"The roots of war lie buried deep in the human past." "It has been a part of us since before recorded history." "At the dawn of civilization, our ties to the land drove us to protect what was ours." "We began to raise our children not as hunters and farmers, but as soldiers." "Fear drove us to fight to survive." "This primal fear fueled the engines of war." "Armies multiplied and our empires grew vast." "But war is not only fought with soldiers, it is fought with inventions." "The spear, the bow, iron, gunpowder, the bomb." "War pushes the envelope of technology, granting us godlike powers." "Tribal raids have given way to nuclear missiles, smart bombs, and cyber war." "Our instruments of death have become so powerful they now threaten to erase humankind completely." "But is there more to war than meets the eye?" "Is it more than just a plague on humanity?" "War has transformed our culture and rewritten the map of the modern world." "Its technologies have revolutionized medicine, transportation, communication." "Changed how we live and how we think." "This is the story of how war makes us who we are, how it shapes not just our world, but our destiny as a species." "This is Origins." "We're going back in time to explore some key moments, origin moments, that changed the course of our shared history." "We can access everything we've ever discovered or learned in human history with the touch of a finger, calculate the distance between the Earth and Mars, predict the weather, change our gender, clone the very building blocks" "of our DNA." "But we still have no answer for the duality of our nature." "As Mark Twain said, 'Every man is a moon, there's a dark side.'" "10-7's the drop zone." "Four, three, two..." "Go, go, go, go!" "Despite all our advances, we keep inventing terrible new ways to kill each other." "But what if those two things go hand in hand?" "What if the same thing that gave us civilization, our ability to cooperate, also led to an unending cycle of violence?" "We learned to work together and we learned to fight together." "This was the origin of organized violence, of war." "Talheim, Germany, 5,000 BC." "The age of agriculture, the edge of civility." "Tribes lived from harvest to harvest." "If you look at early farming villages, there was one absolutely fundamental reality behind it." "You're anchored to your herds and your flocks, you're anchored to your fields." "The potential for factionalism, argument, violence is much higher." "And when you add to that equation neighbors who have an eye on your more fertile lands, the opportunities for conflict there are enormous." "In the early days of humanity, the dominant form of warfare was the ambush." "Attackers relied on surprise and swift, brutal violence." "In a matter of minutes, your home and your tribe could be decimated." "Talheim is the site of one of humanity's first known mass murders." "In 1983, 34 corpses were found in the Talheim Death Pit." "What we happened to have found by chance discovery is a moment in ancient time where people were slaughtered." "By looking at the population, you've got men, women, and children." "Clearly this was some form of attack where the objective was to kill everybody." "If you look at the prehistory sites, you see massacres routinely." "And why are there massacres?" "We know that humans take riches, they take property, and they take women, which is part of what those ancient societies did." "They would steal women, and the more women you had, the more ability your society had to become larger." "War is sort of a symptom of our humanity, because it pushes entire groups of people into a situation where their survival is on the line." "And when your survival is on the line, you have many options, but one option is to innovate and try to, try to survive, try to win." "As time progresses, warfare constantly evolves as a more lethal affair." "The human skull is one of the hardest elements in the world;" "Except for a stone." "If you match a stone that has an edge with a stick, you now have something with a kinetic energy to cleave a skull." "That's formidable." "And that's what the humans were able to do in the Stone Age." "The helmet then, which is very expensive, now prevents a stone weapon from bashing your skull in." "And that means that those who are able to afford the very expensive protection now are in charge." "And that means that the social structure of society goes towards those who have the ability to create a helmet made of bronze." "Societies change war, and war changes societies, and they are an accelerant to changing societies, because it is about the survival of that society." "The Talheim massacre happened in 5,000 BC." "By 1,300 BC, humans had learned to fight in large, coordinated armies." "The earliest evidence we have of warriors engaged in formal battle was discovered in 1996, in Germany's Tollense Valley." "The secrets this battlefield yielded gives us a window into the origins of modern warfare." "The important thing about the Tollense site is that it is a very different sort of warfare." "It's one where the parties