Peter Zeihan on the next decade and the end of Globalization

Zeihan is an economist, former VP for Stratfor, a private intelligence and security analysis team, and author of several books on global politics. He's got some very interesting ideas about the near future.

1) The West has to stop Russia in Ukraine without becoming directly involved. Either direct involvement or Russian victory will lead to a nuclear exchange.

This is predicated on the fact that Russia's demographics mean that the size of their military is going to be substantially downgraded in the next generation due to the much smaller cohort of young males, at the same time that their technically trained generation comes to retirement age. He believes that Russia does not have the capability to maintain their infrastructure past this point.

Putin wants to dominate the former Soviet republics and Poland, about 20 counties with a population twice that of Russia. He wants to do this to take advantage of natural barriers there to invasion. Zeihan believes that Putin believes that Russia will not exist in 20-30 years unless they do this, and Zeihan concurs with that assessment.

2) The war's next casualty is food security as natural gas is used in fertilizer production. The EU has stopped doing so as NG is twenty times as expensive there as it was 15 years ago at its previous high. This will lead to shortages across the world, and accelerate the end of globalization. 2 billion people are at risk for potential starvation, and to rectify this many nations will have to start planting their own wheat crops. This will impact the US and Canada in that exported food goods for out of season products will be drastically reduced. Food prices will definitely go up. We are literally looking at a phosphate shortage, a natural gas shortage, and a potash shortage at the same time.

3) China is potentially at risk for collapse. They are reliant on food imports (about 8% of their daily calories) and also in energy imports. The US globalization strategy is what allowed them to prosper and that was part of the deal that pried them from the Soviet orbit and helped end the cold war. However they are the single country in the world most dependent on this system, and it's ending. What's more they've brutally failed with their covid response, their demographic imbalance is the worst in the world due to the one child policy, and their current leadership has become Stalinian. Xi lives in an information free zone much as Putin did prior to the Ukraine war, as no one will risk displeasing him. In addition the intelligentsia has been largely purged that opposed Xi, and they lack the technical capability to compete because of this. We'll soon see things like their computer chip manufacture fail completely.

In the west he's predicting demographic pressures as well and the contraction of capital. His belief is that we'll see a reestablishment of trade monopolies within closed systems, which of course will reduce wealth, and even perahps Imperial ambitions of technologically advanced countries recreating colonial holdings, though that may be cultural and economic imperialism as opposed to gunboats and marines.

Anyway, been watching some of his stuff. His data appears to be valid, I think he's not taking into account technological advancement which is also expected to be significant, but unless there are some paradigm shaking moves we'll likely see some of this play out to fruition.

He also properly assessed Putin's specific goals a decade ago. We are likely to be living in interesting times.

Here's one of his talks, you can find others on Youtube:

My analysis of how this impacts the US. In the long term the US will come out of this much better than most other economies. And for us the energy shortage won't be as severe, and will likely help our move to renewables. We are a food exporter, so this will help the US megacorps that own almost all of that now, but also the small farmers who are still out there. We will need to reinvest in industrialization, and we have the resources to do that. We will be able to scale down military expenditures, as there isn't much point to it if we aren't enforcing global trade.

In the short term the entire world will entire recession, and over the next year or so probable depression. That will impact the US economy as well.

So if this plays out like this we are looking at potential unrest at home in the short term, probably playing out most dramatically right around 2024. This will incite our extremists even further, even though a lot of the gains will come their way in the next few years after that, especially as we reindustrialize.

So I'd say 2024 is the crisis time period, a weakened democracy with an elderly though IMO resourceful leader, facing real headwinds at home while the nature of the global order we secured unravels.

That could go very wrong very quickly. And is a hell of a lot like the conditions that led to the ascendence of fascism in Europe.

My analysis, no matter what we do, Xi and Putin are going to ruin the world forever, and there is no upside.

Forever is a long time.

We'll see if they are actively suicidal. Personally I doubt it. These raging narcissists tend to want to hold on as long as they can.

One and 3 are kind of interesting when taken together.

Russia has a dwindling male population, but China has a shortage of females.

I'll leave it to those of you with actual knowledge of the economic and cultural relations between the two...

Still, chin up!

Stop right there.

Your country is slowly coming apart at the seams, as are many western democracies. The U.S. just happens to be leading the charge.

Also, there's a simple solution to the looming food crisis.

Man, this guy is depressing. If he's not George Santos and this stuff is accurate, we are in for a wild ride.

Next up: Ukraine is the #1 producer of Neon in the world. This was all based in Mariupol. All of it is ashes now.

So no signs? Well, yeah, but a significantly larger problem - neon is used for the apertures for semiconductor manufacturers.

Hopefully we are ramping up that as part of Biden's semiconductor program, because that's pretty much non-negotiable for modern living.

