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Stephen Kotkin is a professor of history at Princeton university and one of the great historians of our time, specializing in Russian and Soviet history. He has written many books on Stalin and the Soviet Union including the first 2 of a 3 volume work on Stalin, and he is currently working on volume 3.

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Do you think there will always be evil in the world?

There are conflicting interests, conflicting goals that people have.

Most of the time those conflicts can be resolved peacefully.

That's why we build strong institutions to resolve different interests and conflicts peacefully.

But the Fact, the enduring fact of conflicting interests and conflicting desires that can never be changed.

So the job that we have for humanity's sake is to make those conflicting interests, those conflicting desires, to make them, to put them in a context where they can be resolved peacefully and not in a zero-sum fashion.

So we can't get there on the global scale.

So there's always going to be the kind of conflict that sometimes gets violent.

What we don't want is a conflict among the strongest powers.

Great power conflict is unbelievably bad.

At least 55 million people died in World War II.

If we have a World War III, a war between the United States and China or whatever it might be, who knows what the number could be.

And so it's horrible when wars break out in the humanitarian catastrophes.

For example, Yemen and Syria and several other places I could name today.

And the scale is colossal for those places, but it's not planetary scale.

And so avoiding planetary scale destruction is really important for us.

And so having those different interests be somehow managed in a way that they don't, that no 1 sees advantage in a violent resolution.

And a part of that is remembering history.


Speaker 0: Do you think there will always be evil in the world? Do you think there will always be war?

Speaker 1: Unfortunately yes. There are conflicting interests, conflicting goals that people have. Most of the time those conflicts can be resolved peacefully. That's why we build strong institutions to resolve different interests and conflicts peacefully. But the Fact, the enduring fact of conflicting interests and conflicting desires that can never be changed.

So the job that we have for humanity's sake is to make those conflicting interests, those conflicting desires, to make them, to put them in a context where they can be resolved peacefully and not in a zero-sum fashion. So we can't get there on the global scale. So there's always going to be the kind of conflict that sometimes gets violent. What we don't want is a conflict among the strongest powers. Great power conflict is unbelievably bad.

There are no words to describe it. At least 55 million people died in World War II. If we have a World War III, a war between the United States and China or whatever it might be, who knows what the number could be.

Speaker 0: 155

Speaker 1: million,

Speaker 0: 255

Speaker 1: million, 555 million. I don't even want to think about it. And so it's horrible when wars break out in the humanitarian catastrophes. For example, Yemen and Syria and several other places I could name today. It's just horrible what you see there.

And the scale is colossal for those places, but it's not planetary scale. And so avoiding planetary scale destruction is really important for us. And so having those different interests be somehow managed in a way that they don't, that no 1 sees advantage in a violent resolution.

Speaker 0: And a part of that is remembering history. So they should read your books.

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Stephen Kotkin: Will There Always Be War? | AI Podcast Clips