S1: Every week. Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt
S1: to discuss great books, great men, and great ideas. This
S1: is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network.
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S2: Morning glory and evening Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. That
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S2: of course, all of the Hillsdale dialogues with me and
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S2: Dialogue Bar when you find it on hillsdale.edu site. Doctor Ryan,
S2: we are back in Winston Churchill's memoir of World War Two,
S2: his second book, Their Finest Hour. Chapters six and seven,
S2: The Rush for Spoils and Back to France. I want
S2: to begin on a small point that struck me when
S2: I was reading these two chapters. He went back and
S2: forth to France in this not so great airplane, sometimes
S2: surrounded by Spitfires, sometimes alone, uh, four times. And the
S2: last time to deal with the defeated Patton, a young,
S2: eager fellow by the name of de Gaulle. But it's
S2: just his physical courage. It's kind of nuts. We don't
S2: do this anymore, do we?
S3: Yeah, well, I don't know. We we don't do it in.
S3: We do it in greater comfort than he knew. Uh,
S3: Churchill was an old man, you know, he was 68
S3: when the war broke out? No. 65 and war broke out, uh,
S3: when he became prime minister. But he traveled. Uh, Andrew
S3: Roberts goes through the numbers in his walking with Destiny book,
S3: a very good biography of Churchill. And he traveled, you know,
S3: a multiple of the amount that Franklin Roosevelt and Stalin
S3: traveled combined. And he kept he built the alliance and
S3: he kept it together. And what he's doing in these
S3: two chapters in 1940 is France is falling, is he's
S3: trying to keep it together there. He's going to talk
S3: to them. And these two chapters are very dramatic because
S3: it's what collapse looks like. And, you know, it's there's
S3: one kind of moral trial that comes when you're losing
S3: to the place of disaster, because how do you keep
S3: your head up? And how do you keep arguing when
S3: fact after fact after fact arises against you, and the
S3: story of Churchill's actions in the months of May and
S3: June 1940 are just magnificent. But he doesn't tell it
S3: all because he's not. He doesn't what? He doesn't. He
S3: doesn't glorify himself.
S4: He is not a modest.
S2: Man, but he's also not a vain man. It's a moderate.
S3: Yeah. I like to say that he's pretty good at
S3: you know, he's he's very assertive human being. Right. But
S3: the way he goes about telling the story doesn't leave
S3: him open to a charge that certain politicians in America
S3: today are open to, that they talk about themselves all
S3: the time and, uh, and congratulate themselves over much. And
S3: he in these chapters, he congratulates himself under much. And
S3: I will tell you some of the sources we have
S3: for the things that happened in some of these rooms
S3: because it's very remarkable.
S4: Oh, well, let's.
S2: Do that now before I move to the for example,
S2: we have this meeting with Patton at which he speaks.
S2: He spots a young de Gaulle, and he says about
S2: de Gaulle that, uh, he had a lot of dash
S2: about him and a lot of resolution. He didn't know
S2: that he would end up working with de Gaulle. He
S2: talks about talking to Admiral Darlan and saying to him,
S2: you must never let the French. You must never let
S2: the Nazis get the French fleet. And Darlan promised that
S2: he wouldn't. But what are the sources we have about
S2: what he does in these days that that he does
S2: not tell us about.
S3: Well, the the most beautiful things he did are public speeches,
S3: which we can simply read. And we have evidence in
S3: one of the chapters of the effect of these speeches,
S3: because they persuaded Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was going to
S3: fight and America sent some help. That's that's from Fulton, Missouri. And, uh,
S3: I gave a talk from that very podium in that.
S4: Oh, did you really?
S3: A few months ago. Yeah. And there's Harry Truman on
S3: the left. Um, so those are public things, right? And
S3: those are very important. Uh, they, they persuaded his colleagues
S3: in the cabinet. They persuaded Franklin Roosevelt. They persuaded the
S3: British people. And then there are two main private things
S3: that are relevant to these chapters. One is his May
S3: the 28th, 1940 meeting with the cabinet, which we have
S3: notes from two different people about what he said there.
