How Capitalism Changed the Face of War

[Music] War used to be simpler violent yes always violent but more straightforward it used to be about large groups of men fighting with their muscles their Spears and eventually their swords and their crossbows and then their guns and their cannons but then we hit a point where it just started to change so quickly faster and faster until eventually we got this private corporations who make unfathomably powerful death machines and then ship those weapons to every corner of the globe I once heard about these guys who would make weapons and sell them 150 years ago sell

them to anyone who would buy them these were industrial weapons and sometimes they were sold to the opposite sides of really big rivalry as conflicts I heard these guys started World War I though I'm skeptical of that this is something I've wanted to understand forever the arms trait as a student of conflict it's something I feel like I have to understand and I recently found a way to better understand it in an old bookstore in Portland Oregon I found a book that has changed my perspective on this it's called merchants of [Music] death and it

is surprisingly relevant to today even though it was written in 1934 this book has been the center of something I've been thinking about and studying why do countries especially the United States make and sell weapons to every corner of the globe that's what we're going to get to the bottom of and it all starts with this [Music] book so I'll start with planting seeds just emailing experts uh we're trying to map arms trade data is a huge part of this like I want to make a map I want to see it visually and there's not

a lot of clear Maps out there so we're going to make our own but that's not easy look at beautiful art here talk to the team Loop them in let them know what we're up to testing 1 2 3 4 5 big lines coming out of either side God I don't know what I'm doing [Music] here all right let's put the mapping aside for a little bit turn back to this book this book is what hooked me on this topic and there's a lot here okay videos like this take a really long time to make

and um there's a lot of really creative amazing talented people who work on them the ability for us to do this deep dive data journalism um is made possible because of sponsors media is always made possible because of sponsors and um this is the part of the video where I'm going to thank today's sponsor who is better help longtime viewers of this channel know that um in addition to talking about international relations I am also a big fan of therapy um I got into therapy a few years ago and it really sort of changed my

whole outlook on life I didn't go to therapy because I had some clinical diagnosis like depression or anxiety I went because I was struggling just in my mind with a lot of different things and therapy turned into this like place where I could learn how my mind works what is happening in my mind why it's happening better help is a platform that makes therapy more accessible it's online you sign up you tell the app a little bit about yourself and what you're struggling with and then it matches you with somebody in their Network a licensed

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to all of us I believe that in 20 30 years therapy will be seen as the same way that we see exercise today something that we used to think was not necessary but now we realize is actually incredibly necessary for our mental health if you want to check this out there's a link in my description it's better heal.com Johnny Harris you get 10% off your first month clicking the link helps support the channel and it also gets you an on this discount thank you better help for supporting the video um I'm going to dive back

into this long journey of figuring out what's going on with weapons and the United States government here we go our starting place is that point in history where War dramatically changed instead of large groups of men fighting with handheld tools War became much more about fighting with machines bigger and bigger this was made possible by the massive amounts of energy that were found stored in coal and oil now warships could be pushed by Steam instead of wind shielded by Iron instead of wood armies and supplies could be brought to the battlefield on trains out with

the horses and in with the trucks it's the late 1800s and the fires are burning hotter than ever metal is taking the shape of souped up cannons and guns and ships tools of war that were never thought possible now flowing in [Music] abundance arms makers engineer War scares they excite governments and peoples to fear their neighbors and Rivals so that they can sell more armaments the simple relatively inexpensive weapons of earlier Ages were displaced by highly scientific death machines and the cost of these together with the upkeep of huge armies brought a rapid increase in

National War budgets so that's when it happened and overseeing all of this this production of industrial Weaponry not governments but businessmen but the arms Merchant doesn't see himself as a villain according to his lights he is simply a businessman who sells his wees under prevailing business practices the uses of which his products are put and the results of his traffic are apparently no concern of his no more than they are for instance to an automobile salesman still haven't heard back from a lot of experts and still just kind of intimidated by this data set one

