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History As It Happens
Antony Beevor on Trump, Putin, and the Unsettled Legacies of WWII
00:45:41
Historian Antony Beevor says the world today resembles the Second World War in one important respect: "For decades, it seemed as though the characters of leaders would never again determine the course of events the way they did in World War II....
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- [00:01]
Martin DeCaro
I say this every election cycle and I'll say it again. The 2024 political field was intense. So don't get left behind in 2025. If you're running for office, the first thing on your to do list should be securing your name on the web with the your name vote domain from GoDaddy.com you'll stand out and make your mark. Don't wait. Get yours today. History as it happens May 20, 2025 Trump, Putin and World War II legacies Russian President Vladimir Putin has marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II with a massive military parade in Moscow.
- [00:45]
Antony Beaver
This year was especially lavish because it's the 80th anniversary of their really significant victory over.
- [00:55]
Donald Trump
I think we'll do it fast too. I think Putin is t our approach.
- [00:59]
Martin DeCaro
Is to put pressure on Ukraine and not pressure on Russia. Historian Antony Beaver sees the first major land war in Europe, now in its fourth year with no end in sight. He sees the Trump administration's attempts at peacemaking and the broader unraveling of the post war order created when the worst war ever came to an end, at least in Europe, 80 years ago this month. He says that order was shaped by generations whose aim was to prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again. But now, he says, we're losing this connection to the past. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [01:34]
Antony Beaver
Well, Putin is desperate to get as many supporters and allies as far as he's concerned. You know, the world is redividing. It's not really a very great change in some ways. And yet on the other hand, there is a huge change because what we have seen, especially since the 24th of February of this year when for the very first time the United States voted with Russia against its Western allies. This was striking, to put it mildly.
- [02:15]
Martin DeCaro
May 9, Red Square it was a sea of colorful uniforms, banners, tanks and military bands as the capital of the former Soviet Union celebrated the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, the association the United Press reported. The parade was the largest since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and drew the most global leaders to Moscow in a decade, including high profile guests like Chinese President Xi Jinping, who sat next to Vladimir Putin. Our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers saved the fatherland, said Putin. And they bequeathed us to defend the motherland, to stay united and firmly defend our national interests, our thousand year history, culture and traditional values, everything that is dear to us, that is sacred to us, he said. We remember the lessons of World War II, and we will never agree with the distortion of those events or attempts to justify the murderers and slander the true victors. In an essay for Foreign affairs, historian Antony Beaver says the first major continental war in Europe Since World War II is now in its fourth year, driven in part by Putin's selective reading of Russian history. So when it comes to the Great Patriotic War, as it's known among the citizens of what was once Stalin's Soviet Union, Beevor writes, Putin insists the war began in June 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, ignoring the joint Soviet and Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939.
- [03:55]
Antony Beaver
At the front, Germans and Russians meet Poland defeated, the Soviets push in to seize a share. Here at the fortress of Brest Litovsk, the German and Red army commanders formulate an agreement and there's a proclamation the Nazi communist arrangement of such fateful meaning?
- [04:11]
Martin DeCaro
Well, of course there was no mention of the rape of Poland at the big parade 11 days ago. As Beevor wrote in his 2012 book the Second World War, following the Red Army's invasion in the autumn of 1939, more than 5 million Poles found themselves under Soviet rule, which treated Polish patriotism as counter revolutionary by definition. The NKVD arrested 109,400 people, most of whom were sent to the labor camps of the gulag, while 8,513 of them were executed. The Soviet authorities targeted all those who might play a role in keeping Polish nationalism alive, including landowners, lawyers, teachers, priests, journalists and officers. It was a deliberate policy of class warfare and national decapitation. So for Putin, the war begins in June 1941.
- [05:00]
Antony Beaver
June 21, 1941 with treacherous assault, Germany declares war on Soviet Russia.
- [05:06]
Martin DeCaro
Even before Hitler's proclamation at that parade, all the talk was about heroism, and that is understandable. Putin is certainly not alone among world leaders when it comes to ignoring uncomfortable facts about his country's past. But these aren't merely academic matters. Putin uses and abuses history and memory to conduct his foreign policy. Meanwhile, writes Beaver, the Trump administration appears to be casting aside the United States global leadership in a confused tantrum.
- [05:33]
Donald Trump
You're right now not in a very good position. You've allowed yourself to be in a.
