Cold War II + An Update on Global Conflicts — with Niall Ferguson

26:06and we really have to avoid a Russian victory. So I think it makes sense to try and get to an armistice. And what's interesting is that if you talk to people close to Zelensky, they will privately say, we kind of prefer this to what we're getting from Biden, which is this drip feeding of support and this constant language of de-escalation. The problem about the word de-escalation, which the Biden administration loves as a word, is that in practice, it means the opposite of deterrence. And you need to have some deterrence. You have to make it clear to Russia that it will cost them to carry on this war if you're going to have any kind of peace negotiation.

26:50Of course, it doesn't get done in a day. These things never get done in a day. It'll take six months, 12 months. And I don't think even at the end of 12 months, there'll be agreement on everything. But if you can get an armistice, a ceasefire even, that hugely helps Ukraine, even at the cost of accepting for who knows how long that the Russians control a part of their territory and that the frontier between them and the bad guys would be a very dangerous place for quite a long time to come. So just for the purpose of the discussion, some pushback, I see that Biden and Harris have distinctive some dysfunction in Congress that, as you said, delayed funding for the war for six months, which was, I think, I would describe more of a lack of leadership on the part of Congress, not necessarily Biden and Harris.

27:37and that this has been, in my view, I think of the president as the CEO responsible for allocating resources to their greatest return. I would argue this return has been one of the greatest investments the West has ever made. We've taken out what a third of Russia's kinetic power, defanged the reputation of the supposedly ferocious army, given Xi pause before he tries to invade Taiwan without ever even putting a boot on the ground, an American boot on the ground. NATO is out of its brain coma. Europe is finally unified. And I don't want to in any way diminish the incredible loss of human life on both sides.

28:12And then on the other side, this notion that the Trump administration would put forward more pressure. When I hear J.D. Vance consistently saying he's indifferent and doesn't care about Ukraine, you don't worry that it emboldens Putin to be less apt or inclined to accept some sort of deal or armistice here? I see the opposite. it. I see this emboldening Russia, not getting them to the negotiation table. The problem with your first point is that this business strategy, as you describe it, doesn't look good if after three years, your enterprise goes bust. If after three years - You mean Ukraine loses?

28:52Right. You mean if Ukraine were just to lose? Yes. And that's a highly likely scenario. It's not a surprise that The United States embarks on a war and then after two years finds that domestic support for it ebbs away. That's not new. Domestic support for aid to multiple countries in Cold War I faded. And so to say that it's all the force of the House of Representatives, this has slightly missed the point. It was obvious from the outset that there would be a finite amount of domestic patience in channeling resources to a war in Eastern Europe that really ought to be much more a concern of Europeans than Americans.

29:36I think the risk that they ran when they said to themselves, which they did, let's keep this going because we're really destroying Russia's military capability, the risk that they ran was that in the end, if Russia won, albeit at a high cost, then Putin would be the winner. So I think this was a very poor business strategy and I said so at the time. It would have been much smarter to try and push for a peace or at least an armistice when the war was going really badly for the Russians, which it was in late 2022 when they were driven back from Kharkiv. They nearly lost a large amount of their military outside Kherson.

30:14That was a moment when I think you could have attempted a negotiation and we didn't do that because we thought we're so clever, we're going to fight to last Ukrainian and exhaust Russia's military. Point one. Point two, Vance has changed his tone because it's been explained to him and to Speaker Mike Johnson and to all the people in the House, this is what happens if Ukraine loses. And what's been fascinating to me, Scott, over the last six months or so has been to see that the isolationist faction within the Republican Party, which is quite well represented in the House of Representatives, has been routed.

30:55And the reason that it's been routed is that they had it explained to them in, I presume, intelligence briefings, what would happen if Ukraine lost. And then they realized that not only would Putin be laughing, but so with Xi Jinping. And what's interesting in this past six months is that the argument that I made last year is now almost conventional wisdom amongst Republicans, namely that there is an axis of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, that it is engaged in a cold war against the United States and its allies. And a victory for Russia and Ukraine is a victory for Xi Jinping, as surely as it's a victory for Vladimir Putin.

