The Paikin Podcast - Margaret MacMillan: Are We Headed Back to the WWI Era of Great Power Rivalry?

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Historian Margaret MacMillan joins Steve to discuss the history we are living through, how it reminds her of the zero-sum period before the First World War, Trump’s claims over Greenland, his letter to the PM of Norway, how seriously Canada should take Trump’s 51st state rhetoric, and the history of American attempts to invade Canada.They then discuss Canada’s defence spending, how Trump is unlike any president in American history, how he reminds her of Louis XIV or Henry VIII, the history of middle or smaller powers holding off greater powers, and the cracks growing in the MAGA movement. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcastFollow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastX: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.socialEmail us at: [e-mail]

Hi, everybody. Steve Paken here. Mark Twain once had this great expression that history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. So we thought we'd get one of the world's foremost historians to talk about this moment in history. Have we been here before? And by that I mean a bellicose American president threatening to invade, annex or takeover territory belonging to his allies, trying to disrupt the established international order, who seems to get along very well with his authoritarian adversaries,

more so than his Democratic allies. Who better to answer those questions than Margaret McMillan, one-on-one, coming right up on the Paken podcast. We are delighted to welcome Margaret McMillan to the Paken podcast. She is the Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Toronto, the former warden of St. Antony's College at the University of Oxford, and the author most recently of War, how conflict shaped us.

And because I spoke to her for two minutes before we started this, she has told me that I am allowed to call her Margaret, which I have never called her before in her life. So Margaret, hello and welcome. Thank you very much. Do you, I should ask off the top, where do you live now? Are you back in Canada all the time now? No, I divide my time. I spend half the year in England and half the year in Toronto.

I'm really lucky to be able to do it, but I've got a big family and they've divided themselves on both sides of the Atlantic, so I want to see them. Cool, very good. Well, let's start with that Mark Twain quote, because it does seem to sum up so much. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. As you consider this moment in our world's collective history, what do you think it rhymes with from our past? Nothing much good, I think. That's what worries me.

I spent a lot of my life studying difficult patches in history, and I think I always had this, I didn't realize it, but I always had a slightly comfortable feeling, well, at least I won't live through one. And now I'm living, we're all living through one. It reminds me this period a little bit about the period before the, about the period before the First World War. When you had nations that were prepared to disrupt the existing order, you had international competition over colonies, you had nationalisms,

you had economic competition, and you had people in positions of authority who were prepared to use war, and we got the First World War. And it reminds me a bit of the period before the Second World War, where again, you'd had an attempt made after the First World War to set up an international order, and you had nations, Germany, Italy, Japan, that were prepared to break that. And is definitely not encouraging. That suggests we're on the precipice of another massive conflagration. Try to convince me, please, that that's not the case? Well, I'm hoping we're not on the edge of such a thing.

I think what will hold nations back and those making decisions back is that the weapons are so much more terrifying than they were. I mean, you think of the devastation of the Second World War and what it did. It laid waste, huge sections of Asia and Europe and killed perhaps 50 million people, perhaps more we don't really know. But the weapons have moved on. And we now have nuclear weapons. A number of countries now possess nuclear weapons. They have the means of delivering them.

And so I think other types of weapons as well. But I think what may hold people back from making the decisions that would take us to the edge of war is just that fact. That if you start a war with the sort of weapons we have, you don't know how it's going to end, but you won't come out unscathed. Well, the man who is getting all the credit and or blame for the new international order that we are, apparently embarking upon is of course Donald Trump. And I want to read you a little piece of a note that he sent to the Prime Minister of Norway. And he writes, Dear Jonas, considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars plus,

I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia. or China, and why do they have a right of ownership anyway? There are no written documents. It's only a boat that landed there hundreds of years ago, and we had boats landing there also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now NATO should do something for the United States.

