Why Great Powers Sleepwalk to War — A Masterclass with Prof. Hugh White

About this episode

Hugh White discusses the strategic history and the factors leading great powers to war, using his reading list to explore key themes in international relations.

2,500 years of strategic history, 11 books, one afternoon.  Hugh White is Australia's foremost strategic thinker: former senior adviser to Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in Defence, inaugural Director of ASPI, and principal author of the 2000 Defence White Paper. He is now Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University. Before this conversation, I asked Hugh for the eleven books that most shaped his thinking on strategy, international relations and defence policy. We work through them one by one — what each book argues, what it gets right and wrong, how it shaped his worldview — and use them to tackle the big questions: why great powers start disastrous wars, how international orders collapse, and how Australia and America should respond to the rise of China. Episode resources Hugh's strategy reading list: https://josephnoelwalker.com/hugh-whites-strategy-reading-list/ Hugh's 1993 Tathra note: https://josephnoelwalker.com/hugh-whites-tathra-note/ Sponsors Eucalyptus: the Aussie startup providing digital healthcare clinics to help patients around the world…

People in this episode

Host: Joe Walker

Guest: Hugh White

Topics covered

• strategic history
• international relations
• defense policy
• great powers
• China
• war

Keywords

• strategic history
• international relations
• defense policy
• great powers
• China
• war
• Hugh White
• books

Sponsors

Eucalyptus, Vanta

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Australian National University

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