Another likely casualty of the war - Airbus. Which gets the vast majority of it's aluminum and titanium from Russia for it's airframe. And it's already having to negotiate Brexit (likely another Russian maneuver) because it gets almost all of its manufactured wings and many of its engines from a plant in Wales.

Well that was my worry. Our economy is going to be fine. Our political issue is specifically what I was concerned about. You know, the rise of fascism part.

And yeah, we are a food exporter, have better demographics than all of Europe, Russia, China (and oh yeah, Canada) in how our workforce is aging, if oil prices rise will be energy independent, and control the largest navy in the world to be able to secure trade with any partner we wish. We have technical capability and the largest economy in the world. Most of these things aren't going to change, indeed a world in crisis might hurt us but far less than it will other nations that don't have this combination. Hell, we even have cheap transport - the US has more miles of navigable rivers then the rest of the world combined.

The big question is that going to be in the hands of a progressive democracy or a fascist dictatorship.

That would be China.

Look, I get the reflexive anti-Americanism, it's required for your ego. But that's like saying Canada had the 3rd largest navy in the world at the end of WWII. It's technically true - and completely irrelevant.

And more fun. He's predicting a collapse of the German manufacturing system. NG is at 6 times the price there it was before the war (20 times what it is in the US), which isn't just impactful for heating supplies and electrical generation, but also for petrochemical production. Germany has stopped producing not only its own fertilizer, but also its own steel and aluminum. The nearest NG source that isn't Russia is Algeria. They have enough for now but are hoarding it, and that's with a very mild winter and dealing with seven different marginal suppliers to make up the shortfall.

Their largest chemical manufacturer is in the process of picking up and relocating to Louisana, to get access to US supplies, in order to be able to then send the chemicals back to Germany to try to save their economy. Guess that explains why Germany was so reluctant to sign off on Leopards for Russia. They were hoping to be able to restore this flow once hostilities ended. But Russia is going to need signficant technical help for that, and who knows when the war is going to end, AND they are having problems with their pipelines as ships stop picking up their end terminals in the Black Sea due to insurance issues.

And that could literally break the pipelines. It did once before, in 1992, when the pipes froze when they stopped flowing. It took the Russians 20 years and outside technical help to fix that. And BP created their Siberian pipeline - that too has a real chance of failure.

So we could see major disruptions for BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Daimler-Chrysler in Germany. And decreased supplies to China.

In the meantime China is getting around this by ferrying small tankers out to six supertankers lashed together off the coast of Portugal and doing ship to ship transfers, first to the supertanker island, then to the supertanker for the ~11,000 km trip to China. This is an ecological disaster waiting to happen - to the shores of Western Europe and Northwest Africa.

I listened to him on Joe Rogan and it was an absolutely fascinating discussion, so much so that I ordered his book

I’ve listened to a couple of his interviews and was once a subscriber to STRATFOR.

I would point out that when people earn their living by others being worried about the future and so buying their intelligence and security products they have an incentive to hype potential flashpoints.

He does have some good points though. Although I disagree with some things. I’m seeing more a new phase of globalization opposed to neo-mercantilism.

I put some of my thoughts in this thread:

http://wordforge.net/index.php?thre...ramework-don’t-call-it-tpp-china-etc….123061/

Also, yes the US will come out ahead in this comparatively speaking.

To copy/paste something I’ve been posting for years:

Assuming we can solve the Senate issue America is poised to maintain our position in the world for a long time to come.

We have the world’s largest collection of arable land bisected by the world’s largest navigable river system. With the exception of Rare Earth Minerals we have an abundance of every resource a modern economy needs (including oil, which we need to transition away from, but are the largest producer in the world). We have the world’s great two trading oceans on either side (connected by the world’s largest freight rail network) with frozen tundra and deserts to our north and south (good luck invading us).

Then there is our population. We have a large enough population to sustain and grow our economy. And for all our faults we are the best country in the world at taking in and integrating migrants, so workers won’t be an issue. Present issues aside we are relatively stable. We are well educated.

In other words our physical and human capital stocks are the greatest in the world.



I’ll just add that with the passage of the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Adjustment Act we are even better situated to dominate this next phase of globalization that before. Combined with the Biden been able to organize the Rules Based Order nations to unite against Russia and China AND increase their defense spending and while there are still some serious issues ahead we are in a much better place to deal with them than we have in decades.

Just gotta figure out the whole constrained by minoritarian nihilists thing.

I'm not anti-American (far from it) and your opinions do not change the hard fact that China currently has the largest naval force in the world.

Now, you might want to argue that the United States has more a technologically-advanced fleet, but most experts say that in any naval battle the bigger fleet almost always wins.

Good thing the USN is over twice the size of the PLAN.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davida...sa-thats-because-chinese-ships-are-small/amp/

My point stands and remains factually correct. China has more ships than the United States. You should also read the link I posted that talks about numerical superiority in naval engagements.

