Conflict: Niall Ferguson on Ukraine, Taiwan, and His War of Words with V. P. Vance

Niall Ferguson, preeminent historian and Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, joins this episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson to discuss the war and ongoing stalemate in Ukraine; the Trump administration’s foreign policy and negotiations with Russia; and the broader geopolitical landscape, including the shift in Europe’s defense posture as the US signals a reduced commitment to NATO.

Throughout the conversation, Ferguson explores historical analogies to better understand Ukraine’s position, using comparisons to South Korea and South Vietnam. He discusses China’s backing of Russia and its role in what he calls Cold War II, highlighting the long-term implications of this growing alliance. The discussion also covers the shock strategy deployed by Trump and Vice President JD Vance to pressure Europe into taking more responsibility for its own defense, a move that Ferguson believes has finally awakened European leaders to their countries’ security needs.

Beyond Ukraine, the conversation shifts to the larger economic and military vulnerabilities of the United States, particularly in relation to China. Ferguson argues that America is no longer in a position of overwhelming strength and draws parallels between the US today and Britain in the 1930s: both as declining empires facing an emboldened adversary. He warns that while Trump’s realpolitik approach may be a necessary adaptation to America’s strategic limitations, its success remains uncertain. The discussion ultimately raises the question of whether this strategy will prevent a major conflict or, conversely, accelerate the decline of American global primacy.

Recorded on March 14, 2025

Episode Transcript

>> Peter Robinson (00:00):
On President Trump, the war in Ukraine and Cold War,
the contest with China.
One of the most accomplished historiansin the English speaking world,
Niall Ferguson on Uncommon Knowledge now.
[MUSIC]

(00:22):
Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge,I'm Peter Robinson.
A native of Glasgow, Sir Niall Fergusonholds a Bachelor's Degree and
a Doctorate in history fromMagdalene College Oxford.
A fellow at the Hoover Institutionhere at Stanford,
Sir Niall has published more than a dozenmajor works of history, from his classic
study of the First World War, the Pityof War, to the Politics of Catastrophe.

(00:45):
He is currently working on the secondvolume of his Life of Henry Kissinger.
Sir Niall is a founder ofthe University of Austin and
a frequent contributor to the Free Press.
Niall, welcome back to this program.

>> Niall Ferguson (00:58):
It's great to be with you, Peter.

>> Peter Robinson (01:00):
Ukraine, we begin with the background.
Let me set up where westand at this moment.
Since 2023 or so, the war in Ukrainehas settled into a stalemate.
The Russians control aboutthe eastern 1/5 of the country,
including Crimea and the Donbas.
The Russians appear unable tocapture the remaining 4/5.

(01:23):
The Ukrainians appear unable to drivethe Russians out of the 1/5 they already
occupy.
The death pole, highly disputed, butit appears clear that the lives lost
include 50 to 100,000 Ukrainians andsome hundreds of thousands of Russians.
On February 12th of this year,the Trump administration began negotiating

(01:45):
with Russia to end the war withoutUkraine's participation at that moment.
On February 19th, in a truth Social post,President Trump wrote, quote,
a dictator without elections.
Zelensky better move fast or he is notgoing to have a country left, close quote.
We should note thatthe Constitution of Ukraine permits

(02:06):
the government to delayelections in a time of crisis.
This brings me to two posts and
I'm finally coming to a questionto start the conversation.
On February 20, Niall Fergusonquoted President George H.W.
Bush's statement in 1990 afterSaddam Hussein invaded Kuwait,
quote, quoting Bush, this will not stand.

(02:30):
You then added, future history studentswill be asked why this stopped
being the reaction of a Republicanpresident to the invasion of a sovereign
state by a dictator, whereuponthe Vice President of The United States,
J.D. Vance,put up a tweet replying to you.
I am quoting the Vice President.

(02:51):
This is moralistic garbage.
It is ahistorical nonsense toattack as appeasement every
acknowledgement of the realitiesof the conflict, quote.
Niall.

>> Niall Ferguson (03:07):
Well, we had a very good debate and
I have to say that I think it's quiteimpressive that the Vice President
of the United States should wantto get into a public debate about
something as fundamental as US Policytowards Ukraine and Russia.
And if one follows throughthe exchange that followed, it became.

>> Peter Robinson (03:27):
Which ended up at a couple thousand words between.
You put up a long post, he replied.
Right, and I think we ended, as I put it,somewhere a little bit like two men
who'd had a fight outside a pub, shakinghands, going inside and having a drink.

>> Niall Ferguson (03:42):
I said, good, cuz he said,
we're not making concessions to Russia.
I'm just on the outside.
He's on the inside makingUS foreign policy.
And I think one has togive President Trump and
Vice President Vancethe benefit of the doubt.
It is not easy to end a war.
I said many times overthe last three years,
it's easier to start thiskind of thing than to end it.

(04:04):
And therefore you have to firstacknowledge a couple of things that
they've achieved.
First of all,
they're much closer to bringing an end tothe war than their predecessors ever got.
The Biden Harris administrationcommitted themselves in an open
ended way to a strategy that alwaysseemed to me unlikely to succeed,

(04:25):
a strategy of Ukrainian victory.
It is not likely that Ukraine isgonna win this war and it never was,
after late 2022, that was the momentwhen the Ukrainians had the upper hand.
The probability of a Ukrainian victory didnot declined rapidly as it was bound to.
That they're very unequally matched.
Russia's much, much larger.

>> Peter Robinson (04:49):
Well, doesn't it represent a victory of some kind,
that they kept fourfifths of their country?

>> Niall Ferguson (04:54):
Absolutely.
All right.

>> Peter Robinson (04:55):
But not victory in this.
In the sense of the Bidenadministration framed it.

>> Niall Ferguson (04:59):
You have to be careful how you use terms like victory.

>> Peter Robinson (05:03):
Right.

>> Niall Ferguson (05:03):
And this is what brings me to the second thing that, let's call
it the Trump Vance administrationhas achieved since Vance has been so
much involved.
They have managed to shock the Europeansinto understanding that they have to
step up that the United Stateswill not provide military security
guarantees to Ukraine if there is tobe some enduring truce, if not peace.

(05:27):
So these are two real achievements andI think one should acknowledge them.
Now, we have a long way stillto go because as we speak,
it is clear that while the Ukrainians haveaccepted the American proposed ceasefire.
Which is in itself a major step forwardcompared with where we were two weeks ago
when President Zelensky was practicallythrown out of the Oval Office,

(05:49):
the Russians have notaccepted the ceasefire.
And President Putin in fact hasstepped up the military pressure
on Ukraine is determinedto drive Ukrainian forces,
if not to destroy Ukrainianforces in the Kursk region.
So I think one of the things that came outof my debate with Vice President Vance,
which I think is important,was the recognition on my part, and

(06:12):
I acknowledge this openly,that we are not in 1990.
The world is not the world of 1990.
And I think that's what annoyedVice President Vance so much.
I think he's right that we can'texpect to be able to do what
the United States was able to doat the end of the first Cold War,

(06:32):
when we were really atthe height of our power.
Now, in the relatively early phase ofCold War II, when, let's not forget,
China stands behind Russia, andChina has kept Russia in this war and
shows no sign of stoppingsupporting Russia.