31:37Republicans have had that explained to them. They've had it drummed into their heads that if you let Russia win, it's a very bad outcome for the US and its allies and a very good outcome for China and its allies. So I think there's been a big shift. Not everybody's noticed this, but I think it's very important because it means that Putin, who is certainly paying attention, is realizing that a Trump administration won't simply hand him Ukraine in a phone call. I think that scenario was never very likely, and it's certainly not going to happen now. Thoughts on the war in the Middle East? Well, we're speaking on what could be the eve of a new war, the one that is brewing between Israel and Hezbollah.

32:24The probability that that war happens this August is, I think, high now after the events of recent days. It's pretty clear that Benjamin Netanyahu came back from Washington and made like Al Pacino in The Godfather and settled family business with the succession of remarkable hits against Israel's enemies. It's difficult for me to see that there isn't retaliation for that. I think the Israelis expect it. It's possible that the Iranians and Hezbollah duck because they don't want to be drawn into that conflict. On the other hand, they may realize that there's some non-trivial probability that Donald Trump gets re-elected, in which case their situation is going to be much worse next year because Trump will ramp up the pressure on Iran in a way that Biden has not.

33:22So I'm afraid we're probably on the eve of a war that will make the war against Hamas look quite small because Hezbollah is much, much better armed than Hamas. It has a formidable arsenal of weapons and missiles. And if this war does break out, as I think it is increasingly likely, it's going to be a bloody war for both sides. And Israel will certainly suffer more casualties than it has in the war in Gaza. It appears that the calculation is that Israel's decided they're ready, that they're up for that fight. Your thoughts? It's been a debate within the government since October the 7th. I was in Israel in the spring and met with members of the government, as well as with their opponents and the critics of Mr.

34:13Netanyahu. And what struck me was that although the political divisions remain very deep in Israel and hostility to Bibi is something that is very widespread, nevertheless, October the 7th changed something in Israel and created a new unity, not a political unity, but a unity of purpose. The sense that a second Holocaust was premeditated, was being planned by the likes of Hamas has greatly changed the atmosphere of the country. And it has made even my liberal friends in Tel Aviv more or less write off the idea of a Palestinian state and more or less acquiesce in a very aggressive policy directed against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and now Hezbollah.

35:07So if you go back to the days after October the 7th, when we were all reeling from the sheer horror of what was done by Hamas and its confederates, the debate that was going on within the Israeli government was, do we hit Hamas or do we actually go after Hezbollah? And Defense Minister Galant and other military advisors said, we should go after Hezbollah because it's the stronger of our enemies. And the planes were on their way. They had taken off to hit Hezbollah when Netanyahu overruled that decision and said, no, we go after Hamas first. So as always, the Middle East needs to be understood partly through the lens of Israeli domestic politics.

35:54Many people forget just how important that is, given it's the only democracy in the region. You have to follow its democracy closely. And that battle about when do we hit Hezbollah has been going on ever since October. And I think ultimately, the realization is you can't postpone indefinitely a showdown, A, because they keep acquiring more weaponry, B, because your people near the Lebanese border were evacuated many months ago now, and they want to go back to their homes. You've got a very large displaced population that was moved away from the Lebanese border. If you want to get them back in time for the school year, you have to do this now in August.

36:35So I think, although one can never be certain, I think we're quite close to the brink of a new phase of the Middle Eastern conflict, which in any cases is a multi-front war already. It's not just about Gaza, though that's what has dominated media coverage. It's also about Iran's direct attacks on Israel. It's about the Houthis. This is a very complex picture. But Hezbollah is the organization that poses the most clear and present threat to Israel. and sooner or later, there's going to be a showdown. And I think the argument that has been made by the Israeli security services and armed services is why wait for them to hit us first?

37:17Why give them the initiative? If we take the initiative, then we're likely to suffer fewer casualties than if they do. Yeah, it felt as if, I don't know if assassinations are the right word or strikes, were pretty bold and that Israel, the way I read it was Israel believes that they are coming to an end of the war in Gaza, that the tunnels are nearly taken out. They've kind of cut the region in half in controlling the flow of Hamas. I was actually struck by how bold this was, that they're effectively willing to open up a two-front war. Is that your sense of it? Yes. I don't think it's born of overconfidence, though.

