Dan Snow's History Hit - The Evolution of Warfare with Sir Lawrence Freedman

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

From the stone age to current day, from sticks and rocks to drones and artillery - the nature of warfare has changed drastically throughout history. Over the years, technology and societal organisation have transformed the battlefield. Dan talks to Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, a professor of war studies at King's College London about the evolution of warfare. Professor Freedman takes the temperature of the war in Ukraine from the point of view of history, examining the patterns of recent years.This episode was produced by Beth Donaldson, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.Complete the survey and you'll be entered into a prize draw to win 5 Historical Non-Fiction Books- including a signed copy of Dan Snow's 'On This Day in History'.

Hi, buddy. Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. You know, whenever you read about the First World War, you see historians go, look at these stupid generals, all these people, politicians and generals, they failed to learn the lessons of the revolution that had gone on, the Industrial Revolution, the Military Revolution of the 19th century, that enabled armies to deliver unimaginable amounts of firepower on enemy targets to cause terrible casualties. You look at the American Civil War. You look at the Russo-Japanese War. You even look at the Crimean and some colonial wars as well.

And you would have realised, hopefully, if you'd been a close observer, that something very radical was happening. Future wars would not be decided at battles like the Battle of Leipzig or Waterloo. Technology, societal organisation, various things were transforming the battlefield. But you know what? We don't want to be that guy who just fails to ignore that the American Civil War has happened, and nor do you, the good listeners of this podcast. So we're going to take the temperature of the war in Ukraine from the point of view of history, looking back at the patterns of recent years and stretching quite a long way back into the past and see how war has changed and what Ukraine is telling us about that change.

Is it continuity? Is it radical transformation? And what's that suggest about the future? And folks, I have got the best of the best on the podcast talking to you today. Professor Sir Lawrence Friedman. He is the Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College, London. He has just written a book on the politics of command. Go and check that out. He has joined the revolution by going online. He's got a sub stack. It's called Comment is Freed. Friedman, get it?

It's very, very good. He and his son do it. His son's's brilliant domestic little commentator here in the UK and Lawrence does the foreign military and strategic stuff so make sure you go and check out comment is freed and together Sir Lawrence and I are going to take on a bit of a dash from the stone age right up to today from flints and sticks and rocks to lingering drones and artillery, you're going to love it. Here is Professor Sir Lawrence Friedman. Enjoy. Lawrence, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

Pleasure. Now, we're going to do something mad here. We're going to rampage through the whole history of organised violence. Let's start in the beginning. In the beginning, there was a man and a woman with their fists, their teeth, their elbows and their knees. How have humans traditionally tried to up-arm themselves? What tools have they used to try and make their use of violence more effective? The same tools they used to kill animals.

The origins of violence, who knows exactly when it happened, but it seems pretty natural. According to the Bible, it starts with Cain and Abel. You can kill people by a variety of means, and people still do. I mean, a lot of mass murder happens with the same sort of implements, just with modern designs that were used right at the start, things with sharp edges. So it's not very difficult to work out how it started and why it keeps on going. Is the story of the last 10,000 years a story of, or one story, is of, like in the rest of our lives, humans accumulating tools to make that violence more effective until we get to the point now where a young man or woman in eastern Ukraine can shoot down an aircraft high above with a human portable

weapon. Technology has been an important part of all of this and you can see even if you look at the letters of Leonardo da Vinci he's always offering new fighting machines of one sort or another. So we've moved in all sorts of different directions. So you have nuclear weapons, which can destroy cities with a single bomb, drones, which can drop grenades on a tank managed by an individual some distance away. So technology is developed in all sorts of ways. But it's also important to keep in mind questions of social organization and tactics, why people fight for each other, what sort of solidarity leads groups of up to now largely men to take enormous risks to kill other people. Is it just because of the causes for which they're fighting? Or is it a social thing, a cultural thing? So there's lots of questions that go beyond the actual technology. The small group loyalty, all those kind of fascinating things. You've identified great sort of changes, revolutions in military affairs, from domesticating horses, the use of horses harnessed into chariots, and then moving on to use of heavy armour, gunpowder. Do you feel that