>> Peter Robinson (06:48):
So if it's fair, I'm searching for model.
What I'm asking here is, given your deepknowledge of history, what's the model?
What's the framework?
What's the way the laymanshould be thinking about this?
None of us is insiders.
On the other hand, this is a democracy,and we get to ask them questions and
we get to challenge them.
Fine, astonishingly enough, JD Vanceis willing to rise to the challenge.

>> Niall Ferguson (07:11):
And that's great.
It's great that we're havingthis kind of open debate.

>> Peter Robinson (07:14):
And by the way, kudos to Elon Musk for preserving Twitter for or
X as it is, for this kind of debate.

>> Niall Ferguson (07:19):
Where this kind of debate goes on.
And even if it was notvery civil to begin with,
I'm glad to say that it got more civil.
So I think from the outset ofthe conflict, certain things were obvious.
And I remember writing them at the time.
I remember writing war is comingright at the beginning of 2022,
after the war had broken out.
One of the points I made was the durationof the war would depend heavily

(07:42):
on how far China supported Russia asopposed to seeking to broker a peace.
While China opted to support Russia,
that massively increased the oddsagainst Ukrainian victory.

>> Peter Robinson (07:54):
And the Chinese support of Russia has taken what forms?
They're buying Russian oil.

>> Niall Ferguson (07:58):
More importantly,
they export Massive amounts ofdual use technology to Russia.
And that is the principal basis on whichthe Russian economy keeps going and
the Russian army keeps fighting.
So let me try and give youthe analogies that will help here.
They're not perfect becausethe United States and
China are not directlyinvolved in this war.

(08:20):
They are supporting proxies, Ukraine onour side, Russia on the Chinese side.
But I think it's quite helpful tothink of Ukraine as being somewhere
between South Korea and South Vietnam.
I remember saying thisto President Zelensky.
I was in Kyiv late 2022, andI said to him and his advisors,
your nightmare scenariois to be South Vietnam.

(08:43):
Your success is to be South Korea.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
So in 1950, there is a surprise attackthat takes American policymakers wholly
by surprise on South Korea by the north,which has Stalin's wholehearted backing.
This time, the United States and itsallies intervene wholeheartedly, directly.

(09:04):
The Chinese also end up interveningon the North Korean side.
It's a really big war.
After a year of all kinds of motion,it settles down into a war of attrition.
There's a stalemate andnegotiations begin.
These negotiations are painful anddifficult.
And ultimately the South Korean presidenthas to be forced to accept an armistice.

>> Peter Robinson (09:25):
Forced by?

>> Niall Ferguson (09:25):
By the United States.

>> Peter Robinson (09:26):
By Dwight Eisenhower.

>> Niall Ferguson (09:27):
By Dwight Eisenhower, who is then president.
And this is painful for him,on the other hand, he has his country.
Crucially, the United States thenprovides a permanent military presence in
South Korea, which continues to this day.
And South Korea goes from being ruined anddevastated is dictatorship.

(09:49):
It was not a democracy to being one ofthe most successful economies of the late
20th century and a democracy.
So that's the good outcome.
The bad outcome for Ukraine wouldbe the South Vietnamese outcome
where the United States intervenes but
extricates itself after a peacehas been painfully negotiated,

(10:09):
not least with Henry Kissingerleading the American effort.
It looks like he gets peace, buttwo years later, Saigon falls and
South Vietnam vanishes from the map.
So when I'm trying to think aboutthe position of Ukraine, it's the position
that other countries have been inthat have had American support.

(10:30):
But in one case,it's a huge success story, and
the country is a huge success story.
One of the greatest successes ofthe late 20th century by any measure.
And then the other, it ends in a debacleafter a relatively short period of time.
And that, I think,is why the Ukrainians have been arguing so
forcefully that they really needAmerican security guarantees.

>> Peter Robinson (10:50):
Right, okay, so next question then.
Take the deal as you Just mentionedwe're recording this in mid March.
The Trump administration,with the support of the Ukrainians,
has suggested a 30 day ceasefire andPutin has said no.
As we sit here,negotiations are continuing.
By the time this program airs in a fewhours, who knows where things may be, but

(11:11):
that's where we are right now.
That said, it seems fair to say,I think, correct me, if necessary,
that we already know roughly whatPresident Putin would receive
in the kind of deal thatthe administration seems to have in mind.
He gets to keep the Crimea,he gets to keep the Donbas, and
he gets an assurance that Ukrainewill never be part of NATO.

(11:35):
What is unclear is whatthe Ukrainians get in this deal.

>> Niall Ferguson (11:39):
And this is where my fight with the administration began.
My complaint was that in the opening salvothree weeks ago, President Trump appeared
ready to give the Russians all that theywanted before the negotiations began.
And that struck me as,however much you like the art of the deal,
not a great negotiating strategy.

(12:02):
The key question, Peter,has all along been,
is the United States going to put pressureon Putin, real pressure, in a way that
the Biden administration failed to cuz theBiden administration did Kabuki sanctions.
These sanctions never meaningfullyimpacted the Russian economy.
We didn't seriously try to stop themexporting their hydrocarbons, nor,

(12:23):
to be fair, did the Europeansstop trading with Russia.
So a key question for me has been, is itthe intention of the Trump administration
now to apply the real pressure on Russiathat the Biden administration never did?
If they do it, andthis is the moment of truth,
if they now apply real pressure to Russia,then I think Putin will have to concede.

(12:46):
But if they don't, if there is no seriouseffort to put Russia under pressure, and
I mean both economic and militarypressure, then I think Putin will see
himself increasingly in the positionthe North Vietnamese were in in 1972, 73.
He can fight while talking and talk whilefighting and wait for the Ukrainian
position to crumble because the Americansupport for it will simply fade.

(13:08):
Can I add one other point?

>> Peter Robinson (13:09):
Of course.

>> Niall Ferguson (13:10):
And this is really, really important.
The Europeans are talking a big game.
And it's clear that there's beena huge shift in sentiment in Berlin,
in Paris, in Brussels,not to mention in London.

>> Peter Robinson (13:21):
For complacency to panic.

>> Niall Ferguson (13:23):
I don't think it's even panic.
I think there is a sudden realizationthat the United States is no longer
willing to provide a subsidy toEuropean security in the form of paying
the lion's share of the combined budgetof NATO that has finally sunk in.
And I think that was partlywhat made President Trump so

(13:45):
offensively disparage Zelenskyyin the way that you said.
In the same way that it wasthe reason that Vance went to
the Munich Security Conference and
disparaged the Europeans inthe calculated way that he did.

>> JD Vance (13:58):
I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns, or
worse yet, shutting down media,shutting down elections, or
shutting people out of the politicalprocess protects nothing.
In fact, it is the most surefireway to destroy democracy.

>> Peter Robinson (14:16):
The audience was not Vladimir Putin,
the audience was the European itself.

>> Niall Ferguson (14:19):
Absolutely.
Part of the goal here, andthis has taken me a while to understand,
was to administer a shock tothe Europeans that would finally convince
them that the United States was not goingto provide the backstop to Ukraine.
And might not necessarily honorArticle 5 of the NATO treaty,
that that had becomea contingent commitment.