S3: And we've talked about that on the show. And the
S3: other is these meetings in France. And, uh, there are two. And, uh, the, uh, translator,
S3: Churchill spoke some French and most of the French spoke English.
S3: So a lot of it was in English, but there
S3: was a man named Edward Louis Spears. I mean, for
S3: on the show. And he was a very close friend
S3: of Churchill's, and he grew up in Paris and he
S3: was the officer as assigned to liaison between the British
S3: and French armies in 1914 and again in 1939 40.
S3: So he was there coordinating through this collapse, and he
S3: was already experienced at it, and he was later ambassador
S3: to France. He was a member of Parliament, and he
S3: was a brilliant man. And he wrote two great books.
S3: One of them, if you're interested in the First World War,
S3: liaison 1914 and the Second World War is about the
S3: same events, what, uh, 26 years later called assignment to catastrophe.
S3: Spears is in the room when these negotiations are going
S3: on with the French. And, uh, Peyton and I have
S3: come in their World War One heroes again. Was the
S3: general in charge of the Battle of Verdun in the
S3: First World War, one of the worst battles in human history.
S3: Churchill says in this chapter that Peyton was a defeatist
S3: in the First World War two. I didn't know that.
S3: But Churchill is encouraging them at this at the first
S3: meeting in Paris. They actually meet in Peyton's home, an
S3: apartment in Paris, and the nightgown of his mistress is on,
S3: draped across one of the chairs in the room. People
S3: noticed that. Anyway, Reynaud was a. He was the saltiest
S3: of the bunch outside de Gaulle. But Peyton and Vegan
S3: are beaten and they could see that. And then, uh,
S3: the Churchill relates a conversation where he says Churchill's trying
S3: to get them to keep resisting form a front, uh,
S3: fight unit by unit. And he says to come through
S3: Paris and attack you. The German army is going to
S3: have to disorganize itself and there'll be an opportunity. You
S3: can consume a German army corps in the streets of Paris.
S3: And Payton says, we've already given the order to evacuate Paris.
S3: And Churchill says nations which die fighting rise up again.
S3: But those that surrender tamely are gone forever. And that's
S3: very solemn.
S4: The town's name.
S2: Is gone forever because of what he did here. Yeah,
S2: it will always be.
S3: That's right. And then, and then and then. Uh, Reno
S3: replies to that. But you must give us the rest
S3: of your fighters if we're to fight on. And then
S3: Spears records. Because he knew Churchill very well. He said,
S3: I knew the Prime Minister was a generous man, and
S3: I did not think he would resist that appeal. And
S3: Churchill recounts the. this part of it in this chapter.
S3: He says, this is not the decisive battle. They must
S3: destroy us in our island or we can come and win.
S3: Win this back. And and Payton says. And so that's,
S3: you know, that's very tense moment. Right. And Churchill, by
S3: the way, uh, says in this chapter that by the
S3: time they were pressing him for the rest of his fighters,
S3: Payton and Wigan had already decided that they were going
S3: to surrender. So they were prepared to take the British
S3: down with them anyway. Then Pat Reno, who was sympathetic,
S3: says to Churchill, how do you hope to fight them alone?
S3: And Churchill says, I haven't thought about that very hard yet,
S3: but I imagine that the strategy will be to drown
S3: most of them on the way over and choke the
S3: rest of them to death on the beach.
S2: But he's also he. He dangles FDR to them. Uh,
S2: because Churchill always nurses this belief that eventually the new
S2: world will come to the assistance of the old. He
S2: will say that in a speech eventually. But in this meeting,
S2: he also dangles FDR. And FDR is is keeping track.
S2: He's not he's not not encouraging. He's not giving up
S2: on the English in the way that Patton and the
S2: other generals have. He has not given up on them.
