Today I was aimlessly channel-checking and ran across one of my favorite programs – Conversations with History on UCTV. Created and hosted by Harry Kriesler, the Executive Director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, Conversations with History is an interview program, created as “a way to capture and preserve through conversation and technology the intellectual ferment of our times.”
Today Dr. Kriesler was interviewing Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, on his new book How Wars End. Topics covered include: his intellectual journey, the challenges of editing Foreign Affairs, public discourse on international affairs, the interplay between ideas and action, the politics of ending wars, Obama's strategy in Afghanistan, and the lessons to be learned from the record of American war termination from World War I to the second Iraq War. I found it encouraging, in this era of endless and ever-multiplying wars, that someone at least remembered that wars could be ended.
Rose did a lot more than that. This was a brilliant interview with someone who clearly is not afraid to think deeply about issues and, more importantly, to tell the truth. I have not read How Wars End, but after hearing this interview, it is at the top of my reading list. I will hit some of the program highlights below the fold and link to the hour-long video in the Tip Jar.