(14:40):
I think that's important because itputs the Europeans in a terrible bind,
economically and emotionally.
They think, we can do this.
We're gonna stand by Ukraine, we're gonnatake the place of the United States,
we're gonna have strategic autonomy.
Let's spend hundreds ofbillions of euros on rearming.
But Ukraine needs this to happen tonight,and it's gonna take years.

(15:02):
So there's a big disconnect betweenEuropean rhetoric, European pledges, and
what the Europeans can do.
They cannot take the place ofthe United States in terms of
the defense of Ukraine anytime soon.
And that's the great weaknessof the Ukrainian position.

>> Peter Robinson (15:17):
All right, let's stay with the Europeans for just a moment.
Leaders in the European Unionhave held emergency talks.
Earlier this month, every report thatI read termed them emergency talks
to give Ukraine a securityguarantee of their own.
Prime Minister Starmer ofthe United Kingdom and
President Macron of France have suggesteda joint European peacekeeping force in

(15:39):
Ukraine of as many as 100,000 troops.
Now, the Russians immediately said, youdo that and we'll consider an act of war.
Nevertheless, the important point is,for our purposes of our discussion,
that Keir Starmer, a labor man, andMacron were able to work together and
were talking about sendingtroops into Ukraine.
Ukraine furthermore,

(16:01):
President Macron has even offered toextend the French nuclear deterrent.
France possesses just under 300nuclear missiles, as best I can tell,
to the rest of Europe.
This is astonishing.
On the other hand, may I quote our friendand colleague Victor Davis Hansen?
A genuine European deterrent in Ukraine.

(16:22):
Military security guarantee in Ukraine,quote,
would require Europeans to pruneback their social welfare state.
Begin fracking, use nuclear energy,stop their green obsession, and
spend 3 to 5% of their GDP on defensepromises, promises close quote.

>> Niall Ferguson (16:43):
He's right.

>> Peter Robinson (16:44):
Really, come on, cheer me up, please.

>> Niall Ferguson (16:47):
He so often is.

>> Peter Robinson (16:47):
Yes, he is.

>> Niall Ferguson (16:48):
And you didn't mention the most important person in the European
drama.
Who is Friedrich Mertz.

>> Peter Robinson (16:54):
Yes. >> Niall Ferguson
soon the German chancellor, and
who is going to lead a newChristian Democrat-led coalition?
Now, Mertz was more sure the AFD.
Will be out of the coalition.

>> Niall Ferguson (17:06):
The AFD has no chance of being in this coalition,
whatever Vice President Vance may say.
Mertz seemed, if anything, more shocked by
President Trump's statements onUkraine than Macron or Starmer.
And almost immediatelyon election night said,
it is clear that somethinghas fundamentally changed.
We can no longer rely onthe United States and

(17:26):
therefore we are going to have to investsubstantially more in our defence.
And with amazing speed by Germanstandards, coalition negotiations began,
which in a matter of days produceda commitment to a massive investment in
German defense and German infrastructure.
This is much more plausible thananything Keir Starmer says.
Talking about sending troops toUkraine when your entire army is

(17:51):
75,000 is just pure fantasy.
But the Germans can rearm.
And Peter, this will be very importantto watch because the German rearmament,
which will have.
I think, big impacts on notonly the German economy, but
the European economy,will be quite an important change.
And it's very bad news for Vladimir Putin.

(18:12):
We mustn't think that Putinis winning all the way here.
In a sense, his whole strategyhas been a disaster rearmed.

>> Peter Robinson (18:18):
Europe is a total defeat.

>> Niall Ferguson (18:19):
I mean, he not only failed to take the whole of Ukraine,
not only has he suffered incrediblecasualties, particularly in
the last few months, but also he'sreawakened the slumbering German giant.
And that, from a Russian point of view,
has to be the massive strategicblunder of the Putin era.
So I don't take Keir Starmer's pledgesterribly seriously because I don't think

(18:43):
the United Kingdom has the militarycapability that it used to have.
I take Macron's nuclear umbrella moreseriously because France has a genuinely
independent nuclear deterrent.
But the Big story is German rearmament and
what it will do to reviveGermany's pretty moribund economy.
Merz is a very important newactor on the world stage.

>> Peter Robinson (19:03):
Would you contrast Olaf Scholz, the outgoing, or
the previous Chancellor?
When Russians invaded Ukraine gave bigseemed like a very dramatic change.
He was going to pledge in a 100 billioneuros to an immediate buildup and
they were going to get up tosome large number of GDP.
And as best I can tell,almost nothing actually happened.
And hardly any hardware went thatthe Germans could have sent.

(19:27):
And you're telling me thatMerz is different this time?
The Germans are away.
What is the difference?
Is the difference Donald Trump?

>> Niall Ferguson (19:33):
Yes, I think it is, because that's.

>> Peter Robinson (19:36):
What got their attention, not an invasion.

>> Niall Ferguson (19:37):
And this is where we have to.
We have to give credit where it's due.
I was in Berlin in July last year atthe invitation of the Christian Democrats
to give a lecture arguing forGerman rearmament.
I never thought in my lifethat that would be my role.
A British historian who'd spent muchof his career working on 20th century
German history, going to Berlinto tell the Germans to rearm.

(19:59):
But that's what I did, andI believe it's necessary.
I don't think you can have anythingresembling strategic autonomy in Europe if
the Germans are spending2% of GDP on defense.
And most of that is going onwhat looks like the Boy Scouts.
So this is really an important change andit's because of Trump.
In July, I gave the speech.
Everybody politely applaudedover drinks afterwards,

(20:22):
a number of eminent business people fromthe German elite said to me, yes, but
in the end we will haveto deal with Russia.
The mood had not changed, and
that was always the mood duringOlaf Scholz's Chancellorship.
Yes, this is all very unfortunate, butin truth, it's gonna end with the Russians
in the driving seat andwe'll have to deal with the Russians.

(20:42):
The German mood until justa few weeks ago was sooner or
later we get back to the status quo.
What was the status quo?
The Americans provide our security,the Russians provide our energy, and
the Chinese provide ourexport market guess what?
It's all gone.
That was the basis of Angela Merkel'sworldview, of Olaf Scholz's worldview.

(21:03):
And in fact, it had been the basis of theGerman worldview view for a generation.
Mertz gets that withTrump in the White House,
that American security guarantee is gone,or it's become contingent.
With Putin in the Kremlin, you'll neverget back to normality with Russia.
And with Xi Jinping in Beijing,
your export market's gone becauseChinese vehicles, electric vehicles,

(21:26):
are cleaning the clock of the Germanautomobile manufacturers.
So the big change is in Germany.
And I think one has to givePresident Trump his due.
And Vice President Vance.
They did this together.
They went to the Europeansintent on administering a shock.
And that shock has worked better than allthe persuasive words of every president

(21:48):
from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, whoall tried and failed to get Neil appeals.

>> Peter Robinson (21:53):
Let me try a quotation on you that I discovered as I was pulling
together notes for our conversation.
If we have learned anythingfrom the NATO experience,
it is the rediscovery of an oldtruth dependency corrupts.
And absolute dependency corruptsabsolutely to the degree that Europe has

(22:14):
been dependent on the United States,the European will has been corrupted and
European politicalvitality has diminished.
A reconstructed NATO could reverse that,but it would have to be an all
European NATO with the United Statesas an ally, but not a member.
Brace yourself, my friend.

