 Just because of the time, I think we're going to run straight into our next panel. So at this point, it is very much my pleasure to introduce you to Professor Greg Kennedy, who started off as my PhD supervisor. And I am now very pleased to call him a friend and colleague. So Greg Kennedy is the Professor of Strategic Foreign Policy and Director of the Corbett Center for Maritime Policy Studies at the Defense Studies Department at King's College London. Our department is based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College in Trivenham. Greg received his PhD from the University of Alberta in 1998, his MA in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada in 1991, and his BA honors in History from the University of Saskatchewan in 1988. Before coming to England, Greg taught at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario from 1993 to 2000. So Greg, over to you and the final paper of the evening. The last word. Always good to be in with the conference organizers. Thanks very much, Anna. And I just want to say thank you to all the participants that are still here with us, and particularly all the panelists. And I think I'd like to do a couple of things with this last session. I'd like to one contribute to the history and the historiography that has been put forward. I would like to do something that Martin has broached and begun already in one of the questions asked of him, which is to link it to today and the utility of history thing. I was recently involved as the United States Naval War College put on a five session event where it looked at the concept of economic warfare. And it was Nick Lambert's book, which was kind of the topic of conversation. And one of the things that became quite apparent was certainly the First World War and the events that took place in terms of the maritime domain. And as we've titled this entire event, this kind of intersection as a nexus. This, I believe, is definitely an important part of understanding even today modern concepts of things like sanctions and bargos, blockades, maritime power, or even concepts like economic warfare or law fair as we hear nowadays in terms of particularly its utility to disruptor states like China trying to rebalance or to reorient the way in which we conceive of the international order in this system. And that's certainly where I believe you are in 1914, 1918. And it's been really, really great to be able to hear this kind of chronological movement of the linkage between a number of key and critical factors, which the maritime domain encapsulates, which is the link between the concept of economics and finance and be that in a slave trade or a mercantile or be it in where Laurence started this out in terms of raiding and the use to be able to use raiding and then the redistribution of wealth to be able to create stability and governance in kind of ungoverned spaces. And we can take that and draw that even to today where you might think, OK, we don't have many ungoverned spaces anymore, but we certainly still see the opening up, for example, of the Arctic and the militarization of that area by Russia or the undersea exploration that will take place and the division of the seas into what we have traditionally done on land, which is to map it out and claim it and to have sovereignty or governance over it. Let alone its traditional use as a highway for the movements of goods, now the actual movements of goods and services to this. What I would like to suggest is that this whole period that we have seen prior to kind of 1914 takes us through a number of evolutionary stages in the linking of these to create a nexus in this war. And that war is the genesis of what we now today talk about in terms of globalization. We've talked about things that today you would use words, particularly in light of the COVID pandemic, and we've become very much more aware in our daily lives of things like interconnectivity of the way in which supply chains, ownership of supply chains, supply chains management, the ability to create and direct international or global trade, commerce, or even scientific research. And prior to that, the kind of concept that states might have run their time. And it was now this globalized world where states and state power was not as important. I think global pandemic is so in that that's quite clearly not the case that states are still the core of any international order and system. That international law, depending on new technologies or new ideas, new concepts, new ways of doing business, or new ways of looking at our humanity in terms of the relationship to what we think of in terms of human rights. All of these require codification law. And it makes itself apparent in terms of what we would classify, I think, as international law. And I think the reason why I argue and would make the case, I believe, for the First World War is that you see this collision in the modern context of the debates and the discussions that we've been exposed to here prior to the war now actually become galvanized into the fabric of the global society and the piece that will follow this. And interestingly, we will see post-World War won a whole new kind of era, not particularly unique, but new in the sense of some of the new technologies they're trying to deal with from submarines to poisonous gas. And the idea of disarming or the idea of outlawing war altogether in terms of the Kellogg-Brion plaque of 1928. This idea then, though, that the maritime domain seen as being the driving for this, I think is borne out by the fact that the only kind of real disarmament discussions that you get is an attempt to do it in the maritime domain through the naval conferences that