The Russian Mindset and Where it Comes From - Historian Sir Antony Beevor

25:24Francis Foster:Of course, of course. Well, speaking of the mindset, I mean, one of the things I think people in the West really don't understand about Russia is how a number of formative experiences in Russian history have inculcated in people the idea that a strong, decisive leader is by far and away the most important thing. And Russian people will put up with almost anything, provided the leader is strong like that. And I think one of the times this comes from is the period known as the Times of Trouble. Yes. after Ivan the Terrible kills his only viable heir in a fit of rage. And this follows, perhaps you'll be better at telling the story of what follows.

26:02Well, I'm certainly not an expert on that particular period, but indeed it did traumatize the country in many ways. What happened? Well, because of the civil war, the massacres that were going on and all the rest of it. I mean, in many ways you could only really compare the time of troubles really with the say of the European Thirty Years' War in the 17th century. So from that point of view, the effect of it eventually meant that everybody was so exhausted by the end that that was the opportunity when they made the Romanov dynasty start. And Mikhail Romanov, to be in with, was being hidden by his mother because they were certain that it would lead to his death.

26:47Every other potential czar had been murdered and that this would be his particular fate too. But in the end, this was the start of the dynasty. And as soon as he and his descendants sort of acquired enough power, they knew perfectly well that if they were going to let it go, there was always going to be the fear of the time of troubles. And that actually, you're quite right to bring it out because it is very much there, always in the back of the mind, of the Russian mind, rather as, and of course the Civil War being another one, after the Revolution, after the February Revolution, which even led to the point that sort of when Stalin died, almost everybody was in tears, not because of love of Stalin necessarily, but because they feared that the collapse of centralized power might again lead to another period of time of troubles or civil war or whatever.

27:47I mean, one has to remember the importance of the Russian Civil War. Historians, particularly German historians, were absolutely right in identifying the First World War as what they described the original catastrophe of the 20th century. But actually, it was the Russian Civil War which had the greatest influence because the sheer horror of it, the sheer scale, if you include those suffering from disease and starvation, you're talking of up to 10 million casualties. and this created such an effect not just across Europe even across the world fear of the destruction the cruelty spreading as a result of the split between red and white but also fear on the left of white counter reaction and fear on the right of the bourgeoisie the aristocracy of the idea that there was going to be a genocide a class genocide and this leads to the Spanish Civil War, this vicious circle of rhetoric and fear and also evened into large elements and contribution to the whole of the Second World War.

28:54So in many ways, the Russian Civil War basically defined most of the pattern of history of certainly the first half of the 20th century but also to a certain degree then the split between communism and fascism or sorry, between communism and capitalism in the second half. And we're still seeing the effects of that today to a certain degree. But, I mean, the way that all of this played out during that particular period means that we are still, and this is why I think with the shock of last year, that sort of the old order has suddenly changed and that the multipolar world, or if one's going to call it that, has actually suddenly been shuffled, a large contribution, of course, now coming from President Trump in that particular way.

29:52And this is one of the great reasons for uncertainty, fear, and, shall we say, even potential chaos in many areas. But it really does come very much more from that particular moment of the Russian Civil War, which again was an echo even of the time of troubles.

30:13Francis Foster:Well, I was going to say that, you know, the reason I bring this up is I think people in the West, I'm no fan of Vladimir Putin, but I also try to explain to people in the West why he's popular in Russia. And this is one of the reasons. Because you talk about the Russian Civil War, well, you have, I mean, you talk in the book, you have a weak, not very smart, indecisive czar, right? And then who precedes Vladimir Putin? It's Boris Yeltsin, who's seen by many people initially. You know, he ran on the campaign slogan of strong leader for a strong Russia, but he's not seen as a strong leader. He was kind of...

30:50Francis Foster:A strong leader for strong vodka. Yes, yes, exactly. And that strong vodka made him into a weak leader. And then along comes Vladimir Putin. And people go, oh, finally, someone is going to take charge. Yes, absolutely right. I agree. But, I mean, what one also needs, I think, to remember is how clever Putin was in bringing together the two sides, if you like, from the Russian Civil War. He was the one who brought back various white generals to be reburied. The way that you won't see a hammer and sickle really anywhere around the Kremlin anymore. It's all a double-headed eagle. and ditto on the palace on the Black Sea.

31:32So he also, his criticism of Lenin and so forth, he may say that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy, but his mentality is much closer to that of the Russian Empire.

