William Tyler
2024: An Uncertain World

William Tyler | 2024: An Uncertain World | 03.25.24

- Thanks very much indeed, and welcome to everyone. This is, as you all know, the final talk in the series on the history of America. What I’m intending to do today is to talk under the title “An Uncertain Future,” an uncertain future not just for the United States, but for the world as a whole. As the Chinese say, we live in interesting times. But my text, for those who like to have a text to begin a talk, my text is from the poetry of A. Housman. Housman who was born in the 1850s and died just before the Second World War, was professor of Greek at the University of London, but was also a huge proponent of liberal and adult education. And one of the stanzas in his group of poems called, “More Poems” reads this, The signal fires of warning, they blaze, but none regard. And on through night to morning, the world runs ruinward. The world runs ruinward. Now, that of course, was written in, or at least published in 1936, so just before World War II when there is a complete awareness of what is coming. “The world,” he writes, “Runs ruinward,” and many would think that that an appropriate title for what I’m talking about today, the world runs ruinward.

Of course, you could make the case that the world has always run ruinward. It’s always gone forward to an uncertain future, that’s the nature of a future which is uncertain. But my argument today is there has been a significant shift in recent decades for numerous reasons all linked to technology. The principle two being, first of all, as a world, we have access to military weapons that could destroy the entire planet. Secondly, as a world, we now know we have been destroying the entire planet by our misuse of natural resources. In some ways, for example, artificial intelligence, technology appears to be running ahead of our ability to control it, the ability of politicians to control it. And in many countries today, including the United States and Britain, politicians have been looking at ways in which they can control artificial intelligence. We live in a technologically global environment, and one capable in more than one way of destroying us all. That is why I think our uncertain future in 2024 is quite different than the uncertain futures in the past where you might be threatened by pandemics or by the fall of empires. Today we face, one way or another, the potential of the disruption of our planet. More about that later in the talk.

In this bleak scenario, America has a major role to play. It’s true that the unipolar world that America led after the collapse of Eastern European communism and the collapse of the USSR, and the end of the Cold War, after the end of the Cold War and the collapse, as I say, of Eastern European communism and the USSR, America was the sole major player in the world, a unipolar world. But as we saw last week, that has broken down. We now live in a multipolar world, and America has to share potentially top place with other powers, and not only other large powers, but smaller powers who have weapons of destruction, like North Korea, as we saw last week, can impose an enormous pressure upon world affairs. The American Indian journalist, Fareed Zakaria, in the January and February edition of the Foreign Affairs Journal, wrote this. Zakaria wrote… I always find journal more difficult to read than books. And he writes in this way, “Despite its strength, the United States does not preside over a unipolar world.” That’s what I’ve said. “The 1990s was a world without geopolitical competition. The Soviet Union was collapsing, and soon its successor, Russia, would be reeling, and China was still an infant on the international stage, generating less than 2% of global GDP. Consider what Washington was able to do in this era.

To liberate Kuwait, it fought a war against Iraq with widespread international backing, including diplomatic approval from Moscow. It ended the Yugoslav wars, it got the PLO to renounce terrorism and recognise Israel, and it convinced Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to make peace and shake hands on the White House lawn with the PLO’s leader, Yasser Arafat. In 1994, even North Korea seen willing to sign on to an American framework and end its nuclear weapons programme.” It didn’t keep to that promise. “When financial crisis hit Mexico in 1994 and East Asian countries in 1997, the United States saved the day by organising massive bailouts. All roads led to Washington.” Not surprising, is it, therefore, going back to last week that Fukuyama sort of said, “This is the end of history.” It looked to be the victory of the west personified in America. It was the victory of liberal democracy over authoritarian regimes, particularly of course in Eastern Europe. We had hope. And then as we saw last week, the new Cold War erupted, and that hope was dashed. Zakaria goes on to say this, “Today, the United States faces a world with real competitors, and many more countries vigorously asserting their interests, often in defiance of Washington.”

He goes on to give the example of Turkey, who has become, well, for Europe, Turkey is a member of NATO, for Europe, and for America in terms of the Middle East, has become a unreliable partner. Whereas before, in the unipolar world, it pretty well adhered to American policy. It certainly does not today. So we have changed from the Cold War, America versus USSR, to that interim period of unipolar power that America wielded to the present day of multipolar power, in which America remains one of the major players, but players rather than player. And for the rest of us in the West, basically in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, et cetera, in the west, we are still heavily dependent on America playing its role on the international scene. Why? Because America has the military means and America has the money. It is also, if you compare it to the EU, more… How do I put it? It America is more unified. It may not seem like that in an election year, but that’s a small hiccup along the path of democracy. But America is vitally important to the entire western world. It’s important to liberal democracy in the world. And as we shall see later, it’s important to international affairs as well. That is to say the United Nations.

It isn’t easy in this world for America to see its way forward. In the Economist magazine of this week, it said and talked about the antique Western axis, which basically means the anti-American axis of China, Russia, and Iran. And the economist points out that China, Russia, and Iran are forging closer links between them. For much of history I read, Russia, Iran and China were less chummy, imperialists at heart, they often meddled in one another’s neighbourhoods and jostled for control of Asia’s trade routes. Lately, however, America has changed the dynamic. In 2020, two years after exiting a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear programme, it reimposed a trade embargo on the country. More penalties were announced in January to punish Iran for backing Hamas and Houthi rebels. Russia fell under westerns actions in 2022, after invading Ukraine, which were recently tightened. China has promised a no limits partnership with Russia and signed a 25-year strategic agreement with Iran in 2021. So basically this multipolar world in terms of the big players is America on one side, Russia, China, and Iran on the other. And the worry is that Russia, China, and Iran are coming closer together.

