Question Time with Peter Zeihan: Episode 1

This is the first episode of our new series called ‘Question Time with Peter Zeihan!’ Every week or so I’ll be sitting down with one of the team members from Zeihan on Geopolitics and have them dish out some rapid-fire questions from the ‘Ask Peter’ forum. I’ll be joined by my Social Media Manager, Kyle, for the first few episodes.

In our inaugural episode, we’ll be discussing the current status of the Ukraine War, the Russian oil and gas industry, and the likelihood of nuclear conflict. Spoiler alert: most of the questions I’m answering won’t be rapid-fire answers…oopsy.

If you’d like to submit a question for a future installment, click the link below.

Ask Peter Zeihan

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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The United Kingdom, After America

FOR MORE ON THE FUTURE OF United Kingdom, SEE DISUNITED NATIONS

PURCHASE DISUNITED NATIONS HERE

For those with daddy issues, today’s installment in the ‘Post American’ series might be a bit triggering. If you’re still reading, we’ll be looking at the UK’s economic and security dilemmas as the global order falls.

The UK never quite came to terms with the end of its empire. Once the Brits joined the EU, they latched onto Europe for everything they needed and skipped over the transition that all the other imperial powers went through. So, they were already outdated, but had a crutch to rely on; then Brexit hit and it left the UK stumbling and fumbling.

With the UK’s future up in the air, there’s really only two paths forward. First, they could seek out new trade deals globally, but they’ll have to find some new non-imperialistic tactics to do so. Second, they could swallow their pride and nestle up under the Americans’ wings.

The UK will likely choose to align with the US, even if it means sacrificing some autonomy. The British mindset will be to push against this whole-heartedly, but it’s the most pragmatic way forward for our friends across the pond.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here comes to you from Saint John’s Cathedral in Detroit, which is also a resort because modern Catholicism. Anyway, I thought it would be a great backdrop to talk about the United Kingdom in our Post America series. The United Kingdom is one of those countries that is not really going to emerge into a post-American world because they’ve got some really interesting decisions to make.

I’m pretty sure I know how it’s going to go. So backdrop, two things. First, economy, the British system never really adapted to the end of empire. They do all the big high value added stuff and they import a lot of the raw materials and some of their base manufactured goods, things that are not very good at because they’re good at the really high precision stuff.

And when the empire ended and they joined Europe, all they did was kind of switch one empire for another and relied upon the European continent for things like foodstuffs and wood products and automotive. They never made the transition that all the other former imperial powers did. And so when Brexit happened, they find themselves in a bit of a lurch.

So that was kind of the economic side of things, on the security side of things. They are an island and islands are worried about one thing, other countries developing navies that might allow an invasion. So they’ve always looked at the major powers of the Eurasian landmass with more than just suspicion, outright fear and concern, whether it’s Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or whatever.

Napoleon. And on and on. But that doesn’t mean that they like nonmilitary superpowers. So when folks in the European Union start talking about ever closer union and maybe having a common defense identity, they get a little squeamish and they want to keep things within NATO where they’ve got veto power. So that’s the economic that’s the security you play that for to where we are right now.

And they’re in a bit of a pickle. Demographically, the European Union is on its final legs. Most of the major powers, especially Germany and Italy, are going to be aging into obsolescence within a decade. And most of the remaining countries within two. And I don’t mean to suggest that the UK has a super healthy demography, but it is like the second healthiest within the Union.

So when the Brits started talking about Brexit a decade ago, it was like, okay, I can understand the conversation. Getting a jump on what’s next, leaving the sinking ship that is the economic aspect of the European Union. That makes some sense. But here we are seven years after Brexit and the Brits are still trying to figure out what Brexit means.

We still don’t have a meaningful policy for how they should go into the new world, and they really only have two choices. Option one since they haven’t done that economic change post-imperial era is to find a new empire and go out and cut a series of deals with a series of countries that have young demographics that could provide them with raw materials and on and on and on.

The problem is they can’t do it like they did before, before the secret of the British Empire. The reason that they ruled the world for the better part of two centuries is they were in the early days of the industrial era and no one else had caught up. So they were able to use the order of magnitude, greater economic intensity of early industrialization and the three orders of magnitude of better power projection of military technologies to dominate wherever they went with a very small number of people.

Well, that’s not the world we’re in anymore. You can’t go into a place like India with 50,000 people and conquer it like you could two or three centuries ago. Well, not to mention that the Indians wouldn’t let that happen. So the idea that the Brits is a mid-sized power can be the center of a global trade node. That’s a bit of a stretch.

I don’t want to say it’s impossible because weirder things have happened in the last few years, but it’s difficult to see enough countries signing on to the idea of British preeminence when the Brits can’t force the issue. The second issue is to partner with a single power large, wealthy country that has better demographic structures and shares the United Kingdom’s overall security concerns about united Eurasia as a military power.

And the only country that scratches that itch is the United States. Now, it’s not like what the Brexiteers said, that they can just waltz into Washington and ask for a free trade deal that is better than the wake up from the EU. No, no, no, no. When it comes to trade deals, the United States is very specific and it doesn’t like to bring in systems that could compete with in any meaningful way.

