Conquerors and Liberators: War Leaders Who Shaped Our World

Intelligence Squared

Arts, News, Society & Culture, News Commentary

4.2 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2019

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Managing a successful Premier League football team or a major company takes extraordinary fortitude and foresight. But try leading a nation of millions – and then persuading them to follow you into war, with all the pain and sacrifice that entails. That’s real leadership. So what makes for a wartime leader? This question has fascinated historian Andrew Roberts for decades and prompted him to write his latest book Leadership in War. In November 2019 Roberts was joined by Jeremy Paxman for a fascinating discussion about the qualities demonstrated by wartime generals and heads of state throughout history. All were driven by a sense of mission and an unconquerable self-belief, whether, as in Winston Churchill’s case, it stemmed from an upbringing that emphasised his right to lead and rule, or, as with Margaret Thatcher, it was the realisation that she could lead in a way that the men around her seemed incapable of doing. We tend to think of leadership as an inherently good thing, but, as the examples of Hitler and Stalin demonstrate, it is morally neutral. Whether agents of good or evil, did these important figures nevertheless have something in common? And are there particular qualities that tend to bring success and others that doom even the most promising leaders to failure? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:30.0	Maybe 30 or 20 years ago, a Saudi might have said,
0:33.0	I'm Muslim and I'm Arab and I'm Saudi.
0:37.0	Now they might say, I'm Saudi and I'm Arab and I'm Muslim.
0:40.0	You know, they're trying to radically refashion their country and they need help from the best experts in the world
0:45.2	Do you want to have your country's people be disqualified from that because of some essentially antiquated point of view about how countries work together.
0:53.6	In recent months it can feel like Saudi Arabia is intent on buying the world.
0:57.9	It's bought up much of golf, sports teams, many of the globe's best soccer players to its own domestic league and it owns huge chunks of many of the biggest companies on the planet.
1:07.5	But Saudi Arabia is not just on a shopping spree.
1:10.5	The once insular oil-rich Kingdom is transforming into a major diplomatic and military
1:16.1	player, a pivotal actor in the energy transition and looks set to host high-end cultural events
1:21.7	like the FIFA World Cup.
1:23.0	You know, they know that buying a football club immediately brings you a
1:27.2	billboard into a global game that allows you to completely reposition yourself
1:32.3	or rebrand yourself.
1:33.4	It feels like we're entering the era of the Saudi project.
1:36.4	But what exactly is the kingdom trying to achieve and will it succeed?
1:40.4	Coming soon from Intelligence Squared, the Saudi project is a new podcast series seeking to answer some of these questions and more.
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