(22:34):
Those are the words of Irving Kristol,published in the New York Times in 1983.
Was he right?
Two questions,one of which is purely speculative.
I mean, what does it matter?
What has happened has happened.
But was he correct then?
Irving's view was NATO made all the sensein the world while the Europeans were

(22:54):
rebuilding.
But by about the 1970s,
they had achieved a standard ofliving that was about equal to ours.
They had re industrialized,they were just fine.
And we ought to have rethought NATO thenthat these decades of dependency and
ill will have been corrosive to them andto us.

(23:16):
So the big American mistake inNATO is not Donald Trump saying,
boys, we need to rethink this.
It's that that didn't happen.
Nobody said that 40 years ago.

>> Niall Ferguson (23:27):
Well, I'm old enough to remember the world of 1983.
And at that point, it was, of course,
a completely deranged idea to suggest thatthe United States should withdraw from
NATO at a time when the Soviet Unionstill posed a massive threat,
not only to European security butto American security.
And I think this is the problemwith a lot of these debates.

(23:47):
I hear the same thing thisyear from Kishore Mahbubani.
It's time the Americans got out of NATO.
But the problem is that you can'thave deterrence from France and
Britain's nuclear capabilities.
The Russian arsenal is vastly larger.
And it would take a long time for theEuropeans to have the capability to deter

(24:07):
Russia in the way that NATO with theUnited States can deter Russia with a full
arsenal of strategic, intermediate,and other nuclear weapons.
So that's a very importantpart of the problem, but
there's another part of the problemwe have to bear in mind.
Technology has moved a longway since the early 1980s,
it's not just about nuclear power anymore.
It's about artificial intelligence,it's about space wars,

(24:30):
it's about satellite communications,which are vital to modern warfare.
The Europeans aren't evenclose- To any of those fields.
In these fields, they're entirelyreliant on the United States,
they're more reliant thanin the nuclear domain.
So when the Europeans talked, as they'vedone for years, about strategic autonomy,
my response was always, you realize itwill take you at least a decade and

(24:52):
5 to 6 to 7% of GDP to get even close.
What's interesting about Trump'scontribution is that he's finally made
them realize that strategic autonomyis not just a line in a speech,
it now is a major line in a budget forall these countries.
And this goes back toVictor's excellent point.
You are not going to be able to dothe kind of expenditures that you need on

(25:14):
defence if enormous amounts are alreadybeing spent on dysfunctional
welfare estates, and in some cases,interest payments on public debts.
Can I globalize the conversation fora moment?

>> Peter Robinson (25:27):
You may do. >> Niall Ferguson
struck by the fact->> Peter Robinson: To do what you
wanna do, Naill.

>> Niall Ferguson (25:30):
We talk a lot about this in a very regional way, we talk about
Eastern Europe, and we talk about Europe,and Germany, and then Russia.
But I think one has to understandCold wars as global phenomena.
This is Cold War II,China is the other superpower.
Russia is somewhat in the situationthat China was in the early phase of
Cold War I,it's clearly the junior partner now.

(25:53):
Beijing is really the architectof the global strategy.
And the Trump administration seems to me,despite all the chest beating on
issues like Greenland or Canada,the 51st state, Panama Canal.
Look behind the chest beating,
the Trump administration is actuallykeenly aware of American weakness.

(26:13):
They understand, I think this wasJD Vance's point, that the United States
can't easily take on China, andRussia, and Iran, and North Korea.
It's not 1990, it's much more,if I can use another analogy for
a minute, it's much more 1969.
Yes.I'm very struck by how Nixonian,
much of the inner thinkingof this administration is,

(26:35):
not the stuff in truth social,the stuff that's going on internally.
They think, or at least some peoplein the administration think, hey,
we can't do all of this.
We got to try andclose down the commitment in Ukraine,
limit the commitment in the Middle east,hence talk to the Russians,
talk to the Iranians,
something I didn't expect they woulddo because the big game is China.

(26:56):
And if we don't focus our minds on China,we're gonna find ourselves in trouble.
This is somewhat similar to the way thatthe Nixon administration thought when they
came in.
Vietnam was this, right?

>> Peter Robinson (27:10):
The translation of the French term detente is playing for time.

>> Niall Ferguson (27:14):
Yes, exactly.
You're in a weak position, soyou don't wanna get into a showdown.
You wanna try andget the other superpower talking, and
then you've got to liquidate thesecommitments that are just going nowhere.
Vietnam in 1969, Ukraine in 2025, it'ssomething you want to try and wind up.

>> Peter Robinson (27:32):
Why in February 1946?

>> Niall Ferguson (27:34):
Luckily, I don't think the position of the US is
anything like this.

>> Peter Robinson (27:37):
Thank goodness.
Thank you.Just checking, just checking.

>> Niall Ferguson (27:39):
It's not that bad.

>> Peter Robinson (27:40):
Just checking. >> Niall Ferguson
interesting that if you listen carefullyto what's being said in Washington,
there are those who think the ultimategoal must be get the Russians and
perhaps the Iranians away from the Chineseand do what's been called reverse Nixon.
So if Nixon playedthe China card in 71/72,
exploited the Sino Soviet split,the name of the game now is you

(28:05):
somehow got to drive a wedgebetween Russia and China.
Get the Russians at least awayfrom the side of Xi Jinping, and
then you can focus Americanenergies on China.
So paradoxically, while Europeans seeTrump as an imperialist, chest beating
imperialist, actually this administrationis acutely conscious of American weakness

(28:25):
of the limits of American power andwhat's happening with respect to Europe.
And I think it will also be true inAsia is America saying to its allies,
the party's over, Uncle Sam's not writingthe checks anymore, it's time for
you to step up.
And that was exactlywhat Richard Nixon said.
That was what Vietnamization really meant.
The Nixon doctrine was, we like you,your friends, your allies,

(28:47):
but you're gonna have to pay for yourown security, we ain't doing it anymore.
Okay, so now Robinson is here sitting in the stands.
Thank you very much.
I think I understand the game now,I'm keeping notes.
Note number one, we have three objectives,three strategic objectives to put this
unbelievably crudely, but Naill,you know me, this is the top of my form.

(29:08):
Number one, we wake up the Europeans and
make them aware thatEurope is their problem.
Over the longer term, Europe isgoing to be their problem, check.
Actually, that's done.
Macron, the Germans,
I have friends in Germany who say everyoneis denouncing the Americans at every turn.
Well, fine.

(29:29):
If you are rearming becauseyou're angry at us,
all we can say is thank you very much.
That's exactly what we wanted you to do.
We'll come to China in a moment,if we may.
But in the meantime,a couple more questions, check.
Item number two is endingthe conflict in Ukraine,
which brings us back to thisquestion of a security guarantee.

(29:50):
Two quotations, if I may.
I have a couple of questions on Ukraine.
The first is security guarantee.
This is Victor Davis Hanson.
How will Putin be deterred by a commercialsector tripwire, a joint Ukrainian,
US, Europe resource developmentcorridor in Eastern Ukraine?
Close quote.
The second quotation is my friend NaillFerguson in The Spectator of March 8,

(30:14):
quote, the mineral rights Ukraine would
give the United Statesare worth not very much.
The security guarantees America wouldgive Ukraine are worth even less.
Explain yourself, please.