In any event, you're comparing ship sizes. And as all the ladies tell me, size doesn't matter.

Hmmm…. Okay, let’s test out the Canadian education system here.

Billy has one hundred $1 bills.

Sally has fifty $5 bills.

Who has more money Billy or Sally?

Here are some better questions, if you're going to use stupid analogies:

Who could cover more area with their bills? If Billy and Sally set their bills on fire, who would have the bigger fire?

Also, understand that I want the United States to have the bigger and better Navy compared with countries like China and Russia.

But my aspirations and your arrogant jingoism won't change the reality of the situation.

LOL, no.

Most of PLAN isn't even blue water capable. They have very little logistics support, almost no power projection, and what they have there have been developed in the last 5 years.

They've finally got their first real carrier out in 2021, sea trials last year. It carries half the airplanes that the US heavy carriers have. The US has 10 of those, and another 10 Amphibious Assault ships, which can be tasked as aircraft carriers if necessary. The America AAS is at least as capable as the Chinese Liaoning. The US fleet air arm, the fighters that actually fly off the ships, is literally 7 times the size BEFORE staging VTOL aircraft on the AA ships. And the pilot quality is far better for the simple reason we have decades of excellence doing these jobs and get about ten times the air hours in training that PLAN does.

They are ramping up quickly, but we'll see what they will be able to do with their rapidly aging workforce and their rapidly rising labor cost - it's gone up 11 times in the last 20 years, and currently is 3 times more expensive than Mexico's labor force.

Add that to the fact they import 80% of their oil, and don't have the capability of protecting it from the US if we wish to deny it to them... Indeed, a US blockade could bring them to their knees, as their economy is almost entirely dependent on cash from exports. No oil, no food, no trade.

There's one scenario, and one scenario only that the PLAN could rival the US - within 50 miles of the Chinese coast. And that because of land based air and missiles. That would be very costly for the US.

Out at sea, protecting the trade lanes, the navy itself? Absolutely no chance.

I do agree we'd see a lot more Chinese ships across a lot more area of ocean on fire. So you got that part right at least. LOL.

Oh, did I mention that 1 of the 3 Chinese carriers is the same class as the Moskva that is currently decorating the Black Sea's floor, lost to a country that doesn't even have a navy?

Yeah, there's an occasional good guest on that sparks some great conversation, it's hardly the dumpster fire some people would have you believe. This is why I don't listen to people like @Diacanu

The conversation with Zeihan was extremely interesting, I highly recommend it

Did you mean the Russian POS Admiral Kuznetsov? Because Moskva was a cruiser, not a carrier.

It does matter. I’m guessing you don’t realize that the PLAN is responsible for maritime security duties that in the US are handled by the U.S. Coast Guard and state and local law enforcement.

We aren’t talking about the Chinese having ten destroyers to one of our carriers. We’re talking about them having ten of these for one of our carriers.

I never said it was an unmitigated roaring dumpster fire.
More like a wet smokey one.
I always admitted there were occasional good guests.

Don’t forget the Coast Guard!


As of December 2021, the U.S. Coast Guard's authorized force strength is 44,500 active duty personnel and 7,000 reservists . The service's force strength also includes 8,577 full-time civilian federal employees and 31,000 uniformed volunteers of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. The service maintains an extensive fleet of roughly 250 coastal and ocean-going cutters, patrol ships, buoy tenders, tugs, and icebreakers; as well as nearly 2,000 small boats and specialized craft. It also maintains an aviation division consisting of more than 200 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.While the U.S. Coast Guard is the second smallest of the U.S. military service branches in terms of membership, the service by itself is the world's 12th largest naval force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard?wprov=sfti1

Yes. The Lianoning was laid down as Moskva's sister ship the Riga. She was never completed and eventually sold to the Chinese. They call her a carrier, but the ship frame is the same - though the Chinese didn't install the cruise missile launchers.

It's really a treaty technicality - aircraft carriers over 15K tons weren't allowed to transit the Black Sea straits, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. So they put a missile launcher on the Moskva and called her an Aircraft Carrying Missile Cruiser.

Same BS with the Japanese Defense Force and their Anti-Submarine Destroyers - that can carry VTOL fighters as soon as they want to deploy them.

Not being a signatory of that treaty and not giving a shit about the Black Sea, China just calls her a carrier.

We wouldn't call her that though. 24 J-15s, without a catapult, it's a very diffident launch frame at best. One of our 30 year old CVNs has 4 catapults and can launch 75 fighters faster than the Laainoing can launch 24, and on top of that without catapult assisted lift the J-15s are limited to about half their optimal flight load of fuel and weapons. They tend to crash a lot in training as well -they are the heaviest fighter air frame in the world right now.

FTFY.

Lianoning isn't related to Moskva at all other than it's a former Russian vessel.