- [05:38]
Antony Beaver
Very bad position, and he happens to be right about it. From the very beginning of the war.
- [05:42]
Donald Trump
You'Re not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now.
- [05:45]
Martin DeCaro
As I was putting the finishing touches on this episode, news came of President Trump's two hour phone call with Putin about ending the war in Ukraine. Three Days after, direct peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators took place in Istanbul for the first time since the start of the war. In a statement, Trump said his call with Putin went very well. Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire, he said, and more importantly, an end to the war. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be because they know the details of a negotiation that nobody else would know, said our dealmaker in chief. Now, for years, Trump's been telling us only he could get a deal done and that he would do it quickly in one day. Just last Friday, in an interview with Fox News, Bret Baier, he said Putin was getting tired of the war. Listen to this exchange and ask yourself if the President of the United States has a firm grasp of the realities here.
- [06:43]
Donald Trump
I have a very good relationship with Putin. I think we'll make a deal. We have to get together, and I think we'll probably schedule it because I'm tired of having other people go and meet and everything else. And with that being said, I think Steve Witkoff has done an incredible job, but it's a very tough job. And it's a job that, because of position, that I think I'm the only one that's going to be able to do that one. And I think we'll do it fast, too. I think Putin is tired of this whole thing. He's not. And he's not looking good. And he wants to look good. Don't forget, this was supposed to end in one week. And if he didn't get stuck in the mud with his army tanks all over the place, they would have been in Kiev in about five hours. And who gave the javelins? Do you remember who gave the javelins? Was it Barack Hussein Obama? No, it was Donald Trump gave the javelins. Michael Kirk, do you think your perception of it has changed? Is Putin now the obstacle to peace in your mind? Look, I had a real rough session with Zelensky because I didn't like what he said, and he was not making it easy. And I always said he doesn't have the cards, and he doesn't have the cards. You know, I'm being honest. He doesn't have the cards. You're dealing with a massive army, and you're dealing with somebody that's brave, that had great equipment. But I haven't seen you get personal on True Social. You. You said, vladimir, stop.
- [08:12]
Martin DeCaro
He hasn't stopped.
- [08:14]
Donald Trump
And you had once said that maybe you need to look at other things like sanctions or banking because maybe they need to be pressured in a different way. I don't want to see 5,000 people, you know, outside of the money, which is a big deal, but the money is the money. The money we can make up. I can make up the money on one trip like this. Okay? I mean, think of it. This trip, I made 12 times the money that we're talking about.
- [08:44]
Martin DeCaro
Well, as Beaver reminds us, Trump has taken Putin's side in the war for decades. He writes, it seemed as though the characters of leaders would never again determine the course of events the way they did in World War II. Putin's invasion has changed that, and Trump taking Putin as a role model has, too. Antony Beaver has written more than a dozen books about war and revolution. He is one of the great military historians in the world today. Our conversation next. History is defined by the names that stand the test of time. Names that inspire, unite, and lead. Now it's your turn to create a lasting legacy with a dot vote domain. Whether you're running for office, driving change, or rallying support, a dot vote domain ensures your name is as memorable as those in the history books. Visit GoDaddy.com, type in your name. Vote and secure a web address that stands out. Claim your place in history with Dot vote. Sir Antony Beaver, it is an honor to have you, one of the preeminent military historians in the world, back on the podcast. Hello.
- [09:49]
Antony Beaver
Great to be back with you, Martin.
- [09:51]
Martin DeCaro
Before we start out with World War II, I understand you sent off your book, the draft of your book about Rasputin to the publisher today.
- [09:59]
Antony Beaver
That is certainly true. It is in many ways, if you like, prequel to my book on the Russian Revolution and Civil War. And for me, the fascination with Rasputin, which goes back a very long way, it's not just because of all the research I did on the Russian Revolution, but even long before then, I've always been intrigued by the so called great man theory of history. Because here, in the case of Rasputin, one has a Siberian peasant who helps bring down the greatest autocracy in the world. And this is very striking because what one sees is the way that Rasputin, and because of in many cases, the fake news, the fake stories, the exaggerations, that somehow he was having an affair with the empress, with the Tsar's wife, the Tsaritsa, which was totally untrue, but the fact that she was obviously obsessed with him because of his ability to cure her hemophiliac son, Rasputin therefore contributed, even though a sincere monarchist and loyal to The Tsar, he contributed to this event in February 1917, when there was a revolt and a rebellion and a revolution, because no officers were prepared to draw their swords in defense of the Tsar. And I think this emphasizes a very important point in history, as we tend to forget that revolutions come about usually because of the collapse in confidence of the ruling party, an establishment, rather than necessarily because of the upsurge from below.
