Peter Zeihan, Author at Zeihan on Geopolitics

The Houthis Are Still Attacking Ships in the Red Sea

A photo of an oil tanker set against a red orange sunset

The Houthis attacked an oil tanker that had been previously abandoned in the Red Sea. They denotated charges, but only managed to start some fires (as of now). This lackluster attack isn’t the scariest thing, but it does highlight the growing dangers of commercial shipping in the region.

This attack is a decent example of the incompetency of the Houthis. It also highlights the problems with addressing these attacks, because there is no real power that could put an end to it. This is just one of several incidents carried out by the Houthis in the Red Sea and insurance costs are skyrocketing as a result.

As this region grows increasingly stateless, alternative insurance methods are emerging to support shipping. These come at a significant cost and they are likely to worsen as these attacks continue and escalate.

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.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from sunny Colorado. We’ve had a few things go down in the Red Sea that I thought were worthy of pointing out, just so everybody knows what’s what. The big issue that I’ve seen is back on the 21st of August, so about a week ago, a tanker by the name of Sow Union was hit.

The Houthis, a militant terrorist group operating in Yemen, are the ones behind it. They’ve been launching missiles pretty regularly over the last few months, targeting commercial shipping. They started by going after anything associated with Israel in some way, and then branched out to anyone who doesn’t pay them. The Chinese started paying protection money, and the Houthis started hitting Chinese vessels anyway. So, basically, if you’re sailing in the region, you need to get a really good insurance program, which is hard to get these days, or sail at your own risk. The Sow Union was a Greek-flagged tanker carrying crude. It’s a Suezmax tanker, which can carry about a million barrels.

The tanker was disabled and abandoned, and it’s just been floating there full of crude. A few days later, the Houthis sent out a motorboat, placed explosive charges throughout the vessel, and started a series of fires. Now, I’ve long said that the Houthis are among the world’s most incompetent terrorists—certainly the most incompetent in the Middle East. They’re not very good at what they do, but they operate from an area that’s basically stateless, so there’s no authority that can root them out.

I have no doubt that if a “real” military went in there, they could be destroyed really quickly, but then you’d be left ruling Yemen the next day, which is a thankless task—nobody wants to do it. The only country that might theoretically try would be Saudi Arabia, but they are arguably the most incompetent military in the world, and certainly in the Middle East. So, you shouldn’t expect a military solution to this anytime soon.

One of the reasons I point out that the Houthis are incompetent is that despite having full control of the ship and placing charges, they failed to breach the hull. The ship isn’t sinking. In fact, they didn’t even cause an oil spill; they just caused a bunch of fires. So it’s out there burning—a potential environmental catastrophe because the Red Sea doesn’t circulate like, say, the North Sea. But it hasn’t happened yet.

The point is that if you want to stop this, you either need to impose a Wisconsin-like physical order on Yemen, which would suck for whoever was involved, or you need to remember that the Houthis are incompetent. You need to go after the people sponsoring the Houthis—namely, Iran and Tehran. But no one is going to attempt a regime change in a place like Iran, which is basically a mountain fortress, in order to solve the Houthi problem. So, it would have to be a political deal.

Now, no one seems chomping at the bit to do that. Even if there was a broad-spectrum deal where, say, the United States and Iran could look past their differences and kiss and make up—and to be clear, that deal is not on the table at the moment—it’s not going to happen in an election year. The Iranians just got a new president, and while he’s not crazy—he’s actually fairly moderate—one of his first actions isn’t going to be cutting a deal with the “Great Satan.”

So, what we’re seeing in the meantime is that the Red Sea has basically become a stateless region where anyone who sails through does so at their own risk. We’re pushing the boundaries of what is possible with maritime insurance. As of three years ago, just before the Ukraine war, if you had an insurance policy and you sailed into an area where there were gun exchanges, the cost of your policy would go up by a factor of ten immediately. And if someone was actually targeting civilian shipping, your insurance policy would be null and void. But then the Ukraine war happened, and you now have major countries—most notably India, China, and Russia—setting up these alternative insurance programs for their ghost fleets in order to get crude out of Russia on the cheap and get it anywhere else.

This has provided a weird constellation of coverage options that include things like getting shot at or taken over by a government. So, we do have stuff still trickling through there. It’s not container shipping because container ships are really expensive, whereas an oil tanker is basically just a bottle with an engine.

We’re finding out what’s possible in this brave new world, and from a weird point of view, the Russians and the Houthis are doing us a solid here because they’re providing some alternative methods to ship things in a world where globalization and rule of law are breaking down. But there are side effects—the most obvious one being much, much, much higher insurance rates for everything. Keep in mind that every insurance company has its own insurance company, called a reinsurance company. All of this ultimately percolates up to the top, and the reinsurance companies have to charge higher premiums, which they pass on to insurance companies, which pass on to you for your house and your car.

So, yes, we are finding ways to keep maritime shipping afloat as globalization kicks in and we enter a more violent world, but it’s going to cost you a higher car premium.

Should Cuba Integrate with North America?

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

Sure, the Cubans and the Americans have some history, but who doesn’t? If both sides can let that water pass under the bridge, what will Cuba’s role in the North American system look like moving forward?

Cuba hasn’t done much integrating with global manufacturing, and has allied with anti-American powers like the Soviets/Russians and China. With all of its partners facing huge problems – Russia at war, China collapsing and demanding subservience for aid, and Venezuela’s mess – there’s a clear need for Cuba to consider a new path.

So, who can fill those shoes? It looks like the US is the only viable partner for the Cubans, and that will require some work. We’re talking political changes and hefty negotiations, but both sides could benefit from the partnership. We are talking stability, tourism, and North American integration into manufacturing norms. Also, a secular challenge to the American sugar sector.

Again, this will take some significant reform and changes to mindsets on both sides, but a partnership could be lucrative for both the US and Cuba.

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.

Hey everybody. Hello from Yosemite’s North Country. I’m just above Butte Canyon right now, and today we’re going to talk about Cuba. Grabbing a question from the Ask Peter forum about the place of Cuba in the North American system as globalization falls apart. Obviously, there’s a bit of drama between the United States and Cuba.

The United States seized Cuba from the Spanish at the end of the Spanish-American War, way back at the end of the 19th century, and then ran it as a colony until it broke away under the Castro revolution of the 1960s. Since then, it’s generally been a pain in the ass for the U.S. from the American point of view, while the Cubans obviously see us as the pain in the ass.

However, the Cubans have never joined the globalized structures in a normal way. They never got into manufacturing; the only thing they really produce for export is sugar. Instead, they have chosen to cozy up to whoever the dominant anti-American power happens to be, and for most of their history, that has been the Soviet Union—Russia. The problem they’re going to be facing in the not-too-distant future is that Russia is occupied with things much closer to home and doesn’t have a lot of cash to throw Cuba’s way.

Now, while the Cubans are flirting with the Chinese, the Chinese want a lot more—what’s the word I’m looking for?—servile policy out of Cuba if they’re going to invest any money. The Chinese are very well aware of the map and that Cuba’s just on the wrong side of the planet, making it impossible to supply unless the United States allows it.