S2: And we will come back to that immediately. Don't go anywhere. Uh,
S2: back with Doctor Larry Arnn after the break as we
S2: continue diving into their finest hour. Stay tuned to the
S2: Hugh Hewitt Show, all things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu. Welcome back America. I'm
S2: Hugh Hewitt. The Hillsdale dialogue underway with Doctor Larry Arnn,
S2: president of Hillsdale College, all things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu. remember as well
S2: all prior Hillsdale dialogues, including all of those episodes on
S2: this book? Their Finest Hour volume two in the Churchill
S2: Memoirs are found over@hughforhillsdale.com. Changing subjects just a little bit, doctor,
S2: let me ask you about the, uh, pug Ismay, because
S2: I learned this week I had to go back and
S2: forth to California. I'm listening to a book I read
S2: years ago called Freedom at Midnight about Mountbatten and the
S2: division of India and Pakistan. And it turns out Pug
S2: Ismay was his chief of staff for that, that Ismay
S2: keep notes. Does he have a memoir?
S3: Yeah, yeah. Uh, he published a book, and he was
S3: the first, uh, commanding general of NATO, uh, Supreme. What
S3: a shape. Supreme headquarters, Allied Allied.
S2: Forces, Europe.
S3: Uh, yeah. And, uh, he was, uh, yeah, he was
S3: very close to Churchill. He was a very good source
S3: in interviews with Martin Gilbert, and there's a lot of
S3: his thoughts in the in the official biography, which is
S3: the best biography. And yeah. And he and see, it
S3: was a very tight crowd, right? Like one of the
S3: reasons I mentioned it before, but Victor Hansen and his
S3: very good book, the Second World War, explains how effective
S3: the British were. You know, what they got out of
S3: themselves through this war because not just here, where they
S3: stood up alone and managed to stay, stave them off
S3: by the skin of their teeth. But then later they
S3: were strategists, right? And they helped to make the strategy
S3: that won the Second World War. And they invented much
S3: of it, and they contributed very much beyond their resources
S3: or their relative size to us. There were more British
S3: and imperial soldiers going ashore on D-Day in June 1944
S3: than there were American. And, uh, we overtook them by
S3: the end of that 1940, by the end of the
S3: summer of 1944. But up until then, remember the the
S3: war ends in May of 1945. So most of the war,
S3: most of the soldiers on the Western Front were British
S3: and British Empire and Commonwealth.
S2: And Churchill makes that point. But he does make the point.
S2: America is carrying the burden in the Pacific, and he very,
S2: very liberal in his praise about that. But he wants
S2: to make sure the marker is down, that the Brits
S2: held the West and Stalin did his job. Of course.
S3: We should say something about this, because there's a lot
S3: of criticism, you know, because we live in the age
S3: of America first, and I'm very glad about it. And
S3: Roosevelt was a liberal imperialist. That is to say, he
S3: followed an argument that I don't believe can be made
S3: to work, and that is that the whole world has
S3: to be free or nobody's safe. And so our mission
S3: is to make the whole world free. And Churchill never
S3: subscribed to that. But Franklin Roosevelt did. On the other hand,
S3: you have to see that there's another reason why we
S3: might be involved in this frame. Franklin Roosevelt had been, uh,
S3: assistant secretary of the Navy, and he and Churchill corresponded
S3: the whole world, whole war under the title. But they
S3: both had the same title, former naval person. And because
S3: Churchill was first Lord of the Admiralty twice. Uh, and
S3: Roosevelt knew Alfred Thayer Mahan, and he was a late 19th,
S3: early 20th century scholar at the Naval Institute. Uh, and
S3: he wrote The Influence of Sea Power upon History. And
S3: it's a fundamentally important book. And it was the rage.
S3: And the British and American navies and in strategically still
S3: is today, strategic thinking. Right. And his thought was that
S3: sea power matters very much in the modern world, because
S3: the cheapest way to make mean to move goods and
S3: services about the world is by seeing cheapest and fastest.
S3: And because airplanes don't care that much. So he absorbed.
