#peter zeihan

[ootbwithdriss]

Joe Rogan and Peter zeihan on china

[darnellclayton]

Peter Zeihan’s Thoughts: French 🇫🇷 Troops, Ukraine 🇺🇦 & The European Union’s 🇪🇺 Future

Peter Zeihan discusses France 🇫🇷 discussing sending troops to Ukraine 🇺🇦 & why it makes sense. Also thoughts about the European Union 🇪🇺. Peter Zeihan offers his unfiltered thoughts about France 🇫🇷 proposal to send troops to Ukraine 🇺🇦. Interesting points he makes: French 🇫🇷 troops could defend Ukrainian 🇺🇦 borders along Belarus 🇧🇾 & Moldova 🇲🇩 (along the renegade Transnistria region) France…

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[houseofbrat]

Peter Zeihan || Agricultural Disruptions in Argentina and Ukraine

Despite some food scares coming out of the former Soviet space, Mother Nature helped 2022 crop production look pretty solid in most of the great agriculture basins of the world. However, this could be the world's last food-secure year for quite a while.

[imall4frogs]

“It’s still possible; it’s just not sane.”

—Peter Zeihan on the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan

[avaricology]

What does this mean for you? Watch until the end to find out.

[arcticdementor]

> God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America. -- Otto von Bismarck In Isaac Asimov's 1940s "Foundation"...

In "The Accidental Superpower," Peter Zeihan treats geopolitics as the great augur of future events. Zeihan does not reference Asimov's "Foundation" series or the idea of "psychohistory," but the resemblance is striking. Geopolitics like psychohistory allows us to anticipate broad historical forces. Zeihan like Seldon advocates harnessing historical trends to change the future. And, funnily enough, Zeihan like Seldon predicts a coming age of turmoil and conflict. Zeihan believes the whole global system we've known since the end of WWII is going to change. And so, as in Asimov's "Foundation," Zeihan believes that leaders that harness geopolitics will make better decisions than leaders that don't.

Except America. America is so blessed by geography and history that we are immune to the world's troubles. We will dominate the 21st Century without even trying. We are, Zeihan says, "The Accidental Superpower". But to explain this difference between America and the world, it is necessary to first treat geopolitics.

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For instance, two populations of equal size, one in the mountains, one in the river valleys, will develop in some predictable ways. The population in the river valley will farm fertile lands and build money on trade; the population in the mountain valley is likely to stay poor and fragment into fractious ethnic enclaves. But the river nation may be more vulnerable to invasion, the mountain people likelier to hide away and thwart foreign oppression. The same geopolitical realities can be good or bad, depending on the currents of the day.

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"Balance of transport" is the fruit of the agricultural revolution. Sedentary people can store up wealth and accumulate resources. So a strong nation needs to be bound together by trade.

As a positive example, Zeihan cites Egypt, where geography binds the people together. The Nile forms a stable channel of trade, while the desert segregates Egypt from the outside world. In a world where the Pharaoh can inspect his entire country from river barge, it's only natural that a stable and centralized government would rule for millennia on end. But when new technologies like the chariot emerged and made the desert a highway for armies, it was only natural that Egypt would cease to be independent, and be governed by a succession of Persians and Romans and Byzantines and Arabs.

As a negative example of "balance of transport," Zeihan cites, interestingly, Canada. Although Canada is a wealthy nation, its geography actually pulls its provinces apart. Zeihan notes that the barren Canadian Shield, the high passes of the Rockies, and the great gulf of the St. Lawrence River naturally divide Canada into several distinct regions. It is thus easier for each region to trade with the United States than with each other. This explains, in some degree, why Quebec never fully integrated with the rest of Canada, and why Quebecois secession in the 90's would have effectively ended Canada's existence. In a later chapter, Zeihan speculates that Alberta could pose such a risk in the future, as its oil and mineral wealth give it a very different economy from the rest of Canada. At the same time, union with Canada is almost entirely a burden on Alberta, because it is the only province that pays more to Toronto than it receives, and it is heavily restricted by environmental policies imposed on the whole country. It might be going too far to imagine Albertan secession, as Zeihan does, but this kind of analysis might provide a wealth of insights into the future of Canadian politics.