The world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland. Thank you, he signs off with an exclamation mark, President D.J. T. So many questions emerging from this. Do we, do we, do we, do we even want to bother doing any fact checking in this? Well, why not? Let's start with that. Should we start with the fact that, what does Norway have to do with the Nobel Peace Prize? I thought that was a Swedish thing. Well, the Peace Prize is actually administered in Norway, but it was a Swedish prize. And the Academy that gives out the Nobel Prize for Literature and the ones for Science and Economics is in Sweden. But this is a particular arrangement that was made. And so, in fact, it is,

situated in Norway, but the Norwegian government doesn't tell, this is a group of independent people who are appointed because they will be independent among other things. The Norwegian government has never told them what to do. And I don't know how you argue with a tweet like this. I mean, the whole idea of making foreign policy by tweet seems to me very dangerous indeed. But how do you pick up on all the things that are wrong there? And why is President Trump so fixated on having the Nobel Peace Prize? I mean, he's surely got other things to think about it. I find it beyond comprehension.

I really do. Well, Obama got one, so he wants one. I guess he feels very competitive with his predecessor, I think. That makes sense? Yeah, I mean, but it's sort of schoolyard stuff, isn't it? You know, he's got a bigger baseball bat than me, and I want the same thing, and it's not fair. I mean, it's not a rational way to behave, I don't think, in international relations. And why alienate your allies?

Why alienate Norway? Why alienate Denmark? Why alienate Canada? Why alienate all the allies who you've worked with and who've trusted you for years? I really am having trouble understanding what the long-term goal of President Trump is. I mean, does he want to make the United States more powerful? In which case, is this the way to go about it? I would say no.

Now, he mentions that Denmark's claim to Greenland has to do with a boat landing there hundreds of years ago. He says there's no written documents, no paper that actually ties Greenland to Dennyland. Denmark? True or false? There's an agreement that the United States actually made, among other international agreements, with the government of Denmark in 19-17, I think it was 2017, rather, in which the Danes sold a couple of their islands in the Caribbean, which the Americans wanted because they protected the entrance to the Panama Canal, San Martin, I forget the names, sorry, I'm forgetting the names

of it now, but two Danish islands. in return, the United States recognized Danish sovereignty over the whole of Greenland, something that the Americans themselves signed. So there are international agreements and international recognition that Greenland has been part of Denmark. And it was part of Denmark before this. The Danes had had settlements there, not for hundreds of years. There had been settlements, and they then disappeared some centuries ago. But the Danes had been settled there, at least for 200 years. And this is something that in other cases gives recognition. I mean, the United States was settled by settlers who came and claimed the land. And no one challenges that anymore. I mean,

it simply is a fact. And the extraordinary thing, it seems to me, is that the Danish government was prepared to give the United States anything that it wanted. Again, there's an agreement dating back to the Second World War and just after that the Americans put bases, any number of bases on on Greenland. They can explore for mines in Greenland. They can do pretty much what they want in Greenland. The Danish government was quite happy to see that happen. But the United States actually closed its bases. It only has one very small one there. It hasn't been mining there. It's American companies haven't been active there. And so again, I don't understand why it's so important for the United States to actually claim ownership when they can get anything they want in terms of

security and minerals from the Danish government and from the Greenlanders. Let's look at President Trump's claim that, quote, I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding. True or false? Well, at the moment he's busting up NATO, so I don't call that doing a lot for NATO. I mean, he's a NATO member. The United States is a NATO member threatening another NATO member, and a lot of people are saying this may well be the end of NATO. So I don't think he's done a lot for NATO, quite frankly. Can you recall a time in history when an American president so brazenly threatened an ally to take over that allies territory?

No, I can't. I mean, there have been times when the United States has been cross with its allies, but that happens the whole time. I mean, it was very cross with the British when the British tried to seize the Suez Canal from the Egyptian government. The American government was very angry in the 1950s. There were disagreements over Vietnam. The United States governments felt that some of its allies. weren't supporting it enough in Vietnam. There have been disagreements all along. But I cannot think of a time when an American president has made it clear that he doesn't value NATO, doesn't

care about NATO, and doesn't care about his allies. Now, I know all of the books you have written are probably like children. You can't say that you have a favorite. But I can say I have a favorite of one of yours. And Paris 1919 was my fave. And you wrote about the failed attempts after World War one by Woodrow Wilson, the then president, and others to create, you know, an international rules-based system where sovereignty and self-determination were respected. And we're clearly not in that world anymore. And I wonder, are we heading back, in your view, to that world of the late 19th, early 20th century when it was sort of everyone for themselves and fill your boots? I think we are. Well, there's always been a sort of tension in international relations

between the view that it's all about power and the great powers do what they want and the lesser powers just go along or gang up against them. I mean, if sometimes great powers come to get into trouble because smaller nations will gang up against them and deal with them. But the other view is that, in fact, we're all better off if we work together, that international relations needn't be a zero-sum game where I'm when you lose or vice versa. That actually international relations could be something where we build an international order so that we all benefit and that we don't have costly wars, that we settle our disputes peacefully. And that was what Woodrow Wilson, the American president and many other people after the