- [11:33]
Martin DeCaro
Is this the first major biography you have written?
- [11:37]
Antony Beaver
Yes. I mean, well, it's a bigger one. I did do one about Olga Chekhova, the niece of Anton Chekhov, who actually was Hitler's favorite film star, but was secretly supposed to have been spying for Stalin. Whether she did much spying, we still don't know, but there's no doubt about it that she had been definitely recruited by her brother, who was very much under NKVD or Russian Secret Service control.
- [12:06]
Martin DeCaro
All right, well, we'll look for your book about Rasputin in, I don't know, a year or so in the United States.
- [12:12]
Antony Beaver
Exactly. In about a year's time, yeah.
- [12:14]
Martin DeCaro
All right. World War II. You wrote an essay in Foreign affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, with the headline we are still fighting World War II. The unsettled legacy of the Conflict that Shaped Today's Politics.
- [12:29]
Antony Beaver
Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as saying we are still fighting World War II. As you know, nobody really picks their own headline, but it's pretty accurate. But they did a brilliant job of editing what was, shall we say, rather a sprawling piece about the whole problem of World War II and the way it affects life today.
- [12:46]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, metaphorically. We're still fighting over the legacies. You know, I found that very interesting because I hadn't actually given this, your arguments a lot of thought as an American. World War II is still a point of national pride for many Americans, and it actually isn't very messy in many people's heads. We won. We launched the American century and American primacy ever after. But it's messier for other countries. And I do want to talk about the United States and Trump's foreign policy in this context in a little bit. But let's start with Russia, an area of the world that you are so familiar with. Putin's uses and abuses of history. It is May. May 9th was Soviet victory Day. The war actually ended late on May 8, but it already been the next day in the Soviet Union because of the time zones. What did you think of the big Russian military parade and the fact that Putin was standing shoulder to shoulder with several other World leaders, including Xi Jinping of China.
- [13:45]
Antony Beaver
Well, Putin is desperate to get as many supporters and allies as far as he's concerned, you know, the world is redividing. It's not really a very great change in some ways. And yet on the other hand, there is a huge change, because what we have seen, especially since the 24th of February of this year, when for the very first time, the United States voted with Russia against its Western allies. This was striking, to put it mildly. And what we should recognize is the fact is, normally when one moves from one era to another, not everything changes at once. Inevitably, there are overlaps, there are unfinished businesses from previous periods. But here we really did see a sort of guillotine moment. As some historians have pointed out, this was the first time in the middle of a war that a major power has actually changed sides by suddenly supporting Putin against the support which we had. And the United States had very much maintained war, the sovereignty and the integrity of Ukraine. So all of this is a major moment in history, and there's no doubt about it. And the fact that it should coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Second World War is something which I think the re gives us a lot to reflect upon.
- [15:08]
Martin DeCaro
So how does, in your view, how does Putin cherry pick from Russian history when it comes to World War II.
- [15:15]
Antony Beaver
Putin basically is not just the hard line, latter day Stalin or anything like that. If you look at the Kremlin or even his palace on the Black Sea, there are no symbols of the Soviet Union, there aren't any hammers and sickles, it's all gold, double headed eagles from the Tsarist Empire. Putin, although he will, of course, and he's very clever in this particular way. Lord Stalin go on about the great achievements, the courage of the Red army and the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, as they call it, but at the same time, for Putin, his ideology actually comes from much further back. And it comes from the whites who were defeated in the Russian Civil War by the Reds, by the Bolsheviks. And their mentality, their idea was of a Holy Slav Russophile empire. And as Putin's own ideologues, Medinsky, who's the one who's actually sitting in Turkey at the moment, and Dugin, who was the one whose daughter was blown up in that car explosion. They both believe that Russia, Holy Slav Russia, has the right to dominate the whole of the European or the Eurasian landmass all the way from Vladivostok to Dublin. And what is astonishing but fascinating is that even within Some of President Trump's entourage. There are those who rather agree with this idea that sort of, you know, Russian spirituality is greatly superior to the liberal views of Western Europe.
