The key thing here that i want to return to throughout this presentation is shown by this photograph here of Winston Churchill, harry truman, and Joseph Stalin smiling and shaking hands. And the point that i really want to reiterate here is that these three men and most of the advisors around them did not believe that what they were doing at potsdam was laying the seeds of a cold war. We know from the scholarship of the 1960s, 1970s and beyond, a lot of historians read potsdam backwards. That is to say they read it as a part start of the cold war. But these three men and their staff came to potsdam not to begin a cold war amongst themselves, but celebrate, really, the end of the war with germany, figure out what the post world war was going to look like, and plan for the final victory over japan in the pacific theater. This photograph very much reflects the spirit of potsdam, which i will talk a little bit more about in a bit, which was happy, which was victorious, which was joyful, wh
My childrens godfather is a former special forces group and he had a line he got from a commander somewhere in his career that said there are some peoplpeople just need killing. Some you will not be able to reason with or negotiate with and there is just evil in the world and that is kind of the approach he takes. He doesnt necessarily like it when he knows it needs to be done he went out and he does it. He runs through the bucs as a combination of multiple people that ive known in the world of government, diplomacy, part of government. Hhes actually named after somebody right here in dc who processes fisa warrants for the prophetic justice. So there is one over at doj, real life, and i hope it is a great name for a character. He is a collection of these people and then what i tell folks is that hes my alter ego. He gets to go and do the things my wife wont let me do. She let me go to afghanistan but she drew the line of chasing female operatives. So there is a line i cant cross. Host
I am glad to have a chance to talk to you about it. I was it was in person in kansas city. I wish that we were able to do this facetoface, but we will do the very best that we can. The key thing here that i want to return to throughout this presentation is shown by this photograph here of Winston Churchill, harry truman, and Joseph Stalin smiling and shaking hands. And the point that i really want to reiterate here is that these three men and most of the advisors around them did not believe that what they were doing at potsdam was laying the seeds of a cold war. We know from the scholarship of the 1960s, 1970s and beyond, a lot of historians read potsdam backwards. That is to say they read it as a start of the cold war. But these three men and their staff came to potsdam not to begin a cold war amongst themselves, but celebrate, really, the end of the war with germany, figure out what the post world war was going to look like, and plan for the final victory over japan in the pacific th
Anniversary of the potsdam conference. Big numbers like the 75th anniversary or 100th anniversary are always occasions for looking back and drawing attention. I think there is another reason to look back at potsdam, as we are reentering a world of Great Power Competition and reentering a world where geopolitics seems to have come back to the fore of International Relations thinking. So it is well worth us coming back to this subject. I am glad to have a chance to talk to you about it. I wish it was in person again in kansas city. I wish that we were able to do this facetoface, but we will do the very best that we can. The key thing here that i want to reiterate throughout this presentation is shown by this photograph here of Winston Churchill, harry truman, and Joseph Stalin smiling and shaking hands. And the point that i really want to reiterate here is that these three men and most of the advisors around them did not believe that what they were doing at potsdam was laying the seeds o
I think there is another reason to look back at potsdam, as we are reentering a world of Great Power Competition and reentering a world where geopolitics seems to have come back to the fore of International Relations thinking. So it is well worth us coming back to this subject. I am glad to have a chance to talk to you about it. I wish it was in person in kansas city. I wish that we were able to do this facetoface, but we will do the very best that we can. The key thing here that i want to return to throughout this presentation is shown by this photograph here of Winston Churchill, harry truman, and Joseph Stalin smiling and shaking hands. And the point that i really want to reiterate here is that these three men and most of the advisors around them did not believe that what they were doing at potsdam was laying the seeds of a cold war. We know from the scholarship of the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond, a lot of historians read potsdam backwards. That is to say they read it as a start of the