31:45Francis Foster:Well, this is what I've been trying to say. I think in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, there were a lot of people who don't really understand Russia very much saying, oh, he's just trying to rebuild the Soviet Union. I was trying to rebuild the Russian Empire. Yes, exactly. Very different thing. Yes. As we know, certainly, from the ideologues influencing him. The whole of that particular essay was actually written by Medinsky, the one published before the invasion of Ukraine. And Medinsky, well, frankly, he's a fool in many ways. There was the extraordinary attempt to get Kazakhstan back in by making that film of General Pamphiloff and his 28 men or whatever, which was then proved to have been a complete propaganda invention.

32:30And Medinsky even said, anybody who doubts this, even if it's not true, they are below slime. It was a wonderful, it was unbelievably comic.

32:41Konstantin Kisin:But that being the case, one of the things that I find really interesting with Russia is we've talked about the cruelty and that goes right the way up to the modern day. But there's also an obsession with spirituality, with religion. Yes. I mean, how do you marry those two qualities, essentially? Well, I mean, should we say religion and conspicuous cruelty have often been married. Not just, I mean, in Islam, in Christianity, in virtually every single religion. So I don't think it's unique to Russia, necessarily, in that particular way, but it's something which has persisted. and I mean we see it, we see unbelievable things.

33:24I mean for example when the Tsar Nicholas II wants to send his fleet from the Baltic all the way around the world to attack the Japanese in one of the most disastrous naval decisions in history. You know he gets the priests on board to bless all the guns to help their accuracy. It's a mentality of the idea that somehow the power of the icon which was sort of distributed to the ships and the individuals and all the rest of it. These talismans, all of those sort of gave the idea of, you know, God is with us, which, you know, the Germans had inscribed on their belt buckles. And, you know, the British used to say to themselves, you know, God's on our side.

34:10God is an Englishman. We have nobody's really one escaped that particular idea. It is part of a national mentality.

34:20Konstantin Kisin:But I suppose what I'm touching on is the extremities. On the one hand, you can be so callous, so cruel. And we've seen it with Russian leaders. You talk about it in the book. I mean, the way the Tsars... There was one instance where during a battle, there was his... I think it was during the Japan War, there were tens of thousands of people who were dead, soldiers. and then that very night he went to a party as if nothing had happened. How can you have, on the instance you have that, and on the other hand, you know, this deep spirituality, religiosity? Surely there must be, I guess what I'm saying is, a concern for your fellow man.

35:01Isn't that also important? Yes, but he wouldn't necessarily regard them as fellow men. This was the trouble. He was the Tsar, they weren't. But also, Nicholas II particularly believed in not showing emotion. He felt that that was the worst thing he could do. And this is the trouble whereby, not necessarily stupidity, but, I mean, he wasn't a totally stupid man, but at the same time, he refused, he had no imagination, or he blocked off his imagination. He was different to his wife in a certain way. He believed that they should never show any emotion at all. And, for example, there was a German prince staying in Petrograd who'd been invited to dinner, and he suddenly heard that the Tsar's uncle had been blown up in Moscow.

35:59So he immediately rang the palace to say, I assume that the dinner has been cancelled or whatever. And he said, oh, no, no, no, it's going ahead, it's going ahead. And he arrives and finds that the Tsar and a cousin are having great fun trying to push the other one off the sofa. I mean, playing sort of childish games. So it's the question of blocking out anything that is uncomfortable to their worldview. But the idea that people have died in huge numbers, if you describe, in their defense or under their orders, is not something which troubles them. They regard that as part of the natural world.

36:44And Rasputin says at one point to the Empress, when she is genuinely concerned at the casualties, he says, oh, you know, think of them, each one of them as candles lit at the throne of God. Well, it was a brilliant phrase to the point of view of sort of calming her down, of saying, you know, all of the sacrifices perfectly. It's a tribute. It's a tribute to the Almighty. you.

37:12Francis Foster:There's a difference between knowing you have money and knowing what your money is doing. Most people only have one of those. Monarch fixes that. It's not just logging your past and making you wince. It gives you actual targets, savings goals, net worth, investment tracking, all in one place so you can plan your summer knowing your money is taken care of. Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything. Accounts, investments, savings goals, and spending. The AI assistant answers real questions like how much did I spend on travel last summer. The AI Weekly Recap flags spending spikes before they become a problem.