- [16:56]
Martin DeCaro
Like Stalin at Yalta, Putin does want recognition from the west for the legitimacy of his gains. In this case, it would be eastern Ukraine and Crimea. And for a bit there, it looked like he might get it from the Trump administration. So far, it hasn't panned out. You did say that the Trump administration switched sides or is now supporting Russia, at least diplomatically. It looked like that was the case, not materially. The United States is not sending weapons to Russia. Obviously you didn't mean that. But it did amazingly blame Ukraine for starting the war and wanted Ukraine to start negotiations from that point. Obviously the Trump administration does not know what it's doing in these negotiations and underestimated Putin or overestimated his desire for peace.
- [17:41]
Antony Beaver
President Trump is, I am afraid, unaware of to what degree Putin is playing him and actually, I'm afraid, despising him. This was very much brought out in 2019 at the Osaka G20 Conference. During this conversation when they were talking about Israel and Putin suddenly said to him, oh no, but you know, to gain favor, he said, I've done a lot for Israel in the background and so forth. And Trump replies, nobody has done as much for Israel as I have. And Putin, to make a joke, said to him, well, perhaps they should even think of calling the country after you. And Trump thought about this quite seriously for a few moments and they said, no, I think that'll be going a bit too far. He fails to see how, rather in the way that Lenin treated those Westerners who supported the Soviet Union in the early days and Lenin regarded them as what he called useful idiots. Well, one has, I'm afraid, the feeling that Putin regards President Trump in the same way. And there is a real concern, I think certainly in Europe, that Trump does not see the way that he is being played.
- [18:55]
Martin DeCaro
Well, if Putin does want peace, it's on his terms and his terms are not acceptable to Ukraine or to so called rules based order. Return to that subject in a bit. When it comes to these May 9th parades, Victory Day for the Soviet Union, an Associated Press article a couple of days ago stated, citing an observer of Russian politics, an expert on Russia. The parades are a civic religion that boosts patriotism, nationalism, nostalgia, and justifies both Putin's repressive regime at home and Russia's increasingly expansionist foreign policy abroad, particularly including towards its neighbors. So there's a nostalgia, but also a use A present use or abuse of this history by Putin. You know, I think a lot of countries put a gloss on their history. The United States In World War II, we look at that a certain way, where we look past some of the uglier things about that war. As I mentioned earlier, we were the good guys, we won. And here comes the American century. We tend not to think about, say, the strategic bombing campaigns that killed a lot of civilians in Germany and Japan. When it comes to Putin, he chooses the start of the war in 1941. June when the Nazis invaded, not 1939. Right. What is the significance of that?
- [20:12]
Antony Beaver
Well, in 1939, this was when we saw in August 1939 when Stalin and Ribbentrop make the Nazi Soviet Pact, which basically gives Hitler the opportunity to attack westwards towards France and Britain before turning later against the Soviet Union. It was astonishingly naive, interestingly, of Stalin, you know, the most suspicious man who's ever led a country, that he should have agreed to Hitler's assurances that he was not planning to invade in June 1941. And this actually was also the origin of the Cold War. Let's face it. It was Stalin's trauma in June 1941 when he realized he'd been to committed completely wrong and that he'd been tricked by Hitler, which basically drove him to wanting to create this courant sanitaire of satellite states across central and southern Europe to make sure that the Soviet Union could never be taken by surprise again. But it's fascinating when you talk about, and you're quite right about the way that Putin will pick and mix his views of Russian history. I mean, the year before the invasion or the summer before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin produced this extraordinary essay which went on rambling about Russian history and all rest. Well, most of this was written by Vladimir Medinsky, who had been his Culture Minister and as I say, is now supposedly the negotiator for the peace in Turkey. He at one point argues that the Ukrainians are inherently Russian and therefore have no right to be a separate ethnic or national group. And yet then soon afterwards, when they resist the invasion, they are automatically relabeled as Nazis, as if the invasion is an extension of the Second World War. And this is the real danger. Putin is trying to portray the whole of the conflict in Ukraine almost as yet another version and an extension of the Great Patriotic War, which of course is putting any supporters of Ukraine on the side of Germany in his version of events, which is quite simply grotesque.
