Peter Zeihan, Author at Zeihan on Geopolitics

Deglobalization’s Impact on Global Food Exports

Image depicting global grain and coffee sacks for export

Globalization has allowed us (meaning humans as a species) to make some of the worst lands farmable, inhabitable, and even prosperous. But what happens to global food exports when globalization ends?

There are five requirements to sustain successful agricultural exports in a deglobalized world: productive arable land, petroleum for fuel, and three essential fertilizers (potash, phosphate, and nitrogen). If a country doesn’t have access to one these, they might be SOL.

North America is the big winner here, specifically the US and Canada which have almost everything right at hand. Other regions that top the list are Argentina, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, although these countries may struggle with fuel supplies. Brazilian agriculture will suffer due to poor land quality and heavy reliance on fertilizers coming from China and the former Soviet Union (which are likely to destabilize). Any of those specialty crop producers, especially those in the California’s Central Valley, will likely have to pivot business models due to shrinking markets, high costs, and dependency on Chinese markets.

Deglobalization could cause a potential drop in calorie production by a third and the fallout would be devastating. We’re talking widespread food shortages and catastrophic levels of starvation.

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 central Yosemite. I’m standing by another mountain lake, which, being unnamed, is now officially called Peter’s Other Lake! And it even has a beach—pretty cool, right?

Anyway, today we’re diving into another question from the Ask Peter forum: what’s going to happen to global agricultural exports in a post-globalized world? Short answer—nothing good.

To sustain agricultural exports, you need five key things:

Arable Land: You’ve got to have a lot of productive land.
Petroleum: Agriculture on a large scale relies heavily on internal combustion engines. There’s talk of electric tractors, but the technology isn’t there yet. Their charge doesn’t last long enough, and they don’t have the power to do meaningful work. So, unless you’re talking about a small electric cart for something like apple picking, we won’t see electric solutions this decade, probably not even next.
Fertilizer: Fertilizer comes in three parts—potash (potassium), phosphate, and nitrogen (usually derived from natural gas). These are sourced from different parts of the world. For instance, about half of the world’s phosphate exports come from China, and that’s already problematic since China might face disintegration. Worse yet, those phosphate deposits are in interior regions prone to secession. So, say goodbye to that supply. Potash is mostly found in Belarus and Russia, but thank goodness for Saskatchewan in Canada. As for nitrogen, which is made from natural gas, it’s more widespread, with the U.S. being the top producer.

Without access to all these elements, growing food at scale becomes much harder. In a post-globalized world, the number of places that can sustain agricultural exports shrinks significantly.

At the top of that list is North America, particularly the U.S. and Canada. Saskatchewan has potash covered, the U.S. has plenty of nitrogen, and both countries boast some of the best farmland in the world. For phosphate, once you move away from China, you’ve got options like Morocco, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and even Florida.

Other regions in decent shape include Argentina, which has highly productive land, and South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. While these countries, with the exception of Argentina, can’t produce their own fuel, they are outside major conflict zones. So, if there’s fuel and fertilizer available for trade, these are likely destinations, as they can pay in hard currency.

Brazil, however, is in trouble. It has some of the worst land quality globally and is the largest importer of fertilizer, relying heavily on China and the former Soviet Union. Brazil’s status as an agricultural powerhouse isn’t over yet, but you can see the sunset from here. Parts of southern Brazil near Argentina may fare better, but the explosive growth we’ve seen in soy production is temporary.

In the Old World, France stands out. Like Argentina, France has excellent farmland. It’s also far enough from conflict zones to remain relatively safe and close enough to the North Sea for natural gas. If there’s any international trade left, France is one of the few nations with a capable navy to secure its sea lanes.

But that’s still not enough. We’re looking at global calorie production potentially dropping by a third. And that means a lot of starvation.

Now, beyond staple crops like wheat, rice, corn, and soy, there’s also a thriving trade in specialty crops—cherries, apples, alfalfa, and more. In a post-globalized world, many countries will lose the ability to pay for these. If China is your primary customer, it’s time to look for a new market. The country that should be most concerned about this is the U.S., particularly California’s Central Valley. This area has extremely high production costs due to strict regulations and its desert-like conditions, which make input costs (water, for example) sky-high. It’s not naturally fertile land.