37:54Rather, the opposite. I think there's considerable disquiet about the extent to which Hamas has really been destroyed. There's a sense that Israel has to act now because the longer it waits, the worse the situation becomes. So I think this decision to force the issue with Iran and with Hezbollah has been taken because they realize that they're getting nowhere with ceasefire negotiations, with the hostage negotiations, because there's no good faith on the side of Hamas. Their situation internationally is one of relative isolation. That's not new in the history of Israel. And the support that they've received from the Biden administration has been tepid, ambivalent, and there are elements of the administration that clearly still somehow to believe that you can reach a modus vivendi with Iran or resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal.

39:00So the Israelis have decided it might as well be now. It's not ideal. But if not now, when? Is our situation really going to be better next year? I think that's what's going on. You think it's fair to call the Biden support of Israel or involvement of Israel as tepid? My understanding is it'd be difficult to point to any country in the world, in my view, that has provided more steadfast support than the U.S., immediately deploying carrier strike forces, coordinating around intelligence, coordinating around defense systems for the missile attack from Iran. You really think it's fair to call the support from the U.S.

39:36tepid? Yeah, I do. I mean, because apart from the initial fine words that Joe Biden uttered, the support has been publicly, internationally tepid. Of course, these things are all relative. The US is more supportive of Israel than any European country. Yeah. I mean, there are European countries that are recognizing a Palestinian state this year, even though it doesn't exist, doesn't seem likely to exist. But if you compare Biden's administration with, say, Richard Nixon's in 1973, which was the last time Israel suffered the surprise attack, the scale of the support was far greater then. US support for Israel is much less important economically than it was 50 years ago.

40:28Much, much smaller share of Israeli GDP, because the Israeli economy is actually a much bigger and more innovative economy. So, one mustn't make the mistake of thinking that the US is absolutely crucial to Israel. It's much less crucial than it was from a military as well as an economic standpoint. But it's not indispensable. And so, for example, the big problem that doesn't get talked about nearly enough is that Iran is now very close to having a nuclear capability. I asked a Biden official not so long ago, are you in fact acting like they do have nuclear capability? Are you treating them as if they already are a nuclear arm power.

41:09Because although you sent two aircraft carrier groups, they didn't actually do anything to punish Iran for its obvious complicity on October the 7th. And on the whole, the administration tried after October the 7th to pretend like Iran wasn't involved, which got hard to do when the Iranians unleashed a direct drone missile attack on Israel for the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic. So I think this kind of ambivalence, which characterizes the administration as a whole, is in marked contrast to the support that Israel could count on in the 70s, when that support was absolutely indispensable.

41:47I'll add one other point. Back in the 70s, you did not have a wing of the Democratic Party, the progressive wing, taking the side of the Palestinians. And so the politics is very different in 2024 as compared with 1974. In 1974, the Democratic Party was pretty strongly supportive of Israel and had a significant Jewish element, which Nixon used to complain about because he would always bitch that he was doing so much for Israel. And where was the gratitude, typical Nixon? But we're in a very different world today where, you know, although Joe Biden's still kind of rooted in that era, and I think he means it when he talks about the U.S.

42:32commitment to Israel, there are plenty of people to the left of Joe Biden who certainly don't feel that way. We'll be right back.

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44:45So let's move to the U.S. You said that Vice President Harris is a California Democrat through and through, therefore will be hard to draw in moderate voters. And also you've described the Republicans remain the captives of the personality called the MAGA movement and the Democrats remain the captives of the donor crats, the wealthy friends of the Clintons and the Obamas. Give us what you think the state of play is in the election and who do you think is likely to prevail in November? Well, anybody who tells you they know the answer to that question in August of an election year, I think it is having you on.