- [22:33]
Martin DeCaro
That's a perversion of history. But Putin is milking World War II memory and nostalgia for everything he can get. I take it that he doesn't want to hear about how horrendously the Soviet Union prosecuted the war, how cruel they were to their own people. I learned from reading your book about Vasily Grossman, writer at War, how the Soviets used to take their own prisoners. So Soviet citizens who had run afoul of the rules and they would use them to clear landmines. You mentioned how Stalin foolishly trusted Hitler. You know, the way he had his country not prepared for the invasion in June of 1941 cost who knows how many lives, set the country back for months and months and months. I take it that Putin doesn't talk about those things.
- [23:19]
Antony Beaver
Well, the attitude of the Russians towards their own people, as you quite rightly say, is one of total cynicism. I mean, I remember when I was doing a lot of my research in Moscow in the 1990s, there were 5,000, on average, around 5,000 recruits, recruits committing suicide every year in the Russian army because of the way they were being mistreated, brutalized. Now, this has continued. It happened in the Second World War. One of the reasons for the mass rapes of German, Polish and Hungarian women in 1945 was because many of these Red army soldiers had been so brutalized by their own officers and NCOs that they were taking it out on German women. It was a knock on theory of oppression. It's the only way of describing it. And we're seeing it again in Ukraine. There is even the castration of prisoners by Russian soldiers. People are always asking, why is this brutality? Where does all this cruelty come from? How far does it go back? Well, some say it goes back to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century and so forth. But in fact, I mean, Europe was just as cruel in, say, the wars of religion in the 17th century, but we at least had the Enlightenment. And then in the 19th century, there was much more of the codification of warfare, of acceptance of certain levels of behavior, not of just pure sadism. But I'm afraid that did not affect the Red army, and it didn't affect the Red army whether it was in the Russian. Certainly not in the Russian Civil War, which was horrendous, and certainly not in the Second World War at the end, and above all, not again in the, in the war in Ukraine.
- [25:00]
Martin DeCaro
I read your masterful book on the Battle of Berlin, 1945, 15 years ago or so, maybe a little longer. And I still remember those chapters about how the Soviet soldiers behaved once they got to Berlin. Just horrifying behavior. But, you know, at least in this most recent parade, Putin did mention the contribution of the Western allies in his remarks. He doesn't always do that, and maybe that's a bit surprising given the current state of US Russia relations. So one of the most thought provoking observations in your essay is something I hadn't thought of. And I want to make sure I'm interpreting this correctly. I have you here to correct me, Sir Anthony, and that is one reason why the post 1945 order is fraying so badly right now. Is that memory or historical awareness, maybe historical knowledge, importance of what the world was like during and before World War II, all that is fading in the minds not just of ordinary people, but policymakers as well. We know about the war, and in the United States, we still celebrate World War II. It's in our pop culture, but we don't feel it anymore what that world was like when all hell broke loose after 1939 or 1937 in China, which necessitated the current order, the rules, the UN Charter and all of that. Am I interpreting what you're saying correctly?
- [26:23]
Antony Beaver
Absolutely. No, no, you're quite right. I mean, what one has to remember is Hitler introduced the idea that might is right, that you can do anything. The Russian saying is victors face no laws. So all of these attitudes have come back again suddenly. The idea of FDR at Yalta, where he was prepared to basically allow Stalin total control over Poland because the one thing he wanted was to get the united up and going. In a way, this was sort of the quid pro quo. Churchill was pretty horrified by this. There was nothing that Churchill could do at that particular stage when the UN was formed. The idea was at least that they would instill the idea that sovereignty was sacred and that there should be no war of aggression and the no seizure of land. And this is exactly what has been thrown out of the window. And unfortunately, to a certain degree, the whole idea of negotiation over land by the Trump administration is basically handing us back in a way to that period where Mike was right and if you've got the strength to take it, you can get away with it. I think that this is very much of a retrograde step, but perhaps it was inevitable. The other problem is, which you also rightly underline, is the way that people have become accustomed to the idea almost that World War II is so far away that we're not going to sort of see the same thing again. And yet this is a paradox because we constantly hear in the newspapers or from politicians, comparisons to World War II when there is a crisis. And yet the reality of World War II, the sheer, as I say, sadism, destruction, horror, the famine that killed millions and millions. I mean, altogether some 85 million died. I mean, these figures are so vast that a younger generation today can make no real understanding of what that actually involves from the point of view of individuals or families or anything like that. And I think that this is the problem we're facing. I mean, I've had debates with other historians who might say, oh, well, you know, go on writing about war and its horrors and all the rest of it, but unless you can convey the true nature of totalitarian warfare, people are still going to think, oh, well, maybe it's okay to have a war, or, you know, it won't be so bad if we do get occupied by an enemy. Much better that than sort of fighting. Unless you can actually tell them what it was really like at the time, they're not going to understand.
