Odd Arne Westad

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116 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 7 Jun

Odd Arne Westad’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 192. Are We On The Brink Of World War III? (Odd Arne Westad) · 7 Jun 2026 podcast

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So whether it's the vetting of senior political appointments or its costly policy U-turns, the last few months of UK politics have been a masterclass of what happens when you don't do your homework.

And the consequences, as we've seen, can ripple out far beyond the initial decision.

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Can we start with that very, very big question, which you've been wrestling with publicly and presumably privately as well, is it does sort of feel like we are in a very, very dangerous phase of history.

And I was reading a piece you wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine in March where

where you quoted the British then Foreign Secretary, Edward Gray, writing in his memoirs, in the early months of 1914, the international sky seemed clearer than it had been.

Well, the sky doesn't look very clear at the moment, but are we sort of in that very, very dangerous pre-war period?

And are we, to some extent, already fighting the outlines of a world war?

You made the observation that what is seen as the Great Wars, it's a very unfortunate use of word, but the really huge international conflagrations, that they often happen because the great powers don't take enough care with the smaller conflicts, right?

Give us a broader explanation of that from pre-World War I and pre-World War II, if you like, but also how that might be applied to what's happening today.

We all know about Iran.

We all know about Ukraine.

But there are all sorts of other conflicts going on that are frankly just being left.

You were speculating earlier, or you were suggesting when you were talking about where a conflagration might happen.

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