Niall Ferguson on "Honestly with Bari Weiss"
Transcript
Bari Weiss
Niall, welcome back to Honestly
Niall Ferguson
Oh hello. What an unexpected call.
Bari Weiss Now everyone who listens to this show surely knows the name Niall Ferguson, but in case you're new to this podcast, Niall is a historian. He's an opinion columnist at Bloomberg. He's a senior. Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, he is the author of something like 20 books. Most recently, he published doom, the politics of Catastrophe. And he is also and most importantly, one of the founders of me of a new university, which is the University of Austin, or UATX. There you go for a plug, Niall, we. I really appreciate you being here.
Niall Ferguson
Good to be with you, Bari.
Olly Wiseman (Honestly co-host) OK, so we thought that we sort of go through some of the hot spots and then ask you to tie together what all of. These things mean. Obviously, there's so much going on in the world right now that I think many people can feel almost overwhelmed by one of those. The War in Ukraine, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, and I can't believe. This but next month is. Going to mark the two years. Anniversary of that war hundreds of thousands have died in that war, and Russia, as of today, and we're at the very beginning of 2024, appears to be winning. There are also these horror stories I keep reading about Zelinsky calling up really older men to serve who are sort of being ripped out of lines at the grocery store and sent to the front. Lines and Zelensky. Saying that he needs an additional half a million troops even still, and in the meantime, at least among many people I know, it's anecdotal. Polls, though, seem to back this up. Americans seem less and less supportive. Of a war that maybe two years ago they hadn't sort of viscerally supported. Who does this go in your view.
Niall Ferguson
Well, when the war began nearly two years ago, I thought the best analogy might actually be with the Korean War. You have to frame what we're going through as Cold War two in my view, and Ukraine was the first hot war of the second Cold War. And in just the same way that in 1950, the outbreak of a hot war made many people understand better. The world that they were in, I think that was true when the war broke out in Ukraine. It's obvious that Russia would not have launched that offensive without Xi Jinping's OK, that was what Putin got before the offensive was launched. And without Chinese support, Russia would not be able to sustain the war effort. Massive. Exports of microprocessors and other things keep the Russian war machine going. The problem with the analogy, and that was why I drew it, was what happened. Career because what happened in Korea was you had a year of extraordinary kinetic warfare and then two years of attrition affected stalemate and then a kind of Armistice, not really a full-scale piece that left the country divided with an extremely dangerous border. And it's still there as we speak. And I I've always felt that that was a plausible outcome for Ukraine, and not by any means the worst-case scenario, because after all, South Korea ended up being a very prosperous country despite. Something and Ukraine might manage that, but it's going to be very hard for Ukraine to win this war now for the reason you gave the United States has essentially lost interest. It's stopped supporting financially Ukraine and Ukraine is always to be truly running out of ammunition. This is a war of attrition. Therefore, Zelensky needs bodies. He needs men because the Russians have. A lot of them, and that that was always one of the asymmetries of this conflict. So, I expect the war to drag on through 2020. 4/2 at some point. What happened to the kids of the Korean? What was Stalin died. That was one of the ways in which the war was possible to end. I don't know whether Putin will oblige us by dying at some point soon. If he doesn't, I think this drags on. There's a worst-case scenario, of course, which would be that Russia begins to make significant gains. Significantly degrades Ukraine's infrastructure. It's failing to do that right now with a massive air campaign, but if you just take that analogy as something to work with, I think we're entering that phase of our version of the Korean War that. Will be called.
Bari Weiss
Stalemate and Niall, one thing that we'll be looking out for in 2024 is what happens here in the US, but to what extent does Ukraine's future hinge on the election in November? I mean, is that going to make a big difference for? Me or the other? Well, people were.