S3: Roosevelt has absorbed all that. And he's very concerned about
S3: what happens to the French Navy because they had a
S3: big navy. And then if Britain is defeated, what about
S3: the British Navy? And and, uh, you know, uh, so,
S3: so the point is there what people have to think
S3: through today, what we Americans have to think through today
S3: in the context of these wars that we're fighting all
S3: over the place, is how do you secure yourself when
S3: the world is much smaller, at the least possible cost
S3: of life and treasure, and the greatest possible expansion of
S3: ordinary peacetime pursuits? That's always the challenge in war. But
S3: especially for a free commercial republic, it is the challenge
S3: And the thing to absorb is that's more difficult now
S3: because we are subject to immediate attack all over the
S3: world and at home.
S2: And the growing strength of other naval powers is also
S2: a problem to us. And of the weaponry, as the
S2: Ukrainians have demonstrated in the Black Sea, the weapons necessary
S2: to destroy a fleet have changed as they change between
S2: World War One and World War Two, they've changed again.
S2: The airplane came along. Now we have drones, now drones
S2: can sink. And the Ukrainians sunk the Moscow, the lead
S2: ship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, using drones.
S2: That's the kind of thing that people look back in
S2: 50 years and say, people ought to have woken up
S2: at that point to the the fundamental changes at sea
S2: going underwater.
S3: People don't understand one thing like why, for example, of
S3: the great powers, we need the Straits of Hormuz the
S3: least because we have. We're an oil net oil exporting country.
S3: That's true. We're also the largest user of the oil
S3: in the world. And there's very much oil that we
S3: don't have that we have to use heavy crude, and
S3: we don't have the refinery capacity to use a lot
S3: of the oil that we have. So we're what we
S3: really are is a net exporter, but also the heaviest
S3: trader of oil in the world. And so oil matters
S3: to us very much, even though we got a lot
S3: of it. I mean we should build a lot more refineries,
S3: by the way, to be more secure just using our own.
S3: It's probably not possible for us to be completely independent
S3: of foreign oil.
S2: Yeah. One of the reasons that digression, one of the
S2: reasons Steve Hilton appears to have got through to the
S2: finals is that, uh, a major refinery, another one left
S2: in California. And I was out there a few weeks ago.
S2: Gas was $6.50, more than $2 a gallon more expensive
S2: than it is on the East Coast in the middle
S2: of the war because of their ridiculous regulations. And they've
S2: driven the refining capacity away and they won't explore for
S2: their own oil. It's crazy. It's self-defeating. But that's the reality.
S2: Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. The Hillsdale Dialogue last
S2: broadcast hour of the week is underway with Doctor Larry Arnn,
S2: president of Hillsdale College, all things hillsdale@hughforhillsdale.com. The dialogue is
S2: at least all the online courses in Primus. The opportunity
S2: to find out about the college@hillsdale.edu. We're going to switch
S2: topics now to a different part of the war. Doctor,
S2: let me ask you now about Italy. Churchill has an
S2: unusual relationship with Mussolini, not unlike Donald Trump. He believes
S2: in personal diplomacy. So he writes Duce, a letter in
S2: which he says, is it too late to stop a
S2: river of blood from flowing between the British and the
S2: Italian peoples? In fact, it was too late. now. Mussolini
S2: had decided to throw in with the jackals.
S3: Yeah. And see that that corresponds. There are three things
S3: like this in the Second World War that are parallel.
S3: In this chapter, he talks about a letter he wrote
S3: to Stalin who's allied with Hitler at the time, and
S3: then later he will write, he will get a letter
S3: delivered to the Japanese ambassador who's in Moscow dealing with
S3: the Russians. That comes up in the next few chapters.
S3: And in all three of them, he writes a personal
S3: appeal with reasons why they should not join the axis, which,
S3: you remember, the Soviet Union was part of the axis
S3: at this moment. Well, in the case of Italy, he
S3: talks about the old alliance and friendship in the First
S3: World War and before between Italy and Britain, they'd always
S3: been friends or they'd mostly been friends. What is Mussolini
S3: reply with? Except the very thing that Churchill anticipated, and
S3: that was. We went to Abyssinia, not threatening any British interest,
S3: and you organized the world against us. And Churchill was
S3: reluctant about that back in 36 when that happened, because
S3: he thought, you know, we may need these Italians, right.
S3: And how does it affect us exactly? And, uh, and then,
S3: you know, we put we got the League of Nations
S3: to put sanctions on Italy, but they were heavily lobbied against.