at the risk of sounding like an old person do you think things are speeding up these days i mean are the revolutions now coming almost once every generation or two now the biggest revolution in our time or more my time than yours was uh the development of nuclear weapons thermonuclear weapons in particular. That's transformed the way that states think about war, the risks they're prepared to take. The second has been the digital revolution, because weapons can now be used much more efficiently, with greater accuracy over long ranges,

and that precision creates expectations about war, although we have to be careful because, as we've seen in Ukraine and in Syria before that, the same precision that allows you to miss hospitals also allows you to hit hospitals. So it still depends on the values and purposes for which you're fighting. And we're also seeing, again in this current conflict, aspects of warfare that would not have surprised First World War or Second World War generals. The Ukrainians have been busy digging trenches. Artillery still dominates the battlefield, as it did in the First World War. So, you know, it's a mixed picture. There's some things that are moving very fast, other things that don't

seem to change very much at all. Well, we'll talk about some of those. The Ukraine hasn't come out of clear blue sky. I remember reading a report on the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict that fired up that talks a lot about drones. And indeed, drones were used in swarms in Syria as well. You mentioned some of the things that haven't changed, trench warfare and things.

What are some of the things that we're looking at that have struck you that are changing quite dramatically and have been really thrust into the limelight by what's going on in Ukraine? Well, I think drones have played an important part, not because they're a means of deploying weapons, or they do that as well and they can loiter above target, but because of the

surveillance they provide. So you see a lot of the combinations now of drones finding the targets and artillery or other weapons hitting them. So this has made a difference. What happens a lot in warfare is that in the first weeks you get the greatest surprises because that's the thing that one army or the other isn't prepared for and clearly the Russians were not prepared for the forms of defense the Ukrainians had over time they adjust they improve say their electronic warfare capabilities so Ukrainian drones aren't as effective now possibly as they were earlier on but the Ukrainians are getting better drones in, so maybe that will make a difference. So the Armenia-Azerbaijan fight didn't go on for very long.

So it appeared to show quite remarkable changes in warfare. But that was in part because Armenia never really got a chance to adjust, because it was bruised before it really had a chance to show resilience whereas this was going on and therefore you'll see more adaptations and more qualifications to some of the assumptions that were being made early on for example about the vulnerability of the tank which is a comment that's made after almost every war because tanks are always vulnerable but nonetheless there's still the way that you could move firepower over distances and rugged terrain and so on.

I think our views about the lessons of war, of this war, will not solidify until it's over and we can look back over the whole experience. It would be as if the First World War had ended with a successful capture of Paris by the Germans in late 1914 and we'd have been very struck by the machine gun, for example. And the lessons of 1918 were quite different from those of 1916 because they'd learned a bit.

Armies adjust. It's the processes of adjustment that is important. It's just the introduction of new technology. Let's talk about the men and women first. Infantry. We went all the way back to the beginning. We briefly mentioned the foot soldier and gunpowder age. What's interesting to me about 1914 onwards, infantry start to be used quite differently because the tools are able to carry Lewis guns in the First World War,

portable machine guns, trench mortars. We were able to give infantry an almost unimaginable amount of fire. In Battle of Waterloo, they can fire three shots a minute at about 50 metres, 100 metres. By 1918, one infantryman can pour lethality onto an enemy unit from afar. Where are we in the infantry's journey at the moment? Individual troops can carry with them anti-tank weapons, air defence weapons. They have their own information sources because they're networked. They're individually much more capable. On the other hand, there are just not as many of them because we've either moved away from conscription or as in Russia's case, they're a bit nervous

about using their conscripts purely as cannon fodder. They've used other people as cannon fodder. For example, those from the enclaves in Donetsk and Luhansk. But there's a reluctance just to push people into battle where they can be mowed down by small arms fire as well as heavy arms fire. So infantry tend to be used more sparingly. I think what's been interesting in the Ukraine war is Russia clearly doesn't have enough nonetheless. Interesting in the Ukraine war is Russia clearly doesn't have enough nonetheless, because I think most military tacticians these days talk about combined arms and how you use armor, artillery and infantry. And what's been striking is how often Russian armor has been put in exposed positions without the supporting infantry that would be fleshing out ambushes and so on. So you need the troops, and you need the troops also, if you're occupied, in a much different sort of role. So one of the issues, again, for the Russians in Ukraine is their ability to police the territory they've occupied at a different sort of role