Niall Ferguson
Saying that in. Ukraine, when I was last there back in September, but it turns out you don't need. Donald Trump to get reelected for the aid to Ukraine to stop stopped. Ready and the election is, what, 10 months away? I think it's possible that the aid will restart cause Congressional leadership does not want to leave Ukraine entirely reliant on the Europeans, which right now it is. So. It's not entirely over Trump's real. I'll give at this point 55% probability. Would be a terrible blow for Ukraine. Not necessarily fatal Europeans understand. I've been spending a lot of time in Europe at the moment that they now have to face the possibility of being on their own. All that fine talk of strategic autonomy which we used to hear from President Macron will have to become a reality very swiftly. The alternative, they now realize, is too awful to contemplate, because if Ukraine loses after all the fine rhetoric of 2022 that puts Russia in an extremely threatening position for the whole of Europe. And remember, one thing that Putin has shown is that sanctions don't stop. A great power which Russia is not a superpower anymore. It's a great power with the backing of a superpower, Russia has mobilized in a way we haven't really seen in a very long time. And that large scale military mobilization is going to put Putin in a very threatening position. So, the Europeans can't really afford for Ukraine to be completely defeated. Because it will require them massively to increase their own defense budgets, which from a domestic political point of view is very difficult.
Olly Wiseman
Indeed, you mentioned what's at. Stake for Europe? What? Is at stake for. The world more broadly. If Ukraine loses this war in a significant.
Niall Ferguson
Well, it wouldn't be the first time that the United States said we'll back you and your independence and your democracy for as long as it takes. And then that turned out to be for as long as we feel like it. You know, as the South Vietnamese, the United States not done terribly well since the late 1960s. In honoring this kind of commitment. Read the Quiet American and you'll find a certain familiar ring to it. Think of Afghanistan and the Biden administration's track record is much worse than you'd think. If all you read was the New York Times because it failed utterly to deter the Taliban from very quickly reasserting their hideous. Barbaric regime. In 2021, it failed to deter Putin from escalating his invasion of Ukraine, and it failed to deter Iran from unleashing its proxies against Israel. And my question for 2024 is. Who will they? Fail to deter this year because there is more that they can.
Bari Weiss
Fail to deter well, now that segues perfectly into. My next question, which is about China and. It feels as though she. Thing is becoming more and more explicit about Taiwan and what China's plans are. I think the US official kind of intelligence prediction is that they think the range when kind of might try and take Taiwan might be between 2025 and 2027. Obviously, there's a chance that she acts earlier than America. Aspects so. What do we do with all this information? With all this forecasting? What's your feeling about where things stand and what we should be doing to be prepared for that?
Niall Ferguson
I remember two years ago all the experts on Russia said no, no, no. Putin's not going to launch a full-blown conventional force invasion of Ukraine. And I was one of the few people who said. War is coming. I have a similar feeling the experts say China's not ready to make a move until in Taiwan. Until 2027, Bill Burns, director, Central Intelligence, has said this couple of times and I just wonder about that because as you say, she has most recently in his new year. Said that, this is still his priority, the Taiwanese election is. Is a way. And it seems. It is likely that a candidate will win. William Lai, who has in the past expressed his support for the idea of Taiwanese independence. That seems like a good pretext. As you get. For launching some kind of action. I think the mistake many experts make is assuming that action means full blown amphibious invasion. That's a really difficult thing to do across the Taiwan Strait and I don't think the People's Liberation Army is remotely ready to do it, but they don't need to do that. They just need to blockade Taiwan and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's sometime this year. China imposes some kind of economic blockade. If I were advising Xi Jinping, I would say do it. You'll never have a better opportunity. You'll never have an administration that will be more wrong suited if you do it, they're not ready. They've talked to talk about Taiwan. Remember Joe Biden on more than one occasion has sounded like he has an. Unambiguous commitment that to the defense of Taiwan after 50 years, where the United States kind of ambiguous about its commitment and yet at the very time when. The US is least. People honor such commitments. This is not the 1990s, when Bill Clinton could send a naval force and the Chinese were like, whoa, back down. Chinese now has the capacity to sink US aircraft carriers. If Joe Biden finds himself in an election year having to send a naval force across the Pacific to run that. Blockade. It's the Cuban missile crisis. Only this time we get to be the Soviet. And Joe Biden gets to be Khrushchev, and that that analogy is another Cold War analogy that I find useful. Cuba was an island just off the United States, tried to effectively turn into a missile base, and John F Kennedy imposed A blockade called it a quarantine. But it was a blockade. And this naval force. We sent. The closest we came to World War Three in the whole of the. If there's a Taiwan crisis of the sort, I'm imagining it will be like the Cuban missile crisis, with the rules reversed, the Chinese will be the ones doing the blockading, and we'll be accused of sending a naval force and risking World War three. So, I hope I'm wrong about this. I hope Bill Burns is right. We don't really have to worry about this until 2027, but. Let's put it this way. Our intelligence experts have been wrong in the past and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there was a Taiwan crisis potentially this month.