And that would mean that the Brits have to accede to American demands on any number of sectors, from agriculture to finance to manufacturing. Hell, we might even make them get rid of the metric system before in a bad mood. Now, when the Johnson administration in Britain came over to talk to Donald Trump’s administration about a trade deal and they found out what the conditions would be, they walked away and then the next government came in and did the same thing.

And walked away. Or was it Theresa may anyway? There were two back to back. And so the Brits right now are in this nether world where they kind of quietly admit to themselves that in order to find a future that has some degree of economic functionality, they have to get into bed with their kids and accept all the demands and the hit to their economy will be real and the hit to their ego will be massive.

But the alternative trying to build an alternative system or maybe going back to the EU. Neither of those are long term solutions that are very functional. So really what we’re doing is going through the paces until the Brits admit the obvious. And when that happens, Britain will lose the thing that it values the most its freedom to act, its agency.

It will become a subsidiary of the Americans system, for better or for worse. And while that will be horrible for the British mindset, it is the best game in town for both an economic and a security point of view. And in time, I have no doubt that that is where the Brits will end up. So stiff upper lip.

The Biden Administration Blocks LNG Exports (Sorta)

A liquefied natural gas ship

The Greens are celebrating and the oil industry is kicking and screaming over the Biden administration’s decision to pause the review process of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. However, this decision’s actual impact is microscopic. This pause is very limited. It has no impact upon facilities already in operation, under construction, or even those already permitted. It only impacts facilities still at the eye-gleam stage. While the “pause” may impact some firms (very) long-term plans, there’s nothing tangible as of yet.

Natural gas has an interesting foothold in the energy space, as it is a cleaner alternative to coal and is highly compatible with green energy sources like wind and solar. This means that natural gas will likely serve as the complimentary energy source of the future, which will be a large pill for the Greens to swallow.

The Biden administration’s move is temporary, limited in impact and scope, and is just a political move to garner support leading up to the election. Think of this kind of like a politician’s wet dream – making some of your constituents happy without actually doing anything.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Putin’s Puppet Show feat. Tucker “The Propagandist” Carlson

At this point you’ve all seen or heard about Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin (if you haven’t…you didn’t miss much). This was the first time Putin has spoken to an American “journalist” since his military invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

As we enter the third year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I think this is as good a time as ever to step back and take inventory of the situation. Since the beginning, we have known that the longer the war drags on, the harder it will be for Ukraine to mount a definitive counter-offensive. One reason for this has to do with differences in command structures; Russia follows a strict top-down delegation of authority, while Ukraine delegates relatively more local authority to lower-level officers.

While this strategy has paid off for Ukraine so far, the Russian military apparatus is slowly learning to adapt. To compete, Ukraine will need to take a chapter out of the Russian military school of thought and assert a more dominant command structure, one that allows for military-wide policy implementation.

Apart from strategy, Ukraine also needs more and better weaponry from its western allies. This will only get harder as time goes on. Putin knows this, and perhaps that is why he chose this moment, as Congress struggles to pass a military aid package for Ukraine and Israel, to stir the pot. Add to the mix the fact that this is an election year…

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

The Bleeding Edge of Semiconductors: A Tale of Three Companies

The semiconductor industry is one of ever-growing importance and its leaders—Intel and TSMC—are now fighting to be the first to bring the next generation of advanced chips to market.

Since its founding in the late 60s, Intel has been on the leading-edge of semiconductor manufacturing. For decades it pushed new technologies forward, vastly influencing technology developments across myriad sectors. Intel’s reign of supremacy ended, however, when in 2016 it misjudged the readiness of a novel lithography technology—extreme ultra-violet (EUV).

When Intel hesitated, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) took the EUV plunge, and it paid off. TSMC is now the leading producer of sub-7nm chips, having utilized EUV lithography technology on a mass scale since 2019. Intel, on the other hand, just reached that point last year. Intel is hungry though, and has ambitious plans for the near-future, including securing the next generation of lithography machines (high-NA EUV) before any of its competitors.

The importance of the semiconductor industry will continue to grow as technology evolves and the green transition is carried out. Adding additional layers of security, stability, and cushion to the manufacturing process will be essential as geopolitical tensions rise and the world deglobalizes.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Good morning from a frigid Colorado. It’s a balmy zero degrees this morning. And today, I want to tell you a tale of three companies and the state of the semiconductor industry from a technological and production point of view. Now, if you go back to the world before 2017, the technology of the day was something called deep ultraviolet, which was basically a way of producing microchips and intel.

The American technological giant was the world leader by pretty much any measure, and they had gotten a little cocky and they’d gotten a little bit lazy. So they would design chips two or three or four models out, but would only produce the next one up because they were so far ahead of everybody else. They didn’t feel the need to jump steps.

So they would use the EUV and they would make a chip that was marginally better than the one before. And then at the end of the year, no one was had caught up. So they do it again and again and again. And they do this for like 15 years. I mean, they’re very good at what they do, but they could have pushed the technological envelope a lot more if had they chosen to.

In part, that was because of the nature of the technology. The problem with it is you have to kind of make micro adjustments and physically adjust the equipment for each type of chip. And you have to do that manually and physically. And so with every design, you had to do it all over and with every machine in a fabrication facility, you would have to do it independently.