than moving forward on a battlefield. The issue for the Russians, it's one for the Ukrainians, but they mobilise more, is just do you have enough of the people who do the job, even though no army is really of the sort of the great masses that went into the First World War. You mentioned the word network there, which I think is really important. And it also hits on the subject of your book, which is command and how command has changed in an era where you can have eyes on and potentially statistics for all your frontline infantrymen in real time. So we'll come back to that in a second. But having done infantry, you mentioned tanks there. What about shock? What about all these clever armchair suddenly overnight experts on Twitter were writing off the tank in

the first few weeks of this war? Can you tell me why, and perhaps why those obituaries might have been written a bit too soon? Because tanks are incredibly vulnerable, even on the battlefields of the First World War, when they first emerged. Yeah, because of the precision of weapons, including anti-tank weapons, if they're spotted, they can be hit. But there's a number of factors that come into this.

First, they've got to be spotted. Secondly, as often as not, the most important anti-tank weapon is a tank they fight each other but i think also it depends on the design of the tank an awful lot of the the russian tanks were designed at an earlier age with for example the crew sitting on top of ammunition which is not necessarily a great place to sit hence all these videos of turrets being blown off. So there's a question of design, of the quality of the armor, of their speed, of their ability to hide. Again, one of the problems that the Russians seem to have had in Ukraine, certainly early on, is it was too boggy to go off the road. Well, as soon as you're on the road network, you become more vulnerable.

So it's a much more complex picture. I think armies will want to be less dependent on tanks than they have been in the past because there's different ways of getting firepower around a battlefield now than just having to move them in a tracked vehicle. But it's certainly too early to write off the tank. And as I said, the 1st World War saw terrible damage done to tanks, even at Amiens, they're probably one of their finest hours.

Tanks have always, as you say, been very vulnerable. If you look at the October 73 war, you have some horrific tank engagements where they're shooting at each other from yards apart, and that was in the open desert. A depends on the terrain you couldn't have got anywhere without the tank in the sinai but once you got there you're likely to face other tanks in some very vicious fighting the tank is always going to be important in warfare because it's a way of getting around with firepower but in other sorts of warfare for example urban warfare which is becoming increasingly important and relevant with the urbanisation of our societies, tanks may be less useful.

You mentioned firepower. Let's get on to artillery, which there's been some lively debates during this conflict. People who say that the great lesson of the First War and recent history has been artillery is the key arm. Then people pointing out you've still got to have infantry who trudge forward and take the ground or hold on to the ground that the artillery may indeed be able to capture, to wrest from the grip of the enemy. And we hear a lot about artillery in terms of aid as well. What makes artillery so important? Artillery is a way of battering your opponent from a distance. It's as simple as that. As you say, you can't occupy territory with artillery. You can batter societies, you can batter military defenses with artillery, but if you can't then move forward because amongst the rubble there are enemy forces still waiting

for you, which is what happened to the Russians, say, in Mariupol, that it's still going to be a hard, grim fight. But the Russians are incredibly dependent upon artillery because it fits in with their methods of warfare. And all you need is lots of shells. And if you're not too worried about discrimination, then it's even easier to use. What's again happening, and we haven't yet seen the full impact of that, is that the Ukrainians, who also were dealing with pretty vintage artillery to start with, are now getting much more modern Western artillery pieces, which are very accurate over pretty long distances. And whether or not these will be game changers, we have yet to see.

There's already some evidence that particular fixed targets that you absolutely know where they are, they're not on the move, will be destroyed quite easily once you've got the coordinates. That's one of the things artillery can do with you. But it doesn't help you take the territory. And again, I think you found that's why the Russian shortages of infantry have caused them difficulties. shortages of infantry have caused them difficulties. So in a way, you're describing a situation not unlike the late years of the First World War and into the great battles of the Second World War and the Middle Eastern ones beyond. It's still recognisable at this point. General Rawlinson, who commanded the all-arms success at Amiens, this would have been familiar. Yeah, I mean, I think