begin in the 1921-22 Washington Treaty system. But that is a very unique thing to those things which follow because if you look at that system that's created there, it is a political, it's a geo-strategic, and it is a naval, a domain, if you will, and Martin Parlin's debate and discussion. What follows after that is not nearly as complex or sophisticated, it is a single element, the navies. And navies are not, I would argue, definitely not maritime power. And maritime power, I would argue, has got to be nested or linked and understood within the context of international law because the things that happen and or are affected by the maritime domain require it, be it confidence that things will be delivered on time to a certain set of rules under a certain set of conditions to what happens if that system is violated. And therefore, this also is a trigger in terms of being able to establish where you are in the world at what time. Either way, are you at war or are you at peace? And again, many of the examples and many of the papers that we've had prior to World War I show us limited, what we would today are talking about in terms of if you buy into the great power paradigm being relevant again, and that what we're in is this hybrid gray zone contested peace period. This is very much reminiscent then of these limited war type eras and where international law plays a vital part of being able to construct not only the rules of whatever kind of conflict that might be, be it economic conflict, be it a kinetic conflict or be it even terms of the quest and the race for unoccupied parts of the globe and to lay claim to them. Again, going back to what Lauren was talking about in terms of how the Portuguese empire and the Spanish empire were trying to negotiate who was going to be dominant in what parts of the world went. So I think when you look at this nexus of all of these things that come together in the first World War, this is truly a remarkable, not in terms of the conflict, but a remarkable kind of undertaking when you look, I would argue, at the British experience. And here when I call, I don't call this a British experience on its own because it is an Anglo-American experience, particularly in terms of, we've heard of the Aboligent Rights versus Freedom of the Seas Debate and the contested positions of one that is a dominant maritime force and the other that is a rising maritime force, but definitely also a rising and more quickly rising commercial or economic power. And that is where the true kind of intersection I would argue in terms of the governance of the international law piece comes into place. This is that it's about being able to make trade and commerce work and work to the benefit of both in times of peace or in times of war. And that's why as the most important neutral during the First World War, the Americans placed such an important role in kind of adjusting and accommodating, to Nick Lambert's book of planning Armageddon. The problem with the planning was that it didn't quite, the Admiralty going back to what Martin was saying, they were divorced and in their own practitioner bubble thinking about it as a naval problem, as opposed to a maritime problem that had to be linked to international law, had to be linked to the political realm, held to be linked to the higher commercial. And more importantly, once the war becomes unlimited and total the ability to create wealth. So this is access to credit or the creation of debt. Again, very modern things and things which anybody contemplating taking out the largest engine of the modern economic system, i.e. China by via blockade or any other kind of sanction and barguing system has to take into account. So if you think about China today, like the United States of 1914, 15, you know, what is the impact on the rest of us, the Norways, the Netherlands, the Spains to that? How would you have to accommodate and how would you be able to create alliances and coalitions that would be able to deal with China problem if you're also affecting, you know, the legal and the economic elements that are governing the rest of us in this international financial and international political system. And that was a tall task for the British system. And that's why I would also argue that looking at the British system shows a remarkable ability to adapt quickly. One of the things that you see is that from the concept that is there from 1914 to 1915, it is modified by both commercial and international law pressures. One of those is of course, this is that, you know, from the British perspective, this is a war to defend the rule of law. So therefore you cannot go around blatantly just disregarding the rule of law anytime it might suit you, even in the pursuit of your own strategic needs. And this is the argument that, you know, some have put forward in terms of supporting a captain concept, the Royal Navy's naval attaché in the Scandinavian countries who published a book in the 1920s, chastising particularly the foreign office and the blockade effort during the war because it had leaked supply, it allowed leakage of supplies to Germany that would have extended the war and cause greater casualties, et cetera. Well, the greater casualties would have been trying to either A invade Norway and the others Scandinavian countries and to impose that kind of a totality then or to indeed, if you weren't going to do that then successfully driving them into the opponent's camp which would have also exacerbated and accelerated the way in which the war would have been sustained because of course, you know, Britain is not capable, it's barely capable of raising the armies that it needs to send to the Western front and to other