>> Niall Ferguson (30:29):
I like the idea the symbolism made sense.
Zelenskyy should assigned whenhe was in the Oval Office and
accepted that this was part ofthe price that he had to pay.
But if you're giving away mineral rightsthat aren't really worth anything because
they weren't worth anything before thewar, and they're certainly not worth much
during a war, then that seems likea relatively small price to pay.

(30:51):
Let's be clear.
There is not some vast treasureunderneath Ukrainian soil that would
have been developed but fora little local difficulty.
This was, I think,an elegant bit of fiction.
And the argument that President Trumpwanted to make was, and
he got his Treasury Secretary ScottBessant to make it very eloquently.
Here we are,
we're gonna invest in Ukraine,we're gonna go into partnership with you,

(31:14):
and surely that will deter the Russiansfrom trying to invade the rest of Ukraine.
The problem with thisargument is fairly obvious.
There have been American investmentsin many countries around the world
over the years in many different mineralsand other fuels beneath the soil.
The presence of American miners andengineers, to my knowledge,

(31:35):
has never deterred a hostilepower from invading a country.
You need American troops for that.
So I think Zelensky'sskepticism was understandable.
It's just that if you're gonnabe skeptical about the president
the United States plan,do not do it on live TV.
Do it in the Oval Office, butnot when the cameras are rolling.
And that was Zelensky's big mistake.

>> Peter Robinson (31:56):
So what is the security guarantee?
If the Trump administration says.
One way or the other, we're out.
And you say the Europeans can't beginto install an effective security
guarantee for a number of years, maybesingle digit years if they really move.
But it's years, not weeks ormonths, but years.
How does this conflict end?

>> Niall Ferguson (32:15):
That is why the negotiations will go on and on.
And a year from now you and I will betalking about the negotiations over
Ukraine because it'sreally hard to end a war.
Just think how long it tookto end the Korean War.
The negotiations took atleast two years from memory.
Vietnam War 3, get peace betweenIsrael and Egypt, call it 5.
I mean, it's really hard toend a war that nobody's won.

(32:38):
This is the critical point and
we're trying to end the warhere that nobody has won.
That's what produces very,very protracted processes that will have,
I'm sure there'll bea ceasefire at some point.
The Russians need a ceasefire,they've suffered such heavy casualties,
they have to have one.
So there'll be a ceasefire,it just won't last.
That was another thing Zelenskyy was so

(32:59):
tactless as to say when hewas in the Oval Office.
True, but the definition of a gaff and
diplomacy is precisely sayingthe truth in the wrong context.
So I think we have to recognizehere that it's pretty unlikely
that we get a lastingKorean style armistice
during which Ukraine flourishesas things presently stand.

(33:20):
All right, the United States is not goingto provide the security guarantees,
that is clear.
Whether the Europeans can is not yetclear, whether the Russians will
accept their providing securityguarantees is not yet clear.
And that is why it's harder than it looks.

>> Peter Robinson (33:36):
All right, second question, I wanna get back to China and
the large strategic matter, the globalall with you and thinking globally.
But one more question thatrelates specifically to Ukraine.
And to put it again crudely, this isthe question that bothers a lot of people,
a lot of conservatives,
a lot of people who are veryhappy to vote for Donald Trump.

(33:59):
And it's the question,it's the question of honor really,
could we have a video excerpt here?

>> Donald Trump (34:07):
You're right now not in a very good position,
you've allowed yourself to bein a very bad position and
he happens to be right about itfrom the very beginning of the war.
You're not in a good position, youdon't have the cards right now with us.
You start having cars right now,you don't miss the president.
You're gambling with the lives of millionsof people you're gambling with World War.

>> Peter Robinson (34:29):
Not a wrong comment by Trump.

>> Donald Trump (34:30):
Gambling with World War III.
And what you're doing is verydisrespectful to the country, this country
that's backed you far more than a lotof people said they should have.

>> JD Vance (34:42):
Have you said thank you once this entire meeting?
No, in this entire meeting,have you said thank you?
You went to Pennsylvania andcampaigned for the opposition in October.
Offer some words of appreciation forthe United States of America and
the president who's tryingto save your country.

>> Peter Robinson (35:00):
All right, now, I'm still not to you for a question.
I'm going this, this questionis getting set up in a big way.
I want to give you an incident fromhistory and one more brief video,
and then I will let you tellme why I should calm down.
Here's the incident from history,the Melian dialogue, you know this well.
This is related by Thucydides,the great power,

(35:21):
Athens forces the tiny islandof Milos to do its bidding.
And as the Athenians explained tothe Melians, and of course, in Thucydides,
this goes back and forth andit's quite moving in a way and
also horrifying because thisis what it comes down to.
The Athenians say the strong do what theycan and the weak suffer what they must.

(35:42):
All right, which brings me to a lastvideo except our friend Andrew Roberts,
the Lloyd Roberts of Belgraviain the House of Lords last week.

>> Andrew Roberts (35:51):
Since the disgraceful scene in the Oval Office on Friday,
the situation has changed sincethe publication of the report, and
significantly for the worse.
We must not underestimatethe gravity of what has happened,
which is that during a war againsttotalitarian dictatorship,
the United States haseffectively changed sides.

(36:13):
But the sheer brutality of hisdealings over the last week,
and especially the United nations vote,alongside Russia, Syria.
The Central African Republic,North Korea and Belarus,
countries which I'm sure yourlordships would like to live in.
A vote even in which the Chinesehad the decency to abstain

(36:36):
thrusts us into utterlyuncharted territory.
Winston Churchill called PresidentRoosevelt's Lend Lease Agreement the most
unsorted act when the Americans allowedus 65 years to pay off the debt.
By total contrast,the Trump administration is
gouging Ukraine whilethe war is still going on,

(36:58):
the very definition ofkicking a man when he's down.

>> Peter Robinson (37:03):
I'm going to grant you every word of analysis on the realpolitik
that the Trump administrationis attempting, and
I'm even going to grant you thatit all makes very good sense.
But Naill getting into a screamingMatch with Vladimir Zelensky,
even if you have the rightside of the argument.
You said a moment agoZelenskyy was in politic for

(37:25):
saying things on camera in the OvalOffice, I'm even willing to grant that.
But Vladimir Zelensky is a heroic figure,he's the one who said,
I don't need a helicopter out of here,I need ammunition.
He's the one who has organizedthe resistance and saved four-fifth of
the country and given an opening toall of Europe to pull itself together.

(37:45):
Speaking of playing for time,
the man has now played three yearsto our benefit, and well, all right.
So is it your friend and
biography subject, Henry Kissinger?
I can't quote him, and
I have the feeling that he wasannoyed that this was the way it was.

(38:06):
But he said in various ways atvarious times that the United States
of America just is ill equippedto engage in raw realpolitik.
Unless our diplomacy is mixedwith some sense of idealism,
it won't succeed, all right?
That's the question.

>> Niall Ferguson (38:24):
I think Oxford finals was easier than this, Peter.

>> Peter Robinson (38:27):
And briefer too.

>> Niall Ferguson (38:30):
The scene in the Oval Office was painful to watch.

>> Peter Robinson (38:34):
It was, wasn't it.

