Generals’ selection: Myanmar’s sham poll

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Generals’ Selection: Myanmar’s Sham Poll”

Podcast: Economist Podcasts – The Intelligence
Host: Rosie Blore (with contributions from Shashank Joshi, Aaron Connolly, Richard Cockett)
Date: December 29, 2025

Overview

This episode opens with a deep dive into Myanmar’s recent election—highlighted as a sham poll orchestrated by the country’s military junta. Asia Diplomatic Editor Aaron Connolly explains how the vote is widely dismissed by locals and foreign observers alike, analyzing the internal power dynamics, the struggles of pro-democracy resistance, and the region’s shifting geopolitics.
The second half of the show pivots to a discussion on the greatest war films of all time. Host Rosie Blore is joined by Richard Cockett and Shashank Joshi, who debate their top picks and explore how war movies reflect the anxieties and preoccupations of their eras.

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Part 1: Myanmar’s Sham Election and Military Power Struggles

1. Setting the Stage: Myanmar’s Unfolding Crisis

• Introduction to Resistance:
  • Story of Dr. Teizasan, a Mandalay doctor turned protest leader, whose activism after the 2021 coup became emblematic of the broader pro-democracy movement.
  • Recent daring public protest against the junta’s sham election ([01:56]).

“Earlier this month, Teizasan appeared at a market in the heart of Mandalay... to protest the regime’s sham election. That appearance was one of Teizasan’s most daring yet.” — Aaron Connolly ([02:41])

2. Current Political and Military Landscape

• Evolution of Resistance:
  • Protests escalated into armed rebellion post-2021, with the Bamar majority aligning with ethnic armed groups ([03:00]).
  • 2023 saw resistance successes, nearly encircling Mandalay, until the junta regained momentum.
• Factors Behind Shift in Momentum:
  • China’s Changing Role:
    • Initially backed borderland ethnic militias to curb scam centers; but once priorities shifted to stability, China cut supply lines and even coerced compliance through kidnappings ([03:41]).
    • China has further blocked ammunition supplies, straining central-country revolutionaries.
  • US Aid Withdrawal:
    • Closure of USAID, particularly on the order of Donald Trump, removed crucial humanitarian support.
    • Some resistance forces, like those in Kareni State, diverted 60% of military budgets to humanitarian needs, weakening their fighting capacity ([04:41]).

“So those who are still fighting the junta are desperate for ammunition.” — Aaron Connolly ([04:24])

3. Junta’s Changed Tactics

• Human Wave Attacks:
  • Following Russian advisors, the military conscripted up to 100,000 young people, deploying them en masse in assaults that exploit rebels’ ammunition shortages ([05:18]).
  • These primitive but numerically effective tactics have shifted the ground war in the junta’s favor.
• Technological Adaptation:
  • Increased reliance on UAVs and notably, motorized paragliders (like those seen in Hamas's 2023 attack) for strikes—especially effective against rebel-held areas ([05:18]).
  • Use of Chinese equipment and evolving aerial tactics.

“So while they are being used as cannon fodder, when you have the numbers, sometimes cannon fodder can be effective.” — Aaron Connolly ([05:35])

4. The Election’s Real Purpose

• Why Hold a Sham Election?
  • The poll is widely seen as performative; people are coerced into voting ([06:38]).
  • Internally, it may serve as a mechanism for the military brass to challenge or depose inept senior general Min Aung Hlaing, whom many blame for 2023–24 failures.
  • Foreign hopes exist that a leadership reshuffle may prompt a more collegial junta or a pragmatic rival—though most doubt any meaningful change.

“People are being coerced to go to the polls, but it may serve some purpose internally within the regime.” — Aaron Connolly ([06:38])

• ASEAN and International Response:
  • ASEAN has suspended Myanmar’s junta; recent actions have failed to moderate military tactics, though some in the region hope for a new opening ([07:20]).
• Local Sentiment:
  • On the ground, opposition leaders like Dr. Teizasan and his peers are determined to hold out for a real, democratic election ([08:16]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “China began to worry more about the instability that [ethnic rebels] might be creating... so they turned on them, cut their supply lines... and now, in one case, they even kidnapped the leader of one of these groups.” — Aaron Connolly ([04:02])
• “The resistance in a place called Kareni State had been particularly successful... But when USAID was closed... they had to shift 60% of their military budget into their humanitarian budget just to feed their people.” — Aaron Connolly ([04:56])
• “After five years of fighting and protesting this military regime, they’re holding out for a real election.” — Aaron Connolly ([08:16])

---

Part 2: The Greatest War Films — Debate and Reflections

1. War Film Appeal and Selection Process

• Why War Films?
  • Excitement, action, gripping human drama, and timeliness ([09:46]).
  • War exposes characters to the extreme edges of human experience ([10:02]).
• How the List Was Made:
  • Input from readers of The Economist’s “War Room” newsletter.
  • Criteria: authenticity, narrative quality, intelligence, wit ([10:24]).