theaters of interest such as the Middle East of a higher importance let alone the idea and the thought that after you are going to be the defenders of the rape of Belgium that now you are going to practice the same kind of violation of sovereignty and the breaking of international law by occupying Norway to impose your blockade on Germany or the Netherlands or on Spain. I mean, certainly, you know, within the realm of fantasy this could happen and it could have appeared to be a real consideration but it's not because law is limiting and governing the strategic options and it's important not only in terms of for their own particular people and obviously the morale of the British empire. You cannot call on the British empire that's based on the kind of fundamentals and the building blocks that it is and at the same time be thinking and contemplating moving down the path of the opponent and still justifying this as a fight of good versus evil. And the same is true with the United States, you know, the U-boat campaign is seen as being that breaker of the international covenant of international law that will bring them into the war and that's true. And that's brought about because of the German inability to break the blockade and the stranglehold through the battle of Jutland. And once Jutland is the clear defeat that it is for Germany, it has no other choice but to reserve the gear to course and run the risk of moving America even greater than it had been prior to that into the Allied camp. And so there, you know, law is definitely a great part of that public court or the court of public opinion which is vital for democracies to be able to maintain and to hold as vital ground. And this comes then to the point of I would argue in terms of the movement to the control of the blockade and of economic warfare in general and going back to the discussion with Martin and the idea that the war against the people was now legitimate. And this actually has to occur and you have to allow that to occur because of the move, the control of the war. Prior to the First World War, the direction of the war was left to the professionals. You know, once war had been declared and there was a failure of diplomacy and foreign policy and the rest of this stuff then it was largely, you know, a standing back and particularly in the British case, the generals or the admirals would take over and conduct war. The First World War isn't like that. The demands on the state require the politics to be more engaged. And by default, because the politics have to be more largely engaged, so do the rules of engagement. So do the ways in which the war are conducted and where the go and the no-go zones are and what kinds of accommodations will be tolerated and what won't in attempting to acquire the end state, that victory. And it's here that within, I think, the blockade itself as a tool, you see that happen in the sense that, you know, if you go to Nick's book, this is largely a planning exercise by the Royal Navy who expect to be able to fight the war at sea. But the war at sea is part of a greater thing in this circumstance. And that is why as you quickly see more and more of the political control of blockade policy move to the civilians, move to the foreign office, the board of trade, to the treasury. But, you know, this immediately begins by Christmas of 1914 and the beginning of 1915 when the order of councils are being prepared. This is all now in the hands of foreign policy and economic policy people and politicians and civil servants. And so the block, it's not a surprise that actually then when you finally get to the kind of final manifestation of this process, which is the blockade committee, it's not run by an admiral. Admurals are there, in particularly the guy who runs the 10th Cruiser Squadron, the most kind of important tactical element of the blockade system. Dudley, Admiral Dudley, the chair, he is there as an advisor to give that practitioner view on elements that have to do with interdiction of trade and commerce at sea. But it's run by the politicians, it's run by the civilians. And war is so. And my point of that is that that does bring, I think, international law much more clearly to the foreign terms of the governance of the war itself. And this you do see in terms of the way in which neutrals are treated, but it's not a one-way street. And I wanna hear, pay particular attention to the Anglo-American relationship because the idea that international law was so sacrosanct and the Wilsonian vision of neutrality, so absolute. And it was the German U-boats that brought America into the war, or indeed that it was British connivants and the perfidious Elbian, wooing the unsuspecting and innocent America. That is just crap. The United States is an integral part of the blockade system and of the violations of international law from 1915. And it's got to do with trade, it's got to do with preferred access to materials like rubber. It's got to do with being able to raise credit. It's the Wall Street City Nexus, the creation of Anglo-American banking. And again, that is one of the hubs, if you will, of the 20th century moved towards globalization is the relationship between Wall Street in the city and the Anglo-American banking system. It's not for nothing in 2008 that the French at the height of the global collapse castigate the Anglo-American banking system for bringing the world to where it is. So this is a massive investment in terms of being able to understand and order how it is that international commerce and trade works and that needs law. So the humanitarian part will come after the horrors of the war grip the populace. But in the actual war itself, the expansion