So, sooner or later—probably within the next ten years—we’re going to have a situation where the available sponsors are no longer available. Their backup plan for the last, well, it’s 2024, so for the last 25 years, has been Venezuela, which has basically paid for Cuba to exist with oil transfers. Well, Venezuelan oil is going away—it’s almost gone, actually. And so there’s really not much left. We’re going to have a situation in the not-too-distant future where the Cubans are going to be forced to find a new way to operate if they want to, you know, feed themselves. And the only option on the table is the United States because there’s no one else in the world who’s going to side with Cuba against the United States.

The question is when, and the question is how. “When” is a little tricky because it ultimately comes down to when the Cuban government decides it wants to open up a new chapter in its history. Now that the Castros are gone, that is at least possible. We did see, under the Obama administration, a deal—though not a great one, as pretty much all Obama-era deals were. He wasn’t really interested in negotiating; it was more of a “let’s just get this done and move on.” Trump abrogated it anyway. The bare bones of that deal—forget the specifics—are just that the United States would allow tourism to go on, the United States would allow food sales to Cuba, and in exchange, Cuba would need to politically loosen up a little bit.

Obviously, those three things would be part of any longer-term pact, but there are really two other things you should think about. The first is not just agriculture, but the impact that Cuban agriculture will have on the United States more than the other way around. Yes, the United States is the world’s largest producer and exporter of foodstuffs, and the Cubans need that food because they’re not capable of growing what they need to feed their own population. But what they can grow competitively is cane sugar, and if cane sugar were allowed in the United States, it would be at a lower price and a higher quality than our existing sugar, which mostly comes from sugar beets in places like the Red River Valley of North Dakota, Minnesota, and a little bit down in the sugar bowl of Louisiana—very low-quality sugar, very high prices, very heavily subsidized.

So, if you do bring Cuba into the fold, keep in mind that you’re going to have a little fight with the agricultural lobby. Now, the agricultural lobby will ultimately go with Cuba because everybody else would be able to sell things to Cuba, and only the most protected industry we have in the country would be the one that would suffer. It’s just a question of time.

The second thing to keep in mind is that despite Cuba’s many faults—and there’s a list—they actually have a pretty good technical education system. Remember, this is a country where the cars on the streets date back to the ’50s and ’60s, and a lot of nostalgic tourists like to go there. They’re still running—not because they were ever good cars, but because this is a nation of doctors and mechanics. Now, they’re not certified in the way that Americans would define the term—let’s not get crazy—but for a developing country, their technical skill is actually pretty high, and their cost of labor is only like 10 to 15% of what it is in Canada or the United States. So, if you were to take a new deal and expand NAFTA to another country, you’d have something pretty special here.

Mexico, especially northern Mexico, has now advanced to the point that they don’t do low-skilled labor, but Cuba could. In fact, Mexico is in a position where it needs an “1980s Mexico” in order to achieve economic efficiency. So, you get an agricultural merger, and you get some really interesting things happening in the manufacturing space. And it’s right off the coast of Miami. Oh, and I have no doubt that it’ll turn into a tropical Vegas, so there’s that, too.

All that takes is a change in mindset in Cuba—that it’s really time to come on board or move on—and a bit of a change in mindset in the United States—that it’s time to either negotiate a deal or force the issue. Either of those can take any number of forms; it doesn’t have to involve shooting. It can all happen around the negotiating table. It’s just an issue of choice on both sides.

Alright, that’s it for me. Take care.

A New War in Ukraine

There are lots of moving parts in the Ukraine War right now, so let’s do a little recap of everything that’s going on. There are four big ones…

First up is the Ukrainian Offensive in Kursk. One of my recent videos covered this in more detail, but essentially the Ukrainians have poked into Russian territory and caused significant Russian casualties, destroyed a number of bridges, and cut off key supply lines. They are also bringing some heavy artillery and equipment along with them that will impact the front lines.

Next, the Ukrainians sunk Russia’s last rail ferry. This was a critical piece of transport for the Russians and was one of the few things keeping their supply lines to Crimea open. This is a big win for Ukraine as it will weaken Russia’s position in the Crimean front.

Third is the destruction of a major fuel depot in Russia. A Ukrainian attack set about a third of the storage tanks ablaze at a depot in the Proletarsk district. This fire is still spreading and could cause major setbacks for the Russian forces in Crimea that depend upon this fuel.

Last is the Russian assault on Pokrovsk. While the Ukrainians are seeing big wins across many fronts, they are facing heavy pressure from the Russians in the city of Pokrovsk in the Donbas. The Russians are seeking control of this nexus city, as it would complicate Ukrainian supply lines in the region.

Like I said, lots of moving parts…but that means there’s a potential for significant changes. So, stay tuned for further updates.

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.

Hey, everyone. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado on a somewhat gloomy Saturday. This is the Geneva Basin behind me, and I am standing on the crest of Geneva Mountain. Today, we’re going to catch you up on everything that’s going on in Ukraine. We’ve got four big developments that have evolved over the last couple of weeks. The first one we’ve already discussed quite a bit.

And that is the Ukrainian offensive through their northern border into Russia proper, into the Kursk province, where they’ve triggered a war of movement with the Russians. From everything we can tell, the Ukrainians are taking heavy casualties, but the Russians are taking just absolutely astronomical casualties because the Ukrainians have destroyed the bridges across the river.

So, the Russian forces that are south of the river and north of the Ukrainian border are just getting chopped up without any support, and the Ukrainians are apparently having a pretty good time of it. They’ve also brought a lot of their longer-range missiles, mortars, and drones very, very close to the border itself and are launching them at targets up to 100 miles within Russia proper, gutting the logistics, infrastructure, and everything in the southern and western parts of Kursk province. Basically, the entirety of the northern front of the Ukraine war has now been relocated into Russian territory. This is a significant change in battlefield realities, and if the Ukrainians can keep this up, they’ll be able to cut the infrastructure between Kursk city and Belgorod city, which is how all Russian forces have been supplied for the northern front.

So, this is very significant and has the potential to become much more so in the days and weeks to come. The second big development is that the Ukrainians have successfully sunk Russia’s last rail ferry. Now, for those of you who haven’t been watching for a while, the primary means that the Russians have been using to supply their forces in the Crimean Peninsula, in the south of Ukraine, has been the Kerch Strait Bridge.

But after a series of attacks on it over the last two years, the cargo function of the bridge has basically been shut off. They can ship personnel in, but no cargo, so no fuel. So, they’ve been using rail ferries to go from the Black Sea coast of Russia into Crimea in occupied territory. Well, the Ukrainians a few months ago started targeting the rail ferries, and this last week, the final one was hit while it was at dock in port.

It sank in its berth. So even if the Russians had the equipment and personnel to clear it—which it’s unclear that they do—they’re talking about an operation that would probably take a minimum of a couple of months. And even if they cleared it, they have no more rail ferries, and no one will sell them any.

So, this has basically destroyed the capacity of the Russians to ship fuel to the Crimean front. The third thing involves the city of Prohodytsk—probably mispronouncing that. Anyway, that is a city further inland, closer to the Russian border, and it’s a major fuel depot. There are 74 of those giant tanks that you see outside of refineries all over the area.

So far, the fire that the Ukrainians triggered with this attack has been so intense that it has completely destroyed a third of the tanks, and it’s spreading to the rest. Once again, even if the Russians had the equipment and personnel necessary to fight the fire—which they don’t—it’s, I don’t want to call it out of control, but the Russians are barely holding the line. The Ukrainians have not let up; they’ve launched at least a couple more attacks since then. There’s a very real possibility that this entire depot, by far the biggest and most relevant one to the Prohodytsk front, is not going to be there a couple of weeks from now.