>> Niall Ferguson (38:36):
Especially for anybody who's been a supporter of Ukraine,
as I've been to that countryevery year since 2011.
And was there with President Zelenskyin the year that the war began and
again subsequently, soit was painful to watch.
But what made it painful to me wasit was not the calculated rudeness
of the President andVice President, it was calculated.

(38:59):
It was Zelenskyy's naivety inhaving an argument with them
with the cameras rolling,that was a terrible blunder.
And I think most Ukrainiansunderstood that who were really
following the diplomacy.
What he had to do was smile,grin and bear it.

(39:21):
The wakey Starmer and Emmanuel Macronhad done that same week and
signed the minerals deal.
And make sure that he stayed closeto the administration as it began
the negotiations with the Russians.
I do think if one thinks inNixonian terms, it makes sense.
If you accept the premise that the UnitedStates is overstretched, that it can't do

(39:45):
everything, that it needs to reduceits commitments in Eastern Europe and
to reduce its commitmentin the Middle East.
If it's to be ready fora Chinese challenge, which could come at
any point over Taiwan, then I thinkone can understand the real politics.
But here's the question.
Does it work?
Because if it doesn't work,if the Russians stay tight,

(40:08):
as they currently seem tobe with the Chinese, and
if the Iranians simply playthe latest nuclear deal the way they
played the last one,then all the realism doesn't work.
If it doesn't work, then it's lack ofa moral foundation becomes unforgivable.

(40:28):
This is the Bismarckian view,if you're going to do the Bismarckian or
Machiavellian thing.

>> Peter Robinson (40:34):
You must succeed.

>> Niall Ferguson (40:34):
You've got to succeed.
Here's a nightmare scenario,we haven't really talked about this, but
it's crucial.
The administration insists thatthere's no real separation between its
economic policy and its foreign policy,that they're intertwined.
That the reason that the President isimposing tariffs is to persuade allies as
well as adversaries that they haveto stop taking America for a ride.

(40:56):
And that includes the questionof defence spending.
The problem is that if you impose the kindof tariffs that the President is talking
about imposing in just a matter of days,on April 2,
you will take the average American tariffrate back to where it was in 1937.
This is a radically more protectionistpolicy than anything we saw in the first

(41:16):
Trump administration.
It is going to have very disruptiveimpacts on America's trading partners and
on America.
The stock market already haswoken up to this in recent days.
So here's the nightmare scenario.
I get the realism that liesbehind the Trump Vance.
We ought to accept also that Marco Rubio,the Secretary of State,

(41:40):
is playing a part here.
Yes, the administration is tryingto do something that is tough,
that requires realism, requiresa certain brutality towards allies.
But if it fails,that will be an ignominious failure.
Now, I think one has to give them, as Isaid earlier on the benefit of the doubt.

(42:02):
We don't know exactly the kindapressure that they may impose on Russia
in the coming days.
There is a scenario still,a realistic scenario,
in which Ukraine may lose territorytemporarily or maybe permanently, but
still can flourish,that is the South Korea scenario.
But if the administration endsup with Kyiv, as Saigon, say,

(42:24):
two years after its ceasefire is achieved,if President Trump finds
himself where President Ford was in 1975,it's not gonna be a good look.

>> Peter Robinson (42:34):
And final question while we're still on this.
We live in a democracy, it's importantto bring the people along with you.
Now, I know that Andrew Roberts gavethat speech in the House of Lords,
which is not Topeka or Peoria orany representative of anywhere.

>> Niall Ferguson (42:53):
It's almost the antithesis of Peoria.

>> Peter Robinson (42:55):
It is the antithesis of Peoria.
Nevertheless, if you'velost Andrew Roberts,
you've lost a segment of Western opinion.
You have also lost certain members of theUnited States Senate who have not said so
publicly yet.
But we can be totallyconfident in the cloakroom.
They're looking at each other saying,what does this man think he's doing?

(43:16):
I think shock is part of the point.
You do, all right.
I think it's interesting that the shockin Britain was bipartisan and
that people like Andrew Roberts,who despised.
Charles Moore, was also shocked.

>> Niall Ferguson (43:30):
Charles Moore, who despised Keir Starmer,
have grudgingly to admit that he'ssaid and done the right things.
So this is what shockis designed to achieve.
It's created bipartisanagreement in Britain and
in Europe that now we need to step up andspend enough money on defense that
we're not entirely reliant onthe United States, so it's kind of worked.

(43:52):
And that's the thing that onecan't really dismiss that there
was a calculation here, andI think it was calculated.
Part of the reason, I think that VicePresident Vance wrote that intemperate
tweet was it was part of the strategy ofshock, the calculated strategy to shock.

(44:13):
This is what Richard Nixon did in 1971.
In 1971, in two consecutive months,he shocked his allies.
The first thing he did was to shockthem by saying, I'm going to China,
in the midst of the Cultural Revolution,I'm gonna go and
visit the crazy communist regime.
That was deeply shocking to the Japanese,the Taiwanese couldn't believe their ears,

(44:34):
shock one, shock two.
A month later, August 71, we're breakingthe link between the dollar and gold.
That is, we're gonna devalue the dollar,our currency, your problem.
That's what his treasurysecretary said at that time.
So this is not the first time thatan American administration has decided to
shock the allies.
That really should be the theme tune,shock the allies,

(44:55):
it's part of a calculated strategy.
But as I said,this only works if you undermine the axis.
The axis of China, Russia, Iran,North Korea is a very powerful axis.
If you don't somehow drive somewedges between those four,
then what have you achieved?
You've alienated your allies.

(45:16):
What happens when the Taiwan crisishappens, as we think it may, but
before this presidency is over,the CIA is betting it's 2027,
that's not long,that's two years from now.
Then what?
And that's the question that I really hopethe administration has a good answer to.
You've raised the questionof our weakness.
In the Wall Street Journal last month,you wrote of Ferguson's Law,

(45:39):
I hasten to add, as you hasten to add,that you were naming it after
Scottish Enlightenment figureAdam Ferguson and not after yourself.
No relation.

>> Peter Robinson (45:47):
No relation.
Well, it's got to be a relation somewhere.

>> Niall Ferguson (45:50):
I'd like to think.

>> Peter Robinson (45:53):
And the law holds, quote, that any great power that spends
more on debt service than on defense risksceasing to be a great power, close quote.
It happened to the Spanish Empire,it happened to the British Empire,
the Spanish Empire ceased to be an empire.
It happened to the British Empire,which ceased to be an empire.
And last year, the United States ofAmerica began spending more on debt

(46:15):
service than on defense,two quotations, Naill Ferguson.
In the absence of radical reform ofAmerica's principal entitlement programs,
those would include Social Security andMedicare.
The only plausible way that the UScan come back within the limit of
Ferguson's law is througha productivity miracle, close quote.
Second quotation, President Trump,this is in an interview last year,

(46:40):
quote, I will never doanything that will hurt or
jeopardize Social Security orMedicare, close quote.
All right, we have Elon Musk saying,waste, fraud, abuse, waste, fraud, abuse.
Maybe they're up to $100 billion so far.
We're running a deficitof 2 trillion a year.

(47:01):
What do you make of all this?

>> Niall Ferguson (47:03):
Well, first of all.

>> Peter Robinson (47:04):
Is it over?
Just get to the bottom line,are we doomed?