S3: And so, uh, exempted from sanctions was oil. And Churchill
S3: writes of that back then when that was happening, uh,
S3: willing to strike but afraid to wound is what we are. So,
S3: so the point is that this, you know, this, these
S3: disasters that are unfolding have been prepared by what we
S3: read in the the gathering storm, the years that the
S3: locust has eaten right. The failure to re-arm the antagonizing
S3: of Germany. But, uh, you know. But that's earlier, right? That's. Well, uh, what.
S2: Did you and.
S3: Generous people.
S2: I want to remind everyone you worked with Sir Martin
S2: Gilbert for years. What did you and he. Or what
S2: did he tell you about Mussolini? Because he's a very
S2: shadowy figure in the American imagination. We know him as
S2: a strutting, thumping fascist. But for a time there in
S2: the 20s and the 30s, he and Churchill got along,
S2: as did some of the civilized world. What did Sir
S2: Martin think of him?
S3: Well, uh, what do you think of him? Well, he
S3: didn't think anything about him. It's not in the documents. Um,
S3: there's an interesting tidbit. Uh, Clementine Churchill met Mussolini and
S3: wrote to her husband about what he was like, and
S3: she was very taken with his galvanizing, powerful eyes. Uh,
S3: thought he was a force. It's not a letter of
S3: approval of his politics. The. The impression that British people had,
S3: first of all, Italy was, you know, kind of a joke, right?
S3: You know, it's Italy has been a mess for a
S3: very long time, had been a mess for a long time.
S3: And the going concerns in Europe, the powers in Europe
S3: were Britain and France and Germany and, and, uh, so
S3: Italy was a junior partner, right? And so then some
S3: people thought that kind of good. What Mussolini's saying he
S3: wants to recover the strength of Italy, the Rome, the
S3: Romans of Italy. Right. And fascism that comes from, uh,
S3: some bound together sticks that the Romans would carry called fasces, uh,
S3: in their ceremonies. Right. To be a fascist in Italy
S3: was to be for the resurrection of the glory of
S3: Rome and the power of Rome. And so you wouldn't
S3: be entirely unsympathetic with that, especially when Italy, you know, like,
S3: what did they say? Well, the famous thing they said
S3: about Mussolini was he made the trains run on time,
S3: you know, because if you live in a country and
S3: things don't work like in LA.
S2: Then I know what you're going to say. You're going
S2: to accept a minimum. And for a while Mussolini did
S2: bring order. But then he brought fascism and its awfulness.
S2: We'll come back and talk more about that. I want
S2: to remind you all things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu, including their online courses
S2: on World War Two and on Churchill and on the
S2: Revolution as We approach 1776. Also want to remind you
S2: that all the prior conversations with Doctor Ahern about this book,
S2: Winston Churchill's Volume two, and his World War memoirs, The
S2: Finest Hour, their Finest hour, available at hue for hillsdale.com.
S2: Stay tuned. Welcome back America. Hugh Hewitt with doctor. Larry Arnn.
S2: Hillsdale dialogue underway. The last broadcast hour of the week.
S2: All things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu. Doctor Ryan, you said you had a
S2: bit of a frolic and a detour.
S3: Uh, I once had a galvanising discussion. I went down to, uh,
S3: Guatemala to an academic conference, and the conference was staffed
S3: by some students at Francisco Marroquin University, a little Catholic
S3: school there. That's kind of nice. And, uh, so I
S3: was taken with the students as my kind of people,
S3: you know, so I took about half a dozen of
S3: them out to dinner one night, and we talked and
S3: I wanted to find out about them. What do they think?
S3: What's the world like? Right. And this one particular young
S3: woman who was the daughter of a of one of
S3: the organizers of the conference, a very good guy. She'd
S3: been to America. And I said, what do you make
S3: of it? And she said, everything works and everything is clean. Huh?