37:46Francis Foster:Most apps tell you what you've already spent. Monarch helps you see if you're actually on track before it's too late to adjust. Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off just$50 with promo code TRIGGER. Use TRIGGER at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with our code trigger.

38:09Konstantin Kisin:And what's interesting is, is that that overt religiosity or attitude to the spiritual, it leaves leaders potentially vulnerable to people like Rasputin, but not just Rasputin, others of his ilk who can come on, who can come in and be incredibly manipulative for their own ends. Yes. I mean, it is fascinating that you can have that sort of contrast within the same person. But again, you know, this is one of the fascinating contradictions, partly with, as I say, Rasputin and the relationship with the royal family, but also within the royal family itself, because there were other members of the royal family who were simply appalled.

38:51I mean, the Tsar's mother was horrified. Now, she had actually been influenced by the fact of having this traumatic dream when she was pregnant with him and about a peasant chopping off the head of her baby. And then 38 years later, she finds that her son and daughter-in-law have become completely besotted with the Siberian peasant. And she is absolutely certain that they will die in a revolution killed by peasants.

39:21Francis Foster:And you mentioned the Russia Japanese war, something very few people outside the history world know anything about. Why does that war happen? Well, the war happens to a large degree because at this particular period, the Japanese... 1904, right? We're talking about 1904, exactly. This is the period when Germany and Russia interested in seizing parts of the Chinese territory. One has to remember, you know, the way that the great Chinese resentment against the West is very much the unequal treaties which were forced on China when it was at its weakest in the 19th century. And the Russians even imposed a railway which they built to accelerate the Trans-Siberian Railway right across Mongolia.

40:22So the Chinese had a lot to resent. But the Japanese also were in this period of expanding population and wanting to colonize Vernia abroad, which basically meant Manchuria. And therefore, there was an imbalance, if you like, certainly in power in that particular region. And the Tsar had been persuaded by a forerunner of Rasputin, another mystic con man basically called Philippe, a Frenchman, saying that you should be the emperor of the East. And actually, the Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was saying, sent a signal at sea to the Tsar, saying from the emperor of the Atlantic to the emperor of the Pacific.

41:13Now, Nicholas at that particular moment thought, well, that's ridiculous. But then he was encouraged by one of his ministers, particularly by Plewa, that a war against the Japanese would be a huge advantage because it would be a quick, easy war. They're just Orientals. They can't take on a modern Russian army. Well, modern is a doubtful phrase. And others were much more skeptical, but the Tsar rather liked the idea. And so on the ambassadorial reception in 1904, in January, the New Year reception, he was pretty insulting to the Japanese ambassador, who bowed and said nothing, not realizing, in fact, that the Japanese were about to send huge numbers of troops across the sea to the Korean peninsula.

42:12And suddenly they were in a position where they were starting to attack at Port Hartha, which was the great Japanese, sorry, the great Russian port in the Far East. And from there, then, of course, they assembled a vast army where the Trans-Sybean Railway was not ready sufficiently to equip them and to supply them. And then, as I mentioned, you know, there was the utter disaster of sending the Baltic fleet, really, all the way around the world. and they were destroyed in the Battle of Tsushima, one of the greatest naval victories, which the Japanese won easily. So it was a vast humiliation to Russia, especially to Nicholas II himself.

42:59And it forced him into accepting basically a constitution in October 2005. At a time when... 1905. Sorry, at a 1905. I know one easily skips the century.

43:19And this, of course, was because the war had created such anger, there being the march of Father Gapon, the protest in St. Petersburg in that January of 2005, where they were gunned down by the Imperial Guard and the Cossacks sent in and all the rest of it. and terrible repression in the countryside when houses, manor houses were set on fire. It was very much a prelude to the later revolution, the 1905 disturbances. And you also then get, of course, the battleship Potiemkin and the mutiny in the Black Sea. So there Nicholas was in a very defensive position. he burst into tears after signing the document and felt that sort of he betrayed the whole family because he had signed away basically he felt Romanov autocracy and then of course the struggle between him and worst of all from his point of view the liberal conservatives in the Duma who would be the only ones who could actually have saved or helped save the monarchy from itself but because of his obstinacy, because of his lack of imagination and his insistence on trying to restore the Romanov autocracy, he actually became his own worst enemy.