On this introductory piece in this article in the Economist, it finishes by saying, “United by a common foe, this trio vows to advance a common foreign policy support for a multipolar world no longer dominated by America, all see stronger economic ties as the basis for their alliance.” Outspend America, basically. This is an uncertain world. Will those three countries stay together? Potentially possible, probably unlikely, but could they stay together long enough to inflict certain difficulties and defeats on America? And I don’t think military defeats, but financial defeats. As I said before, from a European perspective, the United States needs to remain strong in this multipolar world, for it remains by far the strongest bastion of a free world, of a liberal democratic world. And that is made very clear in an article in today’s Times, which is talking about the French President Macron. And in it, it says, “France has gained its wish to become continental Europe’s leading foreign policy voice, but it’s lonely at the top. To fill the giant American size hole emerging in European security.”

That is the fear in Europe Macron is expressing that America, even if it doesn’t withdraw from NATO, may be less keen to support NATO financially, as it has done in the past. And the Times goes on to say,“ France needs like-minded countries with military clout and deep-rooted experience in diplomacy and defence. Hopes that Germany could be such a strategic partner, have shrivelled. Germany is a broken reed when it comes to the military defence of NATO and, frankly, to diplomacy. So where is France turning? It’s turning, strangely, to Brexit Britain who still has, relatively speaking, even though it has suffered enormous cuts, a military presence, but it has, more importantly, a diplomatic presence. And so we can see in this multipolar world where NATO, we’ve talked about Turkey earlier, and we’ve now talked about Germany, where NATO may be not quite what it was, and that France is making a move to strengthen alliances between itself and Britain where they’re already military treaties separate from those within NATO. Like a British French alliance. Nowhere goes anywhere near filling what the Times described at the American sized black hole in European defence.

So that is why in Europe we desperately need America to stand firm, not just to defend us, but to defend the very concept of a free world and of liberal democracy. Fareed Zakaria in the article that I quoted just now argues that America needs at the present time to again believe in itself. In the 19th century, Britain believed in itself. In the 20th century, America believed in itself. Certainly Britain does not believe in itself today in that way. And the question is, does America? Well, yes, it does, argues Zakaria. And he writes this, "Despite all the talk of American dysfunction and decay, the reality is quite different, especially when compared with other rich countries. In 1990, the United States per capita income measured in terms of purchasing power was 17% higher than Japan’s and 24% higher than Western Europe’s. Today it is 54% and 32% higher respectively. In 2008 at current prices, the American and Eurozone economies were roughly the same size. The US economy is now nearly twice that of the Eurozone.”

We are dependent in the West on America. And so the American presidential election is important in all of these issues so far discussed. Now my next heading, that’s by way of an introduction from talking about a multipolar world, I now want to turn to wars and rumours of wars. And today, as we all know across the world, there are two major wars, which are engaging international interest or concern, the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Israel-Hamas war, neither of which frankly looked like ending anytime soon. In neither case has the United States become directly involved. And perhaps that’s not surprising, because if it would get involved, the potential consequences of doing so would be uncertain but decidedly risky and maybe quite detrimental to American interests. But on the other hand, America and the European Union have given war materiel to Ukraine in order to fight Russia. But to the Ukrainians, they worry how long that position can be maintained.

And those of you listening from America know, the debates that have gone on in Congress and know also what a potential Trump presidency might bring. In terms of the EU, well, there have been many, many countries have dragged their feet. In terms of the UK, I think you can confidently say that the UK will follow American lead and, provided America keeps the money rolling, I think, Britain would. If America withdrew, I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure at all. Macron interestingly wants to see European troops. He’s talked about European troops. He not said NATO, I don’t think, specifically in terms of American troops, but he’s thought of, he’s moving towards or has moved towards arguing for European troops on the ground in Ukraine. And of course almost certainly Britain and America will have special forces in Ukraine working behind the scenes. And this Russian Ukrainian war looks very dangerous, particularly since Putin’s quote, “reelection,” unquote, in Russia.

Indeed, this last week was posted from the Russian Defence Ministry the following announcement. They will be creating two new grand armies with 16 new brigades and 14 new divisions. That’s a heck of a lot of men and women. That’s more than the combined armies of the leading countries in Europe. You can see why America is vital to that. If America withdrew from NATO and Europe was forced to fight, it’s overwhelmed by numbers. Of course that doesn’t take into account the poor quality of Russian military hardware, nor the poor quality of recruits who are not volunteers. Increasingly, Russia is in one way or another, forcing people into the army. And we’ve seen already in Ukraine the poor quality of Russian troops, the poor quality of Russian officers and the poor quality of Russian materiel, something we learned at the end of the Cold War about Russia, but we are relearning now. But it doesn’t take away the possibility in Europe of Putin who is a loose cannon pressing the button that launches either tactical nuclear weapons or, worse, a nuclear strike. And if he does strike into the heart of Western Europe, the target will be Berlin.

That really is frightening. We don’t know what’s going to happen. And certainly, if we turn away and look at the Middle East, well, then no one knows where that is going to lead. And the idea of American troops, let alone other European nations troops operating in the Middle East would be difficult. Although you can well point to the operation of European and American naval forces operating against the Houthis. But that’s different than launching a ground invasion of Iran. And remember, Iran is the enemy in the Middle East, as it’s the big player on the world stage in the Middle East with China in Asia and Russia in Europe and Asia against America. It’s very difficult to see how that can be resolved. Now there is an interesting point, which I haven’t mentioned. Last week we saw on our television screens the Islamic State’s, or claimed by the Islamic State, attack on a civilian theatre in Moscow itself, an example of the Islamic terrorism that Israel is fighting in Gaza. I was asked last week by one of you if I would say anything about whether there were Muslim problems to the Chinese. Yes, there are.