So, not only is fuel delivery now out of the equation, but fuel storage and forward positioning also seem to be going offline permanently as well. That would normally open up a huge opportunity for the Ukrainians to press the Crimean front because the Russian soldiers in Crimea are kicking for reinforcements, more ammunition, and supplies.

But that brings us to the fourth problem, which is absolutely not going the Ukrainians’ way, and that is the Russian assault on the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk—emphasis on the “krovsk.” That is in the Donbas, actually not too far from one of the regional capitals. Basically, what’s going on here is that the Russians have decided that they have to take this city at any cost, and they’ve been launching literally dozens of assaults against Ukrainian forces every single day for the last month.

And as the Russians are scrambling to move forces north into Kursk or south towards Crimea, they have not pulled anything out of the Pokrovsk front. Now that they can’t get fuel to Crimea, there is an argument to be made that the Russians might not even bother trying to send reinforcements to Crimea in the short term. Instead, they’ll send everything to Pokrovsk because if Pokrovsk falls, it’s a major problem for the Ukrainians. It’s a real nexus where several supply lines come together.

If it is taken out, it’s not that the Ukrainians can’t supply the front in the Donbas, but instead of having a single point where they can concentrate their forces and build for a pushback, they’ll have to do it from several different points that require a lot of rerouting.

That won’t be nearly as effective and will be much easier for the Russians to disrupt. The Ukrainians have always been trying to make this area work, while the Russians have always tried to put more pressure on it. One of the reasons why the Ukrainians have managed to secure this area so far is that there are no minefields up there, so they’re free to maneuver.

But if Pokrovsk falls, the Ukrainians are going to be running around just trying to hold the front at several different places, making the reinforcement problem even worse. So, there are a lot of decisive things going on here. Kursk is in play, Crimea is in play. If the Ukrainians can find some reserves to free up, those are now, of course, going to be contested.

We’re probably going to see more changes in the front line in the next few months than we have seen in the last couple of years. Very, very dynamic situation, very unclear. I think that’s one aspect to keep in mind here because we have three different factors at play.

What Are China and Russia Doing in Africa?

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

China and Russia seemingly enjoy having their fingers in the African pie, but what are they doing there? And should we be worried?

The Chinese have carried out infrastructure projects advertised as free, and later tried to collect payment on those “free” projects. As you could imagine, much of that Chinese infrastructure in Africa fell into disrepair; we’re not just talking about pennies here either…

But that’s not the only thing China is up to in Africa. They are also heavily investing in minerals like manganese, cobalt and copper. While the investments are real, they are overpaying due to corruption and Chinese bureaucrats seeking to move money out of the country.

Now, onto the Russians. The Russian involvement is bit more sinister, as they are using the Wagner Group (a paramilitary organization) to destabilize regions, instigate regime changes, and secure gold mines. This has been highly effective in places like the Sahel region, and is expressly designed to amplify regional risks and create a stateless zone that will cause headaches for everyone else for years.

These activities all have varying degrees of impact, and while the Chinese might be pouring more money into Africa, I would keep your eyes on the Russian involvement.

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.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from just above Sister Lake. That’s Volunteer Peak in the background.

I am finishing up my high country traverse from Rock Island Lake to Doe Lake to here, then back on the trail for, you know, an hour, then another traverse. Anyway, going through the Ask Peter forum, we’ve had a question come in about what I think about everything that the Russians and the Chinese are doing in Africa specifically.

It kind of falls into three general categories. Let’s start with the Chinese. First, we’ve got the old stuff, the One Belt, One Road initiative, where the Chinese basically came in, said, “We’ll build this piece of infrastructure, or a building, or whatever it is for you, and it’s free. We just ask you to be our friends.”

Well, a few years later, the Chinese came back. It’s like, “Oh, when we said free, what we really meant is this is a loan, and you have to start paying us back right now.” They were laughed out of the room in a lot of places. So, a lot of these projects were things that the locals didn’t need or can’t operate themselves. Once the Chinese actually started demanding payment, a lot of this stuff just fell into disrepair.

I’m not really concerned about that. There are a couple of exceptions here and there, but only a couple.

How much did the Chinese waste on this? I don’t have a specific number for Africa alone, but on a global basis, we’re talking easily north of a trillion. It’s not the dumbest thing we’ve seen the Chinese government do, but it’s certainly one of the dumbest things they’ve done that the rest of the world has gotten all up in arms about. Anyway, let’s see what’s next.

The second big thing is the mineral acquisitions that the Chinese are doing in Africa. This is all stuff that, from a technical point of view, is pretty easy. They’re not doing any deep offshore oil, for example, because they don’t have the technology to do it themselves.

But these are much more real, if that’s the right term. The Chinese are getting manganese, cobalt, copper, and all the rest. A couple of things to keep in mind: it’s not that this isn’t real—this is very real—but whenever you see the Chinese spending $4 billion for something that’s only worth $1 billion, it’s not just about resource acquisition.

It’s about capital flight. It means that someone in the Chinese bureaucracy has figured out a way to get a lot of cash out of the country and disguise it as investment. So, this is real investment. It is actually taking minerals and bringing them back to China. Whether it’s cost-effective needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

I’d argue that probably half of them are not, but there is a bribery and corruption effect in play here that you can’t overlook when you’re looking at everything else.

The third issue is the Russians, who have a very different sort of strategy. What the Russians are doing is taking Wagner, their paramilitary group, sending it over there, and literally kicking over the anthills.

The goal here is not to provide stability; the goal is to enact regime change. And then, as a bonus, the new regime, whatever that happens to be, typically gives the Russians a gold mine. They’re not interested in other types of mineral extraction because gold is just easier to smuggle. And that’s how the Russians are getting around sanctions these days.

They’re literally flying planes full of gold to places to pay for things that they can’t get otherwise. The place where the Russians have been most successful with this is the hellish area just to the south of the Sahara, just to the north of the wetter areas like Nigeria or Congo. So, you’re talking about places like Mauritania, Niger, Chad—those kinds of places.

A number of them have had coups in the last few years, especially since the Ukraine war started. This has ejected what used to be a lot of French influence and, to a much lesser degree, American influence. The Americans were there to fight the final chapter of the War on Terror. The French were there because it was their old colonial holdings.

Anyway, the territory here is pretty much worthless. I mean, you’re talking about something that’s barely a step above desert, even before you consider things like climate change, which suggests that the Sahara is going to be marching south here for a while. The problem, of course, is that when you take an area where the state was weak and you destroy it, you turn an entire band of Africa into a stateless zone.

The last time the world was a little obsessed about a stateless zone, it was Afghanistan. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the next al-Qaida is going to form here or that the next major terror attack is going to erupt from this area, but it’s a very similar series of conditions. You have a weak population that can’t fend for themselves, and you’ve got warlords who are basically running amok and, with Russian help, knocking over anyone who might want to impose a little order on the area.

So, of the three categories, this is probably the one with the lower dollar amount attached but probably the highest transcontinental significance. Three very different circumstances going on here, all with different outcomes.

Okay. See you next time.