As long as inputs are cheap and China is willing to pay top dollar because they’re price-insensitive, this business model works. But that’s not going to be the reality much longer. So, check your specialty crops, see where they’re being sold, and figure out if those markets will hold up as globalization breaks down. If not, you’ll need to either switch markets or find a new crop.

Alright, that’s it for me. See you next time!

Will Climate Change Be the Death of Wheat?

Although climate change models are still evolving, historical climate data shows a clear warming trend. So, let’s discuss the impacts of climate change, specifically who will be affected the most and who might even benefit from it.

When you think of climate change, think of it as an amplification of current conditions. So, hot and dry areas will likely become hotter and drier. Hot and humid regions are likely to get even wetter and face severe health risks. Agricultural zones in marginal climates will suffer the most, especially those dependent on wheat.

Speaking of wheat – humanity’s primary calorie source – you might want to enjoy that cinnamon roll and pasta while you have the chance…Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but you can expect production to decline and prices to soar. This will especially impact places like the American Great Plains, central Argentina, the Russian wheat belt, and northern China.

However, regions with dual wind streams are poised to do pretty well amidst the warming climate. Think of zones like the American South and Midwest, parts of Argentina, Uruguay, northwestern Europe, and New Zealand. Unfortunately for the Chinese, their agricultural regions are particularly vulnerable, which will lead to severe food shortages and famine.

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 Blue Lake at the border between Yosemite National Park and the Ansel Adams Wilderness. That’s the Pinnacles behind me, and let me tell you, the hike up here was quite the challenge! Today, we’re tackling a question from the Ask Peter forum: with climate change, where are we going to feel it first? Who’s going to be hit the hardest, and is there anyone who might actually benefit?

First off, let’s remember that our understanding of climate change is still developing. Yes, there are plenty of smart people studying it, but when it comes to understanding how the atmosphere works on a global scale, we’re learning as we go. I find it most reliable to look at the past rather than just the projections. We have over a century of climate data from most locations, tracking temperature, wind, and precipitation. If you look at what’s happened over the last 140 years or so since industrialization began, there’s been a clear uptick in temperatures.

By the time my fourth book, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, was published, that temperature increase was 1.1°C over the entire period. In the last few years, it’s ticked up to 1.2°C. This doesn’t just mean that the world is getting warmer; it’s getting warmer in different areas at different rates. One key thing to remember about precipitation is that while warmer air can hold more moisture, it also requires more moisture before precipitation occurs. So, hot and dry areas are getting drier, and wet and hot areas are getting wetter.

As long as you have electricity, a degree Celsius isn’t a big deal. Take the United States, for example—back in the 1930s and 40s, Florida and Iowa had similar populations. Now, Florida’s population is about eight times that of Iowa, thanks to air conditioning and reliable electricity. But I’m more concerned about two specific regions.

First, the developing world areas that are already hot and humid, like Brazil, the northern coast of South America, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. These regions are already very wet, humid, and hot, and adding even a little more heat could be a serious health risk.

The second area of concern is agricultural zones that are already hot and dry. Agriculture tends to be concentrated in regions where specific crops grow best—avocados in California, wine in southern France, and so on. Wheat is the exception because it’s essentially a weed and will grow almost anywhere. As the world has diversified its agricultural production and globalization has spread crops globally, wheat has steadily been pushed to the margins, except in places like northern France, Quebec, and parts of Pakistan and India where it’s tied to cultural or food security.

Wheat is now grown in cold and dry or hot and dry regions like the American Great Plains, central Argentina, the Russian wheat belt, and northern China. This means that when climate change starts reducing moisture in these areas, wheat production will collapse, and prices will skyrocket. And since wheat has been humanity’s number one calorie source for millennia, this is a big deal.