In Xinjiang, formerly known as Chinese Turkmenistan, the Uyghur, Muslim community has been crushed by the regime in Beijing with over a million Uyghurs placed in reeducation camps, a nice euphemism. Russia, however much it may make a case for Ukraine behind whatever the attacks in Moscow, are not stupid. They come, these men, from Tajikistan in Russia, wide side of Russia now. But Muslims formally in Russia and they’re likely to be aware in Moscow, as much as Beijing or Israel or Britain or America is aware, that Islamic terrorism can hit anywhere, and no one has an answer. Well, you might say the Chinese have an answer, just put a million people in camps, guilty or not guilty, and just ignore the problem. But we don’t really know how to deal with the problem. And the big problem in the Middle East in the current conflict is that it is not a national conflict between a Palestinian state and in a Jewish state, but a contest between a Jewish state and not just one, but numerous terrorist organisations. You can’t win that with diplomacy. It’s even, as we know from the Israeli assault on Gaza, difficult to win militarily. If Gaza had a Palestinian army opposed to the Israeli army, the war would’ve been won by Israel already. We know that. But it isn’t.

Terrorists slide into civilian populations, they hide, they move countries, they fall back. This is not normal warfare that we’ve been used to before. This is quite different. And it’s no good saying diplomacy. The diplomacy that’s been going on around Gaza is really… Well, make your own minds up to how successful you think it is and indeed how successful you believe it might be. You see, you could argue, in the Middle East that a policy of diplomacy carefully targeted, can move things forward slowly. And in a way that’s what America was trying to do before the 7th of October attack in 2023. This is an article in the same Foreign Affairs journal of January-February this year by Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasser, both American academics: “Before October the 7th, it seemed as if the United States’ vision for the Middle East was finally coming to fruition. Washington had a arrived at an implicit understanding with Tehran about its nuclear programme, in which the Islamic Republic of Iran effectively paused further development in exchange for American financial relief.

The United States was working on a defence pact with Saudi Arabia, which would in turn lead the kingdom to normalise its relations with Israel, and Washington had announced plans for an ambitious trade corridor connecting India to Europe through the Middle East to offset China’s rising influence in the region.” Wow. It’s interesting to look at that. And things were moving. So looking positively, if America could do that before, well, not possible now, but possible in a future, then we may just be able to get somewhere. But we are still faced with the terrorism that can erupt anywhere. It can erupt on the streets of London, on the streets of Washington, Paris, Berlin, you name it. Everyone, everyone can be caught in such a terrorist attack. And we have been in our countries victims of terrorist attacks from Islamists. But we have to have hope and we have to have hope in Ukraine. I suppose, the big hope is that Putin drops dead or is assassinated, but don’t hope for that. His successor could be worse. So those are the two conflicts, two wars and rumours of wars.

Well, the lightly place for a third war is in Asia if the Chinese mainland, if China was to make a move on Taiwan. Now you know that Taiwan is where Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist Chinese retreated to in 1949 after the victory of Mao and the Communist Party in China. And ever since, America has given its backing by treaty to the defence of Taiwan, and it’s sending large amounts of money and large amounts of war materiel to Taiwan as the talk in Beijing ratchets up. But America isn’t without allies. Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, because China is a threat to the whole of Asia. And it wouldn’t necessarily stop at Taiwan. Well, of course, it wouldn’t. If it took Taiwan without a fight, it would take its greedy eyes elsewhere. We know that. So what happens if there was an attack on Taiwan? Can Taiwan be defended? Well, yes, but could it be defended long term? Probably not. And so diplomacy is the only answer. But diplomacy backed by the threat of force, which is exactly the American policy and the American policy of the old Cold War brought forward to this new Cold War with China. There’s a deterrent. You attack Taiwan, we will attack you.

And it’ll be the scenario of mad mutual destruction all over again that we had in the Cold War. Do I think China will attack? No, I don’t think it will, because I think it’s too intelligent to do that. It’s, they’re not mad. This is not Putin we’re dealing with. I don’t think the Chinese Politburo will attack. It would only attack if America said, “No, sorry Taiwan, you’re on your own.” Could you see a situation in the future where America would say that? Possibly. It’s possible that America would sort sell Taiwan down the river in return for peace with China, in return for China not backing with arms Russia, in terms of trade, that’s probably the weakest link for the Taiwanese of trade routes between China and America. So I wouldn’t say that Taiwan is safe, but on the other hand, I don’t think it will lead to major war between America and China. I think it would only fall if America did a deal with China and said, it didn’t say openly, but in effect, “Well, just walk in.” It would be like the British, well, in a way like the British leaving Hong Kong and the new territories and allowing China to move in. And we know that all the promises made by China about Hong Kong have been broken, and Britain is powerless to do anything about it. And the same will be true of Taiwan and America.

So wars and rumours of wars are the big issue that any incoming American president and incoming British prime minister will have to face later this year. Then there’s the question, what’s now called astropolitics? A-S-T-R-O-politics one word, astropolitics. This is a name given to the race in space, not just for scientific knowledge and for kudos for the country that reaches whatever, lands men on Mars or whatever it’s the next target might ever be. But the exploitation of space, not just by nation states, but increasingly by firms. Individuals think Elon Musk. In the interest of war, but maybe particularly in the interest of mineral exploitation. We are taking our problems into outer space. Tim Marshall in what I think is a brilliant book, I think all his books are brilliant, this is “The Future of Geography,” and in “The Future of Geography” he writes this. “Each time humanity is ventured into a new domain, it’s brought war with it. Shipbuilding resulted in warships, aeroplanes brought fighter jets and bombers. Space is no different, and the potential battlefield is beginning to take shape.”