45:22It's once again close to a coin toss. We've gone back to where we were on the eve of the debate that blew Joe Biden's hopes of re-election up. and the polls are going to be noisy probably for the next few weeks because not only do you have the bounce that comes with the novel uh nominee but you have the problem bounce that comes with the convention so my sense is that when all of this bouncing is over and we get to labor day there will be some return to where we were in June with Trump slightly ahead, but with some polls putting Harris ahead and within the margin of error. And then you'll look at the states that are in play and you'll say, well, it's still pretty close in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan.

46:21And maybe there are some other states that have changed a bit since Harris became the nominee, but it's close. And that's not surprising because if you set aside the personalities of the candidates, which media, they pay more attention to than is warranted, American politics is really run by two machines, Republican and Democratic Party machines. And these machines are very good at delivering most states and most counties within most states to one or other party, leaving very little contested ground. And the contested ground is contested partly because it just has demographic peculiarities and partly because there are independent voters who are up for grabs, who vote one way in one election and another way in another.

47:09So when you kind of take a step back and look at American politics, two things are really striking. One, it's a two-party system still, and there aren't any others like that. Everywhere else, including in the English-speaking world, where they used to have two-party systems, like the UK. It doesn't have a two-party system anymore. But the US has institutionalized duopoly, and it's extraordinarily difficult to break that duopoly, even although about a third of the electorates say they're independents and would rather that they had another option. Second really striking thing is that one party has retained elite control, Democrats.

47:48That's why I use the term donor-crats, because the wealthy elites currently in the Hamptons or in Aspen, that elite still controls the party. They determined that Biden was no longer viable, and they agreed that it would be Harris and that they wouldn't have a contested or open convention. All of this was done with phone calls and texts between, oh, perhaps a dozen people who made the decision. The difference with the Republican Party is that their equivalents, the wealthy Republican donors, no longer control the party. Those people would have far rather Ron DeSantis was the nominee. And when that didn't work out, they would far rather have had Nikki Haley.

48:29But they failed because a MAGA movement that is part of personality culture around Donald Trump now controls the Republican Party. And that's what makes this election close. Because if you had a better organized, better disciplined Republican machine and a more conventional candidate, you would absolutely clean up in this election. The Democrats are very vulnerable on key issues. They had an inflation mistake that was predictable and people haven't forgiven them. They have an immigration problem on their hands because of the southern border. Those two issues alone should ensure that the next president's a Republican.

49:11But because the Republican Party is no longer under the control of its elite, it's capable of making tremendous self-harming mistakes. And that may give Kamala Harris a chance to be president of the United States. So just on the inflation issue, I would argue it's unfair to lay it at the feet of Biden. My sense of inflation is too many dollars facing too few products. And with the amount of stimulus presented within both the Trump and Biden administration, where 85 % of it was saved and it just went into the market, which sent prices skyrocketing and had more money chasing TIFU products. And ultimately, I would argue the culprit of inflation is Putin, who interrupted the supply chain.

49:54Don't you think both Trump and Biden share equal blame along with Putin for inflation? I just think it's unfair to say that Biden had a misstep around inflation that's any greater than the misstep around Trump. Your thoughts? Scott, I seem to remember that your family hails, as mine does, from the east end of Nice. I don't remember anybody in Sheffield. Sandy Hills. Nobody in Sandy Hills ever said life was fair. In fact, it was a recurrent refrain of my childhood. Life isn't fair. Get used to it. No, of course, politics is not fair. And the voters are deeply unfair to Joe Biden when it comes to the performance of the economy, which practically any president of the last hundred years would have seized with both hands if it had been offered.

50:42Here's the deal. You get full employment. You get surge in growth. You get investment in manufacturing structures. I mean, markets touching all time highs. And the stock market's roaring, and inflation has a 9 % high in the midterm year, and then it falls back towards 2%. I mean, the president's going all the way back 100 years. would have taken the data that this president has presided over with relish. And yet the voters bitch about the economy to every pollster who calls them up. And why is that? So there are two theories, as you know, Scott. Theory one is they just don't forgive 9 % because they got real, really used to low single digit inflation and high single digit inflation has made them mad.