- [29:01]
Martin DeCaro
The second time you were on my podcast, we discussed the atom bomb, and at that time, you mentioned to me something I didn't know. In the debate over whether the United States should have bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you repeat this in your essay in Foreign affairs, you write, by 1944, some 400,000 civilians a month were dying from famine in areas of East Asia, the Pacific, and Southeast Asia that were occupied by Japanese forces. So by bringing the war to a close as quickly as possible, fewer people would starve to death. Not to get into the debate over the bomb again, but that's just a staggering figure. 400,000 people dying a month from famine.
- [29:42]
Antony Beaver
Yes, 2 million alone in Vietnam. Now, I am not saying that in the White House or in the Pentagon or anything like that, that people were concerned about local populations as much as they were, or certainly about the Japanese themselves, because let's face it, 18 million of them were liable to have died if the war had carried on into the next year, because the Japanese general staff were going to make them fight on with bamboo spears and satchel charges strapped to their bodies as suicide bombers if the Allies were going to have to launch an amphibious invasion of the Japanese home islands. So from that point of view, we see yet another major moral paradox of the Second World War. That actually the dropping of the atom bomb saved far more Japanese lives than those who were killed actually in the two bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the other thing which is worth adding, you mentioned the strategic bombing campaign against Germany. Now, Churchill was very much aware of it, and I know that Stalin was to a large degree too, whatever one may say about the morality of bombing German cities and German civilians, it forced the Luftwaffe to bring back the bulk of their fighter squadrons and above all their anti aircraft guns, their 88 millimeters, to defend the Reich against the British and American bombers attacking them, particularly in 43 onwards. And this gave the Russians, and something which Putin has never acknowledged, this gave the Russians air superiority for the very first time on the Eastern Front. I mean, again, it is important one realizes it's not a question of making strict moral choices, far from it. But we do come across these extraordinary moral paradoxes in war.
- [31:30]
Martin DeCaro
And one lesson, if that's the right term, I'm trying to get away from using the term lessons of history. Warnings of history is my new favorite. But anyway, one lesson of One lesson of 1945 was Europe needs the United States because of what had happened in 1914 and then in 1939. And even after the collapse of the Soviet union, President George H.W. bush said, no, no, we're gonna stay. Europe needs us for stability and also US Interests. We keep NATO in Europe even after the Warsaw Pact dissolves and the alliance.
- [32:04]
Antony Beaver
Will prove every bit as important to American and European security in the decade ahead. The importance of the alliance and its democratic underpinnings is the message I now take to Europe. NATO has been a success by any measure, but success breeds its own challenges. Today, dramatic changes are taking place in Europe, both East and West.
- [32:29]
Martin DeCaro
Thatcher, she opposed the reunification of Germany initially because of the. Well, the memory of World War II is not that distant for her and her generation. A revanchist, unified Germany. No, thank you. Well, no one today is worried about Germany. Right. But Europe did underestimate another power that had been humiliated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And that would be the replacement, if you will, the Russian Federation. No one expected another major land war in Europe either. I mean, what can you say as we talk about unsettled legacies of. Of World War II, European complacency or not willing to pay for its own defense? All these topics are in the air right now when it comes to whether the United States should maintain a heavy presence in Europe. Obviously, Donald Trump doesn't seem to be a fan of that.