one of the things that we would expect more of, and we have seen a bit of, is air power. If you look at the American wars of recent times, air power has dominated. That's what's made all the difference. Whereas for some reason, and I think it's one of the things that people will be exploring more as they look back, Russian air power, though it hasn't been inactive, has not been as effective as people expect it to be, because that flying artillery is potentially even more lethal. So that's one of the differences,

what I've seen in warfare over the last 100 years. It's introduced during the First World War, but somehow hasn't made the impact this time that one would have expected. It's part of the story, but not as big a part of the story as one would otherwise have expected. Is that because you think, has there been a little swing of that little pendulum between these man-portable anti-aircraft weapons, just as the Egyptians were able to in the October War in 1973, they were able to create, thanks to new technology,

a very, very difficult environment for the enemy aircraft to operate over their lines. Yeah, and I think it's one thing when you're dropping bombs on cities, as in the big air raids of the Second World War. It's quite another thing altogether when you're trying to provide close air support to your forward troops, because that requires you often to operate at low altitudes. And as soon as you're operating at low altitudes, then you're vulnerable to air defenses, including these days, man-portable air defenses. So you can create these sort of no-go areas or very difficult-to-go areas for aircraft. There are means of suppressing air defences, and it's often the case that the first move, and you've seen this in the American wars,

you see it, for example, the Israeli attack on the Becker Valley in 1982. The first thing you do is take out the enemy air defences. And if you can do that, which is often the thing to do when you're catching the enemy by surprise, then you create an area where you're going to be less vulnerable. So as with all of these things, it's not a simple duel of defence versus offence. Variations in quality can make an enormous difference.

But by and large these days, it's quite difficult to provide close air support for your army if it's facing an army that's also quite well defended with its own air defence systems. Do you buy this idea? You see it perhaps in the 18th century, Frederick the Great and Napoleon. There's an idea that actually technology, the ideologies, the culture lent the offensive a certain advantage. Then you get the American Civil War, great industrial ability to create a beaten zone with artillery and repeating rifles that can reach some range. Defence gets the advantage. Do you buy this idea the pendulum switches between defence and offence?

And are we in the middle of a pendulum swing at the moment? By and large, the defence has natural advantages. It should know the terrain it should have prepared positions offensive operations normally require moving out into the open where you can be seen and therefore vulnerable when you're defending cities there's all sorts of places to hide and catch your opponents which is one of the reasons why urban warfare gets so vicious, because the things that you can do on open terrain, you just can't do in a city. So by and large, you would say the defence has natural advantages, which is why when countries are mounting

invasions of others, they try to get surprised because they want to take as much territory as quickly as possible before the opponent coppens on to what's going on want to take as much territory as quickly as possible before the opponent cottons on to what's going on. As soon as the defences are organised, it becomes much harder, which is again why there's a debate in Ukraine as to why they were better prepared in the south for the Russian invasion, although they were prepared well enough in the north. Listen to Dan Snow's history. We're talking about Ukraine and the history of war. More coming up. Over on the Warfare podcast by History Hit, we bring you brand new military histories from around the world. Each week, twice a week,

we release new episodes with world-leading historians, expert policy makers and the veterans who served. From the greatest tanks of the Second World War... And so what are you actually trying to get out of your tank? You're trying to get maneuverability and you're trying to get a really big gun. Your Tiger and your Panther are there to dominate the battlefield, primarily on the Eastern Front and in the North Africa and all that sort of stuff. But by the time they're actually coming in in decent numbers, that moment has already passed. Through to new histories that help us understand current conflicts any invader any attacker any adversary will exploit gaps within society it was true then it's true today but the finn signaled that they were united and

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wherever you get your podcasts. Let's come on to something that has just changed. Alexander the Great, the Battle of Gargamel, is leading that cavalry attack himself, Waterloo. Wellington was famously everywhere where the fighting was fiercest. He made a point of overseeing things himself down to the kind of tactical level. That changed dramatically as armies gigantically increased in size and the battles just became sort of,

well, bigger in terms of number of men and in terms of geography. And we get the so-called chateau generals and we get the extraordinary fog of war in the First World War, where despite the most incredibly detailed plans, the minute the men leave that frontline trench, they might as well be on the moon very very difficult to know where they are let alone direct artillery or aircraft to sort of help them as they move forward or send resupply

now that is just something that and this became very clear during gulf wars so-called war on terror is we have too much information now about what is going on with these people on the front line. And you and I have both been watching these videos. I find them very traumatic. In fact, you're watching small platoons of men clearing trenches, doing the kind of brutal soldiering that they would have done at Passchendaele and on the Hindenburg line.