First World War were hoping for. And it's an old idea. I mean, it's something that goes right back into history, that we can cooperate, we can work with each other, and in fact, we all benefit. It's mutually beneficial than to have the sorts of wars that laid waste the countryside, spend money, spend lives. That is the alternative, a sort of, dog-eat-dog world. And what we seem to be moving now is towards a world, unfortunately, which is more the zero-sum game world, that the powers will do what they want and the rest of us will suffer, whatever we suffer, and that we will lose if they're powerful. If we get more powerful, we'll do the same to our neighbors. And I think such a world is miserable, and

we've seen it in the past. It leads to human misery. It leads to lack of progress. It leads to poverty, it leads to illness. And we have to ask ourselves, is that the sort of world we want? Of course we'll have tensions. Worlds always do have tensions. International relations is not easy like any sort of relationship. But what is the best way to try and use international relations to build something that we all benefit from? Which president before Donald Trump was this disruptive on the international stage in the same kind of way? I'm finding it very hard to think of president who was disruptive. I mean, you've had presidents who asserted American primacy or tried to bully their neighbors. I mean, if you talk to, well, Canada knows this. I mean, we had a number of

attempts in the 19th century and earlier by the United States to invaders. And there've always been those in the United States who have wanted to use military force against their neighbors. The United States invaded Mexico several times. It invaded Central America several times. So that is there in American history. But what do you also have in American history? is the United States working with its neighbors. And again, I think this has really benefited both the neighbors and the United States. It means the United States hasn't had to worry about a threat from Canada, a threat from Mexico. It hasn't had to worry about trying to keep under control people who don't want to be kept under control.

So, yes, there have been American presidents, sorry, I'm going on a bit, but there have been American presidents the past who have tried to assert American power. I mean, Grover Cleveland, who President Trump admires, or McKinley, I think, who President Trump also admires, did in their time, I think, think of pushing around their neighbors. But, you know, for the most part, I think American presidents have realized that the United States is better off if it doesn't have to defend its own borders and it doesn't have to worry about unfriendly neighbors. I wonder if President Trump likes Krover Cleveland so much because President Cleveland is the only other president besides Trump who won a term, lost a term, and then came back into power winning again. they have that in common. Well, that's interesting, actually.

And I think, you know, I think the loss that President Trump had in 2016 was a very painful one for him. And he still talks about it and he still blames all sorts of factors on it. So you may be right. I think he also seems to be driven, but you can correct me if I, if you disagree. He seems to be driven by sort of an enthusiasm, a passion for expanding the map of the United States. He talks about the Louisiana person. He talks about the purchase of Alaska.

And Greenland is even bigger. It looks bigger often on the sort of maps we have than it really is. But nevertheless, it is a big piece of territory, covered mostly with ice. But nevertheless, it would fill out the map very nicely indeed. And I think, you know, everyone, as they get older, it gets to a point where they start to think about their place in history. And it's possible. And President Trump has talked like this that he wants to be remembered as a president who expanded the footprint of the United States enormously. I don't disagree with a syllable of that. No, I think you're right on. Tell me this. This president got 70 million Americans to vote for him. So clearly there were a lot of people in the United States who presumably didn't think that the rules-based international way of doing business among countries was working for them. And they were happy to put somebody in the Oval Office who could disrupt that order. And more things could be disruptive of the way things had been going on in the United States as well, because they didn't see.

themselves particularly succeeding under the established ways. What do we say to them about why a international rules-based way of doing business is preferable to the kind of seeming anarchy that is going on right now? I think most Americans who voted were not voting on international issues. Foreign policy on the whole has not played a big part in American elections over the years. And I think what really concerned them much more was the prices of food in the grocery stores, the perception that they were slipping behind, concern that they were being, I think also a feeling that they were being looked down upon by the coastal elites, the flight who flew over and was snobby about them.