S3: That Spencer Pratt and the governor candidate both right there saying, look,
S3: we're falling apart here. Yeah. And you don't want to
S3: live in a society like that. Well, Mussolini was cleaning
S3: some of that up and people liked it. And, you know,
S3: and remember Hitler, who's, you know, let's just say Hitler
S3: was a very bad man. Right. On the other hand,
S3: what had Germany been through? I mean, it's their fault
S3: that they got hammered in the First World War. They
S3: hammered everybody else first. But then after that, there's this
S3: terrible inflation and disorganization and violence in the streets. And.
S3: And Hitler gets them going again. Right. And he was
S3: very popular for a while. Um, and Mussolini is sort
S3: of similar, you know, let's straighten this place out and
S3: get it going, get some vigor back. Right. And, uh,
S3: Mussolini proved to be ultimately a weak man. We have
S3: that great letter in these chapters from his son in law,
S3: Count Ciano, whom he executed it cause to be executed,
S3: and who turned on Mussolini. That's why he had him
S3: executed at the hands of Germany. He was in Berlin.
S3: And he writes what's true. And that is Mussolini was
S3: eventually completely mastered by Hitler when his when Hitler took
S3: Austria in 36. That affected Italian interests, because Austria is
S3: over the hills from Italy. And Hitler was nervous about
S3: what Mussolini would think, and Mussolini let him do it.
S3: And when he did that, Hitler called him Duce. Uh.
S3: He said, Duce, I pledge eternal loyalty to you. But
S3: then within a year, uh, Mussolini goes to see Hitler
S3: and wonders if he's going to be executed before he
S3: leaves the house.
S2: And Ciano.
S3: Wrote.
S2: In that letter, he said he wanted to tell people
S2: he was the only foreigner who was at close quarters
S2: with Hitler, that the world should not be ignorant of
S2: the fact that the misfortune of Italy was not the
S2: fault of her people, but due to the shameful behavior
S2: of one man. Which brings me to the last point
S2: of this hour FDR after Italy stabs France in the back,
S2: FDR goes on radio in America, gives a great speech
S2: denouncing Mussolini as the hand that held the dagger that
S2: is stuck into the back of its neighbor. Churchill thought
S2: this was a great speech, especially because it was five
S2: months before an election in which FDR needed the Italian vote.
S2: And he said FDR was, quote, never afraid to run
S2: risk for the sake of his resolves. And one of
S2: those resolves was Great Britain should endure. Do you do
S2: you think that, uh, Trump has resolves the way that
S2: FDR had resolved lines that he will not allow to
S2: be crossed?
S3: Oh, yeah. Well, you know, first of all, he's very tough, right? Look.
S3: What the look what's happened to him, right? They're going
S3: to put him in jail and take his money. And
S3: he got running for office one. He's very tough. Uh, he's, uh, I, I,
S3: I think, uh, you know, Trump, you know, I don't,
S3: you know, I don't know Donald Trump. Well, I know
S3: him a bit. I do know that, uh, Trump is
S3: not slow to return a blow because he's, he's, you know,
S3: what's this thing that's going on right now about the weapon,
S3: about the Justice Department defense fund for people who have
S3: weaponized government against them. He, you know, he wants to
S3: protect his people. And also he wants to hit back. And, uh,
S3: that's natural. And, you know, history will judge whether he
S3: goes too far with that or not. But he's he
S3: is certainly like that. He's.
S2: Now, the last thing I want to say is that
S2: when Churchill made a request, uh, of the United States, um,
S2: George Marshall, who was beginning to enter into this book,
S2: took 48 hours to inventory everything that America could give
S2: Great Britain. And certainly us got it done. And FDR said,
S2: do it. It's sort of like when, when Nixon said,
S2: send every plane that can fly to Israel in 1973
S2: and the Yom Kippur War. I didn't know about this
S2: until this book. 48 hours to inventory everything that we
S2: did not need for a bare bones defense of America.
S2: Do you think we could do that today?