44:49Francis Foster:And so the war really weakens him. Yes. Well, losing the war really weakens him. And is it a case then that it's almost, you see this throughout history where you've got a fairly weak ruler who engenders resistance and rebellion, which he then, because he's a weak ruler, is way too brutal in putting down, generating more resentment, which builds, but he's not actually able to bring the country with him. Is that basically what happened? Yes, but there are two versions of that. There are also those who will argue that the collapse of regime is accelerated when they start making compromises. So, you know, it can work both ways.

45:30In his particular case, of course, it wasn't just the repression. Stolipin, the prime minister, had been known to repress as strongly as he could. And that was an effective repression, but for the time being. I mean, the hangings, everybody referred to him as Stolipin's necktie because of the mass executions. But it wasn't just the mass executions. The way the army was sent into the countryside and any rebellious peasants were sort of beaten with an inch of their life with the cleaning rods of their rifles. And this, of course, created vast anger and bitterness and so forth. All of these elements were some form of preparation, but the real collapse in the authority of the Tsar Nicholas II came very much actually from the way that rumour, and false rumour, because of Rasputin and his relationship with the Empress.

46:44One of his letters to the Empress was stolen and then was circulated in which he said that she wanted to fall asleep forever on his shoulder. Well, this was interpreted automatically as the fact that she was sleeping with him. But of course, she wasn't at all. It was much worse than that. And I mean, then we start to get closer to the revolution. We get to that sort of pornographic fantasy, which precedes, it seems, many revolutions, like with the French Revolution, the idea of Marie Antoinette and her relationship with the Francese de Lombard and all that sort of stuff, that Rasputin was even sleeping with the teenage daughters.

47:23Again, totally untrue. But the point was that the Tsar, who refused to have any interference and refused to listen to warnings from his own cousins and uncles, was allowing his wife to entertain Rasputin in the palace on their own, which was obviously a complete breach of protocol, and was ruining her reputation. And he decides, he describes in his diary how, you know, I returned home and I found my wife and Rasputin, you know, chatting happily and I joined them and we had a very enjoyable evening. Without any imagination of what this was doing. I mean, even his own confessor was saying, don't you realize what you're doing to yourself?

48:07And he just refused to say, why cannot I have my own private life and everyone said well your life belongs to the country you know you but he refused to accept that and the idea in a patriarchal society like russia that the czar could be a cuckold was obviously going to really undermine any belief and confidence in him and this is why come february 1917, after the, shall we say, rather delayed murder of Rasputin, which was too little too late if it was going to ever happen, and also actually had a contradictory effect, the idea that suddenly we were going to save Russia from itself because we're saving the monarchy from Rasputin.

48:52Well, the trouble was that, yes, there was rejoicing amongst the rich and the aristocracy, and they were all jumping up and theatres were interrupted and people would sort of jump up to cheer and sing the national anthem. But as far as the Periscence were concerned, they're saying, well, you know, the bosses, they've just killed the only person who ever got close to the throne. In the end, as I say, it was too little too late. But when it actually came to February, by then, again, another disaster because the Empress and Rasputin together had appointed not only 70 altogether new governors, they had changed most of the government while the Tsar was at the headquarters, the Stavka, and away from St.

49:44Petersburg, from Petrograd. They had been appointing the ministers, basically, and just getting the star to rub a stamp it. And the worst of all was Protopopov, the last minister of the interior, who actually was suffering from syphilis and was talking as a result with terminal paralysis of the insane, was actually talking to icons and believed he could commune with the dead and so forth. and he said, I will take over the transportation system or whatever. And this was what actually brought the February Revolution forward because the trains were all in the wrong places at the wrong times. They froze solid in that particular January of 1917.

50:30And it was hardly surprising, therefore, that there was, although sufficient grain in the country, it wasn't in the right places. And that's why you started to get starvation in the cities. So the actual street revolution, which had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks, they were all away, Lenin in Switzerland, Trotsky in North America, Stalin in Siberia. The regime was completely vulnerable and so demoralized that none of the Imperial Guard's officers were even prepared to draw their swords in defense of the regime.

51:05Francis Foster:Going into this year, I told myself I was finally going to stop guessing about my health. Like most people, I want more energy, better focus, and to be still strong and sharp years from now. But every time I've gone to the doctor, I walk out with basically nothing. Everything's fine. Drink more water, sleep a bit more. No real insight, no plan, just vibes. That's why superpower stood out to me. Superpower makes it simple to actually understand what's going on inside your body. You do one blood draw either at home or in a nearby lab, and they analyze over 100 biomarkers. That's heart health, hormones, metabolism, vitamins, minerals, and even environmental toxins.