I think those things mattered. And I think there were those who thought about American first. I mean, clearly there are people who have supported President Trump, some of whom are working for the administration, who think the United States should simply exert its power. and not bother with the tedious, often tedious business of trying to bring your allies around or trying to talk to them and having negotiations and so on. So I think it was a number of factors, but I think domestic factors played a very big part.

And I think we should never forget that President Trump is an extraordinary communicator. I mean, he is really amazing at talking to people and getting the crowds going. If you actually listen to one of his speeches, it wanders here, it wanders there. It often doesn't seem to me to have very much in the way of conclusions or clear. programs, but it sounds very good. It's a show. It's a show, yeah. Yeah, and I think this is part of his appeal.

And you get people, I mean, I've seen people being interviewed, and, you know, they keep on, they say things like, he's just like us. Well, he's not. I mean, he's a billionaire from New York, actually. And these are people in small towns in the Midwest, and somewhere they think Donald Trump is just one of them. And I think that's part of his very powerful appeal. Are there any circumstances you can imagine, which would see the United States invade Canada in order to make us their 51st state?

Do you know, if you'd ask me that question four years ago, even a year ago, I would have said, oh, that's ridiculous. I mean, let's not be, you know, imagining all these ridiculous things. I don't know now. I mean, so many things that seem to me improbable and impossible, the fact that President Trump or an American president would threaten to bust up NATO, I would have said, a year ago, no, that that's not possible. The fact that the president would demand that the Danish government hand over Greenland or threaten the Prime Minister of Norway for not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, President Trump constantly does things that you don't expect, you didn't predict.

And, you know, he says that the, I don't if he's saying it anymore, but he said initially when he first started talking about Canada as the 51st state, he said, oh, just joking. But he often does that. He tries as a joke, and then it just gradually becomes serious. And so, yes, I can no longer not imagine that the United States might try and invade Canada and take it over. Presumably what it would prefer to do, or those in the administration would prefer to do, is us voluntarily say, thank you so much. We'd love to be the 51st state.

Who knows? But, I mean, I don't find myself able to rule it out. I don't know how you think about it, but it just no longer seems to me improbable. And I think a lot of Canadians think it's possible now. And what does that tell you about the state of the world today? Well, it's absurd. I mean, what I don't understand, Stephen, and I've thought about this for a long time, is why a great power, or any power, for that matter, throws away dependable allies.

You know, you get rid of the ones you can't count on. It's like having friends. You know, if you have friends who you think I really can't count on, you distance yourself from them, or you're no longer friendly. But if you have someone or power, a country that has always been a good ally, And we have been a good ally in Canada to the United States. I mean, we've had our differences, but we have, on the whole, been a very dependable ally. We haven't caused the United States trouble.

And where, you know, the border is safe. We live north of them and we trade with them. So what I don't understand is why turn on Canada? Why turn on Denmark? Why turn on most of the European powers? Why turn on Japan? You know, this is really, I find very difficult to understand. And even great powers need allies.

you know, being a great power, you have a great many possible enemies, especially if your power stretches around the world. And so having allies locally who can help you helps to relieve some of that burden. And the United States, even the United States with its economy, cannot carry that burden forever if it's going to do it on its own. Well, let me play devil's advocate here. Had Donald Trump not been threatening Canada, is there any doubt in your mind that any head of government in this country would not be intending to spend as much as, 5% of our gross domestic product on the military, which is what Trump demanded and which we are apparently now over the next X number of years going to be doing. Would that have happened had he

not bullied us into doing it? It was happening. He was bullying us and we were, I think, gradually coming around to spending a bit more, but it was going to be spread over quite a long time. I think, you know, we weren't going to get up to 5% until sometime in the 2030s, as I remember. What I think has changed is that the Canadian government now recognized that it's not, it's got to spend money on defense, not just because President Trump wants it to, got to spend money on defense because it may need it. And that's very different. And I think Canadians are coming around to the view that, you know, much as we dislike the idea of spending a lot of money on defense, because it means we won't be spending money on other things that we're going to have to do it.