of the machinery to be able to globally understand commerce, trade, manipulate at distance, going back to Lucas's point about letters being written. Now we've got the new technology. Now we've got wireless communication. We've got the cabling, under-seize cabling, which still is the basis of the cyber world and our brave new world in terms of the protection of all of the things that we rely on as stability and confidence in our international economic financial system. It's there now. Censorship is a massive part of the British system where American violations through their councils and embassies to help German-owned companies to try and break the blockade is a tool and a weapon by which the Wilson administration is eventually beaten into some compliance. But so is collusion, the American rubber industry will help to monitor German companies and actually destroy German companies in America to get preferential access to British rubber because it's to their advantage. So the idea of neutrality and these kinds of things, these are also parts of the deals that go on in Norway, the Netherlands and Spain as well. So there are a number of layers to this neutrality. And I think looking at these kind of things in absolutes that there are neutrals and there are combatants, there is a massive gray space and neutrals are not so neutral and combatants are not so absolute in terms of even if the blockade is effective being able to apply it across the piece. The last thing then that I'd like to kind of bring into this is the question then of the growth of the kinds of things that we see that will lead to stock exchanges. And it's this question of the trade that was brought up by Stephen and rationing. The British system to be able to avoid the legalities of blockade and absolute contraband and all of the kind of things with black lists and the rest, the NAVSERT system is a kind of way going about that that stays true to leaving them to occupy the high ground when it comes to I believe the international law and blockade in the maritime domain. But the rationing one I think is an absolute blinder in that sense and that's why you can see there's a massive debate that goes on between the Admiralty and the foreign office and the civilian control over control for the rationing policy. And this comes down to a relatively new science which is statistical analysis. The growth in terms of the thousands and thousands of people required from typists to analysts to clerks and the gathering the intelligence network around the world, around banks being able to bring together all this information because first of all what you have to do is be able to prove a pattern of consumption. So if you're going to ration Norway you need to know what that ration of that that it is that Norway requires. And they are very meticulous in terms of being able to create that and anything above that ration. My point about that would be this is that the realities of all of that kind of ability to now gather information and to utilize it in terms of being able to monitor the world's trade and commerce is the catalyst for the creation of the modern international financial and economic system. The beginnings of what we will see as coming to globalization. And it is nested in the relationship in this vital nexus, which I still would argue is the West's strategic center of gravity is the control of the maritime domain because the maritime domain has to include the economic, financial and international law as well as commercial, all the rest of the different levels of law be it from nine dashed line and drawing, unclossed things like that to the way in which you conduct yourself at sea or trade and commerce has the right to expect to be treated at sea under the conditions that are existing at the time. And that's why I would finally close out with this idea and this concept which again I have found fascinating looking at all of your papers is this idea of precedent and having been involved with the exercise at the U.S. Naval War College and their understanding of kind of how to approach things today. It is quite clear that precedent is still important. History and precedent still matters to being able to understand and to be able to do I think a more valid analysis of current things than perhaps people give history credit for being able to do. And I think the thing that is beholding on us today which I'm very happy for you participating is that you're only as good as being able to do that is the history that it is that you produce. And I think the level of historical research and analysis that has been on display here today speaks to the veracity of those that are clever enough and able to access that type of historical research being able to utilize that in the contemporary world to great, great advantage. So that is my take on where we've been and what we're doing and why we're going to make this an annual event. And I'm quite happy to engage any question that I would open the floor also at this point too not just questions to me but if anybody had any questions for any of the panelists that are still with us that you would like to go back to because it has come to your mind at this point, please do. So thank you very much for your attention and your participation. Thanks, Greg, that was great. And actually, I do have a question just to kick things off. I was wondering if you could speak a bit about how the Americans conceived of their neutrality in the sense that if there is a gray zone and it's all not black and white how do the Americans see it in the First World War? So this question of the battle between belligerent rights and freedom of the seas certainly within the, it depends on what part