S3: Uh, well, we're short of weapons, right? Um, so yeah,
S3: but we, you know, we're in an emergency. Free peoples
S3: can do a lot. And, uh, and it's, you know,
S3: just remember that, like, and if you, if you read
S3: the story of the Russian Revolution. And Solzhenitsyn, you know,
S3: is publishing these five volumes called the Red wheel that
S3: are awesome to read. They're really good. And, uh, if
S3: you read that, uh, you find out that the place
S3: Russia's falling apart in the last days, right? And the
S3: orders are not carried out and stuff like that. Well,
S3: we reacted fast and we were united and we fought
S3: very well in that war. And we did a lot
S3: through a lot of setbacks. So yeah, uh, he and,
S3: you know, we could move.
S2: We can move. And we chose to move. And we
S2: will talk more about how Great Britain actually did mobilize
S2: quite well. They did actually move very fast. And in fact,
S2: Churchill wrote that that train at an ever accelerating pace
S2: until victory was assured will come back. And we'll talk
S2: about all of that and more. A reminder everything hillsdale@hillsdale.edu,
S2: including those of you who are maybe sophomore juniors, going
S2: to be rising seniors. You want to make your application
S2: to Hillsdale and you want to do it right now.
S2: That application is available@hillsdale.edu. Not your ordinary application. You want
S2: to study it, you want to send it in. It's
S2: a great place to learn, a great place to prepare.
S2: My goodness, the network effects of that college now are amazing.
S2: Or if you just want to listen to all of
S2: the Churchill dialogue about World War Two, head to hughforhillsdale.com.
S2: They're all collected there over at hue for hillsdale.com. Stay tuned.
S2: Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I want to take
S2: a moment before we close out this week's broadcast. I
S2: asked Doctor Larry Arnn about where we are in defense spending,
S2: where we are in preparing not for the war that's
S2: currently paused, but for the next war and the war
S2: after that, as of course, Britain didn't prepare in the
S2: 30s and they barely survived the 40s. What say you?
S2: Doctor Arnn.
S3: You know, this this big bill that they're talking about, uh,
S3: you know, a billion, trillion and a half Defense.
S2: Yeah. Trillion five.
S3: Yeah. That's that's a big restocking. And, uh, we need that.
S2: We need to build the right things. It's the, the
S2: big challenge about that. And, you know, some of these
S2: tech people better than I do, there's a generational jump
S2: in weaponry. And we talked about it earlier, uh, as
S2: to World War One and battleships, World War Two and
S2: aircraft carriers, and now in the Persian and Arabian Gulf
S2: and in the Black Sea, we're learning it's just a
S2: brand new world at sea. We better be building the
S2: right stuff. Do you think we are?
S3: Well, I heard the sage Palmer Luckey talk about that.
S2: Oh.
S3: And, uh, uh, he says it takes ten years to
S3: revolutionize the American military industrial base. And for the next
S3: most of the next five, we're going to be building
S3: more of what we got. And we can add a
S3: lot too, but like, uh, we need to replenish the
S3: stocks of the stuff that we have invented and know
S3: how to use and have. Uh, so, so it'll be
S3: a transition, right? You know, I even think that, uh,
S3: the Chinese Navy is getting so big in the things
S3: going to the advantage is going to grow. There's a,
S3: there's a moment of danger, a two or 3 or
S3: 4 year period of danger coming up right now. So
S3: we should replenish the stocks of what we got. We
S3: should buy as much as we can of the more
S3: innovative things that should be cheaper. Palmer Luckey said that
S3: he would be disappointed if, in ten years the defense
S3: budget was not half or less what it is in
S3: a normal year now, and that we're not more lethal
S3: after it too.
S2: Well, you know, it may be what? Maybe it was.
S2: Churchill said, God loves the United States and drunks. It
S2: may be that the Chinese spent 25 years building ships
S2: that are not useful to the next war, because of
S2: what we're seeing with the revolution underneath the water and
S2: above the water, we shall see. Doctor Larry Arnn, all
S2: things Hillsdale can be found@hillsdale.edu. All of the prior Hillsdale
S2: dialogues are found@hughforhillsdale.com. Thank you for listening. We'll be back
S2: next week. Same time, the last broadcast hour of the week.
S2: Until then.
S1: Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the
S1: Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find
S1: your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to hillsdale.edu.