He also writes in a different part of the book this, “Recently evidence has been found for deposits of metal oxides in some of the Moon’s large craters. It’s thought the meteorites may have excavated the material from under the surface. If so, it’s probable that there will be large concentrations of metal oxides deeper underground. And it’s believed the Moon contains reserves of silicon, titanium, rare earth metals and aluminium. Humanity is destined to spend more time there, digging beneath the surface in pursuit of those metals, which are used in vital modern technologies.” And each individual firm or each individual nation will fight. It’d be like the gold rush in California all over again. And things are moving fast. This lecture has been very difficult, because the world has changed over the last week. Again in today’s Times was an article about the Moon, which, well, I think is disturbing. “Astrolab, a Californian startup formed by a team of NASA veterans and former SpaceX engineers, will send its Flex Rover to the Moon in 2026 after signing a deal with Elon Musk rocket business last year to transport it.

It is now signed a deal with group of humans, a network for creative professionals to offer businesses the chance to test and advertise their products on the lunar surface, as NASA plans to build a base for a permanent presence there. Potential opportunities could include Volvo, the car manufacturer, seeking to introduce a lunar highway code, Lego laying a keystone toy brick for the base or Nike developing footwear for the low gravity atmosphere.” Now that’s today. Are we really going to have a scramble for the Moon as in the 19th century, we had a scramble for Africa and a scramble for China? And that’s peaceable use. But war use, military use of bases on the Moon, it’s frightening. Let me turn now to another topic, and that is the topic of the United Nations. So I’ve talked about a multipolar world, I’ve talked about wars and rumours of wars, and I’ve now talked about astropolitics. And I want to turn to the United Nations. The Israeli-Hamas conflict has thrown for many of us into bright light the inherent weakness of the United Nations. I would say, much as Hitler’s occupation of the Rhineland in the ‘30s, highlighted the weakness of the League of Nations.

Paul Wilkinson, in his book, “International Relations” writes this: “The United Nations is under grave disadvantages when it tempts to carry out its major task of ensuring world peace. Under the United Security…” Oh, sorry, missed the page. Sorry. I beg your pardon. Let me start again. “The UN labours under grave disadvantages when it attempts to carry out its major tasks when ensuring world peace and security as was the League of Nations. The United Nations is founded on the twin principles of the sovereignty of states and an essentially voluntary system of collective security, meaning that the organisation has no means of enforcing its decisions. And it is up to the member states themselves to decide what obligations the United Nations should be and whether they should honour them.” That’s true. But the Middle East crisis has added a further complication to that or further failure of the United Nations, or the United Nations being implicit in taking the side of terrorists against the state of Israel. I think you can put it as strongly as that. And certainly some of the states in the United Nations would be absolutely clear that they would be in support of Hamas, in support they would argue of Hamas’ call for a independent Palestine and not Israel.

But we know that Hamas’ philosophy and that of the other group, that Hezbollah is to eradicate Israel as a nation state. And if the United Nations means anything, it is the preservation of nation states. And anyhow, we know further than that that Islamic extremists want to turn all our countries Islamic, not simply Israel. And as I’ve said on further occasions and many others have commented in the press, Israel is in the front line of the free world and of democracy against terrorism. It’s difficult to see how the United Nations can continue to function given its dysfunctionality over the Israel Hamas crisis. And yet, Zakaria argues, as a previously did a British foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd in his book, “In Search of Peace,” that we have to stick with the United Nations, because it’s the best we’ve got. Well, do we? What is the alternative? Since the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, there have been means and measures take to preserve peace. Following 1815, there was the congress system.

When peace looked threatened, you met together and with pressure in the sense of, you attack A, then I’ll attack you, and so on. So that you get a balance of power in the Congress system created at Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon. Then we get the League of Nations. The congress system was Metternich, the great Austrian chancellor’s idea. The League of Nations was the American idea. And the United Nations was a desire by the Western allies to make a new League of Nations, which was more powerful. Maybe all these years after 1945, the United Nations no longer looks fit for purpose. Well, okay. But what do you put in its place? Do you get rid of it? In which case you are back to a pre-1815 situation of just agreements between various nations, treaties between nations, and the likelihood of war being greater. And in some places, where the United Nations has been affected in the deployment of forces to restore peace or keep opposing sides separated, as in Africa, you would lose that, would you not? I don’t know the answer.

I’m just suggesting that those in power in the West, and that particularly means America, have to think about what they do. Zakaria in his article wrote this, which I thought was of interest, he writes in this way: “The United States has been central to establishing a new kind of international relations since 1945, one that has grown in strength and depth over the decades. Those challenging the current system,” what I’ve just been doing, “have no alternative vision that would rally the world. They merely seek a narrow advantage for themselves. And for all its internal difficulties, the United States, above all others remains uniquely capable and positioned to play the central role in sustaining the international system. As long as America does not lose faith in its own project, the current international order can strive for decades to come.” Well, can it? And does America have that sort of power now in this multipolar world? Can America make the United Nations work again? Well, I don’t think it can unless there’s reform of the United Nations. But who on earth will get a majority to agree to any reform that the United States might put forward? And anyhow, no one knows how to reform it.

We are in serious problems, I would argue, internationally with world peace, with the failure of the UN. Maybe the UN can recover. I’m not sure it can in a multipolar world. It could in the duo-polar world of Russia/USSR and America in the Cold War, it could obviously in the unipolar world following the Cold War of America. But in this multipolar world, can it? Can it? it’s an open question, but it’s a question that’s going to be argued about and has to be answered in due course. So now I move to another topic that faces the world leaders: artificial intelligence. Frank Herbert, the author of the science fiction great novel “Dune” wrote: “Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.‘ Or, we could add, in the worst scenario of all the machines enslave human beings. Artificial intelligence, something we, most of us, have only become aware of in relatively recent times.

