I don't think I agree entirely with his thesis that long-term causes are the faux amis here and short-term causes are by themselves "sufficient". Part of the point of history and of governance at the macro level is making sure that the fundamentals are, as they say, sound. You're trying to avoid the pitfalls of short-term crises in the first place.

Thus, the Federal Reserve exists to moderate the money supply, and while it seems clear to some that ill-suited anti-inflationary measures were key to the financial crisis, so too was a long-term decline in both pro forma and actual regulation of the financial markets, which allowed the transference of risk on a large scale.

I would also say he gives short shrift to the empire as idea, which seems to underlie both the British and Soviet collapses in different senses. The British Empire had clearly been under increasing internal contradiction for decades, certainly since the beginning of Indian self-governance movements half a century earlier, and it was the fact of the war for democracy's sake (without delving into accuracy) that led to demands for self-determination. And of course the war had been costly. Meanwhile, it's not entirely clear that the British Empire "collapsed" as opposed to morphing or merging into a new international system -- globally the UN and WTO and so on, and continentally, the EU.

I find dhartung more convincing than Niall Ferguson.