>> Niall Ferguson (47:07):
No, we're not doomed.
In a way, it's good that there's a radicaladministration that takes seriously
the fiscal problems seriously,in the sense that they understand there
are limits to American power overseas,we've talked about that.
Seriously, in the sense that theyare gonna try and do something about our
bloated federal bureaucracy andthe ways that money gets wasted.

(47:27):
This is important because the previousadministration showed enormous,
complete disregard for these problems.
It was over committing itself overseas,and it was running a deficit of 6% of GDP,
full employment,which was indefensible and unsustainable.
At least we're taking steps towardsunderstanding the seriousness

(47:48):
of the problem.
But they're a little bit likethe Alcoholics Anonymous steps.
There are gonna be quite a few of them,and
I think we're only just beginning down thepath to reduce our addiction to deficit.
At finance, we're now at the pointat which the debt, interest.
The deficit rather exceeds the revenues.
The deficit exceeds the revenues.

(48:09):
It's not only that we're spending moreon interest payments than on defense.
Our whole budget ismassively out of kilter.
I have the greatest admiration for
Elon Musk,who's the Napoleonic figure of our times.
But in some ways, it is mission impossibleto try to reduce the deficit by
eliminating waste in the realmof discretionary spending if

(48:31):
Social Security andMedicare are pretty much off limits.
So I think that the administration ishighly unlikely to achieve its goal of
reducing the deficit from 6% of GDP to 3%.
Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary,said that that was his goal.
I'll be truly amazed if they achieve that.
The productivity miracle isinteresting because we can't.
Yeah, we can't lose sight of the fact thatthe age of Trump is also the age of AI.

(48:55):
So you think there may bea miracle in the offing?
I think something quite extraordinary ishappening in the realm of AI that most of
us are only just beginning to pick up.
And I think it will be dramaticallytransformative of very large parts of
our economy.
But it's not clear thatit happens tomorrow.
It's more likely that it takessomething like five to ten years for

(49:17):
all of the efficiencies thatare possible to permeate their way
through the entire economy.
Right now,it's happening in certain sectors,
you're gonna see big improvements inproductivity and financial services.
Back offices are gonnaget much more efficient.
That's happening, but I struggle toimagine as an economic historian,
that it's happening fast enough to impactour GDP and our productivity overall.

(49:43):
The other thing that we mustn't lose sightof, Peter, is that AI requires massive
amounts of compute, that requiresmassive amounts of electricity,
and that requires massiveamounts of CapEx.
The hyperscalers, the big tech companies,
are spending a quarterof a trillion dollars.
I'll say it again, a quarter of a trilliondollars a year on CapEx to build

(50:04):
the necessary infrastructure forthis productivity miracle to happen.
It won't be a free lunch, in other words,a lot of what happened with
the Internet was a really low CapExfree lunch, his is different.
So to put it really simply,I think the time scale of politics and
foreign policy is quite short.

(50:25):
The Trump administrationwill soon digit years.
Yeah, they'll be worryingabout the midterms next week.
People are already talking abouttheir presidential runs in 2028.
Politics happens sofast that this is like a blink of an eye.
But meanwhile, the economics thatplays out o over multiple years and

(50:45):
decades, and so the productivity payoffs,
I think they may benefit President Trump'ssuccessor, or maybe even his successor.

>> Peter Robinson (50:54):
Well, okay, so
here's a horrifying thoughtthat just occurred to me.
I keep looking forthe good cheer in all of this, and
I thought I was beginning to hearit in AI, but then here's the way.
All right, if this thought is occurring tome, it's occurring to Xi Jinping as well.
It will already haveoccurred to Xi Jinping.
Niall Ferguson says the Europeansmay get their act together in some

(51:16):
single digit number of years.
Niall Ferguson saysthe United States may actually get
serious about its budgetproblem in a few years.
And Naill Ferguson says we may begin tosee the benefits, we, the United States
of America, may begin to see the benefitsof AI in something like five years.

(51:37):
The economic miracle may begin to take.
If I'm Xi Jinping,I listen to Naill Ferguson and
say the west may get its act togetheragain in two to five years, we move now.

>> Niall Ferguson (51:52):
I think that's probably going through his mind.
It would be odd if itwasn't because there's so
much disruption happening andthe opportunity begins to look more,
more tempting to takeadvantage of that disruption.
The United States does not havedeterrence in the Indo Pacific.
I don't think it really can have,because China has invested so

(52:15):
aggressively in its own militarycapabilities, naval capabilities,
missile capabilities, that it's reallyquite daunting how much they've
managed to acquire in terms offirepower just in the last 10 years.
And so we have a looming problem,and that problem is Taiwan.
While we have been focusing, you andI, but also the media on Ukraine,

(52:38):
while we've been talkinga bit more about Gaza,
the Middle east,the real action is somewhere else.
The real action is in the Taiwan Strait.
The real action is in the Indo Pacific,where just a matter of days ago,
the Chinese navy sent three warshipsoff the coast of Australia to

(52:58):
conduct a live fire exercise,they did one in the Gulf of Tonkin, too.
The cables that connectTaiwan to the outside world,
the fiber optic cables are being attacked,as are fiber optic cables elsewhere in
the Baltic as the Axis exercises the kindof hard power that it has in abundance.

(53:19):
China is now a manufacturing superpower.
Manufacturing value added is twotimes that of the United States,
in 2004 ours was twotimes that of China's.
So there's been a hugereversal of hard power.
And Xi Jinping knows that hedoesn't have limitless time, he,
as an individual, won't live forever.

(53:41):
Secondly, the window ofopportunity in which he can
make a move on Taiwan may close.
Perhaps the Trump administrationstarts seriously to arm Taiwan,
although that is by no means clear.
Or perhaps a new president comesalong who's a lot more hawkish,
conventionally hawkish,than President Trump,

(54:01):
who since his election has spokenquite emolliently of China,
who wants to go to Beijing,who invited Xi to the inauguration.
So a key question for us,the big geopolitical question, is,
does Xi make a move on Taiwan?
While the opportunity is almostirresistibly tempting, I'm absolutely
sure, during this administration,during this presidential term.

(54:25):
I can't tell you if it's 2025,2026 or 2027.
Nobody knows, only in the end,only he knows.
It's not that he's going to invade,I don't even think he does a blockade.

>> Peter Robinson (54:37):
Really? >> Niall Ferguson
there are much smarter things hecan do that will be much harder for
us to respond to.
Suppose he says, just for example,from now on, all vessels going in and
out of Taipei have toclear Chinese PRC customs,
and we're sending Coast Guardvessels to do that.
What do we do then?
It's not an act of war.

(54:58):
On the other hand, it's an assertionof sovereignty that it would be very
difficult for us to let pass.
If Donald Trump's ultimatevision of himself,
in addition to having a Nobel Peace Prizein his face in Mount Rushmore,
is that he does the Nixonvisit to Beijing and
the great big beautiful deal withXi Jinping, what is that deal?
What does it consist of?

(55:19):
If it consists of ceding Taiwan to China,of acknowledging China's claim on Taiwan,
then that is a profound shiftin the geopolitical and
geo economic order,because Taiwan's not Cuba.
Taiwan is where nearly all the mostsophisticated semiconductors
get manufactured.
It is the HQ of the AI industry.