I mean, I think the latest poll was, it's almost half of Canadians think that it is possible that the United States might try and invade. And if you think that, spending on the military no longer seems like something you can put off till 2035. Mm-hmm. Boy, sign of the times. Who was the last American president, you can recall, who seemed to get along with his Democratic Western allies worse than with his, you know, sort of authoritarian, totalitarian dictators, more?

I'm having trouble. That's an interesting question. I don't think I can think of anyone. I mean, President Franklin Roosevelt, in the second. World War tried very hard to get on with Stalin, not because he liked the Soviet system, but he just felt it was necessary for the future of the peace. But I think his sympathies were much more, obviously, with the democracies. They had much more in common.

But, you know, I think Eisenhower is president, Republican presidents, and Democratic presidents, got on very well with their allies. I mean, President Nixon, who people often see as a ruthless president with authoritarian tendencies, very well understood the importance of alliances and spent a lot of time on his allies, as did his Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. So I'm actually having trouble thinking of an American president, certainly since the Second World War, who has not got on with Democratic allies. It's interesting how I've asked this question sort of four or five different ways to get

you to think of another president who was comparable to Trump in ways X, Y, and Z. and somebody with your expertise can't think of another one. That does suggest this guy is a different kind of cat, and I suspect you don't think in a very good way. No, I think his instincts are to do what he wants and to hell with the consequences and to ignore any sort of petty-fogging rules and institutions that get in his way,

the way in which he's been using the Justice Department, for example. It's been known by other presidents. I'm not saying he's the only one to do it. But when he said in that interview, was it about a week ago, the New York Times, he said, you know, they said, what constraints would you see on how you act internationally? He said, my own morality. Well, I don't find that really very reassuring. I mean, I think the closest analogy to someone like President Trump is actually a monarch.

I mean, in some ways he's like Louis XIV, the French king, who built Versailles, which in some ways it also had lots of gold and lots of mirrors. and Louis XIV, Louis XIV, made war, as he said. He said, I do it for my own glory. I'm not saying that Donald Trump wants to make war, but Louis XIV,

conducted himself in a way internationally for his own glory. He didn't care about an abstract thing called France. It was all about what he wanted. Or, you know, I think in some ways President Trump reminds me of Henry the 8th, who in pursuit of what he wanted, it was quite prepared to break up a long-standing

relationship with the Catholic Church and was quite prepared to destroy the monasteries, which filled England and so on. So I think President Trump has the instincts of a king, and he's often talked about it himself. I don't think I'm doing an injustice. He's actually put out memes of himself wearing a crown. Well, okay, I'm terrible on this part of history. Louis XIV, was he the one who said, the state is me? Yep, yeah.

Okay. So that's consistent with President Trump. But I think Trump's had only half as many wives as Henry the Eighth. So that's not a perfect comparison. No, no. Henry the Eighth had six. And Trump's lives, you know, didn't meet the fate. No, no beheadings yet. No, no, certainly not.

That's right. What does history help us understand if you're a mid-sized to smaller country and a bigger country is bullying the blazes out of you? What options does history teach us that we have? Well, you have, I suppose, three options. You can resist, but the price might be too high for you. Although there are examples, and I would say Ukraine, in a way, is a country that has resisted a much greater power and has done so extremely successfully.

Finland resisted the Soviet Union in the winter war between 1939 and 1940, and fought the Soviets more or less to a standstill and remained independent. And so it is possible, I think, for smaller countries. countries to hold off greater powers, especially if those great powers have issues within, have defects in their armed forces. The other possibility, of course, or another possibility, is you submit to the greater power and say, okay, what do you want? We think you're wonderful. We'll do whatever you want. We'll live happily together ever after, which usually doesn't turn out well because the price can be very high indeed. I mean, I think Italy submitted in a way

to Hitler, Hitler's Germany. They were allies, but increasingly Hitler's Germany dominated Italy, and it was disastrous for Italy. And the other thing, you know, the final thing I think that you can do is look for other powers that can be your protector, which depending on geography, can sometimes work. And so if you happen to live on an intersection or dividing a fault line between two great powers, you can, if you maneuver carefully enough, sometimes put yourself under the protection of the enemy of the power that's trying to push you around. But that other power may also be something of a difficult bargain. So I think what is coming happening is a realization in nations,