“Generally, the more action the better... But also war, sadly, is always with us, it’s always highly topical.” — Richard Cockett ([09:46])

2. Top Picks and Why They Matter

a. Saving Private Ryan (1998, Spielberg)

• Praised for realistic D-Day recreation and soundscape.
• Evokes tribute to the “greatest generation” and their sacrifice ([11:45]).

“The first 23 minutes—the storming of Omaha beach—set a new standard for realism and authenticity in war movies.” — Richard Cockett ([11:51])

b. Das Boot (1981, Wolfgang Petersen)

• Focuses on a German U-boat crew; captures claustrophobia, fear, and humanity—contrasting Hollywood portrayals of WWII ([12:38]).
• Sound design emphasizes silence and tension.

“No other film, for me, gets the claustrophobia of fighting on submarines.” — Richard Cockett ([12:42])

c. Dr. Strangelove (1964, Kubrick)

• A satirical take on nuclear war and Cold War brinkmanship.
• Enduring cultural and strategic lessons; its famous “war room” line inspired The Economist’s newsletter title ([14:12]).

“You can’t fight in here, this is the war room.” — Richard Cockett ([14:13])

d. Apocalypse Now (1979, Coppola)

• Early and iconic Vietnam war film; departs from heroism, embracing themes of American moral decay and chaos ([16:58]).

“The heart of darkness is not where you go, it’s the darkness in your own heart.” — Richard Cockett ([17:34])

e. Zero Dark Thirty (2012, Bigelow)

• Examines the manhunt for Osama bin Laden—spotlights intelligence analysis, the role of women, and ethical controversy over torture ([18:20]).

“One of the themes of the film is of Maya’s role... she ends up being as enthusiastic a torturer of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists as her CIA male peer.” — Richard Cockett ([19:08])

3. Nationalism and Regional War Films

• Western films often more cynical; Indian and Chinese war films are generally nationalistic and celebratory ([15:50]–[16:08]).

“I don’t think the mass market Indian audience is really much in the market for cynicism... about their military history.” — Shashank Joshi ([15:54])

4. Changing Styles and Technology in War Cinema

• Depiction of Combat:
  • Advancements in CGI have transformed how battles are shown ([19:46]).
  • Real-life drone footage from Ukraine influences perceptions and anticipation of future war films.
• Future Directions:
  • War films may soon tackle cyberwar, satellite warfare, and drones—though visualizing these “intangible” conflicts remains a challenge ([20:44]–[21:18]).

“I will have enormous respect for the director who is able to show these esoteric and intangible aspects of modern war in a realistic and effective way.” — Shashank Joshi ([21:05])

• Historical Perspective:
  • War films may reveal more about the era and mindset in which they’re produced than the conflicts themselves ([21:18]).

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Key Timestamps

• Myanmar Segment

  • Dr. Teizasan and protest context: [01:56]
  • Current battlefield realities: [03:00–06:33]
  • Election analysis: [06:35–08:16]

• War Films Segment

  • Introduction and criteria: [09:22–10:24]
  • WWII films (‘Saving Private Ryan,’ ‘Das Boot’): [11:45–13:49]
  • ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and Cold War satire: [13:49–15:04]
  • Nationalist vs. Western war films: [15:50–16:08]
  • Vietnam and post-9/11 films: [16:58–19:02]
  • Technology & future of war movies: [19:46–21:59]

---

Memorable Quotes

• “You can’t fight in here. This is the war room.” — Dr. Strangelove, cited by Richard Cockett ([14:13])
• “The heart of darkness is not where you go, it’s the darkness in your own heart.” — Richard Cockett ([17:34])
• “Once upon a time, the drone shot of a battlefield would have been seen as alienating. ... But now, from Ukraine, we’ve become saturated with these real, what are, I’m afraid, snuff movies...” — Shashank Joshi ([20:13])

---

Conclusion

This episode masterfully intertwines Myanmar’s bleak political theater with a rich discussion of how cinema imagines war. Listeners gain insight into the harsh realities behind Myanmar’s current headlines, while also engaging in a lively, intelligent debate on the art, impact, and evolution of war films—revealing, ultimately, as much about our present anxieties as about the past conflicts they depict.

