NIALL FERGUSON: The outbreak of the second Cold War. “1648, not 1989, is our destination: a Cyber Westphalia, not the fall of the Great Firewall of China.”
Because the Internet and smartphones have enlarged, accelerated, and empowered social networks in the same way that the printing press did in the 16th and 17th centuries, today’s strategic rivalry is being played out in a near-borderless world, altogether different from the world of early John le Carré.
The 17th century had it all: climate change (the Little Ice Age that regularly froze the Thames), refugee crises (as Protestant zealots crossed the Atlantic), extreme views (as Catholics and Protestants sought to smear one another), and fake news (as witch-finders condemned hundreds of innocent women to death). But its most familiar feature to our eyes was the erosion of state sovereignty. The war of religion had no respect for borders: Jesuits infiltrated Protestant England just as Russian trolls now meddle in Western democracies.
The Thirty Years’ War was as much about power as it was about religion, however. Unlike the Cold War, which was waged by two superpowers, the Thirty Years’ War was a multiplayer game. The Holy Roman Emperor sought to reimpose Catholicism on Bohemia. Spain wanted to bring the rebellious Dutch back under Habsburg rule. Despite being Catholic, France sought to challenge the power of both Spain and Austria.
In the same way, today’s world is not bipolar. The United States may tell others to boycott Huawei, but not all Europeans will comply. China is the biggest economy in Asia, but it does not control India.
The Cold War created vast tank armies and nuclear arsenals, pointed at each other but never used. The Thirty Years’ War was quite different. It was a time of terrorism and gruesome violence, with no clear distinction between soldiers and civilians. (Think Syria.) Then, as now, the worst-affected areas suffered death and depopulation. There was no deterrence then, just as there is none now in cyberwarfare. Indeed, states tended to underestimate the costs of getting involved in the conflict. Both Britain and France did so — only to slide into civil war themselves.
The implications of this analogy are not cheering. The sole consolation I can offer is that, thanks to technology, most things nowadays happen roughly 10 times faster than they did 400 years ago. So we may be heading for a Three Years’ War rather than a Thirty Years’ War. Either way, we need to learn how to end such a war.
Fascinating piece. Read the whole thing.