And for the first time in my nearly 50 or over 50 years of teaching in adult education, I’ve used AI to assist in the production of me working out of this lecture. I was introduced by my 11-year-old grandson to ChatGPT. And that’s an app that you can get and it’s free and you are off to ask it questions, it gives you answers. It’s very quick and it’s pretty accurate. Not entirely so, you’ve got to have your wits about you, as you do with any source of information. But it’s pretty accurate. I didn’t know what GPT meant. I had to look it up. It means generative pre-trained transformers. I’m sure you all knew that, I didn’t. My grandson was introduced by his science teacher and told to use it in his homework. He downloaded it for me, showed me how to work it, showed me how to get rid of things I didn’t want on it, and then opened up a whole new set of things I could use it for. I just use it to put in a question and get an answer. He said, "Oh, no, no, it does much more than that,” He said. And that’s just some simple technophobe like me that’s using it. And I’m using it positively.

But Frank Herbert’s quotation reminds us that like all technological developments, AI comes with a downward as well as an upward side. And at the moment, as I said earlier, countries like UK and America and the EU are looking at ways that they can control AI. Now, the downside of AI are fairly severe. First of all, its use in contemporary warfare. It’s being used in the Russia-Ukrainian war to direct to very, very specific targets, the drones. And we didn’t really know about the military use of drones before this war. Now we’re hearing that using AI, they can specify, they could hit this room. Not the house. The room. AI is extraordinarily powerful weapon. It can be used, and this is a major issue for democracies, to influence elections, democratic elections, either by somebody internally, but the fear is not so much internal as external, i.e. China and Russia. Huge questions in Britain over Russian interference in the Brexit vote, for example. China and Russia interfering. We live in a world now where we don’t know what we’re being shown is right. Am I live today or is this simply a video? Am I dead and this is simply a representation of me?

We see photographs of the war, and we don’t know whether they’re right or wrong. We’ve seen manipulation in a way that we’ve not seen before. And it’s very difficult to judge what is true and what is false. Now in a book called “The New Fire,” which has got a subtitle of “War, Peace and Democracy in the Age of AI,” Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie, Americans academics write this. And this I found equally chilling. “Troubling is the growing consensus that democracies will struggle to adapt to the age of AI. If this consensus is accurate, privacy concerns, civil liberties and ethics will hamper data collection and slow the adoption of technological advances, as it times should the case, given the rights of citizens in democracies. Companies will continue to develop cutting edge algorithms, but they will be used for increasing advertising effectiveness, improving product recommendations or advancing medical treatments, not strengthening and securing the state.

This will require for ambitious long-term public projects including for developing advanced computing power will never materialise in democracies consumed by political infighting. In this view, ethical concerns will make democratic governments hesitate to develop lethal autonomous weapons, even as autocracies’ new capabilities, including hacking and disinformation operations, put democracies on the defensive. As a result, democracies might struggle in peacetime, lose battles in wartime, and fall behind autocracies in general. In the words of one of the most-quoted AI thinkers of our moment, the historian Yuval Noah Harari, wrote ‘Technology favours tyranny.’” Technology favours tyranny. That is a cold, cold phrase. I have spoken before about the challenge to liberal democracies. And if this pushes liberal democracies towards autocracy, then it’s a bad thing. I had a small example this morning on a very lower level, my university, university of Oxford is appointing a new chancellor. It’s current chancellor is retiring. The university has announced that unlike the past, where all graduates who wanted to vote had to go to Oxford, wear academic dress, go into a polling booth, put across against the name of a person they supported and put it in a ballot box.

They’re now suggesting this can be done online. And why is there a problem? Because the university has issued a statement saying that it wants the candidates to reflect diversity. In other words, it’s a woke campaign, whereas in the past you just have 50 graduates to support you and your name went on the ballot. And of course there were some odd names went on the ballot that nobody would particularly vote for. But it meant that anyone could go on if you had 50 supporters, and the election was genuine. Now, if it’s on the internet, what sort of influence might be brought to bear even by the university itself to support a woke candidate against other candidates? Let’s put it like that. I find it worrying. Now that’s a tiny, small, small example. Some of you, particularly in America may have come across other examples, but put that on a national plane and think about autocracies and think about how liberal democratic leaders can become more autocratic. And we’ve seen that in Britain, certainly. It’s a trend and we’ve seen it in Europe, and it’s a trend, it’s a worrying trend.

So if that’s right, that technology encourages autocracies rather than democracies, then it means we’ve got to do something about our democratic systems. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s a bit depressing, isn’t it? I’ll become positive, I hope. We face the biggest threat of all, which is the environmental crisis, threatening the very life and and existence of our planet. Emmanuel Macron, president of France said, “By polluting the oceans, not mitigating CO2 emissions, and destroying our biodiversity, we are killing our planet. Let us face it. There is no planet B.” Stephen Hawking, the great scientist said, “One can see from space how the human race has changed the Earth. Nearly all of the available land has been cleared of forest and is now used for agriculture or urban development. The polar ice caps are shrinking and the desert areas are increasing.

At night, the Earth is no longer dark, but large areas are lit up. All of this is evidence that human exploitation of the planet is reaching a critical limit, but human demands and expectations are ever increasing. We cannot continue to pollute the atmosphere, poison the ocean and exhaust the land. There isn’t more available,” he said. Well, that’s absolutely true. If we take the case of America, then the story is the story of the world in miniature. Climate change has led to the United States warming by 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970. From 2010 to 2019, the United States experienced hottest decade on record. Extreme weather events in the US, invasive species, floods and droughts are increasing. Climate change impacts on tropical cyclones and sea levels rise. All affect the United States Cumulatively since 1850, United States has emitted a larger share than any country of the greenhouse gases, causing current climate change with some 20% of the global total of carbon dioxide alone.“ And so the story goes on.