And you're watching this in the comfort of your own home via Twitter, shot from a drone. I mean, this is something, surely, that is very different. I think the transparency of the modern battlefield is quite impressive, though one can overstate that. The fact that we see some remarkable videos of warfare taking place not long after it's happened doesn't add to the fact there's an awful lot we're not seeing. There's still movements at night. There's still efforts of deception.

People still move through forests and so on to avoid being seen. What's striking is that because of the network, everybody in principle can have access on one side to the same information. Everybody can know what's going on. It should remove, but it doesn't, wholly blue on blue confrontations where you end up attacking your own forces that we know have been examples on both sides of that in this war. And so it doesn't completely remove the fog of war, but it certainly dispels quite a lot of it. But a commander now, again, in principle, ought to have a pretty good idea

of what's going on in all areas where operations are taking place, see where the vulnerabilities are developing, see where reinforcements might be needed, knowing when there's been setbacks, knowing when there's been breakthroughs, in ways that just would have been unimaginable in the past. Now, of course, they're then very vulnerable to any problems with their network. If it has a cyber attack or if it's brought down in some way, then all of a sudden they've no idea what's going on and possibly blinder than they would have been before. And one of the problems the Russians had in the early days of the war

was that they ended up using Ukrainian communication networks. So they had no operational security, made it harder to communicate, which is why Russian generals kept on having to go to the front to see what was going on and kept on being killed themselves. So if all goes well, there's extraordinary transparency, immediate communication, real-time communication, an appreciation of the situation that earlier generations of generals could only have dreamt of. But it doesn't always work. And if you're used to it and depend on it, it may be quite difficult to go back to some of the tried and tested methods that previous senior officers would have had to use. methods that previous senior officers would have had to use.

One of the most amazing images for me is that shot during the operation to kill Osama bin Laden of Clinton and Obama sitting there in that war room watching the real-time footage coming in. And I thought that is something that no emperor or king or pharaoh has ever been able to do before. This brings us really to the thrust of your book which is again what's changed and what stayed the same about this relationship about being in charge and getting the politics of war right as well as the the business of fighting and how inextricably linked they are how has your thinking changed seeing what's happened well not just this war

but the ones you've looked at in the 20th century, early 21st, leading up to this moment. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades.

Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. Well, I think what's interesting is that there's all sorts of debates about the extent to which politicians in particular should interfere in command decisions and operational decisions and there's clearly an area of professional judgment which the politicians don't have on the other hand they're the ones who've set the objectives and whose reputations are at stake if the whole thing fails.

So you have a natural interest. And Obama was watching. He wasn't saying move left or move right, but he had a natural interest in what was going on. You have and always have resentment amongst field commanders, somebody back in the national capital telling them what to do or demanding that they don't move until they've got new orders and so on. So one of the big issues always in command is the amount of initiative that you delegate or are prepared to allow your quite junior officers

to take. And in a way that becomes more difficult when the senior commanders can watch everything that's going on or when communications are easy but I think one of the things we've seen in Ukraine I think this is one area where it will shift the debate is that the Ukrainians did well I think not particularly for doctrinal reasons just because of the situation in which they were in is they had to have local initiatives. You see small groups deciding on what to attack and when to attack and not waiting for orders, whereas you have a number of examples of Russian forces doing the same thing over and over again,

often with the same dire results, because that's what their orders have told them to do. In the very hierarchical autocratic systems, people are much more nervous about challenging what's coming down from the centre. their orders have told them to do, and they're very hierarchical, autocratic systems, people are much more nervous about challenging what's coming down from the centre. So it's a political question, as well as an operational question. By and large, the American and British preference is mission command. I mean, you say, this is what we need you to do, but we're going to have to let you work out how best to do it, because you're the ones closest to the operational