involved clearly set out, not to raid one another, but to fight each other." "First evidence for a major battle with so many participants in the whole of Europe." "Up to 4,000 warriors." "This was not a small or a sneak attack." "It looks like military, organized conflict." "And they seemed to have fought at very close quarters with great violence using very lethal weapons." "This was sheer butchery." "The sword was the principal weapon of the Bronze Age." "But the bow and arrows, obviously, is a very important weapon in the battlefield, because we do not only have the actual arrowheads, but also a great number of lesions on the bones that show how these arrows were used." "These people knew what they were doing." "These are really high-tech weapons of the time." "Sometimes we look at military history as one of one-upsmanship, basically through technology, where someone has a weapon, someone makes a better weapon." "But that is not always the case." "It's easy to get lost in the progress of technology, particularly in the era that we live in;" "We love technology, we love to see the history of technology." "But that loses the human element in warfare." "The genius of tactics, the ability and bravery of individuals to turn the course of battle, or even of history." "And in many instances, technology's a factor, but it's not the only factor." "Tollense marks a turning point." "After the battle, the landscape transforms." "Scattered farms give way to fortified villages." "Fortress towns soon grow into city-states." "And city-states give rise to empires." "In the time of empires, it is the men of war who make history." "Leaders so exceptional that they change the world." "Leaders who made us who we are today." "Leaders like Genghis Khan." "The brutal reality of war has left a bloody trail across human history." "But for all its destruction, war has also brought about change for the good." "When the great armies of the ancient world conquered vast territories, they spread their cultures far and wide." "But they also absorbed the cultures and values of the people they conquered." "After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and the Persian Empire, he adopted their dress and their ways." "He founded a new capital, Alexandria, a center of scholarship and science." "When European crusaders marched eastward in the Middle Ages, they began to dismantle the Islamic Golden Age where trade flourished and ideas flowed." "The Europeans returned with a new appetite for medicine, logic, and art." "This new worldview gave us the Renaissance." "These collisions of culture still shape our modern societies." "Redrawing borders and spreading ideologies around the globe." "War has made us who we are." "Sculpting our worldviews and transforming both the victors and the conquered." "Our modern world has been shaped by conquerors." "The lines of the map that determine where you live are probably there because of conquest and empire." "The religions we practice, the languages we speak, the foods we eat, the games we play, and the places we call home are products of the turmoil of history, of the turmoil of war." "And of all the world's conquerors, one man looms large." "The superpower he created remains the most expansive empire on record." "He fused cultures, spread innovation, and the mere mention of his name, even today, evokes war." "His name was Genghis Khan." "The year is 1218." "The place, Mongolia." "Genghis Khan started out as a nomad whose father was murdered." "But because of some intense sense of empowerment, in one lifetime, he banded together the warring tribes of what is now Mongolia and proceeded to go out and create the largest contiguous empire in human history, both in landmass and population." "Their ruthlessness is what is most astonishing." "They would kill entire population of wherever they went." "Like many great conquerors," "Genghis used extreme violence to achieve his goals." "But like today's politicians, he wasn't above making a deal." "Genghis Khan sent an envoy of 450 men to establish trade ties with Sultan Muhammad II, Shah of the Khwarezmian Empire." "It was meant to win the sultan's favor and maintain the peace along the most lucrative trade route of the known world..." "The Silk Road." "The great Khan did not get the answer he was looking for." "Genghis Khan descends out of the northern steppe with an army that didn't exceed 100,000 men, and in a single moment decimates the Khwarezmian Empire." "And in that single instant, the entire world would change, because within a few years, his empire would stretch from the edges of modern day China to the edges of Germany." "He would create the largest contiguous empire in human history and forever change the dynamics of our geopolitical world." "The idea of free trade and of ideas and wealth and technology across the Silk Road, you know, that really wasn't enabled until Genghis Khan came along, tore down all the walls, and created this free flow of innovation." "We see exchanges in art, in culture, in religion, and even people brought about by the Mongol conquest." "So we see a