Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
@nfergus
Oct 9 • 5 tweets • 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
As with London buses, you can wait ages for one war and then several come along. I've spent a lot of time in the past year and a half warning of a cascade of conflict and its likely consequences. A quick review:
Exhibit A: "America, China, Russia and the Avalanche of History" (May 2022) bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Image
Exhibit B: "For the Fed, a Red Card From the Seventies" (December 2022) bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Image
Exhibit C: "All Is Not Quiet on the Eastern Front" (January 2023) bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Image
And Exhibit D: "Law of Unintended Consequences Caused the Great Bond Rout" (out today) bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @nfergus

Niall Ferguson Profile picture
Sep 10
It is mutually assured financial destruction that constrains today’s superpowers and most clearly distinguishes Cold War II from Cold War I. 1/10bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Decoupling is happening, and fast. Yet both sides have economic weaknesses that undercut these drives to reduce interdependence. On the Chinese side, recovery from the regime of “zero Covid” has been lackluster. 2/10
On the US side, recent years have witnessed a succession of excessively large federal deficits, in substantial measure financed by enlarging the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. 3/10
Read 10 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
Jul 16
The Biden administration's strategy of aligning democracies against autocracies could have an American Achilles’ heel: 1/10bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
In Vilnius, Biden depicted the world in Manichean terms, divided starkly between the democracies, united in “the defense of freedom,” and their benighted foes, who would prefer “a world defined by coercion and exploitation, where might makes right.” 2/10
But this is not Cold War I, when there was an Iron Curtain between the free world and the communist world. This is a world with a "democratic recession" (@LarryDiamond), where "illiberal democracies" are on the rise (@FareedZakaria). 3/10
Read 10 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
Jul 2
Two weeks ago, I warned that the geopolitics of Cold War II seemed to be pitting Halford J. Mackinder’s Eurasian “Heartland” against Nicholas J. Spykman’s “Rimland.” I worried that the Rimland was showing signs of division. But maybe it’s the Heartland that’s cracking up. 1/8
The striking point about the past year is that all three members of the new Heartland Axis are afflicted with internal problems -- the usual pathologies of unrepresentative government. 2/8bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
But what if democracies are also vulnerable to such internal crises? Biden is falling over himself to make nice with Narendra Modi, whose government in India looks increasingly like one of those illiberal democracies that @FareedZakaria warned us about back in the 1990s. 3/8
Read 8 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
Jun 18
Mahatma Gandhi supposedly replied, when he was asked for his view of Western civilization, that it would be a very good idea. I feel the same way about American leadership: It would be a very good idea. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… 1/11
Many Europeans have the unpleasant feeling of being caught between two superpowers in a new cold war. They know China is partly to blame for this. But they see the US as equally culpable. 2/11
The problem in Ukraine is what might be called “the power law — geopolitical edition.” Put crudely, there is one very large contributor and a lot of very small ones. The very large contributor is of course the US. 3/11
Read 13 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
Jun 4
How did the steam engine change the world? A lot. How did the internal combustion engine change the world? A lot. So how will battery-powered electric vehicles change the world? Probably a lot — but not necessarily in the ways we now anticipate. 1/9 bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
First, this is clearly a chance for China to leapfrog the European manufacturers who perfected the internal-combustion engine. Around 31% of Chinese auto exports are of EVs or hybrids. And more than a third — 35% — of all the world’s EV exports are Chinese. 2/9
We have seen a version of this movie before. Between 1975 and 1980s, Japanese auto exports quintupled. The Japanese share of the US car market doubled from 6% in 1972 to 12% in 1978, and to 21% in 1980. 3/9
Read 9 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
May 21
"When You're in a Cold War, Play for Time." "De-risking" is Washington's new word for detente. It's the right strategy as China's economy slows and its social problems grow. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… 1/8
Detente is in the air, with the shift from "decoupling" to the less drastic "de-risking." Detente didn’t end Cold War I in the 1970s; it just made it less fractious, reducing the risk of World War III. The same is true in today’s cold war. 2/8
The Chinese worry a lot about the strategy of technological containment that the U.S. and its allies are pursuing. But maybe they should read Peter Turchin’s extraordinary new book, End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration. 3/8
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Send Email!

:(