British arms manufacturer compared his Enterprise to that of a House Furnishing company which went so far as to encourage matrimony to stimulate more purchases of house Furnishings the arms maker felt that he too was justified in promoting his own particular brand of business hey Steven uh Happy New Year to you I'm curious if you can help us crunch this data we love your thoughts and we'll go from there the arms industry is undeniably a menace to peace but it is an industry to which our present civilization clings and for which it is responsible [Music] cpri

is this organization that shows all of the weapons being transferred from every country to every other country so here's chat tpt's initial take on the data set it's really disheartening how horrible it all looks at first oh these lines are telling me nothing and you know that at some point it will get into a pretty place but um it's not there not even close first up ham Maxim world famous as the inventor of the wholesale killing machine a type of machine gun Maxim invented this gun that could fire 6 66 rounds per minute that was

very fast and crucially it didn't Jam like most machine guns with his amazing invention Maxim takes his gun out on the road all over the world to try to pitch it to different governments he's in South Africa and France and Switzerland and Italy and Germany his gun selling missionary efforts eventually take him to Russia where he was almost thrown out for looking like a foreign Jew man that's like kind of aggressive but then eventually he was able to stay and show them his gun but they were skeptical they're like no gun can shoot 666 rounds

a minute but and they were incredibly impressed his Fame became so great in Russia that the Zar invited him to visit him which he did he was also decorated with other Russian orders the British eventually start using Maxim's gun in their Big Adventures in Africa they were taking over a modern day Sudan and started using this gun against the locals who were fighting with swords the British newspaper giddy reported that when the Maxim gun was turned on the Arabs quote a visible wave of death swept over the advancing hosts in most of our Wars it

has been the dash the skill The Bravery of our officers and the men that has won the day but in this case the battle was won by a quiet scientific gentleman living down in Kent man this book is so good war was changing and Maxim was on the front lines of it and he was making a ton of money in the process China hears about the Maxim gun and immediately sends someone to go check it out the Chinese representative gets to the UK and the first words as he stepped off the ship on English soil

were I should like to see hyram Maxim the Danes passed on the gun the king himself saying that it would quote bankrupt My Little Kingdom in about 2 hours but the King of Persia the Sha wanted some of these guns so he asked the Prince of Wales to gift him some and this is a key moment the Prince of Wales says that he actually is not authorized to give the King of Persia any of these guns because they belong to hyra Maxim's Corporation pause here for a second do you see how this works back in

the late 1800s and early 1900s governments couldn't sell weapons it was the corporations that sold the weapons they were the ones who were in charge it was a free market of weapons and the weapons kept flowing to everyone on Earth and these guys kept on making a lot of money which gets us to our next character in the story our next Merchant of death bosle Sahara aka the super salesman of death aka the mystery man of Europe because he was quote a shadowy figure this guy has an insane story and someone should make a movie

about him because cuz his story is wild but he was the super salesman of death he went around Europe and around the world selling guns and submarines and all manner of weapons to anyone who would purchase them including two sides of the same War like Greece and Turkey which was the Ottoman Empire at the time were definitely like Arch Rivals and they would sort of break out into Conflict at any moment Zahara first goes to Greece and sells them some outdated submarines that the great Powers didn't want to buy and then goes right to Turkey

and says hey Greece just bought a bunch of submarines you need some too and they buy some submarines and then he goes to Russia and does the same thing hey Greece and Turkey have these submarines they're in the Black Sea you probably need some and indeed Russia bought one because of that and this guy's commissions go through the roof it was rumored that zaharov became one of the richest men on Earth because of the arms [Music] trade luckily I have very skilled map friends that are going to help me make this data look pretty including

Marcus hey Johnny this is a multi-level problem so I'm going to try to break it down who invented the mapping tool that we use called Jil layers so I've transformed your data and uh I have imported it here and right now we can create a data driven style so you have all these International businessmen that were making lots of money off of this new demand for industrial weapons the C family and their steel The Dupont family and their gunpowder Remington making guns and of course Alfred Noel the dynamite King who did go on to repent

for his sins by creating a Peace Prize in his name peace brought to you by killing machines the Paradox of the heart of international relations and the theme throughout this entire video these men got richer and richer the weapons got better and better until one day it all blew up the number and variety of death machines had never been equaled all of the Sinister engines of War invented and perfected in the previous half century were used in the fighting and naturally enough there was further development of these during the war itself the machine gun was

improved artill was motorized and its range became longer sights and Fire Control apparatus became more scientific and more accurate many new Implements of War were invented the tank a combined American and French invention was first used by the British hand grenades were supplied in the trenches and rifle grenades increased the range of these deadly missiles the first world war took place between 1914 and 1918 and thanks to all these new deadly chemicals and weapons it was easily the deadliest conflict that the world had ever seen tens of millions of people killed or wounded it was