51:35and they like the price level. They don't care about core CPI or core PCE. They're just like, hey, it's still expensive compared with what it was. That's explanation number one. I have a lot of sympathy with that explanation because it tracks with my observation of how ordinary people think about the economy. But then there's the Larry Summers point, which you probably know, which is, well, actually higher rates might not hurt you through your mortgage if you have a 30 year mortgage, but it hurts you through a whole bunch of other things, a whole bunch of other debts you have. So you take your pick.

52:03My basic view of this is that the Democrats were dreaming last year when they said they were going to run on Bidenomics, because the voters hate Bidenomics, and it's unfair. I will add the fair part is that the inflation overshoot in the US was a direct consequence of fiscal overkill in 2021 that was the result of hubris in the Biden administration. They did not need to throw so much money at the economy when the vaccine said 90 % plus efficacy. And I said that at the time. Samar has also said it, that this was an avoidable policy error. They did not need to juice the economy as aggressively as they did.

52:46Most of the inflation in Europe was Putin's fault. It was basically a supply shock. About half or more of the inflation in the US was a demand effect, which I think came from keeping the stimulus going too long. after the pandemic was beginning to dissipate. And then finally, as we wrap up here, both of us have spent time in different directions and different tenures and different parts of our life, but in the UK and the US. I would argue those are the two nations you know the best. They're the two nations I know the best. And my understanding is you're now spending more time in the UK after spending a lot of time in the US.

53:22Can you compare and contrast what the difference between business and politics and general lifestyle between your observations, having spent time in both countries and what it says about us? Yes. Well, Britain, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to be precise, is, despite a brief foray with Republican government in the mid-17th century, a monarchy that retains a hereditary aristocracy, even though they've just lost their seats in the of Lords, it is a society still bound to a striking extent by tradition. And I noticed this having returned to spend more time in the UK for family reasons, because I've spent most of the last 20 years in this revolutionary republic, the United States of America, which still has the character of a revolutionary republic when you view it through British eyes.

54:19The way in which this election is being conducted, the vituperation, the threat of violence, the sheer nastiness, is very reminiscent of the American politics Charles Dickens encountered when he visited early in the 19th century and was appalled. British politics is still a game of cricket between people who went to Oxford. And you saw that very clearly when Rishi Sunak was roundly defeated by Sir Keir Starmer on July 4th. The handshakes, the jokes, the I say old chap, jolly good show, bad luck old boy. I mean, all of that is exactly the way in which British politicians have conducted themselves over 200 years.

55:08And so there's a sense in which that continuity limits the range of outcomes in British politics. Even after a period of turmoil that Brexit created, that period of turmoil was like periods of turmoil in the 19th century over the Corn Laws, over protectionism, turmoil over the Irish question. Although we have periods of turmoil and we've had years of multiple prime ministers before, the system remains stable around, particularly around Oxford University, because there seems to be one rule of British politics, and that is that the prime minister has to have been to Oxford. There are very, very few exceptions to that rule.

55:48Having said all that, we would be deluding ourselves if we didn't recognize some similarities and points of convergence. I don't think Taylor Swift is a smaller deal in the UK than in the US. I don't think AI is a smaller deal. That's what unites us, Taylor. I was the first. The second was, of course, AI. And the third is this potential for conflict over immigration. It's tragic that three little girls were murdered by, it appears, the teenage son of immigrants from Rwanda when the girls were attending a Taylor Swift dance class. And this has unleashed a kind of classic summertime period of violence in the UK that reminds us that it's not all cricket and well done, old chap.

56:40That some of the trends that have produced populism and political violence in the US are in fact still to be found in the United Kingdom too. It's interesting. If I understand you, Greg, you're saying the coarseness of our discourse in the US might be a feature, not a bug. Oh, it's absolutely a feature. And visitors commented on it from very early on in the Republic. The sense that politics in America is a contact sport, perhaps even a blood sport, whereas in Britain, it's cricket. That goes back a very, very long way indeed. But we're divided by a common language, united by a great deal of increasingly global popular culture, and both the United States and the United Kingdom face the same sociological dilemma.