So no new chips from different machines are going to be quite exactly alike. And it generated a relatively higher loss rate from the final semiconductors than what we have today. And so generated a little bit more waste. But again, they were the industry leader. No one was close. Well, they were always had their eye on the future, however.

And so they invested in new technologies that would take them beyond the EUV, one of which is EUV, extreme ultraviolet. And the company that developed that technology is ASML out of the Netherlands. And back in 2016, ASML thought the stuff was ready to go. So they’re providing demonstrations for Intel, showing them how this technology is better. You can not only get more nodes on a chip and get to smaller and smaller nanometers, but it’s all digital.

So you kind of type in what you want to the machine over the course of a few days to a few weeks, and then the machine doesn’t actually have to be physically manipulated in the way that DV did. Now what that would mean is you’d have a higher success rate and more efficiency. But back in 2016, Intel was like, I don’t think this technology is quite right and we’re the industry leader.

We’re going to give it a few more years. Well, ASML not very happy with that. Marketed the technology to everybody else and a company decided to take the plunge. That company is TSMC out of Taiwan. And when we get to 2017, TSMC suddenly hits the ball out of the park and proves that EUV is ready for mass application and over the next couple of years very rapidly overtakes Intel because they have a shorter turnaround time for their chips and they can make chips with smaller nanometer sections.

It isn’t until 2022 or 2023 that Intel finally makes its first extreme ultraviolet chips. So TSMC in Taiwan has been the industry leader now for several years now. We’ve had a kind of a reverse in the roles. Now ASML, the Dutch have another another new technology called high numerical aperture, whose physics I’m not even to pretend to understand.

And they have marketed again. And this time Intel is the one that’s behind. And they’re kind of desperate and kind of hungry. And TSMC is the one that’s resting on their laurels. So the first delivery of those new machines, the high end chips, went to Intel in the second week of January of this year. And Intel expects two things.

Number one, they plan to overtake TSMC using the EUV technology in 2024, hoping to get down to two nanometers. Right now, the industry lead is at about three nanometers and that’s a TSMC product. And then next year they hope to leapfrog even further, provided that these new high end machines work, which will, you know, we’ll find out pretty soon.

Anyway. That’s where we are right now. In terms of the overall geopolitics, it’s pretty straightforward. Right now, 90% of all I hand chips are made by one company, TSMC, in one city in Taiwan, it’s a high concentration. But if Intel working with ASML can pull this off, all of a sudden we will have facilities in the United States that are working on the higher end stuff with some of the first facilities that are going be going online outside of Phenix and Columbus, Ohio.

So stay tuned because the geography of these chips is about to evolve pretty significantly if high works. And if not, we’re still stuck with Taiwan, it could be worse.

North Capital Forum: Crazy Little Thing Called Geopolitics

In October of 2023, I sat down with Enrique Perret, Managing Director of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation (USMF) & President and Founder, North Capital Forum (NCF). We discussed the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for North America.

Through a geopolitical lens, we examine North America’s strategic positioning in the evolving global landscape, with a keen eye towards energy and tech. We’ll also discuss the current economic and political situations to help inform key stakeholders and decision makers in this region.

If you’d like to learn more about the U.S. – Mexico Foundation or their North Capital Forum, I encourage you to click the link below…

MORE ON THE US-MEXICO FOUNDATION

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

The Geopolitics of Winter: Snow’s Impact on Agriculture

Some of you out there might grovel when the first snowflakes of the season fall, but I’d be willing to bet that the geopolitical significance of that snow hasn’t crossed your mind. Today, we’ll be exploring winters impact on agriculture and global food security.

If you think of all the great agricultural zones in the world, most of them have a winter season. At face value, that might seem irrelevant, but the snow and moisture that winter brings serves as insulation for the ground and facilitates biological processes critical for agriculture.

Historically, regions with a cold winter season have been more conducive to growing crops capable of feeding large populations, such as soy, wheat, rice, and corn. However, the industrialization and development of fuels and fertilizers has enabled these crops to be grown in areas previously unsuitable for agriculture.

These advances gave way to increases in population and the cultivation of new lands, but is it sustainable? As soon as places like Brazil or China can no longer import the inputs necessary to grow enough crops to feed their populations, we’re in for a rude awakening…

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from snowy Colorado, where in the last 18 hours we’ve gotten 18 inches of snow, which means that this morning is a time for clearing and shoveling, but there is more to winter than shoveling and icicles. There is also the fun and games that comes with agriculture. In fact, winter is arguably the single biggest factor for how our world got to be in the shape it is, more or less the century and less century.

The issue is that when winter hits, everything stops and you have a layer of moisture that then insulates the ground. This is two things. Number one, it preserves a little bit moisture in there and then will grow a little bit back in the spring. But more importantly, the thicker the snow, the greater the insulation. And so you actually still have biological processes going on under the surface, even if right there in the topsoil.