after this war that the world woke up and realized that making weapons a free market to be sold to the highest bidder was probably a bad idea and that's when this book came out in the 1930s it was a part of a larger discussion and critique of the international arms trade some of these critiques went so far as to say that it was the arms makers themselves that exacerbated tensions between countries and caused to the war though most historians just say that the arms trade actually just exacerbated the Violence by putting more weapons into the

system but then in the conclusion of this book you have this kind of Prophecy moment the future may very well bring fiercer and more destructive Wars and increased business for the arms makers if War continues it is not at all fantastic to predict that the arms Merchants will grow increasingly important already the stage of national Affairs has been reached where the largest item on National budgets is for past and future Wars already War appears the greatest and most important activity of government The Economic Consequences of this new nationalistic militarism will soon be apparent in the

arms industry this new nationalistic militarism it was new back then it's not new anymore but this is where it started so now it's time to fast forward and see how right they were all right this is for MJ this is the pass off for you to make a beautiful map okay so Johnny just sent me over the direction for the next map this one is bit complicated I think I finally have a good Map update to show you today the United States is the global superpower and the country who exports more weapons than any other

country and buy a long shot and this is what we've been working to try to map all this data hunting and trial and error is to try to see what this looks like today private companies still make and sell the weapons but unlike in the merchants of death era weapon sales go through a government approval process process which means that weapons are no longer just a product that make money for businessmen instead they are a currency that countries use to purchase influence in this case the United States being the top country thanks mostly to the

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute or cpri we know where these weapons come from and where they go this has been the Bedrock of our data hunting and I'm happy to say that after a fairly long long process we have mapped this so let me show you what it looks like when the global superpower uses weapons as a currency for influence around the [Music] globe this map is pretty beautiful and I'm really grateful for the team that helped me make it um I've got a great team and it's helped for seeing one really important thing which

is the expanse of us arms trade how far it goes how wide it goes the thicker the lines the more weapons flow but this map only shows us the first layer in reporting this story I've realized that there's a deeper way to understand this map and it's going to take a little extra reporting which is why there's going to be a part two of this video which dives into the modern arms trade what it looks like when the US sells weapons all over the world and why they do it the purpose of this video was

to introduce you to the merchants of death so that they could teach us about how the business of war came to be and what happens when that business goes too far part two will be coming out really soon and in part two we're going to talk to Arms trade experts as well as get some help from my new colleague Sam Ellis the creator of our new channel search party all with the hope of drilling deeper into this map to understand why the United States sells weapons to over 100 countries and what effect that has on

conflict in this world so stay tuned for our next video which will be part two of The Arms trade and thanks for watching [Music] [Music] today hey folks thanks for watching today's video this was a journey I tried to document the whole journey and I hope you enjoyed that process it's a very different way of making stuff for us but I I find Value in bringing you into how it's all made so you can see how we got all this information um big shout out to sech party I mean sech party our new channel is

such an amazing journalistic project Sam Ellis is is excellent and um he really contributed a lot to the story so go over subscribe to sech party watch what they're up to um Sam focuses on geopolitical explainers but also brings in global Sports um which kind of maybe doesn't like seem like it fits but it actually does more and more sports are becoming a geopolitical thing uh as you can see in places like Saudi Arabia um and it is worth paying attention to how the business and the geopolitics of sports are evolving in our world so

um thank you to Sam and search party for for being a part of this vid I also wanted to let you guys know that um we have an in-house composer here Tom Fox I worked with him for like five or six years he makes all the music for all of our videos we him and I collaborate on a lot of music and we publish that music and you can use it in your videos for free by free we mean you can use it in your videos If you monetize those videos it will flag it and

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designed it last year and I'm a map nerd and I like this stuff if you like this stuff too go by the poster help support the channel and um that's it big shout out to everyone on the team here who helped bring this story to life as you can see it's a big operation it is a lot of effort big shout out to The Experts we talked to as well as cypri which is the uh think tank we were able to get a lot of this data from so grateful for those doing this kind of

work so that we can take it and turn it into something magical um hope you're all having a good uh year so far and I'm excited to share with you a lot more uh we've got tons of different videos on lots of different topics I will see you soon in the next one have a good one guys simp