51:43Francis Foster:What I love is that you don't just get numbers. You get a personalized action plan, supplements, nutrition guidance, lifestyle changes, and even your true biological age that you can track over time. Price-wise, this is a no-brainer compared to the alternatives. Superpower used to cost$499. Right now it's$199, while other testing services charge$500,$1 ,000, sometimes more, for similar, often inferior information. Your blueprint activated with Superpower. Superpower is just$199, and for a limited time, you can get an additional$20 off with our code TRIGGER. Head to superpower.com and use code TRIGGER at checkout for$20 off your membership.

52:24Francis Foster:After you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about them, so make sure to mention Trigonometry to support the show. Once again, head to superpower.com and use our code TRIGGER at checkout.

53:00Konstantin Kisin:for colon cancer with the Cologuard test. You can also request a prescription at Cologuard.com. And to inject a note of empathy for the Tsar into proceedings, as I was reading your book, this idea kept replaying in my head, which was I couldn't think of two people less suited to those positions than the Tsar and the Tsarina. No, you're quite right. But, you know, psychologically, I mean, talk about having daddy issues. I mean, the poor Tsar with his father, who was a muntin of a man, and the Tsar was absolutely always, Tsar Nicholas II, was always conscious that he was one of the smallest of the Romanovs.

53:45You know, who's going to take orders from me? He sort of says almost in tears when his father dies. as he says to her cousin. And so he has this sort of permanent complex. And then he marries this woman who, again, has her own complexes, partly because of being brought up in an impoverished court. Then is very much sort of, you would have hoped that Queen Victoria bringing her up as her granddaughter would have had a slightly better influence. But then you get this extraordinary transformation when having refused to marry Nicolás because she didn't want to change her religion from being a Protestant to becoming a Russian Orthodox.

54:35She then becomes more Russian Orthodox than any Russian and obsessive in her belief in the power of icons, in spirituality and the idea of, you know, the peasant alliance with the royal house of Romanov, the Batyushka Tsar and all the rest of that sort of stuff. Lack of imagination was one of the worst. Inability to listen to any advice was common to both of them. And the effect, of course, was utterly disastrous.

55:08Konstantin Kisin:Absolutely. But also, to be fair to him as well, he wasn't because of the way his father died. And we can talk about that a little bit. He was left directionless. Yes, it was true. The trouble was that one has to remember, first of all, first of all, the czar, his father, Alexander III, thought that he was going to have much longer time to prepare his son. And anyway, he felt, well, I'd had no preparation or whatever. So surely he doesn't really need preparation either. So again, lack of imagination. And of course, he did treat his son as a weakling, which did not improve his confidence. And the only confidence Nicholas ever had was surrounded when he was surrounded by young army officers who, of course, all were fawning on him and so forth.

55:54And he was at his happiest when he was going to sort of regimental dinners where they would all cheer him. and then when he left, you know, he was treated as a hero. And this gave him the idea that the army would always be loyal, that, you know, that the power of the Romanos could never be shaken. The idea that that would ever change never occurred to him, and of course until the First World War, and right at the end when he suddenly saw the disintegration of his own armies.

56:23Konstantin Kisin:And he also had a vulnerability, which is his heir and successor, Alexis was, or Alexei rather, was deeply, deeply ill. Well, the tragedy, of course, was it was called the English disease because haemophilia came through the line of Queen Victoria and it was on the mother's side, the mothers who carried it. I knew you guys grew up. It skipped a generation going on to Alexandra, the Empress Alexandra, and the daughters, the four daughters were absolutely fine. And then Alexis, when he was born, they realized that he had haemophilia.

57:07Francis Foster:Haemophilia is when your blood doesn't clot, basically. If you get a cut, you're going to bleed out. Exactly. It's obviously a disease entirely of the blood, which produces appalling pain in the joints, particularly. And, of course, this is what gave Rasputin his power. He didn't really have any power or influence at the beginning, but the moment that he started to be able to relieve the symptoms, mainly by the voice and by the touch and his eyes, some people say he was a hypnotist, but I'm not so sure about that. I mean, he did use those eyes in a sort of powerful way. But as far as the children were concerned, it wasn't just Alexei.