Bari Weiss
Wow. Yeah. In the Middle East, it feels like there. Potential escalations the whole time, which the US just kind of ignores, which are those attacks on U.S. troops. Let's move on to that region and focus on the focal point of the conflict there, which obviously is the Gaza Strip and the war between Hamas and Israel. Give us your sense of what stage that war is at, what the next phase of the war looks like, what you think will happen next in Gaza.
Niall Ferguson
Well, I think so far as I can tell from sources I have. That's the idea is to strike him up. It is not. Being given as much time as it would like. But the noises that come out of Washington along the lines of all these needs to get done, you. Have to stop. I don't think. Those noises are being accompanied by anything that really would stop Israel finishing this war, insofar as it's possible to destroy Hamas, I think it's happening. The problem is that there is another theater that can explode into life at any point, and that's the Lebanese border with Israel, where Hezbollah has a far greater, far powered disposal. The IDF would certainly like to act preemptively against that. It's not really able to for a political reason. That is something that Washington won't condone. So, I think the critical question is not what happened in Gaza. I think that's now fairly clear. I think it's what happens with Hezbollah in Lebanon that is crucial and the fact that Israel is taking the first steps against Hezbollah is, I think.
Bari Weiss
What do you think the odds are of that kind of escalation and a broader sort of regional escalation in the kind of worst-case scenario involving Iran? And I guess the US? Some not necessarily direct conflict, but something approaching that.
Niall Ferguson
And the US is. Extraordinarily reluctant to get into any kind. Of a war with Iran. Another administration might have taken October the 7th as the opportunity to impose major costs on Iran, and I think that would have been the correct thing to do. But this administration has been, from the outset, to me, inexplicably wedded to the idea that it could resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal, that projects of the Obama administration, and it never has really exerted to seek serious pressure on Iran. So, I worry a lot that this. Reluctance to confront the source of the trouble. Which is Tehran? One means that Iran's proxies have a sense of impunity. It's not only a must, but also not only Hezbollah, The Who sees in other proxies are feeling, you know, this is our moment because there's not really significant pressure being exerted on Iran itself.
Olly Wiseman
You know, if you're Israel, post October. 7th and one of the great lessons are you can't actually allow a jihadi genocidal group to remain at one of your borders. Isn't the lesson there that Israel must at some point strike Hezbollah to say nothing of Iran?
Niall Ferguson
That would be strategically logical. The problem is. That Israel is so reliant on the United States and has been throughout its history, that it's very hard for it to act unilaterally in defiance of a very clear instruction from Washington. So, I think there's a real tension there that may persist throughout the year until the new administration comes along and says back to where we were, but that may not happen. As I said, it's 55% probability at this point in my view that. Trump is elected. I think Trump's election is really important, potentially because of its consequences for all that we've discussed and his. To reelect of Trump is very bad news for Ukraine. It's probably quite good news for Israel. I'm not clear what it implies for Taiwan so. It will be. A significant change, but. It won't be all one way, and that's one of the things that makes the interplay between domestic politics and geopolitics so difficult this year.
Olly Wiseman
So, we, we've touched on Ukraine, we've touched on China, we've touched on Israel and the broader Iranian threat through Hamas and all of these other proxies. And I wondered if you could help us connect the dots. You tweeted something that I. Thought was really. Scary, but rang very true to me on. New Year's Eve. Here's what you said. Future historians will marvel at all this. It will seem obvious by 2033, if not sooner, that the Pax Americana faced a well-coordinated challenge from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in the early twenty 20s. The first move was the invasion of Ukraine, the second was the war of Iran's proxies against Israel. The third will most likely be a Chinese challenge to American primacy in the Indo Pacific. Perhaps if Xi Jinping is bold, a blockade of Taiwan, can you elaborate a little bit more on what you mean when you say well-coordinated, like how? How much are they coordinated?