Basically, you’ve got organic material that is decaying or as farmers like to call it, the formation of free fertilizer. If you look at the map of the world’s agricultural zones, before roughly 1900, the pre-industrial era, you’ll notice certain patterns. The American Midwest to a degree, the American Piedmont, Northern Europe, Central Eurasia, the real plot to basin in South America and the southeastern part of Australia and South Africa.

sorry, I forgot. Northern China as well. What are these areas all have in common? It’s cold. You get some snow and so you get that recharge system. There are temperate climates where the free fertilizers kind of baked into the cake. If you go outside of those zones, pre 1900, it’s not that there’s not agriculture, but by definition it’s almost not large scale.

And most of the crops that feed most of humanity. So you’re talking rice, soy, wheat and corn. Those four crops grow best in those conditions. You move out of those zones and you’re talking different crops, things like sweet potatoes or yams. And it’s not you can’t support a population with those things. It’s that you can’t support a large population with those things.

So they’re not nearly as amenable to road crop edge. It’s more subsistence farming as a rule. Now, that, of course, changed, right, right around between 1900, 1945 for some countries and then between early 1990 and 1985 for the rest. What happened there was first the development and then the mass application of industrial level agricultural inputs, things like fuels and fertilizers, which allowed you to plant more traditional crops in zones that normally weren’t really great for it.

In addition, those lower output crops per acre. If you started putting things like fertilizer, they would do a lot better. As a rule, the industrialization of agriculture had a bigger impact on marginal lands than it did on the Prime lands. The prime land still saw their output increase by 50% to 150%. But it’s the marginal lands that saw a tripling, quadrupling or even more.

Now, something to keep in mind with all those secondary lands, if you’re talking about, say, a step where it’s just dry with agriculture, doesn’t it? Nothing really happens. If you’re talking about the tropics, yes, you have a riot of growth, but the nutrients are consumed by that growth as soon as the growth rots. So if you clear the jungle and the rainforest, the soil that’s left behind is almost nutrient non-existent.

And without those industrial level inputs, you really can’t grow crops at scale in these zones. Now, because of industrialization, of agriculture, we haven’t simply seen that the part of the world that humans cultivate expand by a factor of three. We seen the population expand by a factor of three as well. My concern is that we’re entering an era where the supply chains that allow those industrial inputs to function to exist are going to break down.

And for countries like China or Brazil who import the vast, vast, vast majority of those inputs, that means the ability to sustain post 1900 levels of population are going to be hugely hit. In the case of Brazil, they still have portions of the country that are still temperate. It’s not like they’re going to starve, but they’re no longer going to be a massive agricultural exporter to places like Brazil.

So for those of you who live in a place where you don’t have snow, yes, you get more time on the beach and you don’t have to shovel. But it also means the security of your food supply is decided by people in different climate zones with supply chains that are a continent away that you have no ability to protect or even influence.

And the world we’re going into, that’s going to be a little rough.

Poland, After America

FOR MORE ON THE FUTURE OF POLAND, SEE DISUNITED NATIONS

PURCHASE DISUNITED NATIONS HERE

This next country might surprise some of you, but deglobalization might give Poland its moment of fame. That’s if they play their cards right, and even then, it will be a fleeting moment, but a moment in the spotlight nonetheless.

Historically, Poland’s been vulnerable to major powers like Russia and Germany, so they’ve developed quite the arsenal for defense. Now, a window of opportunity might open as Germany and Russia face economic and demographic decline.

The time is coming for some strategic decisions to be made. Will a conflict between Russia and Poland unfold, or will Poland buddy up with Sweden? Either way, Poland’s surge to the spotlight will be short-lived but gripping.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from the Eagle Nest Wilderness in central Colorado on top of Eccles Peak with a buffalo pass there below and behind me. Today, we’re going to go back into that post American series I’ve been doing every once in a while and specifically talking about one of the hot spots. And that will be Poland.

Now, Poland is one of those countries that we don’t think of very often as a major power because it has been so badly treated throughout history. It’s got major powers around it, specifically Sweden, Russia and Germany, and it tends to get gobbled up by them very easily. It’s coastline isn’t great and so the Swedes have always been able to protect upon them.

And then its land borders with both the Germans and the Russians are wide open. So there’s no chance of doing any sort of static defense. As such, the Polish military in modern times is heavy on air power with extended range fuel tanks, so that while they might not be able to stop a Russian invasion, they can reach Moscow and bomb it and at least make the Russians think twice.

That’s kind of the national strategy here. And then, of course, they’re never sure if they can rely upon the Germans, because every time the Germans have gone on the warpath, Poland is usually one of the first couple of stops. Things are going to change over the course of the next 20 years for a number of reasons. But really the biggest chunk is economics and demography.

The Germans and the Russians have two of the worst demographics structures on the planet. And while Sweden is an up and coming power again and it can definitely punch above its weight, this is not the 1600s. And Sweden today has under 10 million people. So even if it punches like triple its weight, Poland still has 40 million people.

Also, the Swedes these days are not looking to expand into empire. So, you know, there’s that anyway. What this means is that we’re seeing an opening window of opportunity for Poland as the German system fails because of demographic decline and economic collapse. Remember, this is a country that exports everything. So anything happens to globalization, they’re done. Also, they can’t maintain their workforce for more than another ten years.