(55:42):
Nvidia makes its chips in Taiwan.
So the big issue is who controls Taiwan?
Not Greenland, it's not the Panama Canal,it's not Ukraine, not Berlin,
it's not Gaza,it's not Berlin, it's Taiwan.
So the.
The fate of this administration and

(56:03):
of Donald Trump's reputationhinges on whether his real
politic this Nixonian realpolitic that he, J.D. Vance,
Marco Rubio are applying,whether it avoids China gaining Taiwan.
If China gains Taiwan,
I think that is the end of Americanprimacy in the Indo-Pacific.

(56:24):
If it's the end of American primacy inthe Indo-Pacific, I think it's the,
at least the twilight of the reservecurrency status of the dollar and
the ten-year Treasury.
That's the risk they run.
That's the game.
All right, solet me put a question to you again.
This is the layman, not a historian,but some acquaintance with history.

(56:47):
Here's, the statistic in a quotation.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor,they had 11 aircraft carriers.
We had seven.
By the time the Japanese surrendered lessthan four years later, the Japanese had
four aircraft carriers, also badlydamaged, they couldn't put to sea.
The United States of America had 9928full fleet aircraft carriers and

(57:13):
71 smaller escort carriersin less than four years.
We had out produced the Japanese bysomething like 20 to 1 mass materiel.
This is what we did inthe First World War.
This is the way the Northwon the Civil War,
grinding the oppositiondown by out producing them.

>> Niall Ferguson (57:37):
Yeah, we can't do that anymore.

>> Peter Robinson (57:38):
Well, here, exactly, just to be clear from the center for
Strategic and International Studies today,the Jiangnan.
I'm sure I'm mispronouncing thatJiangnan shipyard alone one shipyard has
more capacity than allUS Shipyards combined.
And China's broader navalshipbuilding capacity is over

(57:58):
230 times larger than thatof the United States.
If we can't do what America has alwaysdone when it's come down to the military
crunch and out produce our opponent andwe can't, what's the way?
Technology is the only hope.
We have to reside all our trust insome sort of miracle in the office.

(58:22):
What's the way out?

>> Niall Ferguson (58:22):
Well, it is important to recognize that the next war won't be
like those other wars thatyou've referenced and
it won't be Pearl harbor and it won't beLiberty ships that decide the outcome.
The war in Ukraine is given asa trailer for the war of the future.
And the war of the future alwayscontains the war of the past,
but it is additionally different.

(58:43):
So we have, I think it was Max Boot whonicely said it's all quiet on the Western
front meets Blade Runner.
The front line in Ukraine is Trenches thatwould be recognizable to my grandfather,
who fought on the Westernfront in World War I.
But it's also drones doingmost of the killing.
Most of the Russian casualties,
60% of Russian casualties in recentmonths have been killed by drones.

(59:05):
The drones are why Ukraine has held up,
because it's just astonishinghow effectively they've been
able to ramp up production as well as makethemselves leaders in the technology.
So the war of the futurewill be a war that won't be
quite like the war of the past.
Ships will play a part, butsea drones will play a bigger part, and
undersea drones and drones in the air.

(59:27):
And increasingly,we'll be starting to see drones on land,
although that's the hard bit.
The robots aren't quiteready to be deployed.
We have a fighting chancein that technology.
The problem we have here is, is that whilewe have got leadership in certain areas,
I think we still have leadership,
particularly when it comes totraining large language models in AI.
And we've probably gotan edge in quantum computing.

(59:49):
We don't have an edge in robotics.
In fact, there are a number of differenttechnological domains where China clearly
has leadership.
The Australians worry a lot about this,and they have, I think,
good reason to worry.
If one goes back to Andrew Roberts'simpassioned speech in the House of Lords,
I think part of what made him sopassionate was this memory of 1938.

(01:00:10):
And he's a man who's steepedin Winston Churchill's life.
And in his mind, Ukraine isn't South Koreaor South Vietnam, it's Czechoslovakia.
And what we're doing, what Trump is doing,rather, what is so shocking to him,
is effectively agreeing to the partitionof Ukraine at the behest of a dictator for
Hitler, Reid, Putin.

(01:00:31):
But the difference, andthis is really important, is that in 1938,
Britain, confronted by an Axis withformidable military capability,
could hope, as Churchill did hope.
That as in the First World War, eventuallythe United States would come in on
the British side andthe workshop of the world.
The arsenal of democracy was onthe other side of the Atlantic.

(01:00:54):
There is no arsenal of democracy that theUnited States can turn to if it is now in
the position of Britain in the 1930s.
And I do think that'san important analogy.
I read articles in the American press.
Is Trump.
Is he McKinley?
Is he Polk?
I'm sorry, none of this is relevant.
The 19th century is not where we are.

(01:01:17):
The situation of the United States todayis not the situation of the United States
at any previous era including 1990.
Hands up, you're right, Vance.
You're right, it's not 1990.
I get it.
But what is the situationof the United States?
I think it is more like that of Britainin the 1930s than of anything else I can
think of and certainly any previous era inAmerican history, including the Nixon era.

(01:01:40):
Because Richard Nixon did not havethe public financial problems that we have
today.
And if one looks at the militarycapabilities and the manufacturing
capabilities of America in 1969,they were still awesome and unrivaled.
So the position of America todayis alarmingly like that of
the British empire in the 1930s.

(01:02:01):
And that means that when we look at theAxis, we have to see not only that we're
dealing with a Cold War problem, we couldbe dealing with a World War problem.
In the passage clip thatyou showed a moment ago,
President Trump shouts at Zelensky,you're risking World War III.
It looms very large in the mindsof American presidents.

(01:02:23):
Joe Biden used to make the sameargument were close to World War III.
It's Elon Musk's fear.
I've heard him say it.
They're right to worry.
Because if there is World War III,
if it comes to a kineticwar in the Indo-Pacific,
there is no war game that I'm awareof in which the United States wins.

(01:02:43):
That's the harsh reality.
So when people complain aboutRealpolitik or think that the tactics of
the administration are crazy, cruel,brutal, they have to understand that
at least some people in Washington getthe true vulnerability of our position.
It is very weak relative to a Chinathat has not obliged us by collapsing.

(01:03:09):
I wish I had a bitcoin for
every essay I've read in the last 20years predicting the China collapse.
And it hasn't happened.

>> Peter Robinson (01:03:15):
It has not.
Last question.
Your advice for
the Vice President.

>> Niall Ferguson (01:03:28):
I think one of the most annoying things about academics is
the way they give advice topeople in positions of power.
And this is one thing I've got fromreading and writing the life of Kissinger.
When he was in the White House, when hewas there in the Situation Room, there was
nothing more annoying than his formerHarvard colleagues coming to Washington.

(01:03:52):
Washington to bitch about Cambodia.
So, I'm not gonna bethat kind of professor.
I'm not gonna be the kind of person whohas no access to classified information
and lectures the President andVice President.
I'll call it as I see it, butI'll judge them by results, not by tweets.

>> Peter Robinson (01:04:11):
Naill Ferguson, thank you.

>> Niall Ferguson (01:04:13):
Thank you.

>> Peter Robinson (01:04:15):
For Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and
Fox Nation, I'm Peter Robinson.
>> [MUSIC]