realities. Whereas more hierarchical systems, they want to keep much more control and are nervous about quite junior officers using up a lot of scarce resource on a fruitless mission because they're feeling rather sort of bold and audacious that day. So this is a constant debate that goes on. But I think the advantages of giving more latitude to junior officers has come through in this conflict. But there's also latitude to senior officers. I mean, whether it's, was Lloyd George tough enough with Hague? Was Churchill too tough? Who do you identify over the last 100 years? Is it Golda Meir during 73? Or did she outsource that war to Diane and Sharon too much? Who are the examples that you pick out of a civilian and military working well together? One of the examples in my book is Thatcher in 82, who had no idea about military matters. She

hadn't paid much attention to it. Her focus as a politician had been on domestic issues. She suddenly found herself fighting a war. But she was very dependent upon the quality of the Chief of Defence Staff, Terry Lewin, with whom she had a very good relationship. She trusted him and didn't try to interfere in his decisions. And so what he got from her was sort of clarity about politically what mattered, and she let him get on with it. That's fine as long as things are going well. Golda Meir in 1973, again, was very reliant on her generals. And there was a moment in the 73 War when there was an issue about whether Israel should accept the need for a ceasefire,

even though this meant that Egyptian forces had taken back a significant chunk of the Sinai after crossing the Suez Canal. And she said, no, because that would just create more difficulty in the future. But getting it back was still a matter for the generals. By and large, it doesn't work that well when the generals are constantly countermanding their officers. It works better when they're setting objectives and being prepared to sack officers who don't meet the requirements. like Saddam Hussein, who had no relevant military experience, yet dressed up like a field marshal, and may believe that they can make operational decisions of the same quality that somebody who's professionally involved. Or you have generals like Galtieri in Argentina, or Khan in Pakistan in 71, who become leaders of their country and have forgotten about military things because they've

been involved in administrative matters and are out of touch. So there's no simple model. By and large, I would say the democratic model of civilians setting objectives, keeping the generals accountable, certainly works better on the whole than autocratic models. There's that beautiful letter from Lincoln to Grant. It's extraordinary, isn't it? He just sort of says, good luck. I don't expect to hear much from you. I've let you know what I'd like you to achieve. And I know that your best place to achieve that, all the best, Abraham. It's unbelievable. There are other letters from Lincoln, which are a bit less forgiving of generals that haven't chased the enemy when they had the chance. Lincoln was a very good example of a president who was always searching for the right general who would fight the war as he wished. He didn't want to take the operational decisions,

the military decisions himself, but he certainly was prepared to sack those with whom he was dissatisfied. That's an interesting counterpoint. Say Putin, who has been somewhere, but rather than just wholesaling, sacking his generals till he finds who he likes, like perhaps Churchill and Lincoln, perhaps because the regime, if you feel fragile and secure,

sacking your generals feels bad. So what he does is actually bypass them and create extraordinary complication within the high command and make decisions himself, but not clear out generals as perhaps more confident democratic leaders might? I think that's changed a bit during the war. I mean, to start with, this was sort of an FSB war in some ways. It was a spooks war. That's where Putin himself came from. And Putin thought that part of his cunning plan involved agents in place who were going to help overthrow Zelensky

and help run bits of territory that the Russians had occupied. And it turns out the FSB had let it down. So the first purges were there. The general staff, who hadn't been desperately impressed with all of this, then tried to impose themselves, but then they had problems too. So we have seen purges in the military, in fact, quite a few. And that creates uncertainty amongst the commanders because they're not sure if they're going to be backed or not. But I think your general point is true in that loyalty, political loyalty often matters a lot. So some of the most unsuccessful military campaigns have been unsuccessful because those in positions of

command have been put there because they're not likely to mount a coup. A good example of that is South Vietnamese forces, for example. President Thieu, who'd been involved in coups himself, prized loyalty above professional competence. So did Saddam Hussein. And this leads to inept people making big decisions. But on the other hand, you see these same leaders getting very nervous when they do eventually get operational success. And they've created heroes who might have popular support greater than their own. So this uncertainty about your political position is certainly one factor in the high command of war. Where are we, Professor? What is a big headline after this wonderful conversation? You've actually slightly convinced me that a lot less has changed than you might

think from the media. How much of a revolution, if any, are we in at the moment? I think it's very important to keep in mind there are continuities in warfare. The obvious example is logistics, which doesn't get the headlines because it's not very exciting and you don't just watch supply trucks trundling along on videos circulating on social media, but they're absolutely vital. So logistics, the British won the Falklands because they sorted out some horrendous logistic problems while the Argentinians failed to solve their logistic problems. The Russians struggled in the first week of the war because of logistics. So that's a continuity.