But it’s not all doom and gloom—some places might actually benefit. Regions that receive moisture from two different wind streams, like the Gulf Stream and the monsoons, are less likely to suffer catastrophic crop failures because both wind systems are unlikely to fail in the same year. This is good news for the American South, the American Midwest, northern Argentina, Uruguay, northwestern Europe (especially the UK and France), and New Zealand.

However, most of the world relies on a single wind current, so even minor climate changes could have outsized impacts on agriculture, especially wheat.

Now, on my way down from the hike, it hit me that there’s a country out there with both monsoonal and jetstream moisture, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. In the American Midwest, both hit the same region, but in China, the monsoon affects the southern rice belt, while the west-east jetstream waters the northern wheat zone. This is bad news for China. Everything I said about wheat applies, but it gets worse because rice requires meticulous water management—flooding and draining the fields multiple times. If rain comes at the wrong time, the entire crop can be lost. So, no matter how climate change unfolds in the next few decades, we can be sure that hundreds of millions of Chinese people will be at risk of starvation.

Alright, now I’m really done. See you next time!

Why Should Red States Get Greentech Investments?

If the green transition is ever going to work, it needs to happen everywhere. So, don’t get your drawers in a bunch when you see green energy funds from the Inflation Reduction Act being invested in Red States.

While there may be more support for the green energy transition in blue states, the reality is that red states may offer a more viable path to ACTUALLY getting it done. Between business-friendly policies, more rural land suitable for energy projects, and a number of geographical advantages, red states will be critical to the green buildout.

While these red states might not be known for their environmental activism, their geographies make them prime locations for green investments…try not to think so much about ideology on this one, just focus on places that give us the best shot at making the green transition work, wherever that might be.

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 Square Top Peak, with Argentine Peak in the background, and further back, you can catch a glimpse of a pair of Colorado’s famous fourteeners. Today, I want to talk about green energy and red states. There’s been some hand-wringing in the environmental community because about 75 to 80% of the investment from the Inflation Reduction Act has gone into red states—not purple states, but solid red states.

First off, let’s all calm down. If the goal is truly to achieve a green transition, it has to include everyone, so this is actually good news. But I think it’s important to explain why this shift in mindset has happened on places like Capitol Hill when it comes to green tech investments.

The first reason has more to do with the business climate than the subsidies themselves. As a rule, red states tend to have a more business-friendly, low-regulation approach to things. Whether it involves providing a bit of money or just having lower legal costs for operating in the first place, it’s easier to get projects off the ground in a place like Nebraska than in a place like Oregon.

The second reason is related to the rural-urban divide. To oversimplify, red states are generally more rural and have a lot more land that can be dedicated to energy projects. For example, if you’re in New York City, you probably have a coal or natural gas power plant nearby, and the power is wired into the city. But if you want wind or solar energy, the closest place with significant solar or wind density is North Carolina, which has arguably benefited the most from green tech investments in the Northeast because it’s the nearest viable location for power generation.

In the U.S., we have what can be called a Sun Belt and a Wind Belt. The Wind Belt runs mostly through the Great Plains, from North Dakota straight down through South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Colorado and Iowa also have significant wind resources. But generally, the further west you go, the better the wind conditions get. The same pattern holds for solar power. As you’d expect, the further south you go, the greater the solar intensity. Ideally, you also want a bit of altitude and low humidity because those conditions are more conducive to efficient solar power generation. So the primary solar zone stretches from east of Los Angeles in Kern County, California, through Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and especially Texas.

These two belts—the Wind Belt and the Solar Belt—are getting an outsized portion of green energy investments, along with North Carolina because of its proximity to major population centers that can’t generate their own green energy. The issue of population density is really significant. You’re not going to install solar panels in a forest or on the slope of a mountain unless it’s an absolutely perfect spot. You want large expanses of flat land where no one lives, and if that land doesn’t have much agricultural value, it’s even better. So places like West Texas, eastern Colorado, and North Dakota are ideal. These areas aren’t exactly known for being strongholds of environmental activism, but they happen to be some of the best locations in the country—and indeed, on the planet—for green energy installations. And that’s exactly where these investments are heading.