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America's waterways bless us with a tremendous "balance of transport". They are at the center of America's identity and history. They allow us to accumulate wealth effortlessly. Our waterways help explain the historical mystery of how 13 colonies joined in common purpose against the British: America's East is one economic unit. Our waterways help explain the historical mystery of why the American government has been so small: America is naturally so easy to traverse that government roads were never needed. (Zeihan notes that when Germany was building its railroad network in the 1840's, America's federal government had built one road, the "National" Road.) With our tremendous water network, things that would be impossible to any other country are casual accomplishments in America.

This is only the beginning of America's geopolitical blessings. The majority of the Lower 48 is in a temperate zone, a perfect climate for growing crops. We are separated from the rest of the world by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, which makes us almost impervious to invasion. We dominate the North American continent, vastly overpowering the two countries we have to share it with. Of the Rocky Mountains running through the North American continent, we control most of the major passable valleys. We have so many perfect world-class deepwater ports that we aren't even using all of it. ("The United States has more port potential than the rest of the world combined. [...] Chesapeake Bay alone boasts longer stretches of prime port property than the entire continental coast of Asia from Vladivostok to Lahore.") We are the only major power with access to both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, and can sell our goods in either direction. We are blessed with fertile valleys and croplands, rocky rivers for mills for industry, oil and natural gas and minerals and raw materials of every variety. Our balance of transport is effortless; industrialization came naturally; we easily maintain the greatest navy in the world; and not once but twice our economy has built the greatest military force ever known. We have, here, in America, everything we could ever want.

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The crux of our current world order is rooted in the resolution to World War II. After the war, America had the world's only major industrial economy which had not been destroyed by that war. Russia was the world's only other power. By any historical standard, Zeihan argues, the expected next move was for America to occupy Europe, establish military hegemony, and then impose peace or war on the world and loot Europe of what remained. Instead, at the Bretton Woods conference, America laid the basis for a new world order based on free trade

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America didn't conquer the world; it "bribed" it through its economic strength. As the Cold War progressed, more and more countries joined the free trade system America established. The "Bretton Woods" system established global near-peace and prosperity, mostly free trade the world over, almost an end to wars over access to markets and raw materials, everything we today call "capitalism" and "globalism". But all this is just a byproduct of American foreign policy, and is highly unusual

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It is a point that cannot be understated: the whole order of global politics depends on America's international free trade system. We have changed the normal course of politics for every country that is part of that system. Germany is an industrial power today on the base of their exports, which they can only maintain because America keeps safe the flow of raw materials on which Germany relies. China is an industrial power today because America keeps safe the flow of manufactured goods from China to its customer nations. Japan and Britain have access to oil because America safeguards the global market on which the tankers travel. The global economic system is safe because America pays for it to be safe. We subsidize the wealth and prosperity of the entire world.

And this is the problem: America's free trade system benefits everyone in the world except America.

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America pays for the global free trade system. America hardly uses the global free trade system. America bears most of the burdens of the global free trade system. America reaps few of the rewards. With the implosion of the Soviet Union, there are not even ideological motivations for us to maintain the Bretton Woods system. Thus, it is not only logical but inevitable that the free trade system the world currently enjoys will come to an end.

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The second global crisis will be growing competition over oil. Global oil supplies are not unlimited, and industrial economies will be competing more for natural resources in order to maintain their standards of living. This is not a new struggle, and the competition in oil has been mediated in large part by America's leadership. But now America has shale. With the development of shale, America has gone from being an oil importer to an oil exporter. We are no longer dependent on the Middle East for our needs, and are only involved for the sake of our allies. So it's only natural that our interest in oil will wane at the exact moment that the rest of the world's interest grows. (And what do our allies do for us, anyways?) So Zeihan predicts that American mediation will fall apart. Conflicts over oil will escalate to wars, and whole nations will have to act very quickly if they don't want the lights to go out.

The third major crisis is a global demographic shift. The world's major economies are all ageing. The baby boomer phenomenon was not contained to America; all over the world the elderly are going to retire en masse. The next generation will be much smaller. This implies, of course, crises over pensions and other social security systems. But it implies something much greater about the availability of capital. Workingmen are generally net producers, as they save money in anticipation of retirement. Retirees are net consumers -- they make little income and draw from their savings. So as the global baby boomer generation retires, there will be a massive withdrawal from savings accounts the world over. People who have been investing money will start saving money. And overnight the supply global capital will dry up. There will no longer be as much money to invest in roads, new businesses, hospitals in Afghanistan, factories in Bangladesh. A lot of the "progress" we have come to expect in world affairs will suddenly come to a stop.