Secondly, you can't take territory without people. You can batter territory without people. You can batter territory without people, but battering populations creates an awful lot of pain and suffering, may set your enemy back, but it doesn't actually win you wars. That's a continuity. If you send lots of troops into a place where they're unwelcome, you're going to get bogged down. That's a continuity. So there are sort of fundamentals, strategic points that are always worth keeping in mind when you're thinking about warfare, certainly if you're thinking of mounting one, I guess the other one is unexpected things happen and you won't have anticipated all the pitfalls. All of these things are relevant. Now, new technologies make a difference. The fact that

we can obliterate whole cities in not very many minutes is a factor which has had an enormous impact on the conduct of post-1945 war, mainly because it stopped great powers fighting each other directly. And it's still doing that even in this war. It's why NATO is not intervening on behalf, directly on behalf of Ukraine, and why Putin hasn't attacked NATO countries. Precision warfare is making an enormous difference, because if you see something, and you've tracked it, you ought to be able to destroy it. So these things are making a difference. But I think it's, you know, the political context, the quality of leadership, the ability to organise supplies going forward, the professionalism of the armed forces, these are all things which always make a difference and still make a difference.

Being able to make weapons with an industrial base, I guess. Any guides for the future, though? Where is warfare going? Has any of your thinking changed around that? No, my thinking hasn't really changed, except I was surprised that Putin set this in motion, given it was pretty obvious that he would not be able to subjugate Ukraine. And I don't think he ever will be able to subjugate Ukraine, however long this goes on, which could be for a while. But this war will inevitably be studied, because actually wars of this sort are quite rare.

We've been used to the big counterinsurgencies, the operations of recent times. It's a while since we've had regular forces fighting in this way and in such different ways as well. So the war will be studied in that way for some time to come. And as people always point out, possibly the wrong lessons will be learned because the next war will be different because of different structural features, which is going back to the old adage about generals fighting the last war. I think the reason it's possible to follow these wars is because of the continuities and because you need always to keep in mind not just how weapons are performing, not what's just happening in the latest battle and who's had the tactical reverses and who's made a bit of an advance. And because you just need to keep your eye on the overall

strategic context. The key thing, I think, in the end in this war is an asymmetry of motivation. In the end, the Ukrainians have got nowhere else to go and they're fighting for their own sovereignty. The Russians can go home and they're not quite sure exactly what they're fighting for. Is part of the danger of us all talking about revolutions in military affairs that it can actually slightly encourage people like Putin?

I mean, Blair before Iraq said that the traditional rules, the kind of strategic context of American super hegemony plus all this technological change meant that many of the kind of iron laws of history, which is, take that with a touch of salt, the iron iron laws history no longer apply putin didn't have enough troops it was a bonkers decision to go

for it in the first place and do you think he also perhaps thought that things had changed so sufficiently that the traditional lessons no longer applied to him i think it was partly that but i think it was also first military operations had done quite well for him since 2000 with Chechnya and Georgia and Syria and Crimea. They'd all been quite limited, but as far as he was concerned, they'd worked out okay. I don't think he appreciated the greater scale of this, but he made the classic error of underestimating his opponent and it's arrogance and hubris as much as anything else that leads you into such a desperately sad I think tragic decision as this one has turned out to be. A good rule of war is to be pretty sure what you're

letting yourself in for and not just think about the best case, which is going to see you prevail with ease, but think about the worst case in which you might get embarrassed. That was one of the problems with Iraq in 2003. We talked about how it could all go very well, but forgot about how it could go badly. Isn't it fascinating that we're talking so much of our coverage and our conversation is about all these extraordinary new technologies and our ability to see the battlefield like we are for the first time and yet at the core of this war

is the most ancient impulse which is that of an arrogant out of touch man who falls into a terrible trap a hubristic trap indeed it's an ancient story. What's your book called, sir? It's called Command, the Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine. Thank you very much. Good to talk to you. I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all of our gods. you