57:32We are aging societies. Half of the electorate in the United States is over 50. It's somewhat similar, perhaps even older in the UK. Older voters are not only more numerous relative than they used to be, but they also turn out at higher rates than younger voters. And older voters want two contradictory things. They don't really like inflation. That's nothing new. But they also don't like immigration. The problem is that if you don't have large-scale immigration, the inflation would have been higher. Think about the counterfactual of closed borders in the period of the last four years. The inflation would certainly have been higher because the tight labor markets would have driven wages up.

58:12And so it's very hard to satisfy what old American and old British voters want. They also want healthcare. In the US, this manifests itself as a sort of health insurance inflation problem. In the UK, the National Health Service rations healthcare. And so everybody's always grumbling that they take weeks to get a doctor's appointment and months, if not years, to get a surgical procedure. But it's the same basic problem. It's just that the systems are radically different in the way that they work. So as I go back and forth across the Atlantic, which I have to do far too often, I'm struck by the fact that although we think of ourselves as being very different, and in some institutional respects we are, there is real convergence in the experience of being British and the experience of being American, whether you're an oldie or a Taylor a Swift fan.

59:03Sir Neil Ferguson is a Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He's also a columnist at the Free Press and the author of 16 books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, and Kissinger, 1923 to 1968, The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations, Arthur Ross Prize. In 2024, he was knighted by King Charles III for services to literature. What a nice moment for you, Neil. Congratulations on that. That's a nice, just a really nice thing for you and your family.

59:40And he joins us from somewhere in New England. Neil, I always love hearing from you, as do our listeners. It's just, you kind of have, your comments are totally puncturing and open me up to a viewpoint, quite frankly, that I don't share most of the time. But really appreciate all your good work, and welcome back to the UK. Anyways, it's great to catch up with you.

1:00:11Algebra of happiness, where to live. So I had two close friends, Eddie Blau and David Frey, who were my roommates my sophomore year, come hang out with me in Aspen and they brought another close friend from the fraternity, Michael Baruch. It was just so wonderful to see all three of them. But one thing I think they've missed out on and that I've gotten right, and that is I have lived in five different cities and they chose not to leave their city. And I understand they have nice lives. But my advice to any young person would be to take a risk and live in another city. I think it informs you. I think it's an incredible experience.

1:00:49And I think the analysis that young people do is that they say, well, I could never do better than to live in this city. I have family here. I have friends here. I'm doing well here. I totally get that. I'm living in London right now. To be honest, I don't like it as much as New York. I don't like Europe as much as the U.S. But the key is not necessarily to do better. It's to do different. And it informs you. It creates a different appreciation to look at the world through a different lens. I think it's really interesting to look at America through a different lens. What is looking at America through a European lens done for me makes me appreciate America more.

1:01:25Despite all of our faults, all of our weirdness, I mean, some of the things I love about the UK, there's not a discussion around assault rifles or transgender rights or bodily autonomy for women. These are givens there. It's like, well, of course we don't allow assault weapons in the general public. Well, of course a woman should be able to decide if she wants to terminate a pregnancy. And I really enjoy that or appreciate it, I should say. But I also recognize that there's something about the US where we're willing to take risks. We embrace risk. It's you meet with people around business. It's like, OK, we're not interested or we are interested.

1:01:58Let's go. People are much more willing to take risks. They're kind of the distinction or the thing that summarizes the distinction between Europe and the U.S. for me is simple. Millions of people looked around and said, you know what, I'm going to get on a steamship and go to this place, an unknown, and I'm going to try and forge a new life and stake my claim, if you will. and tens of millions of people decided, no, I'm just going to hang here. That is the distinction. The DNA, the type of people that came to America, immigrants from all over the world, decided to take a risk. And it's made me appreciate the risk aggressiveness, the diversity of the U.S., the action orientation, sort of the ready fire aim.

1:02:38But I wouldn't have that perspective unless I'd lived in Europe. And what I would suggest to any young person is that if you have the ability, especially with remote work, if before you have aging parents or you have kids of your own, by all means, brother, get on a boat, a plane, a bus, and live in a different city. You don't need to do better. You need to do different. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin, Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn.

1:03:15And please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.