We’re all polluting the world and we’re seeing the effects of that in all the ways that I’ve just read. The melting of the ice, the rising of the sea, the pollution of the sea. It’s just horrendous. But if you became President of the United States or Prime Minister of Britain after the elections this year, and you had stopped listening to your advisor at the point that I said, and now from my last topic is the environment, and you just sort stop there, you would have so much on your plate. You haven’t got time to think about the environment. Anyhow, you might think to yourself, "I won’t be here in four or five years time or whatever. It’s someone else’s problem.” And that, of course is the problem. It’s been batted further down the line for too long. If you’ve been following “The Three Body Problem” on Netflix, you will have noted that the book that got the heroine into trouble was “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson, which was produced so many decades ago. And she gave the warning then. And did we listen? No. Some of us read the book, but it didn’t impact on us. And it’s only now that we’re beginning to take these things seriously as it does impact on us. Where do we go on holiday? Will it be too hot? Will we run the risk of flooding? And all those questions are now real questions.

And finally, I’ve written a question where there isn’t really an answer. What can we do as individuals in all of these? Probably very little, but we must nevertheless do all we can. We can do a lot to protect our environment as individuals. We can try and protect our democratic systems by the way we vote, by the way we engage with our politicians, local and national, the way that we respond to newspapers, TV or even the internet. We can and should aim to protect our democratic systems. We must seek positive reform of our democracies, because I do not think that they are robust enough to cope with the pressures they will face, particularly perhaps from AI, let alone environmental changes. And you would expect me as a lawyer to say, above all to those of you from the countries you are listening from, above all, we must protect the rule of law, nationally and internationally. The rule of law is such an important concept given by the Anglo-American world to the world. To do less would be to bring dishonour to those thousands of men and women who fought hard for our democracies in peace and in war. And we have to fight now.

Thank you very much for listening. That’s been quite a lot to take in tonight, and I’m sorry if it was a bit long-winded at times. Thank you for listening. I’m sure I’ve got some questions and answers. Or questions. It says questions and answers here. These questions or comments. “Can you please open the question out for the lecture start?” Yeah, that’s a message for the lockdown team. I can’t do that myself.

Q&A and Comments

“The current situation in America, both domestically and internationally, appears in many ways to be a more dangerous version of the chaos of the late 1960s.” I think it’s worse. Who was that? Michael? I think it’s much worse, Michael.

Q: “What is the problem with Germany?” A: The problem with Germany is manifold. Firstly, its expenditure on military matters is limited. Two, its army, navy, and air force are not up to scratch. Thirdly, it’s got a problem with the rising far right, and it also is reluctant to spend money in Ukraine. Germany has an economic problem. There are a lot of problems with Germany. That is why Macron is taking the lead in the EU.

Galaxy, “Putin asked God how the future of Russia is assured with the problems he faces. The answer made him burst into tears. The Chinese leader asked God about how China will fare under him in the future. The answer made him burst in tears. Finally, Donald Trump asked God how America would be under him. With that God burst into tears,” says Monty. Right. Okay.

Q: “Why would Putin strike Berlin?” A: It’s the old enemy. Slav and Teuton. Berlin is the enemy. That’s what he would strike at. It’s also the easiest capital to strike at from Russian territory. From Belarus, for example. Or even nearer, from Kaliningrad. That’s why it would strike Berlin. Well, I’ve answered why Berlin and not Paris.

Q: “Why does Putin want the Ukraine to be responsible for the Moscow concert terrorism instead of ISIS?” A: Well, A, he hides the Muslim problem. B, it sells well within Russia. “This is other dreadful Ukrainians. These are the Nazi Ukrainians. You can’t trust them. They will even kill concert-goers.”

And you asked Shelly, what should the US and Western Europe do. That we can do very little, but try and explain the truth of what… And maybe we know the truth, maybe we don’t. There are many, many suggestions of what that attack was. Some say that it was orchestrated not by… well, we know it wasn’t orchestrated by Ukraine. At least we think so. When they said, for example, that they fled to Ukraine, they weren’t, they were fleeing to Belarus, may have been organised by Russia itself. It’s not possible to say.

Jacqueline, “It’s possible that Hamas attacked Israel when it did to put a spanner in the works, i.e. US progress with Saudi recognition of Israel.” A fair point. We don’t know, but that’s a very good point to make.

Q: Marilyn, “In Iran there is activist movement. Can you comment on it please?” A: Well, yes, there is. But it’s crushed. And how big it is, we don’t know. I’ve always said, when the ayatollah first went in, that educated Iranian women would not put up with it, but they put up with it for decades because they have no choice. So I can’t comment. I don’t know. None of us know. It could be overthrown tonight, it could take 30 years. We just don’t know. But that it will be, is clear.

Q: Well, William, “Is it realistic to expect that world nations could develop a unified effective approach against radical Islamic terrorism that seems to be lacking perhaps due to weak western leadership?” A: Well, I think that’s correct, but the more Russia and China face Islamic terrorism themselves, the more possible it is for America to provide that leadership. But we’re not there yet.

“You said the US, the UK are not directly involved in war in Gaza, but without their weapon it would not fought.” No, that’s true. But we’re not directly involved in terms of people on the ground. You pointed this outright. Sure, the same applies to the Israel, and just say, no, no, no, you are absolutely right. If I didn’t say it, I’m sorry. I apologise. But you are absolutely right. Sorry, I’ve got over excited and I lost it all. Hang on, I will get there.

