided by, not decided by, no, that's one sta- that's one stage too far. But advised upon. He would be to... He, he was the dictator. He had the ultimate decision, but, um, he was very good at choosing, um, advisors, um, quite regardless of, of what their status were in, in society. You know, um, or quite how, how respectable they were. There's a man called Cambacérès, who was a truly powerful figure, and he was gay, and this was something that was pretty much unknown at that stage. He was outwardly, uh, gay, and at a time when, of course, that was against the law. But Napoleon didn't mind that because he was so good at his job, um, that he, um, that he kept him on as Arch Chancellor. Some of the, uh, marshals, he was a true believer in meritocracy, and that some of his marshals, there were 26 marshals, 13 of them came from the working classes, uh, and in some cases below. They were, they were, um, peasants, they were the sons of innkeepers and, uh, barrel-coopers and, uh, domestic servants and so on. And, um, and yet if he saw that a man was, uh, was lucky

   22. NANarrator1:11:57

       (laughs)

   23. ARAndrew Roberts1:11:57

       ... was one of the things he always wanted in his generals, but also, uh, was a natural leader, uh, he would, um, he would appoint him, and they became marshals, and all the marshals, apart from a couple, became dukes and princes. Uh, two of them became kings. You know, to- to- to be the son of a barrel-cooper and to become a king in the, um, early 19th century was a truly extraordinary thing in an army where, um, for the last, um, uh, thousand years certainly, your rank and status in life was very much the same as your father and grandfather.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel1:12:34

       One thing I found really interesting in your biographies of Napoleon and Churchill, if I’m remembering correctly, both of them wrote a novel in their early 20s or thereabouts, where they saved their country in battle. Or not they, it’s a character saves their country in battle and wins over a pretty maiden, and, um, I don’t remember all the details, but I thought, “Wow, both of them did that?” That’s, that’s a really interesting detail. (laughs) What explains this?

   25. ARAndrew Roberts1:12:58

       Um, (laughs) yes, it’s, it’s probably a terrible psychological, uh, disorder, but I’ve just realized that I did the same thing when I was in my 20s.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel1:13:06

       (laughs)

   27. ARAndrew Roberts1:13:07

       Uh, I had a, a novel in which I, I saved the country and, and married the fair maiden, and, gosh, I don’t know what that makes me. Probably a megalomaniac like, uh, like Napoleon. But, um, yes, they’re, they’re both great, um, reads, by the way. I love, uh, Clisson and Eugenie, the book you’re referring to by Napoleon, but the best one by far is Savrola, uh, by Winston Churchill, where you see lots of rolling Churchillian phrases which come out again and again later on in, uh, in life. And you’re right, in both of them, they’re very, very obviously autobiographical. And, um, and the hero, actually in Savrola, the hero doesn't... He saves the country, but then he goes off into exile, and, um, but with reg- And I think doesn’t the Napoleon figure die heroically in battle after saving the nation, but there’s a lot of nation-saving going on in both of those youthful novels.

10. 1:14:06 – 1:18:49

    Andrew's insane productivity

    1. ARAndrew Roberts1:14:06

    2. DPDwarkesh Patel1:14:06

       Now that we’re nearing the end of our time, I want to ask you about, how is it possible, you’re in the House of Lords, I just realized that, well, I knew you were in the House of Lords, but I just realized how much of your time that consumes. On top of that, you’re writing these, uh, books that are, you know, your biographies are widely recognized as the best biographies of these people who are, have thousands of biographies written about them, and you’re doing it you’ve written 20 books. How are you managing your time? How is this possible? (laughs)

    3. ARAndrew Roberts1:14:32

       Um, because I start work at 4:00 AM every day. Um, you get five hours or so before anyone wants to bother you or, um, or, you know, uh, irritate you. (laughs) And so, that’s the trick. It’s time management. I have a, um, a nap every single day for about half an hour in the afternoon. Uh, I’ve been doing it since I was at Cambridge 40 years ago, um, and so I’ve trained my, my body to switch off and then switch back on again. And, um, it means that you get two days, essentially, you know, uh, of work out of one day on earth. So it’s, uh, I mean, obviously everybody’s body clock is completely different, but I do recommend if you’re, if you’re young enough to start, and as I say, I started when I was in my early 20s, uh, you can, um, you can really squeeze more time out of the day than you think is, uh, mathematically possible.

    4. DPDwarkesh Patel1:15:28

       Yeah, I’m 23, so this might be a perfect time to launch this habit.

    5. ARAndrew Roberts1:15:32

       It’s the today’s the day. Make sure after lunch, you, you put on an eye patch and literally go to bed, and, uh, and, um, you will find that you’ve, you’ve squeezed an extra day out of, uh, out of the day.

    6. DPDwarkesh Patel1:15:45

       So why is biography, which is the genre you’ve employed across many of your books, and of course, books that have become overwhelmingly famous, rightly so. Why is that the best medium to understand an era or to understand that impact of that era on the present?

    7. ARAndrew Roberts1:16:02

       Because it focuses the mind, concentrates the mind on one person. You emotionally connect with that person. You either love him or hate him or her. Of course, I have done some, um, some work on writing about women. It’s the great man and woman theory of history, of course. And I do believe in that because I think that although, of course, there are enormous historical movements that happen, you know, the decline of magic and the rise of science and so on, the industrialization and everything. Those come about as the result of the deliberate choices made by millions, indeed billions of people. And, um, and you can’t look at something like the invasion of Russia we were talking about earlier in 1812 or Churchill’s decision to fight on and not make peace with Hitler in 1940 and not recognize that the individual does play an absolutely central role in some major world-changing decisions. So, um, I think it is intellectually justified to write biography. A lot of Whigs and determinists and Marxists don’t. They think that biography is a, um, uh, is far too anti-determinist. But in fact, um, you know, what are we but our decisions? Man is spirit, as Churchill said. And, um, so I think it stacks up as a reasonable way for me to spend my time.

    8. DPDwarkesh Patel1:17:42

       Yeah, indeed. I think that’s a great place to close this conversation. This was absolutely fascinating. Uh, and the book, again, I highly recommend it. It was a really thorough and interesting read about recent conflicts with insights from not only one of the best historians in the world, but also somebody who commanded the two most recent campaigns that involved conflict since World War II. So, the book is Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. Available at Amazon and fine bookstores everywhere. Andrew, thank you so much.

    9. ARAndrew Roberts1:18:19

       Thank you, Dwarkesh. I really enjoyed it.

    10. DPDwarkesh Patel1:18:23

        Hey, everybody. I hope you enjoyed that episode. As always, the most helpful thing you can do is to share the podcast. Send it to people you think might enjoy it, put it in Twitter, your group chats, et cetera. It just blitz the world. Appreciate you listening. I’ll see you next time. Cheers. (outro music plays)

Episode duration: 1:18:49