Transcript

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[Shashank Joshi]

The economist.

[Rosie Blore]

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm Rosie Blore. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Just as war is as old as time, so war films are as old as moving pictures. And every age reinvents the genre to reflect its own anxieties. With over a century of war films to choose from, which is the best? Our correspondents fight it out. But first, This weekend, voting began in Myanmar's election. It's the first poll since the military junta seized power five years ago, but it's widely viewed as a sham. In the regions and in the cities, rebels have long been trying to oppose the ruling generals. Recently, demonstrators in Mandalay staged a protest against the proposed ballot. Their leader was a wiry, bespectacled doctor.

[Aaron Connolly]

I first met Teizasan about 10 years ago on my first trip to Mandalay.

[Rosie Blore]

Aaron Connolly is our Asia Diplomatic editor.

[Aaron Connolly]

He's a doctor by training, but he was there to introduce me to different people in the city who are working to try and bridge relations between Muslims and Buddhists at what was a pretty tense time between the two faiths in Myanmar. The day after the military launched a coup d' etat in 2021, he showed up leading the very first protest against military rule in Myanmar that led to massive protests around the country, millions of people turning out, and he became a kind of national icon at that point. Earlier this month, Tezasan appeared at a market in the heart of Mandalay, not far from military headquarters, to protest the regime's sham election. That appearance was one of Teizasan's most daring yet.

[Rosie Blore]

Okay, so Erin, fill in a bit.

Of the context for me. What is the current state of politics in Myanmar and this conflict?

[Aaron Connolly]

Well, when the military began to massacre protesters in 2021, a number of them took up arms against military rule, and young people from the bomber majority in the middle of the country began to work with ethnic armed groups in the hilly borderlands of Myanmar who had Been fighting the regime for decades, in many cases, for a While in 2023, it looked like they might have the junta on the run. At one point, they were very close to laying siege to Mandalay, and there were whispers that the junta might even collapse. But since then, the military has really turned the tables on the revolutionaries, and it's been a brutal year for them.

[Rosie Blore]

So why has all of that changed?

[Aaron Connolly]

Well, there are a few factors, and two of them are external. The first on China. China had been backing a number of those ethnic armed groups in the borderlands. They'd been quite helpful to China in eliminating scam centers in Myanmar that were targeting Chinese citizens. But when they outlived their usefulness, China began to worry more about the instability that they might be creating in the country and how that would affect Chinese investments. And so they turned on them and they cut their supply lines. And now, in one case, they even kidnapped the leader of one of these groups until they agreed to sign a truce with the junta. And worse, it hasn't just affected those groups on the border, because China's also instructed them to stop selling ammunition to other groups, especially those young revolutionaries in the center of the country. So those who are still fighting the junta are desperate for ammunition. The second factor has been Donald Trump's closure of usaid. USAID never directly funded any of the armed groups in Myanmar, but they were providing humanitarian assistance to populations under their care, especially food aid. And so a number of those armed groups have had to shift what had been military spending into their humanitarian budgets. And to cite just one example, the resistance in a place called Kareni State had been particularly successful. They had conquered about 90% of their state. But then when USAID was closed and the funding that they were providing was eliminated, they had to shift 60% of their military budget into their humanitarian budget just to feed their people. And since then, they've lost most of the major cities in that state to a junta counteroffensive.

[Rosie Blore]

So all of that has changed. What's actually happening on the ground, then?