Q: “Who should we be more concerned about? China or Russia?” A: Undoubtedly Russia in my view, Michael. Why? Because Russia is led by a maniac who is prepared to do anything. China is not led by maniacs. They may have a system, political system we strongly disagree with. They may be terribly authoritarian, et cetera, et cetera, but they’re not mad. Given a choice of dealing with a mad or someone that you strongly disagree with, I prefer to deal with someone you strongly disagree with. And remember we have, when I say we, that is Britain, but also America have in the past, although Britain has said very clearly in the last couple of days that our old relationship with China is bust. But remember back to Nixon and Kissinger, yes, we can, heath in Britain, we can have a relationship with China. We’ve never really had a relationship with Russia other than, if you want to argue, with Gorbachev. And I think you could argue that. Oh, that’s nice of you, thanks.

Marcia says, “The UN is not just a failure, it’s evil.” Tony, “I’m left wondering to what extent, just how history is having an impact on why to the present day the voice of everyday Gazan is silent rather than complaining about the outcome? Hamas is attracted to the… To the present day the voice of the everyday Gazan is silent, rather than complaining about the outcome. Hamas is attracted to the population.” Because in an authoritarian regime or in a regime, which is a terrorist organisation, you put your head above the parapet, it gets knocked off. It’s as grim as that. Mark, “You must also include African conflicts, which dwarf the other conflicts you mentioned in your lecture. The world press is too strongly leftist.” “Foreign Affairs magazine has a heavy majority anti-Israel articles.” Yes, Zakaria is not owned by CNN, but he is a journalist. Yes, I didn’t go into the African situation because that is a different and very complex one, involving all three of the multipolar, all four of the multipolar players. That is to say Iran, China, America, Russia. Yeah. Yeah. Tony, “Where is the invitation whether Arab nation give shelters of Gazans?” Myrna, “In the article in Foreign Affairs further in the authors propose various solutions, including giving up the idea requiring Arabs to recognise Israel. I was shocked. Of course, the article being so long, I haven’t gotten to the end. Maybe I’ll be surprised.” No, well, we cannot expect to read academic articles where everybody agrees together. We are inevitably, and importantly in a democracy, reading different views. We then have to come to our own view.

Marcia, “Even if the US is strong enough, it doesn’t have the guts.” Well, that’s the sense of, in rather different words I said about self-confidence. Europeans, Britain’s in particular, thought, when I was young, Americans had enormous self-confidence. And Britain had enormous self-confidence. And I think that self-confidence has taken a beating. My argument being that if it’s taken a beating, and the American… And ours is different, we won’t come back to that position. We haven’t worked out who we are, what we are since losing an empire. America needs to come to terms now with what it can do. And that means looking outwards, not always looking internally. I think that’s what I would say. Ellen, “I’m so pleased I’m no longer young. The world is terrifying.” Now, there is a point here. Old people, older people like you, Ellen, and like me, are always saying everything’s worse. Now, the important thing is when things are genuinely worse, we are right. We are right. I’m pleased that my grandchildren have Black friends and don’t think of them as Black. They just know them by their name. I’m pleased about all sorts of positive things that have changed for the good in our society. And not least the ability of medicine to cure more of us. But there are some things which are decidedly worse, and we need to say that. And tolerance for others, I think, is worse. It’s in Britain. There are lots of things that are worse. Greed is worse than it was when I was a child. Money has become the all important god. It certainly wasn’t when I was a child in the ‘50s and '60s as a young person.

“The problem with AI, it’s corrupting the database just like a virus would. The more we use AI, the less accurate the information spits out will be.” Well, that’s interesting, Jill. “Soon nothing AI comes up with will be valid.” That is of course possible. “I think,” Jill says then, “because all information will then be suspect.” I think all information is now suspect. I mean, all information in the past was suspect. One of the good things in both in the American elections later this year and the British election is that respectable journalist, respected journalists challenge the truth of statements made by politicians. And that’s useful. In the past, it wasn’t challenged, and it didn’t mean it shouldn’t have been challenged. It just wasn’t. Now they challenge it for facts. Well, they looking at percentages of things and so on.

Q: Naomi, “Years ago, I heard Bill Clinton say that North Korea, not Iran is our greatest threat. How does that stand today?” A: No, I… Well, that’s… Naomi, that’s impossible to answer. I think Iran is our greatest threat, because of its influence throughout the Middle East. That’s its problem. And North Korea is a threat, but I don’t think China will allow it to be a threat. That is why America needs to get closer, not further away from China.

Fiona Alfred… Sorry, it’s Alfred, “I believe that Harari is optimistic. Democracy inherently favours tyranny. How so? Because people are fundamentally greedy, and in a democracy they vote for near term benefit, not the long-term benefit of investment in education.” True. “Lack of education drives towards simplified questions and quick, simple solutions. The power of leaders like Hitler, Mussolini will be dwarfed by the power of the AI field autocrats of the future.” Yes, absolutely, Alfred, and that’s… And Fiona says… I take it, Fiona and Alfred, husband and wife, am I right? Fiona said, “But try we must.” Yes, absolutely try we must. “In Israel, we demonstrate every week,” as Herschel said, “some are guilty, but all are responsible.” Yeah, a very good quotation. Thank you, Peter. It was quite… Well, it was a difficult lecture to prepare. Populous politicians. Populous politicians are politicians who appeal to the lowest common multiple in the electorate they hope will vote for them. And so they take on popular issues. In Britain, I’ll talk about Britain, in Britain, that means things like stopping the boats crossing the channel. And so it becomes simplistic and becomes, “we don’t like immigrants.” And Britain needs immigrants because of, well, for jobs that we don’t have enough people for.