A New Player in Global Oil Markets: Guyana

*This video was recorded prior to Peter departing on his backpacking trip in July.

Guyana is a country we don’t hear about too often, but its rise as an oil producer has earned it some air time. In particular, we’ll be looking at the implications this carries for global oil markets.

Guyana discovered oil in the late 2010s and aims to produce 1.4 million barrels per day within the next five years. ExxonMobil is the big dog leading this operation. So, who will this bump in the oil markets impact the most?

Countries in the Eastern hemisphere will gain some added stability to the oil supply mix. As Russian oil loses its legs in Europe, any outside sources will be welcomed with open arms. For the Americans, the emergence of Guyana on the oil markets isn’t great news, as the medium sweet crude coming from Guyana works well with European refineries. So, mark this one down as a nice win for the Europeans and a small loss for the Americans.

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 Colorado. Today, we’re going to talk about something in the Western Hemisphere that isn’t related to the American political system. We’re focusing on Guyana, of all places. Guyana is a small statelet on the northern coast of South America, which historically hasn’t mattered much at all.

It’s located in the middle of the tropics and is bordered by the Amazon, so there hasn’t been much going on there until someone discovered oil in the late 2010s. Back in 2018, this place produced nothing, but today, it’s producing about 600,000 to 650,000 barrels of oil a day. ExxonMobil is the primary operator for nearly the entire operation. Just this week, they started their seventh expansion, with the goal of reaching 1.4 million barrels per day within five years.

From the perspective of big producers like Russia, the U.S., or Saudi Arabia, this isn’t a huge amount of oil. However, to give you some context, this production level is more than Iran is exporting right now and puts Guyana above countries like Qatar or Libya.

Let’s talk about the pros and cons. If you’re in the Eastern Hemisphere and concerned about oil security, which you should be, this is, of course, a great sign. One of the issues we’re seeing with the Ukraine war is that Western countries have gradually ratcheted down on tech transfers to Russia, particularly in oil extraction technology. The goal here was to strangle the Russian economy so that it couldn’t afford the war. Initially, efforts started with things like price caps, then targeting shipping insurance, and now focusing on the shadow fleet of tankers trying to circumvent the sanctions. And while all of this is working, they haven’t yet taken steps to actually destroy Russia’s ability to produce oil in the first place.

At the margins, the technology required for offshore production has been denied to the Russians, but offshore production wasn’t a significant part of their operations. The real driver of Russia’s oil production is labor and tech transfer. Over the last 25 years, Russia has transitioned from a Soviet-style system, which sloppily produced a lot of crude at relatively easy fields, to a more focused system that uses more technology to efficiently produce crude at more advanced sites. Today, I’d argue that probably two-thirds of Russia’s oil production comes from that latter system, which relies on foreign technology and expertise.

When the Ukraine war began, most major service companies, like Halliburton, cut their contracts and withdrew from Russia. However, they did two things: first, they sold their local subsidiaries to their employees, who were Russian nationals, thereby maintaining an under-the-table connection. Second, they pre-sold a couple of years’ worth of equipment to allow these new subsidiaries to continue operating. As a result, Russian oil output has remained steady throughout the conflict.

Now, a few things are happening. First, the Europeans have largely separated themselves from the Russian energy complex. Yes, crude is still flowing to third countries, where it is refined and sent back to Europe, but the exposure is much less than it was two years ago. Second, the last of the pipelines across Ukraine are starting to fluctuate due to legal and operational reasons. The Ukrainians have always stated that when the contracts with Russian oil and natural gas companies expire, they will turn off those pipelines. And yes, despite two years of war marked by sexual assault, genocide, and kidnapping, the Europeans have pressured Ukraine to keep oil and natural gas flowing across Ukraine into Europe. However, this arrangement will end by the end of this year. In fact, earlier this month, we saw cutoffs in the lines going to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.

A little side note here: the Czech Republic and Slovakia managed to get exemptions to the sanctions imposed two years ago, but they’ve been working hard to find alternative supplies and build replacement infrastructure. Hungary, on the other hand, has not, and now they find themselves without oil and natural gas. There’s a story within a story here for the Europeans, but that’s a topic for another day.