[Aaron Connolly]

That's right. And the junta has made a couple of adjustments on the ground as well. Since the middle of 2024, the Hun has been drafting young people in the middle of Myanmar. It's thought that they now have around 80,000 to 100,000 conscripts in their army. And on the advice of Russian trainers, the Hun has used these conscripts to send them against revolutionaries in human wave attacks. And because these revolutionaries are short on ammunition, they don't have enough ammo to Mow down every human wave and oftentimes they're forced to retreat. So while they are being used as cannon fodder, when, when you have the numbers, sometimes cannon fodder can be effective. It's a very primitive tactic. But then in the air, the junta has been more innovative. And so at the beginning of the war, they were loath to use UAVs, but they've really adapted their tactics in the air. They have access to a lot of Chinese kit now. And they also have been using motorized paragliders like those that we saw Hamas use in the attacks of October 7, 2023 against civilian populations in the middle of the country, which makes it very hard for revolutionaries to administer those areas after they've captured them. And so the military really does have rebels on the back foot in Myanmar as a result of those external factors and these changes in tactics that they've adopted.

[Rosie Blore]

So in that case, what is this.

Election really about and why is it being held?

[Aaron Connolly]

You know, it must be said that this is not a real election in the sense of people going to the polls to elect a future government. People are being coerced to go to the polls, but it may serve some purpose internally within the regime. And it's thought that most of the military brass don't really like Min Aung Lang, the senior general of the junta. He's thought to be dim and inept. They blame him for many of their losses in 2023 and 2024, and they may be seeking some kind of mechanism by which they can displace him. And so what foreign diplomats hope is that he'll give up one of his two titles after the election, either Commander in Chief or President, and that that might lead to a more consensual form of leadership or even a rival within the junta to RIS Top and who might be easier to work with. And some governments in the region are hoping that that might present an opening to re engage the military government. The association of Southeast Asian nations asean has basically suspended the junta from membership. It doesn't allow M? Hlang to attend its meetings, and it disregards Myanmar's views when it comes to decisions, even though these decisions are supposed to be arrived at by consensus. But many in ASEAN feel as though that kind of pressure hasn't really forced the junta to moderate its tactics.

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And.

[Aaron Connolly]

And so they're looking for an opportunity to re engage military government and hoping that they get to work with a new leader. I don't think any of that's terribly likely. And most people in Myanmar don't. But on the ground, for people like Dr. Tezasan and his revolutionaries, they're not really expecting any change to come out of this election. After five years of fighting and protesting this military regime, they're holding out for a real election.

[Rosie Blore]

Aaron, thank you very much.

[Aaron Connolly]

Thanks, Rosie. Nice to talk to you.

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[Rosie Blore]

Last week on the intelligence, we looked at books that changed the world. Today, we're turning our attention to films, specifically the best war films. To talk about this genre, I'm joined by Richard Cockett, a senior editor at the Economist.

[Richard Cockett]

Thanks, Rosie.

[Rosie Blore]

And Shashank Joshi, the Economist defence editor.

[Shashank Joshi]

Hi, Rosie, thanks very much for having us.

[Rosie Blore]

So tell me, why do people like watching war films so much?

[Richard Cockett]

First of all, they're exciting and everyone wants to be entertained. Generally, the more action, the better. You usually involve some sort of domineering characters and I think also war, sadly, is always with us, it's always highly topical.

[Shashank Joshi]

I think it's also that war represents the extremity of the human experience and so you end up putting ordinary people into extraordinary situations and you see these people tested in a way that they're tested in no other walk of life, in no other way.

[Rosie Blore]

Richard, you've been putting together a list of the best war films, which is a tough call. How have you been doing this?

[Richard Cockett]

So, the War Room newsletter, we sent out an ask to our readers to nominate their films and we got scores and scores of replies, long lists in some cases. And there are one or two of the films mentioned by our readers which I didn't really know much about, and one I'd never watched. So thank you to all our readers for their. And then all just my arbitrary judgment, I'm afraid, judging them on roughly a mixture of criteria. So authenticity was one. How realistic is this? How good in terms of narrative flow? But also intelligence and wit.

[Shashank Joshi]

I'm afraid now I hear Richard's criteria. I can see why some of my favourite war films did not appear on this list. Because my tastes have veered towards the low brow, the kitsch, the camp. I noticed we had horrifyingly left off Top Gun in both its incarnations. Incarnations. We'd horrifyingly left off the Hunt for Red October.

[Rosie Blore]

I've noticed that World War II dominated the suggestions readers sent in. And it probably is the conflict that's had the most war films made about it and the most different types. I grew up on a lot of prison of war films, all the cold IT stories, the Great Escape, can't get enough of them. But you've chosen two very different films and perspectives on the second World War. Richard, tell me what you've gone for.