57:49Alexei it was one or two others he did have some extraordinary calming influence in that particular way but I mean that in a way is fascinating area of debate of whether he did have a certain power particularly in his hands without actually touching the body which could make this influence but a lot of it also was that the calming of the voice was able to bring down the blood pressure which actually then released quite often the joints which were causing the extreme pain. But there was the great moment at Nspala in a hunting lodge in Poland where he came closest to death and they really had given up hope.

58:37And it was only a telephone call from Rasputin which convinced the mother that he was going to survive and whether that just coincided with the break in the fever or whatever it was. But from then on, Rasputin's power was total, as everybody in the court realized in horror, because she believed he was a total saint and that God had worked through him and had saved the dynasty and that the crown prince, the Tsarevich, will definitely be the future Tsar.

59:14Francis Foster:So Anthony, well, thank you so much for coming back on the show. As we wrap up, I have two questions for you. We always have the same question at the end, but before that, if you look at the history of Russia's relations with Europe, in particular in the West more broadly, there have been times when European countries have been at war with Russia, there have been times when Russia has been a participant with other European countries in wars against other European countries, etc. So those relationships, the relationship with Russia is up and down and flows in different directions through time. Do you think there will be a time, certainly in our lifetimes, when the relationship that we have with Russia will shift in a more constructive direction?

59:57Francis Foster:Or do you think the impact of the war in Ukraine is such that it will be a tarnishing force for a very, very long time? I fear very much the latter, yes. I think there'll be such bitterness after the war. It's impossible to predict, obviously, at the moment, how it's going to turn out. But I think that the suffering in Russia will be considerable, partly not just because of the economic consequences. I mean, how will they be able to readapt their economy back to a, shall we say, a more civilian economy and demilitarize it will be very, very hard. and that will cause vast suffering in the countryside and certainly outside the main cities, but even in the main cities themselves, I suppose.

1:00:44But also what we talked about earlier, about the traumatized and brutalized soldiers coming back from the war and what effect they will have on the whole place. So without going into any sort of predictions, I don't think Russia will split into different parts or anything like that. as some have tried to predict. But I do think that it will be a center of resentment and would be dangerous in that particular way. But a lot will depend on other elements of to what degree China will help Russia or to what degree China will actually exploit Russia's vulnerability at the end of the war with its own interests in Siberia and other areas.

1:01:34Francis Foster:The Chinese are taking over the far east of Russia, just demographically speaking, already. Yes, absolutely. Demographically already. But they're even changing the maps, as you've seen, with the names of Vladivostok and others now in Chinese. So there's little doubt about Putin being in need of the Chinese, but I think probably underneath afraid of them as well. Well, and of course, the big question is what happens when Putin goes. Exactly. Well, thank you for coming back. We appreciate it. You said before we started, I will tell the public this, that this is the last podcast you're ever going to do.

1:02:11Francis Foster:I actually don't believe that. I think you'll be back because it's so great to have you on and you are so prolific with your writing. We're delighted to have had you. Well, no, what I enjoyed was, I mean, because we were talking in the large rather just in the specific. And I think that the problem has been that sort of, you know, people have just given away the whole story of their book. And for many people, they think, well, why do I bother to go and buy it now? But I mean, when one can actually have a really great discussion, that's a different matter. So, no. As I say, we look forward to having you back, is what I'm saying.

1:02:44So that's a distinct possibility.

1:02:46Francis Foster:Hold on, before you run, our final question, as is always, is the same, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be? Could be in the context of this, could be in the context of something else. um what do you mean well said about contemporary politics could be about anything at all anything that's on your mind that you think why doesn't anyone talk about this um

1:03:10well uh well at the moment you know what are going to be uh the environmental consequences let's face it war is one of the worst environmental disasters you can imagine and here we are with more wars around the world uh at the moment more conflicts going on whether in Africa or elsewhere, where already people are suffering water wars and climate disasters of one form or another. So the biggest issue really is, I'm afraid, going to come back again to immigration because of the side effects of everything else going on. And, you know, there's no way that Europe can be the lifeboat. And I remember, actually, funny enough, in a book that I wrote and was published in 1990, I remember predicting there that the possibility that perhaps the role of armies in the future are simply going to be to prevent mass immigration.

1:04:05Francis Foster:Sir Anthony Beaver, thanks for coming on. Not at all. Great pleasure.

1:04:41Francis Foster:We'll see you next time.

1:04:57Farmers. Learn more at farmers.com. Underwritten by farmers truck or fire insurance exchanges or affiliate. Products not available in every state.