Niall Ferguson, Harvard historian, on December 19 in St. Vincent, Italy. Andrea Rizzi
The world is facing a period of great upheaval and change, from the Russian attack on Ukraine to the artificial intelligence revolution. Historian Niall Ferguson (Glasgow, 59 years old), associated with Harvard and Stanford universities, calls for maximum vigilance in the face of the various risks typical of the period in an interview at a conference organized in Saint Vincent (Italy). from The Grand Continent magazine. Ferguson believes Biden's foreign policy has failed because it has failed to dissuade the Taliban, Putin and Hamas from their attacks. He believes that Donald Trump is likely to win again, warns that Ukraine could lose the war, that Europe must not forget that its security depends on the United States and that artificial intelligence (AI) can seriously impair our cognitive abilities.
Q How do you see the West in this fragmented world with increasingly antagonistic powers? There was a united response to the invasion of Ukraine, but now support is wavering.
R. I think when future historians try to summarize the government's foreign policy [de Joe] Biden, one way they could do it is this: These guys were really bad at deterrence. They failed to stop the Taliban from taking full control of Afghanistan. They did not stop Putin from further invading Ukraine. They have not stopped Iran from launching attacks against Israel through its partners. And it remains to be seen whether they will succeed in dissuading China from blocking Taiwan, but I wouldn't be surprised if they fail in that case too. In particular, I think the West's response to the invasion of Ukraine has become a slightly mythologized topic. When the United States realized that Putin was serious, it published the plan instead of dissuading him. The truth is that the Americans did not expect Ukraine to resist. They expected Zelensky to fly away. Everyone was surprised by the successful defense of Kiev by the Ukrainians. Only then did we start supplying them with weapons. And from the moment we started supplying them with weapons, we gave them enough not to lose, but never enough to win. Washington thought it was great that the Russian forces were being demoted without having to fight. But that poses a risk for Ukraine that we are now seeing: a decline in support. A ceasefire must have been sought when things were going well for Kiev. Now support is waning, Ukraine is running out of ammunition a year before Trump's potential victory, and Russia could win the war with far more resources and raw materials. The Biden administration's foreign policy has been a failure. It makes Trump look good.
Q You mentioned the Taiwan issue. Do you think that the EU should align closely with the US in the face of the Chinese challenge or rather seek its own position?
R. We are in a cold war. Two superpowers, the United States and China, compete ideologically, technologically, economically and geopolitically. There are only two, because superpower status today is all about AI, quantum computing and stuff like that. And for Europeans it is complete self-deception to believe that there is a choice. Europe depends on the United States for its security. That's why I find it incredible that Europeans think they have a choice. And yet they do it. If the United States elects Donald Trump and withdraws from NATO, Europeans will discover what strategic autonomy means.
Q What does that mean?
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R. Something very unpleasant. It will cost a lot of money and will be very difficult to achieve in a realistic time frame. And then the Europeans will be quite exposed not only to China, but also to Russia. The situation is much worse than most Europeans realize. If Ukraine is defeated, Russia will be on the borders of Europe. And if Europe does not have the United States, it will have to raise enormous amounts of money and build up the ability to arm itself, which it currently lacks. All of this can happen quite quickly.
Q What do you think needs to be done?
R. I think we have to be very, very willing to work very hard to keep transatlantic life together. Because if we are divided, we will be in a much weaker position. There are currently many doubts on both sides of the Atlantic. One of our big problems is myopia, which prevents us from imagining defeat. We cannot imagine the day when Kiev falls. We can't imagine what it will be like if Trump gives a speech in 2025 and says America is leaving. We cannot imagine Xi Jinping after a successful takeover of power in Taipei. And all of these things can happen. I fear we are in for a rude awakening.
Q Since 2016 it has been clear that the extreme right is gaining ground in the West. Promoting the moderates or penetrating the ideology of the latter. Do you think the traditional right can still win in this fight?
R. Liberal conservatism dominated until the 2010s. He defeated proposals from other forms of conservatism such as those of Barry Goldwater and Enoch Powell, he won the Cold War, he defeated the left, and he paved the way for a global economy based on the free market. free trade, free movement of capital and of course free movement of people. And that would inevitably cause a backlash because it probably wouldn't benefit everyone. In fact, it was very likely to harm the white working class of Western Europe and North America and benefit the working class of Asia. It has also led to a lot of immigration. That's the big story. These arguments are still alive. They continue to win elections. The point is that the populist right seizes on this discontent but has no good solutions to the problems.
Q How should leaders of the traditional right deal with this situation? Do you partly believe the arguments of the radical right? Or act as a clear moderate alternative?
R. I think conservative leaders need to bring these different elements together. They cannot be elected only by disaffected working-class nationalists. But you can't expect only free marketers to support you either. I think the first thing that needs to be said is that we have serious budgetary problems. This puts a burden on your children and grandchildren. We must address the problem of low growth, we must address the problem of high debt. Just because the left thinks debt doesn't matter doesn't mean we shouldn't follow that trend. But it must also be said that we are against open borders and cultural relativism and therefore combine classic economic principles with a controlled immigration policy. If you can't do both, you will fail.
Q In these troubled waters, the artificial intelligence revolution is breaking out. It has enormous potential, it can lead to great progress, but also risks. What socio-economic impact will it have?
R. I believe that administrative positions will be eliminated. There will be a major shift in middle class employment as a whole range of jobs will disappear very soon. The rollout is happening quite quickly and early data shows that there will be significant productivity gains through extensive job losses. I think economic history tells us that after 20 years we will have a lot of new jobs, but in the transition period we will have a lot of fear and discontent that will find a political outlet in some way. But that's not what worries me the most.
Q What is it?
R. Artificial intelligence will also have unintended consequences on our cognitive abilities. Just as Google undermines our memory because we no longer need to remember things, I think large language models will actually destroy the way we think because they essentially construct plausible-sounding arguments for us. And because we are very lazy as a species, most people essentially leave it to the machine and lose the ability to do it themselves. Unless we isolate children from great language models and ensure they are educated without them, we will not be able to teach them to think. I think GPT4 or 5 will just make them think, and that worries me more than the impact on employment. If we lose the ability to construct an argument in response to a question because we delegate it to a machine, we don't really have much of a future as a species. That's my biggest fear. Great language models invite massive mental laziness.
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