Ukraine Pushes Into Russia, Yet Nukes Didn’t Fly…

Ukraine has made a significant push into Russian territory, capturing roughly 1,000 square kilometers within the Kursk province. The Ukrainians also destroyed a handful of bridges that will hinder Russia’s logistical support for Belgorod and complicate Russian reinforcement efforts.

Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk has Russia scrambling to pull together enough troops to counter the push, but the Russians lack the manpower and leadership necessary to effectively do so. This is a huge strategic gain for Ukraine, but it pales in comparison to the bigger learning here.

Despite Ukraine crossing into Russian territory, and dealing a huge blow to Russian forces, nukes haven’t flown. This might signal to the West that Russia’s bark is louder than its bite, and those nuclear threats may be just that…threats.

This could be a turning point in Western support for Ukraine and we could be seeing more operations in the near future.

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.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Back from my backpacking trip. I’m back in Colorado, and today we are going to talk about the most recent evolutions in the Ukraine war, which are wildly significant. Let’s deal with this from the least important to the most. First of all, going into Russia itself—nobody invades Russia on a whim.

I mean, part of the problem that the Russians have always had expanding from Moscow is that there is no logical place to stop this within a thousand miles of them. So they expand, conquer some minorities, occupy them, try to crucify them, turn them into cannon fodder, and throw them at the next line of minorities.

And they continue this process over and over and over and over and over, until they eventually reach a geographic barrier that they can actually hunker down behind, which is typically like the Baltics, the Carpathians, and the Black Sea. It works until it doesn’t. What we’re seeing with Russia right now is that the demographic decline among the Russian ethnicity is so high that within a few years, they’re going to have problems occupying their own populations.

Anyway, anyone who wants to attack Russia has to do that in reverse. And even if you make it all the way to Moscow, that’s not all of the Russian Federation territory. You basically have to go until Russia is broken. And by Russia, I mean the population. We have the possibility of seeing that in the next 10 or 20 years, but we’re not there yet.

The incursion that the Ukrainians have made into Russia proper isn’t all that impressive from a territorial point of view. Basically, in the last two weeks, the Ukrainians have invaded Russia proper. They’ve taken over about 1,000 km² in the province of Kursk. The question is why? And what is next? Well, the Ukrainian plan seems to be to take a pretty sizable bite out of the territory.

They have already destroyed the three permanent bridges that are over the River Cem, which is an East-West river that cuts through Kursk Province. By doing that, they’ve made it very difficult for the Russians to reinforce the territories around where this incursion has been. We know that the Ukrainians are currently expanding on at least four different axes: northwest, northeast, north, and east.

In doing so, they’re basically looking to swallow, at least temporarily, about half the province—about 6,000 mi². To give you an idea of scale, the Donbas in the southeast, where most of the fighting has been concentrated for the last year and a half, and the Ukraine war combined, is about 20,000 mi². So, you’re talking about an area about a third of that territory.

The 1,000 square kilometers that the Ukrainians have captured so far is greater than the entirety of what the Russian army has achieved in the Donbas in the last 18 months. So, from a Russian point of view, this is a small amount of territory. From a Ukraine war point of view, it’s a huge amount of territory. And because those bridges are now out, the Russians can only resupply with pontoons.

Unlike hard bridges that require some pretty heavy weaponry to take out, pontoons can be taken out by much shorter-range things like artillery. And they are. So, the Russian ability to fight back has been relatively limited. The question is, how far can this be pushed? Why is it happening? Let’s start with the why. I have always identified the city of Belgorod as one of the cities that the Ukrainians have to neutralize if they’re ever going to win this war because it’s the tip of the spear for Russian forces. This is where, in the northern theater, all of their armies and all of their artillery are concentrated because it’s at the end of the logistical lines. It’s a big rail and road hub. Well, if the Ukrainians are capable of basically taking the southern half of Kursk Province, they take out most of the infrastructure that feeds into Belgorod.

So, it neutralizes a city of a million people without actually going in and conquering a city of a million people, which I’ve got to say is pretty clever if they can pull it off. And with the bridges now out of the equation, I’d say there’s an even chance that they’re going to be able to pull that off. However, this is the end of their deployable reserves.

The Russian strategy is basically to launch a lot of artillery assaults, send in a huge number of barely trained—if trained at all—conscripts to soak up ammo and pin Ukrainian defenders in place, and then follow up with more and more and more artillery. It’s a very slow, grinding process, but because the Russians have manpower superiority, it’s one that has been broadly effective, at least in keeping the Ukrainians from doing things like this.

It took the Ukrainians scraping up the last of their reserve units, along with some advanced units that were training with NATO for future operations. I don’t think they’ve got a very deep bench beyond this. But they have succeeded in doing what they’ve always wanted to do in this war, which is to trigger a war of movement in Kursk, in Russian territory, ironically, in a way that they haven’t been able to do on their own territory.

The counteroffensive that we’ve seen from Ukraine in the war so far in the Donbas and near Crimea has basically been hamstrung by Russian defensive lines. You’ve got multi-layered lines of tank emplacements, artillery emplacements, and most importantly, minefields, so that when the Ukrainians move into these areas and have to start to clear the mines, the Russians are able to call in artillery barrages, and the Ukrainians ultimately have to decamp for other locations where they’re not going to die.

That doesn’t apply in Kursk. Those defensive lines are in Belgorod, but you don’t have them in Kursk. So, the Ukrainians have been able to basically locate a battlefield that plays to their strengths rather than the Russian strengths. And they’re kicking some serious ass. The problem is they probably don’t have enough men to fully take advantage of it.

But neither do the Russians have the men necessary to eject the Ukrainians. For the last two and a half years, the Russians have spent most of their logistical efforts in building a pipeline of men and material. Basically, they scrape together whatever men they can forcibly draft from the population, put guns in their hands, and throw them to the front.

To do this in a way that does not trigger a political crisis, they can only do it so fast and only in so many places. They prefer to go to those occupied minority populations where they think the young men are disposable. And in fact, if they die, that’s actually a plus from the Russian point of view because it means they can’t rebel against Russian rule. But they’ve basically dragged all the people they can of the appropriate age group out of those zones.

And now the cupboard is getting dry.

The pipeline isn’t simply running low in terms of forces but in leadership. Putin has basically used every military commander that he has already that’s even remotely competent. And so, he’s just assigned one of his former bodyguards to run the operation in Kursk.

And you can imagine how well that’s going.

The Russians also now have 10,000 Ukrainians, including the Ukrainian support echelons, running around in Kursk. As a rule, the Russians have never attacked an area where they don’t enjoy at least a 3 to 1 manpower superiority. They prefer 7 to 1, and they don’t have the forces to put there.

So, their options are to either partially abandon the Donbas offensive or dig deep into the Russian population. What we’ve seen them do in the last two weeks is basically mobilize every military force they have left in the country, which is not a lot, and include the Pacific, the Baltic, and the Arctic theaters of what little security personnel remain and throw them into Kursk, in many cases untrained.

They’ve even raided the security forces around the cosmodrome in the Far East. And I’ve got to tell you, if your security force was designed to keep a launch pad safe, it’s probably not very good in the face of an Abrams barrel. There’s nothing left. They haven’t been able to find the 30,000 to 70,000 troops that they need in order to retake Kursk.

With the bridges gone, they can only approach from the east.