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So this is "The Coming International Disorder". America, through its blessings and God's "special providence," is powerful without even trying. We are "The Accidental Superpower". We built a new world order based on global capitalism and free trade, one that suspended the normal everyday conflicts over markets and materials. That suspension of global conflicts is coming to an end. America is going to retreat from the affairs of the world, and will exercise such dominance that the 21st Century will be the American Century. The rest of the world will come to blows.

…

• China. China is geographically unstable. Its mountains and river valleys have always worked to congregate its wealth and capital on the coasts, away from the core of the country. This will cause great internal divisions as China seeks to navigate the 21st Century. Because China's wealth is totally dependent on the Bretton Woods system America has so graciously provided. China would still be a poor country today if America had not subsidized China's industrialization and shipping all over the world. Without Bretton Woods and with the coming demographic crisis, China will no longer have the capital it has used to develop and pacify its population. And if China wants to break out, it is surrounded at sea by hostile island nations, and on land by hostile conquered minority peoples. Zeihan predicts that China poses no threat to America whatsoever, we could win a trade war with two hands tied behind our backs. If China poses a threat for anyone it's more likely Japan over oil.

• Russia. Russia faces one of the worst demographic crises of any major power. Its birthrates collapsed after the fall of the Soviet Union and have never really recovered. This is especially concerning because Russia is so geographically unstable that it needs a healthy population to guard its borders. Russia has no real frontier, there are no natural barriers like a great mountain range or desert that protect it from other nations. This is why it has usually protected itself by expanding and invading other nations. But today Russia cannot maintain its current borders if its population is going to shrink. So its only logical that Russia will act now, before the demographic crisis, to push forward into Europe where its borders will be smaller. (Russia's moves in Crimea and Ukraine fit this pattern.) Zeihan predicts, though, that the odds against Russia are probably too great, and it is not unlikely that Russia may collapse entirely as a country before the century is out. (And still the main threat Russia poses it to our allies, not America itself.)

• Mexico. Mexico may be America's real rival and threat. Mexico is troubled in every way that America is blessed. But proximity to America means that, for all its troubles, Mexico's markets will always be safe. Even as a drug war rages over a country practically consumed by anarchy, Mexico is one of the world's 20 largest economies. So Mexico can only go up from here. Its relationship with the US will then become more contentious. The key issue is the border -- the US-Mexican border is a vast stretch of desert and mountain, it exists only on a map. It is a perfect hideout for cartels, criminals, and illegal immigrants. The same geography that brought Americans into Mexico in the 1840's will now work in reverse (has already worked in reverse), at America's expense. Conflict will only grow. It is a deep irony that the country that really portends the greatest trouble for America going forward may not be Russia or China but Mexico.

…

If I had to criticize Zeihan's model, I would say that history does not always move in aggregates. Geopolitics can predict large events, but not small ones. This is something Asimov discusses at length in his treatment of "psychohistory" in the Foundation series. There, for thousands of years, events unfold exactly as psychohistorian Hari Seldon predicted them. And then, without forewarning, one man leaps off the pages of history, gathers together a new empire, and thwarts all expectations of history. That man, "The Mule," makes an ass of all our assumptions. Psychohistory can predict broad trends but not small variances.

So I would level this criticism at the lens of geopolitics. It considers nations, not individuals, not how single leaders or real people diverge from expected trends.

Zeihan, for instance, considers immigration only in positive terms, noting how it renews America's demographic pyramid. But it's clear that immigration causes great conflict within America, conflict that does not appear in traditional geopolitical models. Likewise, it is not obvious to me that America remaining powerful on the world stage means America staying stable at home. America and Americans often have different interests. I can certainly think of one global power which, in the Third Century, turned to violence and civil war, even as it continued to dominate the world around it.

[ootbwithdriss]

Joe Rogan and Peter zeihan on the problems concerning the world population

[houseofbrat]

Why Scottish Independence Will NEVER Happen!