both the publics and the leaders, that you don't get anywhere by trying to jolly President Trump along, trying to give him lovely presence, because you don't know what he's going to do next. And possibly, I think, Greenland may be a red line. certainly what a number of countries have now said, that they may simply decide that they can't deal with President Trump by trying to win him over, and they may decide to resist him. And if they did, the trouble is, you know, those who oppose what President Trump is trying to do are not united, but if they did try and resist him, I mean, if the European Union,

for example, plus Britain could pull itself together and resist him, they actually have a considerable amount of power. But it's been very difficult, I think, for them to get to this position. You can understand why. You know, the United States has been for so long the linchpin of the Western Alliance. And to suddenly see it as a menace is, I mean, I think psychologically very hard. And I think it is taking Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, and others, some time to come to grips with the fact that they may have to deal with the United States in a different way. I must confess, when I asked that question,

I did wonder whether or not you were going to use the word appeasement, because it is such a loaded trigger word for, historians who have studied Neville Chamberlain and World War II and so on. And you did use the word. Do you think there's too much appeasement of Trump going on in this world today? Well, I think the attempt in itself is not bad. I mean, you know, I think it's very important to avoid war and to avoid international confrontations. And so if someone is making demands, causing trouble, if you can find something that will appease them, that will settle them down, that will give them something of what they want, I mean, we do this in personal relationships.

You know, we make compromises. And so I think appeasement has got a very bad name because of what happened in the 1930s. Even then, I think it was an honorable attempt to try and avoid a Second World War. People who were doing it went on too long. They were too naive about Hitler. But I think the attempt in itself wasn't bad. And so an attempt of trying to find ways of keeping President Trump within the community of nations and the United States within the community of nations,

trying to find things that would satisfy apparently some of his. complaints was not a bad one. But what seems to me clear is that there's no satisfying his complaints because once you satisfy one, there'll be another one. And he seems to use tariffs in a very unpredictable way. I mean, they're not to do with economics. They're a bludgeon to try and force other nations to do what he wants. But what does he want them to do? It's not always clear. And so it's dealing with a highly unpredictable leader of a great power. And I think, I hope that nations are getting to the point where they're realizing that this is probably not going to work very well. Well, again, I'm going to ask you if there's sort of anybody in history you can recall.

Well, I'll put it this way. President Trump, I guess, you know, as he is able to and as he legally can, appointed members to the board of what was then called, and I guess legally technically is still called the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. And it's been that for 55 years. And that board suddenly decided we're going to rename the thing the Donald J. Trump, John F. Kennedy, Center for the Performing Arts. And as a result, this iconic cultural institution in the United States now has the name of the current president on it. How do you negotiate with somebody who thinks that that's an appropriate thing to do?

Well, I know. It's a very good question. I'm not sure you do. maybe the only way you negotiate with someone who is all about his own glory and himself is to make it difficult for him. And I think what is interesting in the United States and possibly around the world as well is that we're now seeing pushback against some of the things that President Trump is trying to do. And this is, I think, something that perhaps he hadn't counted on. But I think there is a sense that there is no satisfying whatever his appetite is and that he'll always ask for more.

And the Kennedy Center is suffering. I mean, it's apparently half empty. Shows have been canceled. People don't want to go there. The director of Richard Grinnell, Trump's appointment, doesn't really seem to know what he's doing. So, you know, I think that there may be a growing sense that, you know, this is something,

the only way to manage President Trump is to push back. And when the Chinese push back on tariffs, Trump did back down. I mean, China's big enough to be able to do it. But trying to say to him, what would you really like? How can we make you happy? It doesn't seem to me to have worked very well. Well, I wonder if we're seeing, and I want your view on this, the beginnings of something here.