- [33:16]
Antony Beaver
Well, I would be the first to acknowledge that Donald Trump is absolutely right in his criticism of Europe, even if he doesn't quite understand what came about or what caused this complacency and the idea that there would never be another war in Europe. I mean, let's go back Remember, just before the First World War, the great bestseller of the day was A Grand Illusion by Norman angel, which argued that because of the increase in communications and trade, war in 1914 was unthinkable. It wasn't going to happen. Well, this was exactly what Gerhard Schroeder and Angela Merkel believed in Germany during the post Cold War period. And dealing with Vladimir Putin, they thought, well, you know, Putin needs us with all the business he's selling us, all of his gas and all the rest, there won't be a war. And this was naive and complacent. It is certainly true. President Trump is absolutely right on that particular score. But the thing is that actually, it was the problem of what can only describe as Democratic confirmation bias. The British and the French in the 1930s could not believe that anybody could be as stupid as to want another war in Europe after the horrors of the First World War. And that's why they could not believe that Hitler was really serious about a war until it was too late. So only by 1938, 39, did they realise that actually, they got that one wrong. And ditto. We made the same mistake with Putin. We should have realised, actually, from the war in Chechnya, the brutality of that war, and also from the fighting in Syria, that Putin was perfectly capable of doing that. But, you know, we thought, oh, no, nobody, nobody really in their right mind would ever want anything like that. And this is, as I say, Democratic confirmation bias. We think that dictators think in the same way as we do. They don't, nor do their entourage.
- [35:14]
Martin DeCaro
You know, it's hard to pigeonhole Donald Trump's foreign policy. He's not an isolationist. Neither are his top advisors. I think that word isolationist is misused often. I'm not sure that they're against maintaining US primacy either. I'm not sure I'd call them realists either. And here's my point. So, yes, Europe and the Obama administration underestimated Vladimir Putin. But about two years after the annexation, illegal annexation of Crimea, Obama gave an interview, President Obama, to the Atlantic magazine, where he said something that I happen to agree with. He said, ukraine will always be more important to Russia than it is to the United States. It is a core Russian interest. Historically, geopolitically, it is not a core U.S. interest. So, you know, some of the criticism of the Trump foreign policy says, oh, they're isolationists. Others say, you know, this is actually a kind of realism. You know, I don't necessarily agree with this argument that Ukraine is part of Russia's Sphere of influence. I'm not into sphere of influence thinking it's the year 2025 or Antony Beaver, China and Taiwan, meaning it's foolish to think the United States can maintain primacy in East Asia forever. And that, of course, raises issues about whether the United States should come to Taiwan's defense. This really isn't a question, I'm sorry, kind of a long ramble here. But I guess my question should be, I mean, what do you make of Trump's foreign policy? Is it realism or is it something else?
- [36:43]
Antony Beaver
You're quite right to raise the question because it's very, very hard to pin down. There are elements of realism within it. Other bits are either fantasy or they are self conscious delusion. I think that the danger is the idea that somehow the sort of the world is splitting into three, rather funny enough, as sort of Orwell predicted in 1984 of sort of Oceania, East Asia and Eurasia. But leaving that one aside, I think the real danger is the way that the focus on China is not a diversion, but it is a distraction from the most immediate danger. And the most immediate danger, as I say, is a war which is going to extend in Europe. Now, Trump's argument is this is Europe's problem. Europe, you've got to sort it out. And he has a certain amount of justification in saying that because it has been the fault of Europe, but they haven't prepared to sort it out. And Britain is just as much at fault as the other countries. What I think is a real danger is the way that he is prepared to abandon the Western alliance. And I think that that is a question of shared beliefs, which of course he does not necessarily agree with some of these beliefs. But it does mean, though, that the influence and the strength of the United States is severely diminished. And I think that actually it is a major strategic mistake for the United States to try to cast Europe aside and say, right, forget of any help from us, we're just going to worry about China, you sort out Russia. I think that that, as I say, is a major mistake which will be deeply regretted in years to come.
- [38:24]
Martin DeCaro
I guess it's a question, an age old question. Can Europe be stable, prosperous, peaceful, without the US Presence there? There's a larger question here hanging over all of this, and that is does the world still need the United States or does it still need the United States? The way we've gotten used to Since 1945, I would say yes, but it's how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the global war on terror, were a Disaster. I don't want to see that kind of US Interventionism when it comes to soft power. The Trump administration has undermined U.S. soft power by destroying U.S. aid and some other programs of foreign aid. So, I mean, it's complicated. I guess what I'm getting at. I mean, I don't want to see the United States retreat from world affairs, but at the same time, US interventionism post 2001 has been a disaster.