completely different world that comes after the Mongol expansion than we see before." "But none of it would have been possible without the stirrup..." "Two leather straps tied to a saddle." "The stirrup, in its way, was as important a military innovation as the sword, the bow and arrow, and eventually, the rifle." "Why?" "Because it enabled people to control their horses very effectively." "And this was very revolutionary." "The stirrup was a vitally important part of both the Mongols, and later, the European knights." "It allowed the rider to be steady in the saddle, which allowed you then to have a variety of different weapons for both speed and accuracy as they were going forward." "It also enables you to stay upright while you're clothed in heavy armor, and that's what really made possible that style of warfare, which characterized Europe in the Middle Ages, where you had these heavy mounted forces" "clashing with one another." "The mounted knight was the tank of its time, the shock troop of its time." "With the help of the stirrup and the invention of cannons and guns, monarchs unite scattered fiefdoms into kingdoms like France and England." "And the map of modern Europe emerges." "Before you know it, we're in the midst of an industrial revolution." "People leave farming for machines and cities." "The steam engine, railroads, and steel mills begin to drastically improve our lives and accelerate the lethality of war in ways no one can imagine." "Land, riches, power." "The reasons we fight are always changing, always evolving." "As the spoils of war first seduced us, we danced, chanted, and beat the drums, celebrating the kill with our rituals and traditions." "War burrowed into our psyche and saturated our culture." "We began to fight for fame and glory, a chance to become a hero." "Societies emerged and valued war above all else." "The Spartans, the Blackfeet, the Mongols." "Warriors whose names struck fear in the hearts of their enemies." "Aggression transformed from an instinct to an industry." "But despite the whirlwind of death, war also brought out our courage and our loyalty, a sense of solidarity that binds us together." "Over time, we began to fight not for power or survival, but for nation states, for our shared ideals, for the rights of the people." "Nationalism becomes a social force so powerful, it will sculpt the course of history and transform the face of war forever." "It sets the stage for the greatest conflicts of all time." "For the first time, the machinery of death is unleashed in all its terrible power." "We now fight not only for the spoils of war, but for the preservation of all we have built and all we have accomplished." "Today, weapons guided by lasers and GPS satellites are so precise they can target individuals from miles away." "It's a fearsome scientific achievement, the end product of a century of technological innovation engineered for destruction." "To understand the fury of modern warfare, we have to go back to when the blunt force of the Industrial Age was first engaged in total war." "Back to World War I, the origin point of the modern battlefield." "November 11, 1918." "Northeastern France." "The development of weapons that took place in that four-year span was phenomenal." "The machine gun alone changed the nature of warfare." "And the generals on both sides did not appreciate that you're not gonna win just by charging the machine gun nest." "On the morning of November 11, 1918, the armies on both sides of World War I were absolutely exhausted." "Only the United States was relatively fresh to the war." "And many of the American troops seemed almost eager for combat." "They had not seen and lived the horrors that their allies warned them about in the trench lines." "Few are more determined to stay in the fight than a 23-year-old German American from Baltimore named Henry Gunther." "At ease." "We got a German sniper nest, north, just outside the village." "Let's get word to the men to avoid the area." "The war's gonna be over within the next few hours." "No, we fight until then." "I'm ready, sir!" "Good, son." "You four... go with him." "Move it!" "Gunther led four men into the danger zone, the land between the trenches of the Allies and the Germans." "Great work, Gunther." "Armistice is in five minutes." "What are you trying to prove?" "!" "Gunther, come on!" "Gunther!" "Get down here now!" "Gunther, what the hell are you doing?" "!" "What we came here to do." "Stop!" "Stop!" "The war is over!" "You heard him, Gunther." "Put the gun down." "For God's sakes, Gunther, get down here!" "Gas-powered, water-cooled machine guns fire 600 rounds a minute." "They take our romantic notions of bravely charging the enemy and turn them into insanity." "Gunther!" "Gunther!" "Gunther!" "Gunther!" "3,000 men died on the final day of the First World War." "Henry Gunther was the last man killed." "A machine gun is a really wonderful piece of technology." "And, you know, we really have not improved on that much since World War I." "In fact, the M2 Browning machine gun that was used at the end of World War I is still