War - What is it good for?... Let's talk to Sara Stevenson

Yeah, that's really fast.

And so is there a credible worldview that says war is avoidable? Because that sounds to me like we just accept war as an unavoidable fact of life.

And so we study the reasons.

But is there a credible view that says actually we could find a way of not having a war again?

That is the liberal idealist view.

Again, there's different schools of thought even within that worldview, because some people would say that should never lead us to war.

And I think a lot of those people end up in the humanitarian sectors, the United Nations, etc., etc., that diplomacy really is the way.

Whereas others, particularly the American administration, keeps resorting to this view that it's never going to happen by itself unless you force it.

So the problem kind of is that if you force it, you're almost contradicting it.

So

you're one year in, is that correct, in your course? Yeah.

Is there any big changes that you've had to your view of war in that time that you've been surprised about, that it's really changed your mind?

Yeah, I do think the liberal idealism point of view has radically changed because...

I think on the one hand, I mean, if you look at the migration crisis and people fleeing their countries, they're not fleeing liberal democracies.

They're fleeing authoritarian regimes or Islamic regimes.

So I've always had this view that we are living in the best of political systems.

Yes, it's highly flawed.

But I always had this view that it really is a good thing to try and spread this.

But I think what I was ignorant of is how much you have to contradict the system to force that on others.

And actually, liberal idealism is very war-hungry.

And the other thing that I just was completely ignorant to is that we've been able to develop systems like this because we colonized Africa, we took these resources, we got ourselves into a really strong financial position.

Democracy was built off of those things.

And the other thing today in the contemporary sense is that the international system is shaped in the American-led world order.

So the bank you know, the US dollars, the financial system is all tied together.

So you don't just get, here's some nice values for your country.