Niall Ferguson
No2 world leaders have met more frequently in the last decade than Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. And I can assure you, they're not discussing the respected merits of Russian and Chinese cuisine. The fact that they met immediately prior to the offensive against Ukraine at that, at that meeting, there was a kind of no limits partnership. Declaration is surely evidence enough. The fact that Iran is a major source of drones for the Russian air assault on Ukraine is further evidence. The fact that the attacks on Israel were preceded not only by meetings in Tehran, also leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but also by Chinese intervention, which is in some ways quite novel in the Middle Eastern diplomacy. To bring about some kind of rapprochement between the Saudis and the Iranians, all of this I. Think is part of a. The jigsaw that you can put together without knowing the classified information, obviously that people inside the government know a lot more than I do and I'm sure Jake Sullivan, as national security adviser, has far deeper insights than I can ever have. And I think on the basis of open-source Intel. Clear that there is coordination and although there is no ideological homogeneity between these regimes, China, which still nominally Marxist-Leninist communist regime, Russia, which is some kind of imperialist nostalgia trip back to Peter the Great. And Iran and Islamist Shia theocracy. And they don't have anything really in common except that they want American predominance to end and Pax Americana, which you know has had its. Effect haven't been such a bad international order that one would wish it to be replaced by a Chinese version. I certainly don't want to live in that world, and I wouldn't have thought you believers in the Free Press would want to either, so that's really where I think I would argue we are going. It's a major challenge to American predominance. The Biden administration said. We understand that better than Trump because we understand alliances and these alliances are our superpower, and that seemed to be. Who would reflect Ukraine? Because the Western alliance, broadly defined, also including Japan and some Asian countries, did come together, and it's supported Ukraine very strongly through that first-year party. Totally. But I don't think that alliance will look remotely as strong if things escalate in Israel. It's already pretty fragmented on the Palestine, Palestinian, Israel question. And as for Taiwan, I don't think any Europeans will show up if there's a crisis over Taiwan. And so, the Pax Americana, insofar as it was about. American economic might, plus alliances. I think it's more vulnerable than at any time since the end of World War 2.
Olly Wiseman
Isn't it one of the other great distinctions between Cold War one and Cold War two? Are demoralization, like I'm sure you saw the videos meal of the past few days, the spectacle of young progressives marching in the streets of American cities praising. The hoochies of Yemen. Literally to say nothing of their praise of Hamas and back then maybe I'm have a revisionist idea of things, but it seemed like that. General Young Americans and Young American Liberals were on the side of the West, and it was self-evidently good that our freedoms were good and better than their lack of them. Is that a real shift, or am I just looking at the past with rose colored glasses?
Niall Ferguson
Think you are a bit. I mean, I think what's interesting about Cold War two is it seems to be going faster than Cold War one. So, we've kind of we're racing from the Korean War to the Cuban missile crisis. And when it comes to young people's attitudes, we somehow got to 1960. Yay already, because if you go back to 68. There is this enormous revulsion against the Pax Americana from within, and instead of chanting their support for our math, they were chanting their support for Ho Chi Minh right on the Harvard campus. Then in that, in that sense, part and parcel of, yeah, I mean, part of part of the Cold War is the useful idiots that you'll always find.
Olly Wiseman
It was ever thus, right?