the same one that we use today on an M1 tank." "The machine gun combined with artillery and trench warfare led to four years of stalemate on the Western Front." "10 million men died in the First World War." "It also killed the idea of the aristocracy." "Today's world, where few monarchs hold real power, is a product of that slaughter." "World War I certainly brought about the collapse of the monarchies of Austria-Hungary and Germany." "The winning monarchy, the British, remained in place." "After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled the, virtually the entire Middle East, the British and French drew up the map of the modern Middle East between them." "And they created these artificial states like Iraq, like Syria, like Transjordan, like Saudi Arabia." "And by and large, these states had no tradition of governance, very little on the way of education or knowledge." "They didn't really have natural ruling classes other than the tribal rulers." "As a result of that, they've been a mess." "You've seen anarchy, the rise of Islamic extremism." "All the woes of the modern Middle East can really be traced back to the conclusion of World War I." "Now we're facing this ideological struggle, which is exemplified by the radical and unfortunate interpretation of Islam." "And that competition is now not only worldwide, it's gonna be long-lasting, and it metastasizes, and that's the challenge of the 21st century." "The 20th century saw enormous battles fought by millions of soldiers spread across the world." "Out of this came the modern army, a well-armed, well-trained powerhouse of destruction that can fight in the air, on land, and at sea." "But by the end of the 20th century, the ground shifted beneath our feet." "A deadly new strain of warfare was emerging, a form of attack that can instantly turn a building into a battlefield." "Scientific advances in war have often made our lives better." "Space rockets, the moon landing, penicillin, modern jet travel, even canned food were all born through wartime innovation." "The same GPS system that guides bombs to targets in Syria helps you find your way around town." "What if you're on the other side of that equation?" "How do you fight an opponent armed with high-tech super weapons?" "Terrorists and insurgents who can't afford smart weapons have found a low-cost way to strike back, a way that's changed the way we live." "New York, 1993." "A new chapter in the history of war begins." "Technology has transformed the ways in which terrorists operate." "In the early 20th century, they often carried a pistol and targeted a single person." "But now, in the early 21st century, they can aim to kill hundreds, if not thousands of people." "You have the ability to go to your local drug store and find a bunch of materials and fashion a bomb." "So technology has certainly exponentially increased our capacity to do damage against one another." "This form of warfare, terrorist attacks intended to inflict mass casualties on civilians, was alien to the US until 1993." "Then, co-conspirators Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil drove a van loaded with 1,000 pounds of explosives into the basement of the World Trade Center." "Gas turned off this street." "After blasting a 130-foot-wide hole through seven levels of concrete, the bomb failed to bring down the towers." "It was as a wake-up call to what determined terrorists can do." "Asymmetrical warfare is a term that just defines a David and a Goliath." "So, if David wants to take out the Goliath," "David has to be really, really smart about it." "And so if David can get Goliath to say nothing but 'David' for the next 15 years, the whole world is gonna think that David is a much greater threat to Goliath than David really is." "The idea that we're going to get shot or hurt by a terrorist in the United States is so slim." "You're more likely to get in a car accident." "Terror is a weapon that has been used throughout history to cow a population or to change the way people think, and the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993 or the 2001 terror bombings are meant to illicit a response" "greater than the actual kinetic energy that is expended or the amount of people killed." "The psychological impact of 9/11 and its despicable use of that horrific act have had enormous impact on not only our psychology, our level of fear, our fear of other people, but our politics and the kinds of people that we elect into office," "our willingness to let go of our civil liberties." "Freedom of, you know, every aspect of our lives are now under threat to an extent, because we're so afraid of terrorism." "September 11, 2001, terror strikes set the tone for warfare in the 21st century." "But the 21st century has also seen the rise of another kind of warfare, warfare that lets nations and loners do battle without guns or bombs." "These days, the biggest threat we face may be a rogue actor with a laptop and a desire to wreak havoc." "Cyber warfare is probably the greatest challenge that we have, as far as our nation's national security is