And by that I mean, you know, Joe Rogan, this very famous podcaster in the United States, watched what was going on in Minnesota recently, and he said ICE agents were acting like the Gestapo. Now, this is a pro-Trump podcaster in the United States who, you know, has got millions upon millions of listeners. Marjorie Taylor Green, who was always part of the MAGA crowd, part of the foundation of MAGA, has broken very publicly with Trump saying she was naive to believe that he was whom he claimed to be. You know, we're still many, many months away from the midterm elections in the United States. But to be sure, if those elections were to happen today, the Republicans would take a, you know what kind of kicking and the Democrats would do well. He could lose the House of Representatives. Are you starting to see signs that MAGA might be in trouble?

I think so. And I think we're also starting to see signs. We're certainly seeing them in the Senate and even in the House. There are Republican senators now, for example, speaking out against the threats to Greenland and the threats to Denmark. What we're also saying, I think, is a split in MAGA, particularly those who dominate MAGA, between those who are America firsters and those who want the United States to be powerful in the world and intervene in the world. And so there is a real split over foreign policy. What may come as well, I mean, there is that whole weird sort of racial side in a lot of the support that comes to America.

The United States is a white Christian nation. Well, that would actually exclude a lot of the people who are in the present administration because they're not white and they're not Christian. they have their own faiths and they are of different colors. And so I think the coalition is perhaps shakier than we realized. But I think what will have to take place is that elections are actually held and held fairly. And that, I think, is a concern, the gerrymandering, the talk now of getting rid of postal votes, the postal votes, not counting them if they come in after a certain day. I mean, there is, you know, there's concern, I think, over how this election will be held.

and will there be violence? You know, and I think the behavior of ICE, I agree. I think with Joe Rogan, I never thought I'd find myself saying this. But ICE, I think, is throwing its weight around. I think they've been hiring people en masse. They shorten the training time. So I'm not sure that the people on the streets wearing the face masks actually have the capacity and the training

and the knowledge of how to deal with crowds. And that seems to be really worrying. And I think there's something now like 3,000 ice agents in Minneapolis, which isn't that big a city. It's far more than the local police. And President Trump is now talking of sending the military in, which again is extraordinary because there's no insurrection in Minneapolis. I mean, there are people who are very concerned about what is going on. And they're watching and they're videoing and they're blowing whistles, all of which seems to be perfectly legitimate. But I do think there is some pushback.

And certainly around the world, I mean, I think there is, I felt that very much this week and last week, there just is a sense that maybe we've run out of options and maybe the only thing we can do is as nations say no. And if necessary, you know, retaliate with our own tariffs. And I think President, I think Prime Minister Carney's trip to China and to the Gulf was an important indicator that Canada is looking for other contacts, other peoples to work with. because we can't be sure that the United States is going to follow a consistent policy. I think it's the changeability as much as anything else, the unpredictability that is so difficult to deal with. I have had the good fortune to have interviewed you many times over the years, and usually we stick exactly to script and talk about history and current affairs and so on.

But, you know, this is the world of podcasting, and so I'd like to finish up by asking Margaret McMillan a couple of questions about Margaret McMillan. and I checked this out before we started. So lest anybody send me emails here saying, how dare you ask her that question, you will confess that I check this out ahead of time, and you are not vain about your age. You want to tell us how old you are?

Just before Christmas I turned 82. That's shocking to me. First of all, you look fantastic. Second of all, you're still, like, incredibly with it. What kind of... We'll see. Well, what does being 82? allow you to do in life that perhaps being 52 didn't allow you to do?

I think you become more aware of what's important, friends, family, time spent with them, which I've always thought is important. But perhaps also you have a certain sort of freedom. Now that I'm an old bat, I can say what I want, and I don't have to worry that much. And I'm no longer working. So I don't have to think, you know, I mustn't say that because it might upset my employers or, you know, I can't do this or do that. I think there's a sort of freedom with getting older

that you can just simply say what you want. I mean, quite often it's wrong, but that's fine, I think. We should be corrected when we say things that are wrong. How neat is it that two of the leading voices on international affairs in this country are both 82-year-old women, you and Janice Stein. What does that say? Well, maybe, I don't know. I mean, if we were wine, maybe we were sort of a good vintage.

