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.
Much more at the link.
Zeihan did anticipate the Ukraine War in his 2014 book:âThe Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorderâ.
Reported on the Beeb last night: now that TIG has already yielded territorial concessions and no NATO membership, now the Russian foreign minister is demanding no non-Ukrainian troops allowed in Ukraine. So, according to the Russians, Ukraine has to stand there, nekked, while Puting reequips and retrains, before having another go at them.
Iâm pretty sure the Russian view is everything they occupy is Russian, so the only area the âno foreign troopsâ ban applies to is areas not occupied by Russians.
Zeihan writes and talk and makes prediction based on geopolitics and demographics.
He did predict that Russia would move on Russia in 2014.
After WW 2 US guaranteed the seaways allowing global trade and eventually globalization of world trade. And made alliances opposing the spread of communism. He claims the US is moving away from the guarantee of seaways and that the world is de globalizing. Also due to demographics some countries will virtually cease to exist.
His website has many short videos on what he supposed is happening and will occur.
You can peruse them here:
He is a smart, entrepreneurial, and often (not always) correct commentator on how demographics (long term) and power projection (shorter term) both depend on and shape world commerce. His best work involves comprehension and updating of the theories of the brilliant Admiral Alfred Mahan upon economic power, trade, and naval power.
I check in on his stuff and sometimes listen. Better by far, but requiring more attention and time, are lectures at the Naval War College, like these by the understated but devastatingly brilliant and knowledgable Sarah Paine
It is quite possible that we are losing our economic dominance. That happens to all âempiresâ eventually. However, I am a numbers guy, and the spiral of oblivion that our debt is headed to will definitely cause us to lose our economic dominance. Iâll take a âpossibleâ over a âdefiniteâ any day. Now there is scant evidence that the debt problem can be solved, but at least someone is finally trying to do it.
Even if we were to reduce the annual deficit to 3% of GDP, as many have proposed, we would still likely be on a path to oblivion. And itâs mainly based on simple arithmetic. Of course, if you assume GDP regularly grows by 5 or 6%, then it might work out, but what are the odds of that happening? (near zero)
A country that has entered a debt spiral MUST look out for itself. At least for a while until they fix the problem. Because if they donât fix the problem, they will eventually fade. And that period of fading is never pretty and causes all sorts of dislocation and hardship.
Not âbigger threatâ, rather âbigger riskâ. Russia is a bigger threat because it is a nuclear power, but Russia tends to war in nibbles along their borders. It seems likely that Putin would like to reconstitute the USSR (or sorts), but it doesnât seem economically possible anytime soon. But Germany has a history of causing world wars* after major economic dislocations. And right now, Germany isnât doing what it needs to do to avoid their coming economic dislocation. Why do you think more and more Germans are becoming attracted to right-wing parties?
You must be referring to the 2014 agreement here, right? Because as weâve clearly seen, after that agreement, Putin did indeed reequip and retrain and did indeed go after Ukraine again.
* Personally, I think that any country that starts two world wars deserves the âdeath penaltyâ, that kind of country should be eliminated, and should be reformulated either under neighboring countries or under an entirely new form of leadership. Kind of like the emperor system in Japan was entirely eliminated as part of the end of WWII. Germany was treated far too leniently after the war.
These will occur out of simple necessity. People are living longer (increase retirement age). The taxable working populations is getting smaller relative to the elderly (increase taxes on workers). Robots/AI generating an increasing amount of wealth while replacing humans (redistribute wealth from the owners of the robots to the displaced humans through a robot tax).
I am talking about the new surrender monkey in chief, ignoring Ukraine, and the greater Europe, while he spouts Putinâs talking points.
Washington â President Trump attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a âdictator without elections,â echoing rhetoric from the Kremlin about the war in Ukraine and escalating a public feud between the two leaders.
âHe refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden âlike a fiddle,ââ Mr. Trump wrote. âA Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.â
Translation: TIG is going to yank US aid: weapons, ammo, spare parts, and probably take action against any of our âalliesâ in Europe who try to help, as he signs Ukraine over to Putin.
You are correct. The Ukrainian Constitution apparently allows elections to be postponed during a national emergency, like the current state of martial law. Zelensky addressed that issue a day or two ago: if they had elections, the troops would need to go back to their home districts to vote. Would that be a viable scenario, with Russians probing their defensive lines for weakness?
No-one has been thoughtful enough to post the part of the Zelensky interview I saw. This piece touches on the election issue, starting at the 3:55 mark, the logistics of having the troops, and Ukrainians who left the country, due to the war, vote.
Britain and France have sufficient nuclear weapons to destroy Russia (you only need a few dozen to do the job.) They have the tools to provide the Ukraine security guaranty on their own if they are willing to put their own derrieres on the line.
Just look at Pakistan. They only have a handful of nukes and nobody touches them.
The Russians, having already gained the territory concessions and exclusion from NATO that they were demanding, are now saying any other European troops in Ukraine are unacceptable.
âNow there is scant evidence that the debt problem can be solved, but at least someone is finally trying to do it.â
Who is trying to solve the debt problem ??? You canât possibly mean Trump. If Trump is trying to solve it, why does he want a $4,000,000,000,000 increase in the debt ceiling ???
Not really Trump, heâs a simple showman and buffoon ⌠who happened to get elected. I think Musk is a lot more serious about the debt. Iâm pretty sure that he realizes it was mainly the prosperity and freedom of the USA that got him to where is today. And I suspect he wants to keep it (the USA) that way. I donât think money itself motivates him, I think âbig thingsâ motivate him a lot more, things like creating a new US car company perhaps with autonomous driving someday, or digging cool tunnels quickly, or catching rockets as they fall to earth, or colonizing Mars, or helping fix the US debt problem, etc.
Because of reality? The reality is that every penny of our debt is repeatedly refinanced, and every penny of the interest on our debt is repeatedly refinanced, AND all the excess spending is newly financed. Every. Single. Week. And actually twice each week (every Tuesday and Thursday, yesterday $300 BILLION was refinanced). The only way to not increase the debt ceiling is to default on the debt. And nobody wants that. And the only way to slow the spiral into debt oblivion is to increase revenue AND decrease spending as much as possible. But increasing revenue and decreasing spending canât happen immediately. The federal government is like an aircraft carrier; it takes a long time and a lot of distance for it to turn, even to turn just a few degrees.