So, the Ukrainians are having a bit of a heyday at the moment, running around in Kursk, dealing with lightly armed and wildly untrained troops that don’t even have the benefit of large-scale artillery support. I don’t mean to suggest for a second that the Ukrainians are not taking casualties themselves. It’s an active war zone. I don’t have good data. I would be shocked if, in an offensive operation of this scale, they’re not taking heavy losses, especially in their armor. But the fact remains that the Ukrainians have found a way, relatively on the cheap, to play to their strengths, neutralize Belgorod, and change the narrative of the war.

Anyway, all of this collectively pales in significance to the real shift that we’ve identified as a result of the Kursk operation.

Nukes haven’t flown.

Throughout this war, the Russians have at every stage identified a series of red lines, saying that if you cross this line, we’re going to nuke Washington and Warsaw and Berlin and Paris and London and the rest.

And at every stage, it’s turned out to be a bluff. Well, now the Ukrainians have crossed the international border in force. They have castrated the Russian military in the area. There’s very little standing in the way of them taking even more territory. And they’re about to castrate a city of a million people that used to serve as the primary launching point.

And the Russians haven’t launched. One of the big concerns in the Western capitals ever since this war started is—well, they call it escalation management. The idea is we know that the Russians are a major power, but most importantly, we know that the Russians are a major nuclear power. And at some point, the Russians very well may kick off some nukes because they feel threatened.

Well, now we have an incursion that has crossed the international border, and the Russians are broken in the area. And yet, the nukes are still capped. Whether this is because the Russians are unwilling or unable is a discussion we can have, and that is a legitimate discussion to have. But the fact remains that even now, the Russians are showing an inability or an unwillingness to go to that level, and that tells me that the conservatism in Western capitals about challenging the Russians is about to evaporate.

Because if the Ukrainians can do this without that sort of counter-reaction, then pretty much every Russian threat to this point is meaningless. Is there eventually a red line where if you step across it, the Russians will pull the trigger? Probably. But we now know it doesn’t involve population centers, territory, or cities within a few dozen miles of the wrong side of Russia’s internationally recognized borders.

And that ultimately is going to trigger a new sort of offensive operation that has the full support of pretty much every Western country. That is the biggest tidal shift in the world to this point. And that is something we’re going to see the consequences of over the next few months.

Life’s Greatest Mystery: Understanding Americans

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

We’re going to group therapy today, and on the docket for discussion is what makes Americans so difficult to understand? Not in a weird accent kind of way, but in a “why are we the way that we are” kind of way.

Yeah we’re all manic depressive, but how did we end up like this? If you look back at US history, there are some clues as to how we got here. The first settlers struggled with the geography of America, but soon discovered vast fertile lands once they trekked into the interior. This led to rapid economic growth and a sense of boundless opportunity (aka the American Dream), that established the national ethos of hard work will always pay off.

This overly optimistic and often unrealistic worldview in the states isn’t seen most places. Take Canada for example – the harsh landscape within Canada led to a more passive-aggressive national character. Or Australia – the barren outback meant that they had to develop strong external relationships to thrive. Each of these countries’ ethos is unique and contributes to much of the miscommunication that happens throughout the world.

The US also has a quirk in which we overreact to crises. The launch of Sputnik by the Soviets led to a complete overhauling of American industry and education. 9/11 led to the US asserting its power globally. This is a blessing and a curse, and you don’t know how it will end up until years down the road.

So, rules of engagement for understanding Americans, just treat us like teenage girls…

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.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from upper Spiller Canyon in Yosemite. Just in front of me is Horse Creek Pass, which sucks. Anyway, this is Spiller Canyon behind me. That’s much better. We’re doing a number of videos while I’m out backpacking. This one, we’re going to talk about why Americans are so manic-depressive or, as most other countries refer to it, why Americans are batshit crazy.

It has to do with geography. When the original settlers started laying claim to the eastern seaboard of what’s now the East Coast of the United States, we were just another colony. Even when the United States got its independence, its opportunity for growth was very limited. You basically had a thin coastal strip that wasn’t even particularly well connected.

And there was the Chesapeake Bay right in the middle, which was valuable. But if somebody, as in the War of 1812 kind of thing, took over Baltimore, it cut the United States in two. So we discovered that Americans had a very regional approach to everything until we started penetrating inland. Part of the Treaty of Paris gave the United States the eastern side of the Mississippi Basin, basically up to the Appalachians, and then later the Louisiana Purchase, which gave us the western side.

This was a major change, one that has shaped America’s mindset ever since. As people took the National Road and entered the Ohio River Valley, they soon found out that these were the best farmlands on the planet, overlaid by the largest natural navigable waterway system in the world, just right on top of each other.

Anyone, for the price of a Conestoga wagon, which in modern times is like $14,000, could basically go out to this interior zone and within eight months be exporting grain through New Orleans for hard currency. This lasted for five generations, with the notable interruption of the Civil War.

For five generations, Americans found more and better lands. They got richer, and there were really no security concerns from their point of view. You do that for 150 years, and you develop a series of national ethos and mythos. For the United States, that mythos was that the world is ultimately a kind place, and that you just have to work hard, and security will take care of itself, and wealth will take care of itself, because that is what we knew for 150 years. But, as we have all learned, that is not how the world actually works.

From time to time, the world reaches out and punches you in the face. And for Americans, who went for five generations without a serious adjustment, well, we lose our minds because we become convinced that the covenant with God has been broken and that our days are over. We start a panicked recreation of everything about ourselves in a desperate attempt to survive.

Now, is this an overreaction? You betcha. But does this have an upside? Absolutely. Because if you respond to negative stimuli with reinvention, then the sky is the limit. Let me give you a few examples. The quintessential one is Sputnik. Let’s be honest here. It was a beeping aluminum grapefruit.

The Americans were ahead of the Russians at the time in rocketry, metallurgy, and electronics. But because the Russians were able to launch something that went beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, we lost our shit and completely overhauled our industrial base. We completely overhauled how we handled public education, and we then coasted on those advantages for the next 50 years.

9/11 is another really good example. It was a tragedy by any measure. I don’t mean to talk people out of that, but as a side effect of the War on Terror, Americans ended up at the sharp end of American power, striding every major waterway on the planet, something we have yet to use.

When that time comes, all the hard work is done. Vietnam is another great example. We lost a war to a post-colonial power that was a rice producer, and we were the world’s largest rice exporter at the time. As a side effect of our reaction to Vietnam, we took about a decade off, and we completely overhauled our defense industry, marrying technology to our weapons systems in what has become known as the revolution in military affairs.

That gave us everything from satellite communications to cruise missiles to drones. Our reaction, our overreaction, to stimulus is one of our great advantages, but it does mean we’re a little “whoo-hoo” when we’re dealing with the diplomatic side of things. When something goes down that we think is too much, we have to remake everything.

Now, our closest cultural cousins, the Australians, the New Zealanders, and the Canadians, have something similar to this. Let’s start with our Canuck neighbors. Actually, the Canucks and the Australians both, unlike the American settlers who found more and better lands, the Canadian and Australian settlers basically found a dead heart.

The Aussies found the Outback, which, you know, may be good for mining, but it’s certainly not good for the average person to start anew. And the Canadians found the Canadian Shield, which is forested land with a broken crust where you might be able to mine, but you’re never going to farm. So they had a very different approach.