of the United States you're in really I guess, Anna, as we all know, United States is not a monolith. And if you were in the central United States and you were Kansas City meat packer you had a much different view of this than if you were an East Coast banker or if you were a Southern cotton grower and ironically enough cotton is still kind of the linchpin of antagonism from the Civil War and it is again in the First World War in terms of being able to access cotton and to be able to secure cotton and to deny cotton to Germany because of the centrality of cotton to so many things. So I would argue that amongst people like JP Morgan and some of the bankers and the financiers they have a much more realistic view of just exactly what the limits of international law are to be able to limit the conduct of the war and that the United States has not been really white in these kinds of things and has used international law at its convenience going back to some of the things that Marta had called the kind of precursors to the First World War when you look at those and they're certainly in terms of the Russo-Japanese war I would include the Treaty of Portsmouth definitely as being the way in which the outcomes of these have not been just to end the war and it's always been about the participants in the war. The United States has used the opportunity in many of these circumstances to further its own kind of economic and financial condition or to deny that to potential competitors. If you go into the public and into the realm of public opinion and here you will find particularly in the Midwest, Cincinnati, Cleveland, places where you have high German populations you will find many lawyers that argue about the illegality of what it is that the Britain is doing the inhumanity of what they're arguing with a blockade policy and the idea of making civilians now a part of a general war which was always seen as something that international law was about all the Hague and all of these conventions and conferences they were there to protect the people and to try and limit the way in which war could spread outside of the profession of arms. So they see this as a manifestation of the growth of the inhumanity of the British system. And that definitely is one of the problems always for the United States is that on the one hand it profits by war and on the other hand it has the schizophrenic relationship then that it has to see itself as being somehow untainted by war. Well, you can't have it both ways. You can't make money at war and be untainted by that participation, make money. So within the government itself, I would argue that they are lucky in that they have a very good ambassador to Great Britain in page who is on good terms and good relations with Edward Gray in the foreign office in general. And he is, you know, he gets branded as an angle of file but I think that's a bit unfair. He gets learned that there's an angle of file by American critics because he has the ability to see the British position in the same way that I suppose the British ambassador to America, Spring Rice also gets kind of tired with the brush of being a bit too much of an America file and isn't hard enough in terms of taking the British line often. So the State Department I would argue is more realist. The Treasury is unknowing in many ways. I think it doesn't really have a clue. And then it comes down to your key senators within the usual kind of states, powerful states and things like that. People like Polk, they will fight the fight and they will talk about the legalities of it. And this is where the precedent of the... But they also recognize the fact that they have to accommodate sort of the power that Britain wields, which is the world's largest merchant marine, the world's largest navy, which protects also the United States, which brings goods to the United States in which American wealth is created by. And at the same time, the British have to recognize by 1916 that they definitely need the United States to be able to finance not only themselves, but the whole Allied war effort. So it's a symbiotic relationship, but in the public domain for the United States up until the outbreak of war, there is the need to be able to use the, whatever Boogeyman works to keep that idea and the ideal of neutrality firmly in place. That's great. Thanks, Greg. I know, Marcia, you've got your hand up. So if you want to jump in. Thank you, Anna and Greg. I really like the word you use there, Greg, of symbiosis between the neutral United States and the belligerent Britain and the absolute connection of... They relied on each other during both phases of the American war experience, both as a neutral and as a belligerent. And it's something I've been playing with a lot lately is this notion that we tend to adopt a cold war neutrality, interpretation of neutrality often, that we think when we think about neutrals, we think of these states that are not participants. They sit on the side, they're separate from the war in so many ways. And one of the things that I, one of the ways in which I've been playing with neutrality very much in the last few years is as absolute agents of power, economic power, military power, strategic power, cultural power, humanitarian power. And in the First World War, the contours of this globalizing, totalizing war are very much about the agency of great powers like the United States as an agent of war, even as a neutral agent of war. So they're an agent of the war and of the violence of the war and of the ability to keep, certainly the Entente powers fighting in the war. And they are critiqued for that, both within neutral, within the neutral United States, but also by the belligerent. So there is this discourse about the, about, so when I was talking about death of neutrality in my paper, it was really about neutrality is a bad, is an immoral thing when it is all about enabling the violence of war. So I really liked, this is more of a comment than a question, I really liked how you talk about that symbiosis as the United States is integral to the dynamics of the First World War. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, thank you very much. I mean, I think, going back to some, as I say, the stuff that you were looking at pre-war, I think the writing, the writing is on the wall, is just a, you know, I think going back to Martin's point, different organs of government don't recognize just exactly where the debate and where the kind of the power lies. And then the power is the thing, you know, Britain is a powerful state, but it has limits. I mean, this is the reality in a global war. And that's why it has allies. And this is why, you know, I think when you look at the power that a Norway, you know, to have to go through something like setting up the knot, the Netherlands overseas trade, you know, the grief that that causes, I would argue that it's just easier to go to war and take them out. But nonetheless, you go through the machinate. Now, why? Why do you feel the need to do that? That's power. You were showing the creation of that thing is a demonstration, I would argue, of power. The way in which Norway is able to negotiate, you know, yes, it is not all powerful, but Norway as a neutral, it gets a good deal out of the First World War. Now, is that, you know, something that you would argue, and I mean, it doesn't go unrecognized, you know, certainly the Germans in the Second World War do not fail to recognize that Norwegian neutrality is not an option. It cannot be an option if they are going to prosecute the kind of war they need. So the lessons that are there for the taking. And I think it's one of the things I find in that pre-war period that you work on so well is this idea that the changing nature of the relationship, this rising, the falling of states and the reordering of them, where do you place them? And how much, you know, and to put that into kind of current debates, you know, racism is a part of that. Nobody cares what the Chinese think. We care about what the Japanese think, but we don't care about the Japanese because of their culture and their whatever, we care because they're an economic rising power that can actually help control parts of the maritime domain. And as a maritime empire, I want them to follow the same rules as I do. And I want them to benefit from the war in 1905 to the advantage to be able to help that creation of that kind of an international system. So I think, you know, the whole way in which, you know, you talk about the different types of power that have to come together, I find, and I think, you know, Andrew Lambert's book on kind of maritime empires gets to some of this. And I think, you know, you take that to the next level, it is much more about different types of power than what even he deals with there. Maritime states or maritime empires bring and have to bring those things together. Otherwise it doesn't work. It can't work effectively to be able to rival the natural kinds of advantages that continental powers would have. And so I think that, you know, that for me is one of the bigger kinds of takeaways from the way in which power manifests itself in so many ways in the First World War and in the Allied, particularly the British condition. Brilliant. Why don't we see any more hand-wrapped coffins? Yeah, that's because we've been at this all day. Apart from Mark, who came late, she just got to wake up and just come in all fresh and had a coffee. I think in her defense, it was like 5.30 in the morning. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. Brilliant. Greg, I'm actually gonna hand it right back to you to give a closing comment and to basically close off our first symposium with your words of wisdom. My words of wisdom. My words of wisdom are, again, to just say thank you so much to everyone and Anna, particularly for you. This was Anna's brainchild all the way and the idea of introducing maritime and the international law in the proper context and the nexus in which they belong. You know, when she explained it it was an absolute no-brainer for us to be engaged with and we wanna be engaged in that and become a node for the kind of study of this and the relationship between these two areas of study. So we hope that we've started to build an enduring community here and thank you all very much for participating in our initial efforts to do so. Danny and Lizzie and the team from Kings getting us online and keeping us here and I don't think anybody on this side has dropped out. So I hope nobody else has had any kind of failures on their ends as well. So thank you very much. And then of course to the panelists for, you know, what I consider to be a real tour de force of the literature in the field to get us off down the path at a enormously high standard. And I can't thank you enough for taking the time to be with us to deliver your papers, to answer the questions and just engage. And I really, really hope that you will continue to do so over the coming years and look forward to seeing you back here again at next year's event. So again, thank you so much. Stay safe, stay well in the COVID environment. And if you have any questions or anything that you'd like to know, please just reach out to Anna and myself and we'd be more than happy to get back to you. So be safe, be well and take care of all. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.