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The US and Europe risk flunking geopolitics 101
The fate of Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan hangs in the balance amid a waning Pax Americana.
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The US and its allies did too little to deter challenges. However, once they had begun, it rightly acted to defend the democracies that were under attack.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PEXELS
Niall Ferguson
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Twenty years ago, I published Colossus: The Price Of America’s Empire. I had wanted to call it Blind Colossus: The Rise And Fall Of The American Empire. In the still jingoistic atmosphere that had followed the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, my publisher dissuaded me. By the time the paperback came out, I could at least insist on my preferred subtitle.
Despite the passage of two decades, the book’s core arguments still stand up. Indeed, the tragic spectacle unfolding in Ukraine reminds me why I wrote the book in the first place. Americans – and Europeans, whose wealthy yet geopolitically inconsequential Union I also criticised – truly have the blindfolds on if they think they can raise their glasses to a happy new year while missiles rain down on Ukraine.