concerned." "We have an advantage over every other form of competition, with possible allies, except one." "And that's cyber warfare." "And when you see the potential of what a successful cyber attack can achieve, it's enough to make you deeply concerned." "This is going to be the new battlefield." "An unseen, invisible battlefield where teams of hackers from various nations will duel." "In 2010, a computer virus named Stuxnet demolished a secret Iranian nuclear weapons plant." "Hackers at Symantec Corporation unraveled its mysteries." "What made Stuxnet different was it didn't just stick to the cyber world." "It actually breached and caused sort of real-world kinetic damage." "It's nothing that we had ever seen before." "And so Stuxnet just began spreading all around the world onto Windows machines everywhere." "But what it was doing was it was also looking for something else." "It was looking for these things that are called PLCs." "They're these small computers that control things like factories, like the power grid." "What you see here is the code that is put onto the PLC." "And this is the normal process, the code goes onto the PLC, turns the PLC on or off and controls it." "When we first got the code, it's literally zeros and ones, you know, it's sort of unintelligible." "It was only later that we were able to determine that actually this code was targeted specifically at Iran's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz." "Uranium enrichment facilities are very secure facilities." "It's not like they're connected to the Internet." "You can't get your code in and out in that way." "So one of the ways Stuxnet was able to get into the facility was via USB key." "So it was able to infect USB keys, and then somebody would bring USB key with them into the secure facility, not realizing it was infected, plug it into a computer inside, and then that computer inside would be infected." "You know, we don't know definitively who is behind Stuxnet, but it's very clear that it's a nation-state, and it's nation-states that had something against Iran." "And it's likely that it isn't a single nation-state." "You have to remember as well with cyber warfare that the sort of barrier to entry is quite low." "If a country wants to do something like build a nuclear missile, that's actually quite difficult." "But when you talk about something like cyber warfare, it's actually quite cheap and quite easy for a country to develop a cyber weapon." "And that cyber weapon can have equivalent effects." "You could have a cyber weapon potentially shut down the power grid, for example, on the whole East Coast." "New York is out." "Wall Street is out." "All your banks are out." "You can't even withdraw money." "You know, you can imagine people, panic starting, and people trying to get cash." "You can't get cash." "ATMs aren't working." "Then things like your water waste treatment plants aren't working." "So, no clean water, there's going to be a run on stores." "Stores potentially aren't even operating." "Your credit card's not going to work at the store." "There'd be absolutely mass panic." "If you can blind the US military, if you could shut down our GPS and our computer networks, our military is basically unable to function." "And it could take days or weeks to get those systems back up and running." "They can do tremendous damage." "They can defeat your armies, your fleets, your air forces, by simply blinding them, by taking down their cyber systems." "I think that's a huge risk that we face." "With cyber war," "I always think one of the most effective ways to fight against cyber is to find the computer and the operator and put a bullet through both of them." "War in the digital realm is the latest but by no means the final chapter in the story of war." "Technology may change, but war is always about people." "It's caused by our human failings, our human mistakes, our human greed, and human anger, and it comes with human losses." "Aggression is part of what it means to be human." "Our history of violence stretches back to the dawn of humanity." "But no one is born a soldier." "Our species is violent, but capable of boundless compassion." "Organized warfare is an institution created by society, a deadly byproduct of the birth of civilization." "But has our thirst for war taken us to the breaking point?" "In the nuclear age, we have peered into the abyss of extinction and stepped back from the brink." "War and violence still plague humanity." "Can we escape their deadly attraction?" "If war is a human invention, can we find the will to destroy it?" "Maybe we can." "In our hyper-connected world, we are exposed to more cultures than ever before." "This mixing of societies is driving our evolution and changing our notion of the outsider." "Some will always see enemies at every turn." "Others will try to break down the walls between us." "Ending war will depend on our ability to understand that we are one species." "The human race is deeply connected." "We share a common heritage and a common home." "If humankind can stand united, peace may lie within our reach."