I would say so. But not me, but Janice would be a very good vintage. I'm, you know, probably the whatever the sort of, you know, the second pressing of the grapes is. Do you think you have another book in you? I'm working on one at the moment. Funny enough, on the Grand Alliance in the Second World War, which was a very successful alliance, by improbable between Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. But it was an important time because they were trying to be.

build a better world. At least I would say that the United States was and Britain was not so much the Soviet Union. And it's the world which we have grown up in and lived through. And that world is now disappearing. You've written so many wonderful books about countries, about war, about history, about Nixon and Kissinger, important figures in history. What about a memoir? You're going to write your life story? No, I don't think writers' lives are all that interesting. I mean, most of the time we just sit in old clothes sitting there typing or writing. And so, you know, the days go by. So, I mean, I think with some exceptions, I mean, there are other sort of rambunctious writers who are always in bars fighting like Norman Mailer.

But I'm no Norman Mailer. You know, I spent most of my days just sitting at a desk. So I don't think it's terribly exciting. You know, the reality is, though, given your obvious health and robustness and demographic, you could live another 20 years pretty easily. as you think about your next mission over the next one or two decades of your life, what comes to mind? Well, doing what I do, actually, I think history can be helpful in helping us understand where we are, helping us ask questions about where we are, helping us wonder about what the future might be like. And so I think since I spent my life doing history, maybe I've got something to offer there,

and I'd like to continue doing that if anybody can be bothered to listen to me. And I'd like to have more holidays. You know, I like holidays. Where do you want to go? I want to travel more. I mean, I've never been to someone like Sicily. Lots of, there are lots of cities in the center of Europe I've never seen like Prague. I wanted to go to Russia, but that's off the cards now.

I'm afraid I'll probably never get there. Now, why is it out of the, not going to happen because why? Them or you? Both, I think. Well, no, I think them more. I mean, well, I wouldn't go anywhere at the moment, given what they're doing to Ukraine. But do you remember when the Canada sanctioned some Russians in Canada? Yes. Yes. And the Russians immediately came up with a list of 100 Canadians. And it was a very random list and included me. So I think technically I'm sanctioned by the Russian Foreign Ministry. That's kind of an honor. Well, I take it as an honor, actually. But I mean, I don't think I've done anything in particular. I think they just needed a hundred. names to respond to the Canadian government. So anyway, I don't think I can go. And that is one of my regrets. I would love to have seen Russia.

You've probably been there, but I never have. And I was always going to go. Do you know what? I've been to Moscow for three days. That's it. Because that kid of mine that you know was doing some education, was doing some studying and some research in Moscow. And he said, hey, I'm here for a few months.

Why don't you drop in for a while? So I came for a long weekend. Oh, and you're right. It is St. Basil's Church is the most incredible cathedral I've ever seen in my life. It's amazing. Yeah. Well, you've got that.

You know, and I've been very lucky. I've gone to places in the world where, you know, others haven't. So I'm not complaining. But while I can still get about it, like there are a few more places I have to go to. I'd like to go to the Caucasus. I'd like to go to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia. And I'd love to go to Central Asia. But, you know, there's a lot of the world to see.

Now, you, again, because of the books you've written about World War I and two, is there any sort of significant either battleground or place or location? I remember my old friend Eric Margulies used to go visit the Maginot Line every year. I mean, are there any of those kinds of places you haven't been that you've written about that you want to go see? I haven't actually been to the Maginot Line, and I would like to see it. I've been to some of the Western Front I've been to Normandy I've been to Waterloo

which is very interesting because it's still pretty much preserved the way it is so I would yes and I would like to go back I would like to go back to the Western Front and the Eastern Front is very interesting I finally got I went to Ukraine a couple of years ago

and I went on our way there I went with a journalist and on our way there we stayed in what had been a fortress town in a very important battle in the First World War and so that to see that was quite exciting I mean, there's whole of the Eastern Front, which we don't really know.

A lot of us don't know very much about. I'd love to spend more time there. Marvelous. I can't thank you enough for spending this much time with us. It was a real joy to speak to you again. Let me just say to our viewers and listeners that we encourage them to go to the website, Patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. That's patreon.com, the Paken podcast, and check out some of the offerings we have there.

And all of these shows are archived at Stevepaken.com. Margaret McMillan, a great pleasure. Peace and love to you. And keep on, keeping on. Thank you very much, Steve. Always a pleasure to talk to you.