The bottom line is that, with the exception of Hungary, most European countries have pretty much weaned themselves off Russian energy. Now, the Europeans are discussing how to actually kill the Russian energy sector, and they’re focusing on stopping tech transfers. Currently, it’s legal for third parties, most notably China, to buy this equipment and send it to Russia. The Europeans are now discussing how to expand the sanctions regime to prevent this from happening. Considering that the Europeans are already in the early stages of a pretty intense trade war with China, this is a powerful lever they can use in various ways. Essentially, if the Europeans can force China to cut off support to Russia, China might maintain some market access to Europe, which is crucial for avoiding its own economic breakdown. So, this is real, and it’s probably going to happen in the next few months. When it does, we’ll likely see more problems in the Russian energy complex as they struggle to get their oil to market.

If you’re in the Eastern Hemisphere, and the 5 to 7 million barrels per day of crude and related products that Russia produces start to wobble, having an extra million to a million and a half barrels of medium-sweet crude coming out of Guyana suddenly becomes very attractive. And if you’re European, this is a great match because the crude from Russia is a medium-sour blend, while the crude from Guyana is a medium-sweet blend. It’s not too far off from what European refineries were designed to process. So, if you’re European, you now have a backup plan.

The downside is for American producers. The U.S. shale sector is significantly different by several metrics from global oil norms. Most of the world’s crude is relatively heavy and sour, meaning it’s thick, viscous, and contains a lot of contaminants, most notably sulfur. U.S. light-sweet shale is different because it didn’t migrate through rock formations, so it didn’t pick up contaminants. Also, because it was trapped in rock strata almost at the moment of formation, it never had a chance to mix with anything and get thick and gooey. So, it’s light, sweet, and basically the consistency of nail polish remover.

This was great at first, but once you start producing 8 million barrels a day of it, which has all hit the market in the last 15 to 20 years, you basically saturate the market for that kind of demand. The Guyana crude, while definitely heavier and more sour than U.S. light-sweet, isn’t so far removed that it competes in a fundamentally different product bracket.

So, if you’re an American shale producer, you’re basically selling into a super-saturated market in the U.S. right now and trying to export this crude to the wider world for a better price. But now, you have roughly a million to a million and a half barrels of competition coming from Guyana. Ironically, Exxon’s new project has made the economics of shale just a little bit worse.

I don’t think anyone is going to be broken over this, and it has made the security of Europe quite a bit better. Whether or not that’s a win for you depends on which side of the pond you happen to call home.

What Is the United States’ Role in the (New) Global Order?

*This video was recorded in May of 2024.

If you’ve read my book “The End of the World Is Just the Beginning” then you’re well aware of the US stepping away from the Global Order. But what does life look for other countries once that happens?

Places like New Zealand might need to take a page out of Japan’s playbook, forming strategic partnerships with the US by offering trade concessions, security cooperation, or any other ways that help them stay relevant to the US. (I’ll take a vacation home near Milford Sound if the Kiwis are offering).

Some larger powers are going to be stepping up as the US pulls back, think France, Sweden and Turkey. Each of these countries will have to navigate this new reality and find their footholds as regional powers. The dynamics between these big three will shape the future of NATO, the EU and Europe as a whole.

As for places like the Middle East, the US is very, very reluctant to re-engage too deeply. This marks a shift in the broader US strategy of disengagement and signals a move towards acting more independently on the global stage.

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.

Something we discuss amongst ourselves, Peter, is the shifting, changing global order. What happens to small countries around the world, like New Zealand, as the U.S. strategic relationship with this post-Cold War global order starts to change and the global environment shifts? I don’t think New Zealand is the country to look to. I think Japan is the country to look to because Japan so far is the only country that’s figured it out.

A few governments ago, the Japanese realized that the Americans were losing interest in everything. Japan, like a lot of countries, is dependent on international trade for its economic health, especially for its energy imports. They realized that unless they could get into the American inner circle, give the Americans something that they want, there wasn’t much of a future.

