Je ne fais pas tout bien. Ici un exemple d'interview ratée

 Voue me demandez parfois (souvent en fait), interview un tel ou une telle... et je m'execute souvent.... et parfois ça donne un résultat très intéressant - voir le récent entretien avec P-A. Plaquevent ou celui plus ancien de Laurent Obertone, etc. Parfois, on ne me réponds même pas, et parfois on décline poliment mais fermement ma demande d'entretien (ex. récent, mais chut, Michel Onfrey).

et parfois, on me réponds (ici par écrit) et ... ça ne marche pas... et c'est inutilisable. Ici un exemple d'un historien, Martin Van Creveld, pourtant très pertinent.. et j'ai ensuite croisé en vrai chez son éditeur (Vox Day) pour son excellent livre "Hitler in hell".... bref, je partage un de mes échecs cuisants, vieux de 6 ans (retrouvé en dépoussiérant mes archives), ce qui explique pourquoi je ne publie pas tout ce que je fais, loin de là.

Interview réalisée en 2016

In the « the age of airpower », « the changing face of war » and « the transformation of war », you describe how the higher and higher costs of technological weapon platforms are rendering armies incredibly impossible to mainain at a size that can efficiently face the emerging terrorist/religious fundamentalist « low cost » threats. This paradox of assymetric warfare is not new in history, but western nations seem to be blind to it and seem to prefer to throw more technology, surveillance at the problem. In light of the recent terrorist attacks in the West (Paris, Brussels, etc.), what is your view on the evolving situation of warfare ? 

As you say, I have written about these topics at length in my various books. You can find my latest in my website, martin-van-creveld.com, where, a couple of weeks ago, I posted an essay under the title, "White Elephants." Incidentally, it drew more readers than any other of my posts.

Being swiss, I share the view of my compatriote historian Bernard Wicht who likes the idea of the citizen-soldier that can, like ancient greek hoplites or modern swiss and israelis, field « the city » in the field. Do you see a return of the militia, the minutemen, in the XXIst Century ?

If I am right, and future war will be non-trinitarian, then you will need some combination between a standing force and militias. A standing force, because you cannot use conscripts against your own people (to maintain order, Athens kept a force of 400 Scythian archers). Militias (rather than a single militia) for neighborhood defense etc..

In my books, I deal a lot about economical collapse, which will lead, in my opinion, to the disparition of the more than ever fragile Western states and be replaced by something else. You seem to consider this theory in your book « the rise and fall of the state ». In light of the current world situation, should a large global crisis bring the collapse of the larger Nation States, what could this « something » be ? and what kind of warfare do you think is most likely in these scenarios ?

My book was written in the midst of the great Clinton boom. Perhaps that is why it has nothing to say about a coming economic collapse.  Judging by the price of gold, which has remained fairly steady over the last year or so, and the price of oil, which shows signs of recovering, a global economic collapse is not in the cards.