Russia is only slightly behind that in terms of demographic decline. In fact, once you look at the health figures, it’s probably worse. Everyone in Germany at least is in decent health. You’ve got a lot of alcoholism and a lot of HIV and a lot of tuberculosis in Russia. You don’t have any of those in Poland, which means that for the Russians, things are going to go one of two directions.

Either number one, they’re going to win hand over fist in Ukraine, and then they’re going to come for Poland. And we’re going to have a knockdown, drag out fight at some point over the next 20 years, the Russian wave will crest and then it will fall back because they won’t be able to maintain their military structures. And we’ll have the poles being more and more and more aggressive, assuming they don’t fall completely and pushing into the former Russian space in order to break it up so nothing like that can ever happen again.

For those of you who don’t think that that can happen, it’s happened before. The Russians call it the time of troubles and that brings us to the second possibility that in Ukraine, that this is all that the Russians can do and this war will break them in the next few years. And then the Poles will push more and more aggressively into the Russian space to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again.

Remember, in the 1600s, 16 04i believe the Poles actually occupied Moscow and held it for a generation. Only this time the Russians would be in economic and demographic decline, if not outright collapse. So it might actually last a little bit longer. Now, for those of you who are Polish, don’t do too much chest beating. And a lot of things have to happen.

Poland, like Romania, really only does well when the country’s on its edges are weak. The problem you have in Poland is it’s just big enough to think that it can pull this off by itself, whereas the Romanians know that they have to partner with somebody. Now there are two paths for the Poles to take. Option number one is economic collapse and statist economy, followed by a military expansion.

That’s probably the most likely outcome. Remember that Poland, today’s economically wealthy because of its relationship with German manufacturing. If that goes away, option number two is the sweet step and become the new partner, both demographically, economically, strategically. And you get Polish land power with Swedish amphibious power. And that can be a very potent combination in the Baltic, sharing a lot of common values and maybe even having a vector of American assistance in their boats.

Kind of a the playbook, as I see it right now. And finally, before polls get too excited, keep in mind that Polish demographics are not all that much better than Russian or German. I mean, they’re better, but they’re aging just as fast, just from a younger base. So if we’re looking at an end to the German and the Russian systems over the next ten to 20 to 30 years, we’re also looking at a complete fabrication of the Polish system over the next 20 to 50 years.

So there’s going to be a window here where Poland becomes the most powerful land power in the region, and it is a moment in time. And what the Poles decide to do with that is going to reshape this region for at least the next century. All right, you guys later.

Why the Middle East Is So Aggravating (yet so difficult to leave)

The Middle East has been a thorn in the side for the US since day one, so why haven’t the Americans just abandoned ship? To understand why the US is still involved in the Middle East (and openly facing these potshot-esqe attacks), we need to breakdown this region…

The reason this is top of mind is the recent attacks on a US base in Syria carried out by Iranian-backed militants. Before I dive into these specific attacks, let’s look back at this region’s geopolitical history.

There’s a complicated history of trade routes and European colonization, but things got spicy when oil was discovered and geopolitical tensions flared up. This led to a lack of what I would call value-add governments, a spamming of militant groups, and eventually, post 9/11 involvement by the US.

So, the US stepped into a political and social nightmare and thought they could throw a bandage on it and be done; clearly that didn’t work. Fast forward to the present and the US is still involved in the region, clinging onto the ever-so-slight semblance of peace and order that’s been established…until now.

Despite years of trying to get to the bottom of this, the question remains – is continued U.S. presence necessary to prevent further instability or would withdrawal empower regional players to address security concerns independently?

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

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TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan just taking a walk after this guy dumped on us. The big news today, it’s February the fifth, is that overnight local time. Iranian backed militants in Syria attacked another U.S. base. It’s the first significant attack since those three American soldiers were killed early part of last week. And the United States launched a bunch of retaliatory strikes against Iranian backed militias throughout the region.

Anyway, this is the first significant action by them since. And again, it looks like a drone got through and hit the barracks again. This time it wasn’t American servicepeople who were killed, but a half a dozen Kurds that U.S. Special Forces were training. Let me explain how we got into the Middle East and why it’s difficult to get out.

And then we’ll put this into context. So I’m going back roughly very roughly a thousand years. The Middle East has not been a place that anyone wanted to be. It was on the way somewhere. So you had your more advanced somewhat very loosely using this term technocratic societies with little higher value add in their economic systems in the West.

And then you had East Asia and to a lesser degree, Southeast Asia and South Asia that produced goods that you could not find in the West, things like spices and porcelains and silks. And so the trick was to figure out how you could link these two economic systems together. Despite the vast distances involved, and from roughly 1000 to roughly 1500 A.D., the solution was coastal vessels, camels, caravans.

The problem with all of those things is you had to go through any number of intermediaries, especially for the land routes. And since the Sea Rats weren’t safe, most people stuck with the land routes. This meant that the folks who lived in between in the middle to the east of the Western nations or go the name found themselves having to pay massive markups because you’d send your go east and you’d bring the cargo west.