For smaller countries that are less capable than Japan, this is triply true. What Japan did is seek out a deal with the United States on America’s terms. During the Cold War, when we needed everybody to be on our side to face down the Soviets, it was the United States that provided the economic and strategic concessions in order to build the alliance.

That’s not the world we’re in anymore. Now, if you have a more disassociated America, you have to bring the case to them. You have to offer them something in order to keep them involved. In Japan, it was trade concessions and a security partnership. For smaller countries, you have to be a lot more aggressive and a lot more giving in order to keep the Americans interested.

New Zealand, being off the edge of the earth, basically doesn’t face the security concerns that a lot of other people do. For them, their interest is going to be primarily economic because they produce a lot of agricultural products that the rest of the world really needs. That is an easier carry before you even consider the cultural connections between America and New Zealand.

But for most of the rest of the world, that’s a much taller order. The things that you have to offer the United States in order to keep them engaged—there aren’t a lot of things that the U.S. is really interested in, and you’re going to have to get really creative and dig really deep.

With the U.S. reevaluating its position globally and with the emergence of the largest land conflict in Europe since World War II, with the Ukraine-Russia war in place, we’ve seen some regional powers shift how they behave within broader Europe. I’m thinking about France, Sweden, and Turkey. What do we see between these three regional leaders/powers?

When it comes to their political, economic, and military mindset, how they interact with each other, and what that means for the future of the EU, Europe, and NATO overall, you’ve just put your finger on the three countries that are going to matter—not just now, but ten years from now, twenty years from now, and thirty years from now.

But for the remainder of the century, for demographic reasons, we’re going to lose, at some point, Spain, Germany, Italy, and eventually Poland. But these countries have very healthy democracies and a geography that allows them a degree of freedom to act outside of the confines of just Europe. How they get along or don’t is going to determine what is possible for NATO, the EU, and a post-unified Europe.

At the moment, the French are increasingly taking their talking points from the Swedish government. The Swedes have always been very big on energy security, manufacturing self-sufficiency, and partnership with countries immediately around them in opposition to Russia. Now that they’re no longer neutral, the French are sounding a lot like the Swedes. So the room for partnership there is very robust.

So long as ego doesn’t get in the way—I wouldn’t even mention that if it wasn’t for the fact that France is one of the two powers we’re talking about here—it’s going to be very interesting, from my point of view, to see how the two powers coordinate or step on each other’s toes in Ukraine, because that is going to set a really strong pattern for their bilateral relationship moving forward.

At the moment, it looks pretty positive. No, they’re not talking past each other at the moment. Turkey, of course, is from a radically different culture. Turkey has a very different economic structure, even if it’s still very healthy from my point of view, and they’ve got a foot in the Middle East as well, which complicates things. But again, we’re seeing a degree of cooperation that didn’t exist ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.

So I’m pretty hopeful there. But I don’t think that’s going to last for the long term. Turkey is too big of a power, too dominating in its own neighborhood, and if Russia loses the Ukraine war, Turkey is one of the powers that has the opportunity to do a massive geopolitical expansion. That is something that is undoubtedly going to make other powers in the neighborhood a little uneasy, even if the Turks aren’t taking any hostile actions against them.

So we’ve got here a Swedish-German-French axis, with the Germans being the junior partner in the city partner, and Turkey trying to figure out just how much it can grab. This, to me, is starting to sound a lot like the 1500s. You’ve written about and spoken quite a bit about the changing global order and the U.S. sort of stepping back from its near-century of keeping the world safe, managing global shipping, and maintaining this global order.

When we look at the Red Sea and U.S. Navy actions against the Houthi rockets, is there a risk of the U.S. being pulled back into the Middle East from its current actions? Is the U.S.’s attempt to help secure global shipping through the Red Sea—a region in which the U.S. is not a major participant—a sign of the U.S. stepping back into its previous role?