Niall Ferguson
On the Harvard campus and. In that sense, I think there's a kind of familiarity to this pattern, but I do think that it's easier, much easier for China to mobilize. And sentiment or anti-Israeli sentiment through social. Media than was ever. Possible in the first Cold War and. That that. Means that I think our task is harder. The way I. Would put it is cold. War Two has a lot in common with Cold War one, but economically the other side is much stronger. And it was true in Cold War one. Secondly, I think we are more divided and more capable of being divided and. In that sense, I think that there's a decent chance we'll lose. Cool. Do and that's what people find really hard to visualize. The reason people are worried is kind of think oh we you know we we're always going to win it's going to be fine. Don't worry and I'm like no I used to contemplate the possibility of losing the United States did not inevitably win Cold War when it looked like it was losing for most of the 1970s by 1979. It really looked like it was in trouble, and I think we just don't get across to people what losing might be like and why it might be bad. Ukrainians understand what losings like because they saw Bucca. They saw the bodies in. The streets of Bucca. It's really not what losing is like because they know that October 7th is like the dress rehearsal for Holocaust too, but we don't really know what losing would mean. And young Americans absolutely have no concept. Now, young Americans are so complacent about freedom that they're basically against it now, which is a kind of bizarre turn of events. And so, I kind of want everybody to read books like SSGB lend date and fantastic. He imagined Britain losing World War 2. What it would be like if the Germans had taken over. That's great. As it completely captures what it would have been like, we need a bit more about what it would actually be like if we lost. Suppose just let's just. Imagine that there is a Taiwan crisis, and they send two aircraft carrier groups, and the Chinese have sync both the carrier. And the US finds it has to sue for peace, and Taiwan has taken over, and seizing ping. Does the ticker tape parade through Taipei? What then? What does that mean? And I think a lot of people haven't really got anywhere close to thinking that through. They don't realize that they are losing. He seemed to be #1 losing the Pax Americana has massive costs. Like suppose suddenly the cost of borrowing for the United States government is no longer where it currently is. Suppose the. Dollar is no. Longer just seen as the fact that. The world's number one currency, all of. Could make life a lot worse. Supposing the Free Press was no longer really capable of operating because of the sustained campaign against it. Run out of Beijing. These are the things that people don't spend enough time thinking about because they are just complacent. Assume that somehow. All of this stuff is going on over there in in Ukraine and in Israel and Taiwan, and somehow, we'll be fine. But the reality is we will definitely not be fine anymore. We than we would have been fine if the Soviets. Had won the first Cold War.
Bari Weiss
Well, Niall, let's just. Take that cherry thought. And with I'm.
Niall Ferguson
I don't want to be cheery? I want everybody to be to be scared because unless you're properly scared, you won't take the requisite actions to avert. Bari Weiss I peed my pants during that.
Olly Wiseman Let's ask you one final short question, which you can use to scare. Listen as if they're not already terrified like me, and that is, this is a, you know, 2024 predictions podcast. So, I want you to paint the picture of January 1, 2025, and tell me how things looked in Cold War. Two like, what's your best guess in terms of how we're doing in a year?
Niall Ferguson
Before Democrats stormed the capital in protest against the obviously stolen election. Yeah, I mean I would. Say when you're doing predictions over. 12-month time horizon. The important thing is to remember that most things won't be massively different. So, Europe will still be kind of stagnating. The growth will be down. There may be a recession and parts of Europe and the far right will be gaining ground. So that's a kind of easy prediction. And Putin will still be President of Russia. Modi will still be Prime Minister because their elections are a foregone conclusion. So, lots of this is kind of. Easy to foresee. The hard thing to foresee is decision Ping. Take a risk in Taiwan. Suppose he does. He does by this time next year we'll know if the United States was able to deter or prevent or reverse the Chinese move, or whether. Buy this. Trying to walk. And so, it will be quite that will be the key I think, because I think the Ukraine war won't be over, Russia won't have won, Ukraine won't have won, Israel will still be dealing with the remnants of Hamas. It'll be either at war with Hezbollah or on the brink of it. Some of this is not going to change massively and. I don't think the Biden administration is radically going to change in its final year in office. So, I think Taiwan is what to focus on and if you have been to Taiwan, I really like Taiwan because Taiwan shows that the Chinese can do democracy. Well, and they do market economy really well. The question is, can they do defense really well and at this point the answer is probably not. And so there is a I think a real probability that there is some kind of Taiwan Strait crisis in the coming 12 months and on that will hinge I think the future of this. This Cold War that we've been discussing, there's other stuff one could talk about. Labour government in Britain, but that's all chump change by comparison with that.
Olly Wiseman
Niall Ferguson, thanks so much.
Niall Ferguso Thank you very much indeed.