[Richard Cockett]

The obvious one which I think would probably be on everyone's list actually. Saving Private ryan, made in 1998 by Stephen Spielberg and basically it's about the D day landings in 1944. The first 23 minutes. The storming of Omaha beach set a new standard for realism and authenticity in war movies and I argue in all action genres actually. And the soundscape alone of Private Ryan on the beach is extraordinary. And the way of course they dare to fade everything out. It's all seen through Tom Hanks eyes and he's knocked sideways or unconscious for a little bit and then there's no sound at all. And then you back into this incredible cacophony of explosions. It's in the end a tribute to the greatest generation and people who made the greatest sacrifice in the second Marvel.

[Rosie Blore]

And your other choice is Das Boot from 1981?

[Richard Cockett]

Yes, this is less well known West German production and it tells the tale of a U boat mission into the Atlantic to sink British and American merchant shipping during the Second World War. And it's all told from the U boat's point of view, directed by Wolfgang Petersen. And no other film for me gets the claustrophobia of fighting on submarines. I think it's very interesting. This comes from the Germans. We think of Germans as sort of ideological robots during the Second World War. Well, here you go. It's just a bunch of scared teenagers on a submarine. That's very effective.

[Shashank Joshi]

What stands out for me is the contrast between these two and I'm glad you mentioned the soundscape of Saving Private Ryan. It's all about the sensory overload, the contrast with Das Boot of course, which is wonderful in its own way, is that the power of its soundscape is in its, I think, silence and its restraint. And I just was really struck by that scene where the captain is testing the ship at the beginning, pushing the operator to get it deeper and deeper and deeper. And the sound is the sound of the rivets, sweat dripping off men's faces. And it couldn't be more different to the beat in Normandy, which is just bedlam and overwhelming. But each is just incredibly powerful in its own way, isn't it?

[Rosie Blore]

Okay, let's try and leave the Second World War behind. Richard, your next pick is Dr. Strangelove from 1964. Is this even a war film?

[Shashank Joshi]

It's a nuclear war film.

[Richard Cockett]

It's a nuclear war film, indeed. It's an almost war film. And we had to have this in because we see it starting, don't we? We see it starting, yes, right at the end. The first bomb goes away.

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[Richard Cockett]

It may not be a war film, but we had to include it because its most famous line, spoken by the President against some brawling generals is, you can't fight in here. This is the war room. And that gave us our title of our military newsletter, the War Room, which Shashank writes. So we had to have it. But it's also the most brilliant satire on the Cold War. And all the language for machinations, for posturing of the Cold War was made by Stanley Kubrick, of course, Peter Sellers at his comic best plays for three. You do understand a lot about the psychology of people involved in the Cold War and the decision making processes and, of course, how they can go disastrously wrong as they do in the film.

[Rosie Blore]

So, Shashank, you spend a lot of time thinking about the possibility of nuclear war. Are the lessons from Dr. Strangelove still pertinent, do you think?

[Shashank Joshi]

One of the great lines from the film is at the very end, I think, where somebody says, what's the point of a doomsday machine if you don't tell the world you've built it? And that's a satire on the absurdity of it. But of course, there's also an incredible kernel of truth to that. There's a book published many years later by David Hoffman, a great American journalist, called the Dead Hand. And it's about the Soviet Union's perimeter system. And perimeter was a doomsday machine, in a way, I'm exaggerating, but it was a system to make sure that the Soviet missile force could retaliate even if the Soviet leadership had been decapitated by an American strike.

[Rosie Blore]

Most of our picks, most of our readers picks were Eurocentric and Western films. How much do they differ from those elsewhere? Do you know?

[Shashank Joshi]

I certainly have a little bit of experience watching the odd Indian war movie. I do think there is a clear, really strong nationalistic element that is really at the forefront. I don't think the mass market Indian audience is really much in the market for cynicism and eyebrow raising, an eye rolling about their military history.

[Rosie Blore]

Yet yeah, the same is true of Chinese war films which have really only one message which is that the Chinese Communist Party saved us from the Japanese. And the message of something like Wolf Warrior 2 got some showing outside China as well, was the Chinese are ready, they're going to fight everyone, they're going to win. So that sort of nationalist message was very strong. Okay, so let's move on to another American war, but one that happened in Asia. Apocalypse now, for me anyway, really deflated how I envisioned the Vietnam War. The Doors soundtrack, the choppers. Tell me about that as a choice.

