Zeihan has espoused that the US was getting out of sea lane protection of trade ending globalization.
The latest speeches from the US VP have shown there is a definite shift from the rules-based liberal world order. In fact, they are speeches that the King hands to vassels. And the president has too with the attempted grab of Ukraine raw materials for weaponry/munitions support.
What happens economically to NATO/Europe. It has to massively increase defense spending and enlarge their current military forces likely creating havoc upon their social safety nets & perhaps a big shift in their industrial based from making consumption goods to weaponry & munitions.
The US strategic vision very well shift from a world view to a hemisphere centric vision. Levering US factories from China to Mexico.
Is it conceivable that Washington could reach an understanding with its great-power rivals, China and Russia, agreeing to stay out of each other’s respective spheres of influence? If so, the fate of Taiwan would be as sealed as that of the Caucasus.
But a benefit would be the end of US efforts to impose Western values on the world. Tossed into the dustbin of history. Trillions could be saved for internal improvements and health service for the native US populace.
If my crystal ball is close to envisioning what is occurring; it will be very messy as new supply infrastructure is created to shifted to support the new vision.
Also the existing US bureaucracy will fight tooth and nail as existing policy & agendas are radically changed from policies initiated in 1945.
Such a shift has not been seem since the Congress of Vienna.
The China policy of the Nixon admin was to divide China and Russia. Now we are dividing Russia and China.
What is what? Who knows? A New York City shell game. WWE and beyond. Toss the board up in the air if all looks lost.
I was just studying Google news results on the tariffs. The tariffs are on. We are in a trade war. The markets are falling. Layoffs are happening. The numbers to come for the rest of the year will be bad and/or getting worse.
I had a brief conversation with a specialized consultant involved with major banking communications. His take the banks are expecting deflation. The highest manager I deal with at work expects deflation.
My family is avoiding the topic. They are highly skill professionals not at all financial people. Their financial people are puffed up simpletons who do not know a market top and down turn until it is too late.
I will take care of my extended family.
Trump is a student of history. Don’t believe he never cracked a book. He has. The problem is the direction of the nation. It is unnecessary to go down this road. It is wrong to go down this road.
People want things done. The wrong things done might dawn on them later.
It is the same thing that happened to the Roman Empire. We have a weak and feckless government. Receding our sphere of influence while the court jesters egg him on.
First, the world population is aging, so some depopulation is in the Offing regardless of globalization or deglobalization.
Amazon:
In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging. The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think.
Second, if regions have to make their own goods; that argues for more local industrialization to offset the decline of China as the world’s manufacturing center.
The old world will be ending. Or rather how things used to work. But a new world will emerge to cope with deglobalization. In other words deglobalization does NOT end civilization.
The fact that he states that the list is rather small for countries that can make this work indicates that if he is correct, many countries will fail.
World hunger most definitely can be world (as we know it) ending.
As stated in your link:
American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe.
Zeihan analyzes the impact of de-globalization on six economic sectors: transport, finance, energy, industrial materials, manufacturing, and agriculture. He identifies North American countries as most likely to succeed in a de-globalized era, and he names China, among others, as most likely to be impacted.
Zeihan points to the US, the United Kingdom (UK), Japan, France, and Argentina as the likeliest beneficiaries of this change, given their internal waterways and safe borders. Conversely, the change would disadvantage several countries, including Germany and China, both at the end of exposed supply routes.
In what fantasy land can Russia’s sphere of influence include Europe?! Last I looked Ukraine, a weak nation desperately clawing its way towards EU membership, hit by a massive murderous invasion force from the this would be suzerain of Eurasia, managed to inflict huge losses on humiliation on Russia and is, somehow, still standing.
And the rest of Europe, despite a despicable betrayal by the USA, seems ready to fight on Ukraine’s side or at least provide them with the aid necessary to continue.
Utterly agree on the VPs announcing an end to a rules based order. He and his puppet master Peter Thiel are enthralled with the notion of a silicon and testosterone fueled war of all against all….
The of Taiwan is essentially sealed by geography. Mainland China has a distinct and strong “home field” advantage. The only counter is nukes and so we are back to the MAD diplomacy of the Cold War.
Agree, but Zeihan has repeatedly talked about that. When Russia decides to go after a NATO country, probably Poland, it will probably have to launch a small number of small nukes to start it off. It’s the only way Russia can win - nukes. And it will do this as a way of testing Europe – how far are you willing to go, because I am willing to launch my nukes.
I hope/expect NATO has a response along the lines of “We have a strong capability to know where pseudo-czar Putin and key boyars are in real time, and so if nukes (of any size) come from you to anywhere you will be decapitated; end of you, end of Russian imperial resurgence, and if necessary end of Russia, EOM.