In the case of Canada, this is where the passive-aggressiveness comes from because they’ve always seen the country to their south doing very, very, very well with absolutely no planning. With the Australians, this is why they have a tendency to be very, very forward-thinking because they know that at the end of the day, their capacity to leverage their own geography to achieve success is somewhat limited. So they have to have good relations with someone else. It used to be the United Kingdom; now it’s definitely the United States.

And then there are the Kiwis. They have a situation somewhat similar to the United States in that they pushed inland and found more and better lands, especially relative to the size of the country. But there was one big difference between New Zealand and the United States: New Zealand’s remote. The Americans have a massive coastline on two ocean basins.

So, you take the size of the United States and combine it with its resources, of course, it’s going to be a global power, which is one of the reasons why we get punched in the face every once in a while. The New Zealanders never had that.

The Kiwis could exist in a degree of splendid isolation should they really choose to, and as a result, they kind of have all the upside of what goes on in the American mind, but none of the downsides, because, you know, the last time that there was a war on New Zealand shores, you have to go back to like the 15th century.

I think that’s the 15th, 16th, 13th, mid-18th century when the Maori settled there in the first place and went to war with the natives who were already there. The result is a very, very different political culture. Okay, that’s it for me. I will, that’s my next stop. I’ll see you guys there.

The Baltics Ditch Russia for European Integration

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

The Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are taking one step closer to the Europeans with their upcoming electrical system swap. This switch from Russian to European electrical standards marks a significant shift for these nations.

Since the Baltic states industrialized under Soviet rule, their electrical systems have long been geared to Russian technic norms. While other similar countries transferred over to the European standard, the Baltic transition was made slower due to the geography and proximity to Kaliningrad. This was amplified by demographic issues and slow growth that have plagued these countries.

The electrical switch is a critical step in integrating the Baltic states into the broader European system and it reflects the ongoing progress these countries are making.

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.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from the Hoover Wilderness. This is the northwest shoulder of Slide Mountain. I’m in the part where Yosemite merges into the Hoover, and there are so many things to look at that they haven’t even bothered naming most of them. Anyway, taking an entry from the Ask Peter forum today, specifically asking for comment about the effort in the Baltic republics.

That’s Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the three Central European states on the Baltic Sea, who are switching their electrical system over from Russian standards to European standards.

This has been a long time coming. They’re actually already using European generation assets, but they do use a different frequency. If you remember back to the bad old days of the Cold War, everyone was convinced for a while, pre-1985 roughly, that they needed to control their own manufacturing system. So we all had our own electrical networks—the Soviets had theirs, the Americans had theirs, the Brits had theirs, mainland Europe had theirs, Australia, and New Zealand had theirs, blah blah blah. Wow. It was really annoying. Anyway, now that the Baltic states are no longer part of the Cold War and no longer part of the Soviet Union, they are finally switching over.

While the connections are already in place to draw power from the European space, this will be changing the frequency as well. So basically, everything’s going to go down one day next year, I think in March, and then it’s going to come back up and they’ll feel a little bit more European.

This is one of the many problems that the Balts and really all of the Central Europeans have had in adapting from Soviet life to European life. Most of these countries had their first taste of industrialization under Soviet rule in some way. And don’t make that think that they’re laggards because, you know, Sweden had their first taste of real industrialization in the 1940s and 50s as well. This is just when it happened for many, many, many people. So their systems were designed to work in a different world, and moving over bit by bit can be done, but it takes time and it takes resources.

In the case of the Balts, they’re definitely the laggards in this. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia went over very, very early because they have a lot more physical connections to Europe. For example, you can basically walk from any part of Germany to any part of Poland without a problem. The Balts are hanging off the northern end of Poland. And there’s a little problem in this little enclave called Kaliningrad, which inhibits direct connections between the greater EU and the Balts. Basically, you’ve got this little pocket of Russian territory that’s on the Baltic Sea.

Kind of reminds me of, I don’t know, Washington, DC, without the governance. You get all the dirt, all the traffic, all the corruption, and all the bad weather, but none of the power. Well, that’s kind of what it feels like to me anyway. Rooting around that has always been difficult because there’s a security issue.

There’s something called the, let’s see, I’m going to butcher this name, Suwałki Gap, which is the thin layer of territory that connects a sliver of Poland to a sliver of Lithuania. They’re building out infrastructure to make that a more viable connection, but it takes time. And remember that the Balts are called the tiny Baltic republics for a reason.

These are not large states. And when they got into the European Union, and they got into the Schengen zone, and they got into the free movement treaty, a lot of people who were in their 30s or younger left. So the total population for all three Baltic states combined is only about 8 million. I mean, geography’s a bitch. If you’ve got this kind of weak connection and then that kind of population density, there’s only so fast that you can go without a lot of outside help.

Now, the European Union, with development funds, has been paying for some of this, but ultimately the Balts have to dig deep. There’s also been talk about the Swedes and the Finns doing more, like maybe having a bridge or a tunnel from Finland to Estonia. But you should put that out of your mind right now because Finland only has like 5 or 6 million people, so it would never be viable.

Anyway, this is one of the many, many reasons why back in the day, in the 20s, I was like, if you’re going to expand NATO, great. Poland, obviously; Hungary, obviously; Romania, obviously. But the Balts? Should we really be extending the defense guarantee to countries that couldn’t be defended? But that was 20 years ago. And in that time, the Balts and the Europeans have come a long way in building connections among them.

And more importantly, in Ukraine, where we’ve seen very, very, very clearly that the Russian army is not all that, and they’re burning through their men and their equipment at a rate that they just can’t replace. So while it’s still a meaningful conversation about defense of the Balts, because they are very exposed and at the very end of a very long chain of logistics, it’s no longer silly to have that conversation.

So I see this electrical switchover as another small step in a multi-decade process to make the Balts part of the free world. So far, so good.

Could Jet Ski Bombs Change the Way Navies Operate?

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

The US Navy and its fleet of carriers (and super-carriers) haven’t had much of a challenge on the seas since WWII. But of all things, it might be some low-tech jet ski bombs that change the way the world’s navies operate.

As the Ukraine War evolves, we’re seeing warfare innovations that could reshape all future conflict. This has come in the form of modified speedboats and jet skis with bombs, used to disable Russia’s Black Sea Navy. And other countries are starting to take note.

For countries with constrained naval access points, this could spell trouble; think of regions like the Black Sea and Baltic Sea or countries with punchy neighbors like Israel and Turkey. These innovations are low-cost and accessible to just about everyone…even worse, they’re difficult to defend against with current tech. So, how does this look for the major naval players?

China is vulnerable to attack from smaller countries due to their port locations. For the US, UK and Japan, there’s less concern given their geographies and strategic partnerships. However, everyone should be updating their defense systems and working to handle this new style of water warfare.

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.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Yosemite. Really doesn’t matter beyond that because I’ve been pushed into my tent by some Thunder boomers for the last hour anyway. Thought I’d use the wet as an excuse to talk about the future of movies around the world. Since World War One—really, World War Two—the carrier has been the backbone of everything that matters, largely because they can project power. More conventional ships like, say, battleships have to get into engagement range, which is, you know, measured in miles or tens of miles, whereas a carrier can launch fighters and fighter bombers from hundreds of miles away and never be in danger itself.

