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This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Why are peace deals so hard to reach?

This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Podmasters

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.81.6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why is it so difficult to end wars and what makes peace settlements so likely to be rejected? These questions echo across the globe in an era of conflict and political division, with attempts to broker peace settlements in Gaza and Ukraine dominating headlines but so far remaining out of reach.  Historian Margaret MacMillan is Professor at the University of Oxford and the author of numerous books on war and peace, including Peacemakers, and joins Gavin Esler to discuss the history and pressing realities of peace negotiations. • This episode of This Is Not a Drill is supported by Incogni, the service that keeps your private information safe, protects you from identity theft and keeps your data from being sold. There’s a special offer for This Is Not A Drill listeners – go to https://incogni.com/notadrill to get an exclusive 60% off your annual plan. • Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this. Buy Peacemakers, through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund This is Not a Drill by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:06.7

If that's you, why not support us on Patreon? You'll get every episode without interruptions,

0:12.6

and you'll be helping independent podcasting to thrive. Follow the link in the show notes to find out more.

0:18.8

Want to know the real story of how Oasis made Britain mad for it?

0:22.6

How Friends turned us on to coffee culture and super-layered hair.

0:26.1

The secrets of Nirvana, train spotting, gay hookups, Diana's revenge dress and what it was

0:31.9

really like to be a spice girl?

0:34.3

Plunge back into the decade when the world fell for cool Britannia, Bumster

0:38.4

jeans and Lemon Hooch with Talk 90s to Me. You can listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

0:44.6

And if you use Spotify, you can watch the whole show too. That's Talk 90s to me. Out every Monday.

0:53.8

Here's a question for our age and perhaps a question for every age.

0:57.7

Why is it so difficult to stop wars?

1:00.5

What makes peace settlements so tricky and so vulnerable to rejection?

1:04.9

The most recent Gaza conflict started in October 2023,

1:08.0

but the world knows that in its current phase, we could say it really began

1:11.7

maybe in the 1940s with the creation of the state of Israel or maybe much further back in history,

1:17.2

and it's still, of course, unresolved. History books may note that the full-scale Ukraine war with

1:22.6

Russia began in February 2022, but it began in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, or perhaps it began with the

1:30.5

end of the Soviet Union or even with the Tsarist expansion of Russia into Poland and Ukraine

1:35.4

in the late 1700s. We're going to hear a distinguished historian's reflections on what can be

1:40.7

done to end armed conflicts, why that can be so difficult, and whether the only way to end a war is to win it totally.

1:49.5

I'm Gavin Esler.

...

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