It feels a lot like a placeholder to me. It’s become a testing ground, in an unfortunate manner, for American missile interdiction. We’re discovering that as easy as it is to shoot down an individual shaky drone or a missile, preventing a hostile group from launching any number of weapons systems any number of times is very difficult.

We’re talking about patrolling an area roughly the size of half of Texas, and it’s stretching American naval interdiction capacities to the breaking point because the Navy wasn’t designed for this. It was designed to interdict things shot at the Navy, not going off or through a wide swath of territory. And if a real country—not Yemen, but a real country—were to do this on a broader scale, it’s pretty clear to U.S. naval commanders now that there’s not a lot we can do about it. So, if someone else joined in, we’d have a real problem, and this belief that the United States is still patrolling the global oceans—even if we wanted to—would be pretty clear that we couldn’t, against some of the technologies that have evolved over the last 75 years.

In terms of the idea of the United States getting sucked back into the Middle East, I really don’t think that’s on deck. In fact, if anything, I think the Gaza conflict has underlined to the United States how little we want to do with the region. We’re having a fun little conversation with the Israelis that feels a lot like the conversations we were having with the French and the Germans a few years ago.

We tried to convince them back in the 2010s that, you know, the Russians are going to keep pushing. Look, they just invaded Georgia. They just invaded the Donbas in Ukraine. They just took Crimea. Of course, they’re going to do more. They’re going to push and push and push until they can’t. The Germans and the French were like, “It’s a brave new world.”

In fact, Germany was going to put into place a defense minister whose job was to wind down the entirety of the German military because they didn’t need it anymore, because we’ve entered a new era of peace. Then the Ukraine war happened, and all of a sudden, the French, the Germans, and a lot of other allies in Europe are singing a very different tune.

In the case of the Middle East, we have been saying publicly to everyone who will listen, at home and abroad, that we want out of the Middle East already. The Israelis assumed that what we meant was we wanted to double down on the alliance with Israel and turn against the Middle East. No, no, no—we want out.

So the Gaza war happens, and while we feel badly for what happened, what the Israelis have done in the months since, we also don’t feel all that hot about it, and the idea that the United States would get sucked into another long-range conflict in the Middle East so that Gaza can go exactly the way the Israeli government wants it to—that’s a dumb play.

What Gaza has done is kind of underline to the United States just how distasteful we find the whole thing. The discussions we’re seeing recently between the Israeli government and the American government on arms transfers are really bringing home to Israel that they are not the golden child. They are not the special exception that is going to keep the United States in the region, and that is forcing some soul-searching.

Finally, in Europe, it took a Russian invasion to change minds. Here, it’s taken a one-day-old arms embargo. But there’s a dawning revelation, one country at a time, one day at a time, that the United States is not the same place it was 20 years ago. That eventually is going to seep through many layers of incomprehension in many places. If you’re an American strategist looking at this, you know it’s kind of a little bit like the Nixon strategy of being unpredictable. But it’s not that there’s a master plan backing it all up—it’s just that the United States is looking to get out, become a free agent again. It’s a different world.

Libyan Oil Gets Shut Down Over Government Duel

An oil refinery positioned in the desert

As a result of the power struggle between the two governments in Libya, roughly 70% oil production in the country has been shut down. This could significantly impact global oil supplies and is a glimpse at the instability within Libya.

The Libyan National Oil Company halted production at the major fields, which takes ~700,000 barrels of oil offline every day. The western government in Tripoli and eastern government in Benghazi are both vying for control of the country’s oil revenues, but no one is getting much of anything right now.

This shutdown could carry implications for European countries like Italy, which refine much of Libya’s crude. It could also ramp up demand for US crude, which the Americans won’t be mad about. The fallout of all this shouldn’t be too large, but could spell trouble for the future of Libya and its energy sector.

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 a bright Colorado day. Today, we’re going to talk about a country that I haven’t brought up in over a year—Libya. Basically, the Libyan National Oil Company announced that it’s shutting down production at a couple of major fields. Collectively, Libya produces about a million barrels a day.