- [39:13]
Antony Beaver
You are quite right in the sense. And I think what I understand to be your reluctance and unease because I don't think that the United States could continue its sort of unipolar position as the world policeman just in the way that Britain had to give up its role as the world's policeman basically soon after the First World War, certainly before the Second World War, we simply did not have the economic or other powers, certainly not hard power, to be able to continue in that particular role. Now the United States with its debts, which are simply terrifying, and if the Republican ideas of some of these tax cuts and all the rest of it are to go ahead, the United States is actually putting itself into a desperately dangerous position and will be unable actually to maintain any form of major international role if it continues down that particular path. So we are in a very, very difficult and dangerous era in that way.
- [40:17]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, I mean, it was because of the failures after the terrorist attacks of 9 11, the failures of the global war on terrorism. Why there's a backlash now. Maybe the pendulum is swinging too far the other way. People don't want the United States to assert itself or I mean, again, it's hard with Trump. I mean, what is he really after? Is he really just in this for himself? His own business interests?
- [40:38]
Donald Trump
The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle east has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives. Developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your own way. It's really incredible what you've done. In the end, the so called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. And the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves.
- [41:38]
Martin DeCaro
We'll wrap up here. Sir Anthony Beaver Although, you know, I am going to return to the issue of the legacies of the Second World War in August when the war comes to an end, although the fighting continued in many parts of the world. I'm going to do a multi part series in August about the legacies of 1945. Maybe if you're not too busy, you'll agree to come back. I promise though, to ask different questions so we don't just repeat the same conversation.
- [42:03]
Antony Beaver
No, no, no, no, Martin, it's always a pleasure discussing it with you.
- [42:06]
Martin DeCaro
But I guess for now my last question is, as you write here in your essay, final paragraph. In truth, there is no one set of conclusions to draw from World War II. Well, indeed, all the different countries that came out of World War II, especially the new independent states after colonialism, they certainly look at the war differently than say the United States does. So, yeah, if there's no one set of conclusions, what are some of the conclusions that Antony Beaver is thinking about right now?
- [42:35]
Antony Beaver
It is again yet another paradox. The way that the Second World War, because of its extent, because of its global reach, really did bring world history together. And yet we can only still see the Second World War in our own national terms. So from that point of view, we're always going to have a confused if not contradictory view of that particular past. Needless to say, every nation has its own self image, its own view of itself that's conditioned by the past rather than the future. But it does affect the way that they plan strategy two of what their role should be. I'm afraid the British one has been very much won rather on the coattails of the United States, who know somehow we believe we're punching above our weight, which is a terrible, terrible cliche. Hanging over from the Second World War or maintaining a seat at the top table. Well, I mean that again is this mentality from Yalta of the big Three, of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill. But I'm afraid it looks as if we're back into the world really of the big man in history, the big names. And as I say, mighty's right. And that's what I think concerns me the most.
- [43:50]
Martin DeCaro
The United Kingdom won the war. It was on the winning side. Many, many contributions, of course, to that victory. Stood alone against the Nazis in 1940, won the war, lost its empire, but is probably better off without it. And certainly the subject peoples were happy to get their independence, although there was a lot of bloodshed after independence in those places. But you know, maybe it's not appropriate for me to comment on your country's politics. But a majority of UK voters rejected a key legacy of World War II that was integration with Europe and is now out of the eu.
- [44:23]
Antony Beaver
Yes, only just it was as close as your recent election. So, I mean, I wouldn't say it. You can't generalize about the whole country. But also the view that somehow only European unity could prevent another war was also, I think, a misleading one. Let's face it, on the whole, democracies, proper democracies do not fight against each other. The real danger will always come with dictatorships. And that is because the leadership in dictatorships is apparently supposed to, you know, much clearer because you've got one person making the decisions, but at the same time, you're suffering from narcissism, from all of the worst dangers of human character when you just have one person in control of a country in that way. And that is, of course, my great fear for the way that we are seeing this lineup between on one side, no longer so much left versus right or communism versus capitalism, but we're seeing this lineup between the autocracies of the world and the democracies on the other side. And I'm afraid that the democracies are very vulnerable.
- [45:37]
Martin DeCaro
We thank Antony Beaver for his time and insights. And remember, his next book about Rasputin should be available on sale in the United States in about a year. On the next episode of History as it Happens, what is Chinese communism in 2025? Sergei Radchenko and Enrico Maria Fardella will join us. Remember new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter every Friday. Just sign up@historyasithappens.com.
- [46:17]
Antony Beaver
It.