Episode 17: The Interwar Period

Profiles in Strategy

In this session Jon O'Gorman hosts John Maurer, Jesse Tumblin, and David Stone as they discuss why the allies of the first Great War could not win the peace, thus sowing the seeds of the second. They talk about the strategic choices and problems Britain had in maintaining its empire as well as the problems of other European powers during the period. The enigma of the Soviet Union and Communism as a spoiler for maintaining the peace is also discussed. We then speak of the Great Depression as the factor that forever changes the calculus and how Britain's choices going into the late 1930s were bleak. Appeasement as a strategy and its ramifications are looked at—we end with how this perhaps has parallels to the Russia-Ukrainian war of today.