And every few miles or a few dozen miles, there’d be another middleman who would take the cut. And so the cost of these products didn’t double or triple or quadruple, but typically went up in cost by a factor of a thousand or so. And so what became what were not necessarily everyday goods, but not exactly considered exotic goods out east became the the cream of the luxury goods in the West.

And so the trick was to how do you how do you avoid those markups? The solution was set upon by the Spanish and the Portuguese, who developed the technologies to sail farther from the sea excuse me, far from the shore with old coastal vessels. If you happen to anchor, which you had to do every night within sight of land, there is a reasonable chance that somebody who lived in the neighborhood was just going to come and take your ship and kill your people and take all your stuff.

So that’s one of the reasons why they tend to prefer the land routes. But with the Portuguese and the Spanish developing deep water navigation, they were able to do an end run around that entire thing, interface directly with the East. And so from roughly 1500 until roughly 1900, the Middle East just didn’t matter. It became a complete backwater and eventually the Western countries industrialize.

And when they came back to the Middle East, to an area that had not industrialized, you know, you bring a knife to a gunfight enough times and the locals pay attention. And so you basically had the Brits, the French and the rest divvy up the entire region into mandates and colonies. Now, why was the West able to pull that off when the Middle East just kind of stayed at the same technological level?

And to be perfectly blunt, the answer is rainfall throughout the Western countries. In Europe, it rains. Rain means that you can grow crops in any number of areas. And if that gives people an interest in pursuing their own economic destinies. Also, you had winter in most of those areas. So in the off season, farmers could be working on something else.

They weren’t exactly getting law degrees. But the point is the overall skill level of the population steadily creeped up. And when you’ve got a lot of people who are invested in stability in the system, even if it’s not a democracy, you get a degree of political stability, economic advancement, technological acumen that you just don’t get in the Middle East and the Middle East.

Very few places have rain where you do have water. It’s in a relatively narrow band either right on the coast or along a river that makes it very, very easy for a political authority to rise and dominate that specific geography. And in doing so, basically you reduce the entire population to slave status. That does not give people a lot of interest in pursuing stability for the system makes revolutionaries very popular.

But it also means that the power of the state is just almost total, making it very, very difficult for anyone to make something of themselves. So you will get centers of learning throughout the Middle East who did absolutely preserve the Western knowledge during the Dark Ages, but they never applied it themselves. They never disseminated it with her in their own cultures.

They were basically just libraries maintained by monks. Oversimplification. 100 years of history. I recognize that. But you can’t deny the economic trajectory of the Middle East versus the West. And then once the West cracked the code on industrial technologies and they started having gunpowder and cannon and the Middle East was left behind, there is no contest at all.

So now today, the economies of the Middle East matter more to the world today than they have for most of the last half millennia, largely because of oil, because there is an asset those industrial economies need in order to function. Now, this isn’t so much an American problem directly because North America is self-sufficient and not even self-sufficient in oil is a significant exporter of oil.

And if the Middle East were to vanish tomorrow, we’d have some adjustments on things like crude quality. But within a couple of years would be totally fine. However, the Europeans significantly less so specifically since the Russian crude is no longer part of their equation. Parker Now, where does that bring us? Well, it means that anyone who goes in the Middle East after about 1950 is faced in a very different environment from what was faced from 1008 to 1500 when it was just a place you had to push through or from 1500 until roughly 1950 when the West was industrialized.

But the Middle East wasn’t. Now, the Middle East is, and no one’s going to say that a group like ISIS in Syria is like the pinnacle of human technology, but it’s really easy for them to get explosives and AK 40 sevens. So it’s no longer a contest like we saw from 1919 50 between an industrialized Western imperial system and a completely non industrialized, almost tribal Middle Eastern system.

You’ve got a different makeup now. Now, the governing systems of the Middle East themselves are also in play and very much in flux, because before 1950, you basically had a series of what could be best called Fortress Political Systems, where by dint of geography, you know, maybe they had an oasis like Damascus, maybe they were surrounded by desert like Egypt, maybe they were a mountain fastness like Iran.

It’s a little difficult to get in and out. And some of these areas are a lot more difficult to conquer than others are around really being at the top of that list. But you introduce industrial technologies to this area and the post-colonial post-World War two environment, and all of a sudden they’re not just drilling for oil. They’re building roads.

They’re buying military hardware. And it makes for a very different mix. You get this incredibly brittle, top down, concentrated political system that is absolutely in hate bubble of providing the people with the level of technological progress that is possible elsewhere in the world, because there’s very little to work from aside from cash from oil. And you apply that in a world where society is weak as well.

And the result you get lots and lots and lots and lots of militant groups. And if you want to back one versus the other or one versus government, that’s fine. But even if you win and the militant group overthrows the government, well then what you’ve taken what little order exists in an area and it’s turned into chaos. You get a complete societal breakdown, as we’ve seen in places like Egypt and Iraq and Syria in recent years.

So enter the United States in the aftermath of the 911 attacks. The Bush administration felt that the best way to fight al-Qaida was to make sure that the countries that allowed okay to function would go after it. So after the Afghan operation, we discovered that al-Qaida scattered to the winds, and we found out that a lot of the recruits were coming from Syria because that was how the Syrians got rid of their own dissidents.