That’s why the Soviets invested so much in trying to break through the American carrier perimeter with things like airlines, cruise missiles, or submarines to questionable effect. But anyway, that was the goal. Now, for the last 30 years, the United States has been the only game in town. It’s not just carriers the United States has. It has supercarriers. It has ten of what most countries consider carriers, which are the core of the Marine expeditionary units, and then another ten of the Nimitz class carriers, which are the ones that, you know, outshoot everybody. One of those has more projection-based firepower than every other navy in the world, with the exception of the Japanese and the British navies, who are allies anyway. So, big difference. And then, of course, the United States is in the process of floating three Ford-class carriers, which will be even more powerful. So, from a conventional naval point of view, the United States is in a league of its own. Might as well be on its own planet. The question is whether that is changing.

One of the things that we have seen in the Ukraine war is that the Ukrainians have been able to modify speedboats and literally jet skis with remote controls, put a couple hundred pounds or 500 pounds of bombs on them, and send them off. In doing so, they’ve basically sunk or incapacitated the vast majority of the Black Sea navy of the Russians. It’s actually worse than it sounds because the Russians moved a lot of ships into the Black Sea just before the war, and those are all gone too. So recently, the Russians abandoned the port of Sevastopol. Basically, they’re not having naval assets in the Crimean Peninsula anymore. They’ve moved everything back to Novorossiysk. But the Ukrainians have already hit Novorossiysk, so they’re probably going to have to move it back to Tuapse, or maybe even Astrakhan. Basically, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is no more. It’s no longer a fleet in being. It no longer has the capacity to project power, and it’s basically hiding in its supposed home waters. Say what you will, but the Ukrainians are creative, and they’re working with very, very little. There’s not much about these naval drones that is particularly sophisticated; we just haven’t seen them patched together like this before. So, to think that this technological innovation is going to stop just in Ukraine is kind of stupid.

So you need to look around the world for other navies that really shouldn’t exist much longer because if they get in a shooting war with a neighbor, all it’s going to take is a few non-dudes on jet skis, and they’re gone. The country that is going to suffer the most from this is Russia. All of Russia’s maritime access points where it has naval ports are contested. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s got that really, really, really crazy long Arctic coastline, but hardly anyone lives there, with the exception of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, which are the bases for the Arctic Fleet. And both of those are within jet ski range of Norway. Saint Petersburg and the Baltic Sea Fleet are even more constrained. Anything that wants to operate there has to get by Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and Germany. So yeah, not happening. The only other remaining base is out in Vladivostok, where the Russians are completely circumscribed by the Japanese islands. So, you know, any meaningful conflict involving any of these theaters, and the Russians lose it all very, very, very quickly to jet skis. I mean, that’s just embarrassing. The Russians have never been a naval power because all of its navy points are constrained, and one fleet can’t really reinforce the other, but still, this is just a little over the top.

They’re hardly alone. Basically, there are a lot of countries that are near one another, they don’t like one another, and getting a few motorboats or jet skis together to throw things out of whack is a really good plan. So, for example, if the Israelis and the Turks don’t find a way to get along, both of them can largely decimate the regional navies. This is a bigger problem for Turkey because it’s on the Black Sea, and that means it has to have good relations with not just the Russians and the Georgians, but the Romanians and the Bulgarians. And of course, then there’s the Greeks. The Aegean Sea is probably going to be a no-go zone for the Turkish Navy, which basically makes it really important for the Turks to get along with Israel. Otherwise, they won’t have a navy at all.

But the real fun starts in the Persian Gulf, where Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman can basically, whenever they want to, bomb each other’s navies. Not that any of them have navies, but it’s a commercial thing. All of these countries are dependent upon the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to get crude out, and now it takes really, really low-tech stuff to interrupt it. But the real, real crazy exciting stuff is going to happen in East Asia because every Chinese port is on the wrong side of the first island chain. That’s the line of islands going south from Japan to include Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. I would look to Indonesia and the Philippines to really explore these technologies because they’re not naval powers, but anyone can buy some bombs on a jet ski, and all of a sudden, all this money that the Chinese have been investing in their navy is completely pointless.

Now, of course, if you’re talking about the big three navies in the world, that’s the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Those are the three big naval powers. The game might be a little different. One of the reasons why these three countries are the world’s biggest naval powers is because of their positioning. Obviously, Japan and the United Kingdom are islands, so they have to have a navy, and then the United States is basically on a continent more or less by itself from a strategic point of view. Well, in the case of Japan, all of its ports are on the east side of the island, so they’re out of jet ski range. For the United Kingdom, as long as they get along well with Norway, Denmark, and France, there’s nothing to worry about there, and that’s one of the many reasons why NATO tries to keep an eye on all of these relationships. And to be perfectly blunt, the French and the Brits—there’s a lot of bad water under the bridge there, but they’re not about to go bombing one another, and the Danes, the Norwegians, and the Brits have gotten along well for centuries, so that’s probably okay.

There’s still the open question, though, of where can you operate? Just because you can get your ship out of port doesn’t mean you can do anything with it because if you come in range of a foreign coastline, the jet skis may very well come out. So we’re going to have to see a counter-revolution in naval technology here. I don’t want to go so far as to say the age of the supercarrier is over because those things are really tough to sink, and they are really fast, and they are really useful. But if someone’s coming at you with a fleet of jet skis, you don’t have the right weapons for that. There’s nothing on the ships or even in the ring of ships that supports them that can shoot down at an angle to engage these things, so we’ll need something new.

Now the Navy is working on something called the Replicator initiative, which isn’t simply going to field a bunch of drones; it’s going to turn all of the major surface combatants into drone manufacturing centers, so they can kick out dozens of these things in a few hours, is the theory. And if that happens, you get some serious drone-on-drone action. While using a jet ski against a capital ship is a big bang for your buck, using a small drone against a large drone is an even bigger bang. So, according to the Navy, within two years, Replicator should be online, at least in a prototype fashion. We’ll see what it looks like then. It’s all a question of whether or not the existing naval powers can innovate at the speed that the upstarts are. I can tell you this for sure: they’re putting a budget behind it because they don’t want to lose those big boats.

All right, that’s it for me. Until next time.

The Mexican Cartels Are Double-Dipping in the Guacamole

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

Unless you want to start buying your guacamole in dime bags, the US better start looking for some new avocado “dealers”. Yes, we’re talking about the cartels’ involvement in the avocado supply chains in Mexico.

Mexican cartels like Jalisco New Generation and La Nueva Familia Michoacán (which is allied with the Sinaloa cartel), are heavily involved in avocado production through protection rackets. While these cartels have different strategies, the bottom line is that any cartel involvement is dangerous to the sustainability of avocado exports.

As the cartels’ presence worsens, the US better start looking elsewhere for their avocados.

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.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to my favorite new party pad on Middleburg Lake in Yosemite National Park, right alongside the Pacific Coast Trail. For the people who actually have to follow the trail. Anyhow, I figured it would be a great time to talk about the geopolitics of everyone’s favorite party. Favorite guacamole? We’re having a problem with avocados. It seems that the Mexican cartels are starting to run protection rackets.