Q: Stuart, “Middle East end game. What happens next?” A: I have no idea, Stuart. If you know the answer, you better wire Washington, London and so on. But in truth, Stuart, we don’t know. I have no idea. It will have to be solved in the end by diplomacy. It will not be solved by war. That is the only thing one can say.

Thanks, Shelley. That’s very nice of you. Carrie, “Putin can afford to attack people from the stands, the bombing last Friday, as he’s using a men as canon fodder. He’s using men from the far east as canon fodder in Russia.” That is absolutely true. Mainly from Siberia. And there are ethnic minorities. Barbara, “About climate change. Catastrophic as climate change is, we can plant trees in the parks of our cities and outside the parks and other places.” Absolutely. And you can do something. Absolutely true. My wife and I collect the rubbish on the beach. Large amounts of plastic rubbish that is thrown up. There was a lot on the beach this afternoon. We went out for a short walk. It’s really… There are things we can do. They are small. It may make us feel better. But if everybody, we always say, if everybody collected rubbish off the beach, there wouldn’t be any rubbish. We would all… But why do people drop it in the first place into the sea? When I was a child, we were taught at school not to drop rubbish. We had a Keep Britain Tidy campaign. I found out recently it still exists, but it doesn’t do anything. When we were young, we had lectures about it at school. We had to do it. We would’ve been punished if anybody had found us dropping sweet wrappers on the floor, chocolate wrappers and so on.

I’ve got over excited here, hang on. Where am I? Marion, “Message from balance as possible analysis. The bottom line is that we’re living in a scary world where ordinary people are not important enough to be considered.” That’s worrying. That is worrying. That’s a fault in our democracies. If that is true, and I believe it is true. And it’s not right, we’ve got to find new ways for our democracies to function.

Q: “Will migrations from Africa not have a great effect on the politics of European countries?” A: George and Olga. You mean now? Yes, it does. And I didn’t have time to go into the whole question of immigration is a major, major problem. In America, there’s the move from South and Central America into America for a better life. From the Sahel where the desert is growing, as Hawkins said, if desert is growing by the year, there are mass migrations from the Sahel into Southern Europe, particularly into Italy. And from Eastern Europe and Middle East across Europe, other people who are taking the boats to Britain. Yes, we have a major problem and no one seems to be addressing that problem. And I could have talked about that and I didn’t. There was a limit in time and I made a choice, because I think many people are quite aware of the problem of immigration.

Q: “Is it possible,” says Robin, “to end the existential threat to Israelis, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and tragedy of innocent Gazans who remain in state by Hamas without dealing with Iran?” A: Yes, I think that is absolutely what I think, but I don’t know how we deal with Iran. Any American intervention in Iran, it will involve Russian involvement and Chinese involvement. But Russian in particular. However, if Russia is defeated in Ukraine and is a wounded beast, there may be a window of opportunity as there was with the Gulf Wars.

Neil says, “Islamic extremism is more of a threat than Russia. Putin won’t live forever. The Islamic Islam takeover the West, partic…” Oh gosh. “Particularly of Western,” sorry. “And particularly of Western Europe,” hang on, I’ve got to find it 'cause this is important. I’ll get there. “Both Jewish and non-Jew and tragedy of innocent Gazans who remain in state by Hamas without dealing with Iran?” No, we have to deal with Iran. “Islamic extremism is more of a threat than Russia. Putin won’t live forever. The Islam takeover of the West, particularly Western Europe is purely a numbers game.” Well, Neil, you are right and we are beginning to wake up in Britain to a major problem that the idea of a integrated multicultural society, when it looks at Muslims from the Middle East, not Muslims from India, Muslims from the Middle East, we are in trouble, because they don’t want to join us. In fact, they want to destroy us. We’ve never faced that situation before.

“The weakness in social media,” says Alex, “is that it gives a platform for group think.” Well done. Absolutely. “Group think,” this sounds like George Orwell. “Group think occurs when participants in any debate or committee are fearful or reluctant to oppose a view opposition, a reluctance, a challenge, or opposed leads to group think.” Absolutely right. And it’s a problem. And I was reading about that only recently. It’s very difficult, particularly for people in positions of authority. So leading a university, for example, it’s not easy. You’ve got to tread a careful line, and it a very difficult line to trace. I think you’re absolutely right.

Robin, “How do we help people? Folks on the street cope with uncertainty. When we humans have such discomfort with change, the pace of change, the substance of change, the direction of change, change, change, change. A reformed UN will be nice, but the problematic root is human nature. We need to figure out how to help us roll with and manage change.” Well, you are right. The problem is human nature. But we have to go on trying to become better. “Local efforts, grassroots education, all in an age of family deterioration.” Well, one of the things that we do need to do in all democratic countries is to look, is not for politicians to look at the education system, but the educators to look at the education system. And there’s a lot of things that we could do in all our countries to provide better education, adult education, community education, family education, school education.

Abigail, “Jewish education focuses on moral education of the younger generation. I believe that is the key for improving education.” Well, yes. I don’t disagree with having moral education. It’s a question of whose morality is being taught. Not all morality is, what should I say? Not all morality is necessarily, as taught in our schools, is positive. We have all sorts of things going on. We have here, for example, in Britain, there’s been a lot of concern about Muslim teachers. We need to think about teaching, in my view, democracy, and we need to be organising democracy. My extreme view, I don’t think it’s extreme, but it’s considered extreme, is I think children over the of 14 should be involved in the governance of their schools and in their education. And I think that goes on beyond that into further and higher education, technical education.

I’ve lost my voice now. I think I better stop. Thanks. Bye.