The announcements were going to affect over 70% of that. Whether or not there’s going to be more, we don’t know. This is a crazy story. If you remember back to the 2000s, in the early days after the Iraq war, a number of governments were led by tinpot dictators who were so arrogant that they were convinced that the Iraq war was actually about them. It was a warning for them, and so they rushed to cut deals with various powers to make sure that they weren’t the target of the already planned invasion. In the case of Turkmenistan, you had a guy basically rush into the Russians’ arms. In the case of Libya, you had Gaddafi appealing to the United States and voluntarily turning over his proto-WMD program to try to make sure that he wouldn’t be knocked off like Saddam was.

Well, that was the beginning of a series of processes that led to a little bit of a political opening in Libya, which ultimately culminated in a bit of a civil war with NATO special forces. After six months of just waiting for somebody to take off, Gaddafi basically led these militant forces to the presidential palace, and the government collapsed.

Since then, a new government has been put in place, internationally recognized and based in Tripoli. But they were supposed to have elections over ten years ago, and they never did, so they lack legitimacy. That’s in the western part of the country, where most of the people are. In the eastern part of the country, you’ve got another government based in Benghazi, which is a mix of Russian-backed groups, mercenaries, Islamists, and a guy named Haftar, who’s a real asshat.

What has been going on in the last 12 years is that all of the oil—most of which is produced by the eastern government—is processed through the central bank, which is the only institution in the country that has access to foreign currency and can do forex transactions. It is headquartered in the western part of the country, where the legitimate government is.

Both sides have been mucking with the equivalent of the Federal Reserve in this country in order to get a bigger cut of the money for themselves and to deny any money to the other side. The most recent development is that the Tripoli government in the West has kidnapped a couple of senior staffers and tried to push out the chairman of the central bank to get their way.

So the folks on the Benghazi side, where the oil is, have said, “You know, screw you guys. We control most of the oil, so we’re just not going to produce it. No money comes in anyway.” As a result, we have 700,000 barrels a day that are going offline. It might actually increase in the days and weeks to come.

It could be offline longer than just this political dispute because Libyan oil, especially the stuff in the eastern part of the country, is very waxy. If it’s not kept warm, it basically turns everything into a soft candle, including the pipelines, which will take a lot of maintenance to clear out. This has a lot of implications for a lot of people.

The Russians are going to be pissed off because they have managed to get themselves a cut of the energy revenues. The Italians are both on the pro and the con side of this—pro in that they are the ones that end up taking and refining most of the crude that comes out of Libya just because of proximity.

But they also have refining capacity that can handle over twice what the country actually uses. They are a refining hub for southern Europe. So you’d actually have more pain in places like Spain and France and throughout southeastern Europe in the Balkans because they’re going to make money regardless. Part of the problem here is that with Russian crude no longer part of the European diet, Libyan crude was one of the substitutes.

Another big winner is going to be the United States because while the Libyan crude is waxy, it’s also pretty light and sweet and has a fairly similar chemical makeup, minus the wax, to U.S. shale crude. The U.S. exports 3 to 4 million barrels of that a day, and having another half a million to a million barrels of demand out of southern Europe is something that would make American producers quite happy.

This is just what Libya is going to look like until one side or the other wins, or the two sides come together and form a unity government, which is definitely not going to happen. The only other reason that there might be any hope is that there might be someone in Europe—France or Italy most notably—who decides to go in, knock heads together, and basically just take over the fields and run the country themselves as a colony.

We’re not there yet. We don’t have energy shortages in Europe at the moment, and they’ve managed to find a lot of ways to adapt to Russian stuff going offline. Libya’s million barrels a day is not insignificant, but it’s not enough of a shock to cause a political or military reaction out of the European countries. But it is a little bit more pressure.

So if something were to happen to, say, the Persian Gulf—which, thank God, has been one of the most stable parts of the world these last couple of years—then we’re in a different world. So it’s another thing to keep an eye on. It’s more amusing than problematic at the moment, which I can’t believe I’m saying about the loss of nearly a million barrels of crude.

But this is the world we live in today. Watch the European PMs; they’re the ones that have the agency to do something about this if stuff gets real.

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.

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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.

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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