A lot of the troops, Taliban troops that were in Afghanistan fled through Iran to parts unknown because the Iranians were like, Well, we hate these guys, but we don’t want to deal with them, especially since they don’t like the Americans very much and then the Saudis necessarily the government itself. But a lot of elements within Saudi Arabia were part of the ideological and financial underpinning that made Al Qaida possible.

How do I know that? Because we allied with them back in the eighties to form the Mujahideen, which eventually became the Taliban. Anyway, so the U.S. is looking at this region, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq 12th partner. And any of them wouldn’t be fun conquering all three at the same time to get after a militant group just doesn’t seem like the right task.

And so the solution that was struck upon was to knock over Iraq and occupy it with armored tank brigades, which is not the way you pacify a population. You want ground infantry for that. The idea is Tehran and Damascus and Riyadh. None of them thought the U.S. was going to do this. And so when it did it with tanks and left the tanks there, they’re like, shit, There’s nothing to stop the United States from turning on us.

And while Iran was, to a degree protected by its mountains, they had a little bit more confidence would be able to put up a good fight. The other two had no such confidence and they knew that if the United States decided to come for them that their regimes were done because there was no civil support, there was no technical competence, there was no cohesion.

Well, it worked. And those three, three countries went after al-Qaida for us and are the primary reasons The strategy is the primary reason why Al Qaida is, for all intents and purposes, no more problem is that we didn’t declare victory and went home. We tried to make Iraq look like Wisconsin with the results that you can imagine. Because, again, there’s nothing to build from in terms of society.

We overthrew what stable order there was and replace it with nothing. Now, fast forward to today. The Bush administration felt they had no choice but to go in. And, you know, we can debate whether it worked out well or not. First phase of the plan I think worked. Second phase, Obama changed nothing. Despite his rhetoric, Trump said he pulled out but left troops in places like Syria to fight ISIS because no one no one in the US political system wants to be blamed for being the guy who allowed that militant group to come back.

But here’s the problem. The countries in these areas are never going to have the foundation that’s necessary to form a country in the way that Americans or Westerners in general or even Asians see it. And so if your goal is to prevent the creation or the operation of the resurgence, the specific type of militancy, you will be there forever.

And that’s one of the reasons why we call them the Forever Wars, because we found ourselves going to war with a military tactic as opposed to any specific group. And while most of our troops are out of the region now, what happened earlier today in Syria is the best that we can hope for. Unless the strategy changes, we are never going to be able to turn these countries into something that we would normally recognize as a peer or is even someone in the same category as the nation states that we have in most of the rest of the world?

That’s not how these areas work. They never have. They don’t have the economic geography to try. And so we’re left with a fun little discussion. We have to have option A is stick it out forever, do what most of our forces have been doing in the region since the operation was slimmed down under Trump and hunker in your bases and watch and if something like oasis bubbles up again hit it with a hammer.

Go back to your bases and watch some more. And if you do that, you’ll be there forever. And while you’re there forever, other militant groups who have their own ideas of who should be in charge will take potshots at you. And that’s what we’ve been seen with the Iranians being the instigators. This is the new normal. This is the old normal.

This is just what the region look what’s option to leave from a casualty point of view. It’s easy. We’re never going to make this area look like something that we want. Danger if you leave. Is that a group that you specifically don’t like is going to boil up? Now, let me put that into context. Part of the reason that we’re still there is we find the tactics of ISIS beyond repute.

And we’ve seen that replicated in Hamas in the beginning of the Gaza war. We’re not going to be able to defeat a tactic. But the fear is, is if we leave, more of these groups will boil up in a shorter period of time and eventually start not just attacking the locals, but our interests in the region as well.

The problem with that theory is that it assumes that there’s something better that can happen if we stick around. Something to keep in mind, this is an area, a fortress cities. And historically speaking, when you don’t have an external power like the United States in those fortress cities, start to enforce their own writ on the area. Now, we have enabled Baghdad to recover from the Saddam and the occupation areas, and it’s doing a pretty good job of holding its own.

What we’re doing against groups like ISIS is basically taking some of the unknowns out of the equation for the other two major powers in this region, which are Damascus, Syria and Turkey. If the United States were to vanish overnight, they would have to deal with these unknowns themselves and we would have a much more aggressive effort from both countries to deal with groups like like ISIS.

That is more normal. And so we’re actually in this weird situation where U.S. forces that are remaining in the region, even if they’re just staying in their camps, are actually have become the single greatest reason why the government in Damascus still exists, because under normal circumstances, other regional powers would have moved in and smashed these groups that were patrolling out of existence.

And that means the Turks get more involved. That means the Syrians get more involved, and that means the Israelis get more involved. And in that sort of contest with Mesopotamia kind of acting as an anvil, we probably see the end of the Syrian government within five years. Of course, it would be bloody and horrible because this is a region that can barely grow food itself and it uses a lot of those energy imports or exports to buy food that it imports.

So the capacity here for an outright civilizational collapse is very, very real and agreed. The presence of U.S. forces is one of the few things holding the darkness at bay. Now, whether that is considered an American national interest or not, talk amongst yourselves.