[Richard Cockett]

1979, Francis Ford Coppola's great epic. It was quite early for a big Vietnam War film, so people were not used to the cynicism of the film. It's basically a film about American values and generalship disintegrating in the jungles of Vietnam. So it had a big impact at the time and it was followed by a generation of anti war films. It was based on a novella by Joseph Conrad, the Heart of Darkness. And basically Coppola's saying, as Joseph Conrad intended, the heart of darkness is not where you go, it's the darkness in your own heart. Going into these places which you know nothing about, you regard as primitive and uncivilized, but in fact they capture you. And it's you who go to pieces. It's you, the Westerner who becomes uncivilized, not the people you're fighting. And that was a big message to take on at that time, so soon after Vietnam War had actually finished.

[Shashank Joshi]

What I find interesting about Apocalypse now is there's that same sort of slight sensory overload, chaos, fog of war that you get in Saving Private Ryan, but none of the kind of heroism around it.

[Rosie Blore]

Next is Zero Dark Thirty, a film from 2012 about the war on terror and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. What did you think of this one, Shashank?

[Shashank Joshi]

I think it's a good depiction of something that most people aren't very interested in, which is not spycraft and stealing secrets, but analyzing them. Assessment, analysis, all the people poring over data and over maps and things, making stuff happen, which is really dull. But actually, it's at heart of a lot of what I write about, even today. And the interesting thing about Zero Dark Thirty is, unlike lots of these films, the Pentagon did not cooperate with lots of these for obvious reasons. The CIA did cooperate with the makers of Zero Dark Thirty. But also this film really, I think, became a lightning rod for questions around us. Use of torture.

[Rosie Blore]

And Richard, this is striking to me because finally we mention a woman's name. Indeed, possibly several.

[Richard Cockett]

Indeed. It was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and it stars Jessica Chastain as a CIA analyst called Meyer. And one of the themes of the film is of Maya's role in all this. And most controversially, she ends up being as enthusiastic a torturer of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists as her CIA male peer. And this is a theme that runs throughout the film and again, made it very controversial at the time.

[Rosie Blore]

So, Shashank, as you think back on all of these films we've talked about and many of the other ones that you've seen in the interests of pleasure or business, how do you think war films have changed?

[Shashank Joshi]

The way they depict combat has evolved because technology has changed. In the 60s and 70s, if you wanted to depict a armored division going across the plains, you had to get an armored division and go roam it across the plain. The difference today is CGI has allowed us to depict these things in completely new ways. And you can show certain types of battles that you would never have been able to show in the past. The nature of combat has also changed. And I was reflecting on social media that I was watching Das Boot and somebody said, have you thought about the impact of drones on all of this? Because once upon a time, the drone shot of a battlefield would have been seen as alienating, quite distant, zoomed out. You're looking down at this. But of course, now from Ukraine, we've become saturated with these real, what are, I'm afraid, snuff movies, you know, of drones. Drones, eye view of an aircraft zooming in on some hapless Russian or Ukrainian soldier.

[Rosie Blore]

So, Shashank, are we going to see drone the movie or where do war films go from here?

[Shashank Joshi]

They will reflect where war is headed and that will reflect the new domains. We know that attacks on satellites will be increasingly central to any big Sino American conflict. It's easy enough to depict a big naval battle in the western Pacific, but actually those battles will hinge so enormously on things like who is able to knock out the other surveillance satellites to blind them, who is able to conduct electronic warfare and jamming. I will have enormous respect for the director who is able to show these esoteric and intangible aspects of modern war in a realistic and effective way.

[Richard Cockett]

Several people asked me why Star wars wasn't on this, to which I had no very good answer, because that is essentially fighting in space. I feel the war film has evolved, but what's interesting about it is that the directors, for writers, they're often doing very good war films about wars that happened several generations before. I think that always tells us more about the sensibilities of the generation who are making the film often than the battles and wars depicted in the film. So I don't think technology and current warfare will necessarily point you in the direction of the next war films.

[Rosie Blore]

Richard Shashank, thank you so much.

[Richard Cockett]

Thank you, Rosie. That was very enjoyable.

[Shashank Joshi]

Thank you so much.

[Rosie Blore]

And you can read the Economist's full list of the best war films by heading to the Culture section on our website or app.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence See you back here tomorrow.

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