It’s worse than it sounds. There are two groups doing most of the work and inhibiting production. The first, one of the new generation cartels, if you remember from previous works, are, well, there’s some bad characters. Their leader is a guy by the name of El Chapo who basically believes that the first thing any self-respecting cartel should do is go into town, walk right into the police office in broad daylight, and kill a few people.

As a result, this violence-first approach doesn’t make it very easy for someone to ally with them, but it does make everybody pretty scared of them. And the growers of avocados have had to form self-protection forces in an attempt to fend them off.

The second group is—let’s see if I get this name right—Lander Weaver Familia Michoacán. The new Michoacán family. Michoacán is the state where most of the avocados in Mexico come from.

Anyway, they are a relatively new arrival, but they are definitely allied with the Sinaloa cartel. Who are the primary competitors? To help this new generation nationally, the deciding factor about the Sinaloa alliance is significantly different. It’s not that they’re any less violent; they just use violence as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself. As a result, they have a real fondness for going out and diversifying their operations, basically trying to get into anything that allows them to launder money and agriculture, especially things that are shipped in raw form to the United States, like avocados.

Fits the bill. So you’ve basically got a group that’s hyper-violent and just looking for cash versus a group that is a little bit more selective with their violence. They’re the nicest mass murderers and drug runners you could ever meet. But they prefer a more corporate approach that is more, what’s the word I’m looking for?

Corrosive to the economy. And these are the two choices that the locals have to deal with. Ergo, the self-protection forces. Anyway, you should not expect this to get better anytime soon. In fact, you should expect it to get worse. You can make the argument that a few years ago, Americans had the opportunity to quit cocaine and destroy the cartels.

But now that they’ve diversified into really any sort of illegal operations, especially if it’s cash-heavy, it’s probably too late for that. I mean, don’t get me wrong; you should still not take cocaine. That’s at least half of their revenues. But we’re now in a situation where something like 10% to 15% of the tequila in Mexico is paying protection money to one of the cartels.

The biggest thing I can underline here is that while I’ve mentioned the two big alliances—remember La Familia—there are a lot of local cartels now that are part of these broad umbrellas. And because of that, we now have local groups doing shakedowns of everyone and everything for everything. And because of that, it is probably time to start looking to North Carolina for your avocados, which definitely means you’re not going to be getting them all year round.

They don’t travel well. I don’t have any here.

Can the Six-Day Work Week Save Greece?

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

How would you feel if you had a beautiful view of the coastline, but could only ever get out by the beach once per week? Well, now that employers can mandate a six-day work week in Greece, many are faced with that exact problem.

We’re all aware of Greece’s economic struggles over the past few decades, but that instability has been amplified by demographic problems. As the Greek government attempts to balance out economic activity (made up of consumption, production, capital and labor), they’ve chosen labor as the factor that will have to compromise. Obviously a six-day work week is going to piss off some people, but what else can they do?

We’ve seen countries like Japan, South Korea, Italy and Germany face similar problems and combat them in different ways, but the outcome for each country is still uncertain. As for countries who haven’t hit the decision point, like the US and Mexico, they can observe each of these countries’ tactics and draw learnings from each.

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.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from just below Matterhorn Pass where I just came from. Tomorrow’s project is over there, that’s Dog Head Peak. And then this is the Finger Head Peak, which I will not be doing because I’m not that crazy. Anyway, I copied the entire via, asked Peter, formed my phone before embarking on this trip.

And while some of you have some very strange questions, one that popped up, which I thought really tied some themes together, was something going on in Greece right now. The government has recently approved that employers can force employees to work six-day work weeks. And you’re like, Greece? That Greece, the Greece that spent itself into oblivion 15 years ago?

The Greece that had the hard left governments that basically refused to pay debt? Well, yeah, they’ve been beaten into shape now, but this is a whole new level. Every economic model, it doesn’t matter if it is laissez-faire capitalism, European socialism, Chinese fascism, Biden debt-driven New Dealism, or Trumpian Peronism, doesn’t matter what it is.

All of them are about managing the differences and the communications between the four major pillars of economic activity: consumption, production, capital, and labor. Different systems will favor different methods. So, like, socialists generally go more for labor, capitalists generally go more for capital, just for example. It’s in the name. What’s happened in Greece is that they are running out of those four pillars.

Part of this is a series of very, very, very bad government and financial decisions that date back to the 1990s. Remember, the Greeks had the largest bailout in EU history and indebted themselves to something like 140% of GDP. The bailout to pay it back is going to take them decades, so the capital side of the equation was already all wonky for them.

The second problem is demographic. The birth rate in Greece has been below replacement levels for in excess of a half-century, and they’re simply running out of people under age 45 to do the work, much less have children. With these two forces completely out of whack, all that’s left is supply and demand in an economy that has been in and out of recession now for 15 years.

That’s not great. So what we’re seeing is the government trying to take a brokering role to decide which one of those four forces—supply, demand, capital, and labor—has to be crunched down so the other three have a chance to work. And this government has chosen labor. That will obviously generate some political problems. I don’t mean to suggest that it won’t.

The Greeks are hardly the only country that is in this situation, and despite all of their many, many differences, I would say that the country in the world that is second closest to having to make these sorts of hard choices is Japan. Demographically, they’re the oldest country in the world and the fastest aging. From a debt point of view, they have been running massive, Greek-style, Biden-style, Trump-style budget deficits now for 30 years.

And if you take into account things like pension arrears and local debt, which I think you should, you’re talking about a debt that is somewhere between 450 and 500% of GDP. So, you know, whenever you look at a country and think, “Oh wow, their debt’s bad,” look at Japan. The Japanese have used what capital they do have to try to find technological solutions for some of these problems.

Getting people to work later in life, for example. What the Greeks are doing and what the Japanese are doing are very much projects in progress. We have no idea if it’s going to work, because, remember, we’ve never, ever been in this position as a species before. We’re looking at the fundamental, the bedrock—we’ve got a little bit of the bedrock of what makes our economic structures work.

Turning inside out. And we are going to have to find a new way forward. For this, I would not necessarily look to Greece and Japan. I mean, for the experiment, yes, watch them closely. But I would look for the more robust countries that are more internationally involved and have a more dynamic economy. The top of my list is going to be Korea, which is aging much faster than Japan.

I need to correct myself there. Japan is no longer the fastest aging country in the world; they may just be down to, like, 10th. Korea is in the top five. I would look at Italy so you can get a European example as well. They’ve been below replacement level for 70 years.

And then, of course, look at Germany. Germany has had a number of issues in its past when the economic model no longer functioned, and things got delightfully lively. So, that’s it for me today. Keep an eye on these countries as they try to redesign themselves. It’s not all going to go well. If you happen to be in North America, keep in mind that the United States is furthest from this problem for demographic reasons.

Our demographics have been stronger than everybody else for quite some time, and Mexico has the best demographics in its peer class. So Mexico City and Washington get to watch everybody else and see how they stress over this, and hopefully, we will learn something from that.

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited NAtions

The Absent Superpower

The accidental superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited Nations

The Absent Superpower

The Absent Superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited NAtions

The Absent Superpower

The accidental superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited Nations

The Absent Superpower

The Absent Superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited NAtions

The Absent Superpower

The accidental superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited Nations

The Absent Superpower

The Absent Superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited NAtions

The Absent Superpower

The accidental superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited Nations

The Absent Superpower

The Absent Superpower

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