East Asia, After America

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Today, we’re looking at another region that the US will continue to keep tabs on – East Asia. This is one of those regions that will be plenty exciting in coming years, so let’s jump in.

Let’s start with the regional allies – Japan and Australia. Together with the US, these three countries have formed a trilateral alliance, which will help shape the power balance in the Pacific. Australia has been a close ally for decades and will continue to be just that. Japan is a more recent member of Washington’s inner circle and has joined for one big reason – China.

Japan, Australia and the US partnership has struck a strategic balance of power with Russia and China. This region’s future will depend upon where other regional powers decide to place their allegiance. Given China’s internal challenges and Russia’s apparent problems, it could (will?) turn chaotic very quickly.

We’ll be watching the dynamics unfold in East Asia over the coming years, and I expect no shortage of excitement.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here, we are continuing our Post American series about what the world will look like, where the hotspots will be after the United States for trenches from its current position. Coming to you from the Eagle’s Nest wilderness just below Gore Lake. And today we are going to discuss the East Asian rim. This one is a little bit of an anomalous issue considering the series.

But whatever in that, this is an area that the Americans are going to remain very engaged in. Part of it, it’s about managing the Chinese decline, but in part it’s because the United States has a couple of very powerful, creative, capable allies that Americans appreciate. The first one is Australia, which is arguably the staunchest ally of the United States has, and it is always for two years at least served as a bit of a a deputy for American interest in Southeast Asia, which is a region that the United States is interested in, but has never really had the time to give the amount of attention that it deserves.

And that’s where the Australians come in. They’ve got excellent relations with most of the countries in the region, most notably Singapore and Indonesia. And then of course you’ve got New Zealand. There is a sidekick. Anyway, part of the reason that the United States has given nuclear powered submarines and a free trade deal to the Australians is because they’ve been so loyal and so long in areas that are out of theater.

They participated in Vietnam and Korea, they participate in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ve always been there because they know at the end of the day, if they don’t have a partnership with the Americans, then they are on their own and they can read a map and they realize they’re wildly outnumbered in the region. So it is a strategy that they’ve been following for decades, the strategy that has borne a lot of fruit and is a strategy that will continue to serve them well into the future.

The other country is more of a newcomer, and that’s Japan. Now, throughout the Cold War, the Japanese were a bit combination of seething and shell shocked. They had been defeated soundly in World War Two. They had been nuked twice, which was something that didn’t happen to Nazi Germany. And the postwar settlements were, if anything, harsher on the Japanese than they were on the Germans.

And so there’s always this lingering nationalist ideal in Japan that wanted to move beyond the American Alliance network of the Cold War. But between the defeats, the occupation, American military force and the Soviets and the Chinese right there, they never really had that choice. Well, over the last 15 years, politics in Japan have evolved. It’s not that the nationalism has gone now, but the Chinese have become a much more clear and present danger than they thought the Chinese could ever be.

And the Russians, with their weakness in the Ukraine war, are showing themselves to be wobbly, which means that the Japanese have become very thoughtful about what their possibilities might become, that some things may not be what they thought. Some might be harder. Some might be easier. And in that sort of mindset, when you’re dealing with a demographic that is in terminal decline, you realize you probably are not going to be able to go it alone.

So it’s best to look for partners who are going to see the world through a similar lens, and that has led them willingly back to the United States over the course of the last 15 years. The Japanese have built a pair of very large carriers, quite super carriers, but the aircraft that operate from them are the Joint Strike Fighter that is made in the United States and the Japanese getting closer and closer and closer and managed to strike a deal both with the Trump and with the Biden administration on the future of bilateral relations.

So it’s not that Japan is not capable. It’s the second most powerful navy in the world by most measures. It’s that Japan has chosen that rather than going it alone, it’s opening the door on a protracted partnership with the United States and with Australia, and that puts major American power at three points of the Pacific bracketing nicely where the Russians are and where the Chinese are.

So for the future of this region, it’s going to come down to how powers do or do not get along with the Trilateral Alliance. Some, like the Chinese, are destined to break not probably because of military confrontation, but because of their own internal issues, which means this is going to be a zone of chaos. Opportunity carpetbagging for those of you who bothered to learn Mandarin or something like that.

It’s going to be impossible to put troops on the ground and stabilize something the size of China, even if you wanted to. So it’s probably just going to be a security black hole for a good long time. And then there’s other powers like Taiwan or Korea that get along pretty well with the United States and to a lesser degree, the Japanese, but are going to have to decide just how hand-in-glove they want to work.

This is one of those things that popped up earlier this year when the Biden administration had the Japanese and the Koreans to Camp David to basically hammer out a peace deal that dates back not to World War Two, but to 1905 when the Japanese occupied and colonized the Koreans. If if if the Japanese and the Koreans can agree to get along, then we can have a mini globalization in East Asia, because Taiwan’s almost a rounding error at that point that also involves Southeast Asia.

But if the Koreans decide to go a different direction, then there’s a very big security problem because the Japanese will never be secure so long as the Koreans are a hostile power. So a lot of this remains a an act in progress. But we’re starting to see the outlines of a post Russia, post Chinese Asia already. And it speaks with an Australian in the Japanese accent.

All right. That’s it. By.