The Greatest Threat to American National Security

If I told you that high-ranking military personnel were losing security clearances and access to critical information, you’d probably expect to hear some sound rationale. Unfortunately, that’s not the case because the current greatest threat to our national security is an Alabama Senator up in arms over abortion policy.

Senator Tommy Tuberville has placed a unilateral hold on nominations and confirmations of military officials because he doesn’t like the Biden administration’s current policy of allowing officers to travel for abortion services. Consequently, the affected military personnel cannot access the classified information necessary for strategic planning.

Abusing power to manipulate outcomes is nothing new for American politics; however, political deadlocks that impede military operations are detrimental and problematic for the country’s security interests. Given the context of the Ukraine War and rising tensions with China, this poses a substantial risk that should not be taken lightly.

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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.

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Transcript

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Toronto, where I finally found something that is taller than me. And to commemorate September 11, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the largest significant national security threat facing the United States. It’s not terrorism from the Middle East. One of the things that we have learned over the 20 years in the war on terror is that most of the militants, most of the Islamists are interested in fighting what they call the mere enemy.

Does it mean that the risk to the United States is zero? But most of these folks are far more concerned with the war that is right in front of them, taking the conflict to sectarian opponents or groups that they think are apostates, who are right there throwing a Hail Mary through a transcontinental flight. That is something that is simply difficult to do and most don’t have the capacity to try.

I also don’t think it’s China. China is dependent on the international system as maintained by the United States. And even if Chairman Xi Jinping’s cult of personality decides to pull the trigger on a war with, say, Taiwan, the United States is not going to engage within sight of the Chinese mainland. It’s going to pull back and shut off Chinese trade.

And since the Chinese import the vast majority of their energy and the inputs necessary to grow their own food, the result would be a massive famine and a de-industrialization with honestly would crush China as a country within a year. That leaves Russia. Now, Russia is obviously a concern, especially with the war in Ukraine. But as long as the war is bottled up in Ukraine or in Russia proper, that it’s not coming for NAITO.

So while this is definitely something to keep an eye on, it is a big concern and has huge implications. I don’t see, at least in the mid-term, as the single largest threat the United States faces. I think that’s closer to home because in the United States right now, we’ve got over 300 top military professionals who can’t even qualify for their security clearances, make it impossible for them to get the information that they need to plan for whatever’s next.

We have hobble ourselves or, more to the point, a specific individual in Congress has done the hobbling. Senator Tuberville of Alabama has put a blanket hold on the nominations on the confirmations of all military personnel as part of a tiff within the culture war. Now, where do you stand on that culture war? That is your prerogative. But in blocking officers from participating in their jobs, if you can’t get confirmed, you can’t get the information, you can’t get clearance and you can’t make a plan.

So we have taken he has taken the single most powerful military force in the world and gutted its leadership’s ability to lead. Which means that either Senator Tuberville is one of the most skilled Chinese agents ever, or he’s the dumbest person in Congress. And if you think of the personalities in Congress, that’s a pretty strong statement. All right, everybody, take care.

Saudi Arabia and Israel Want a US Security Deal

Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, has seen the ongoing engagement and security guarantee that the US has with Japan, and he wants a similar deal for Saudi Arabia. MBS will have to offer something pretty attractive to get the US involved in the region again.

As of now, the only offer on the table is formal relations with Israel (in exchange for some undefined concessions to the West Bank Palestinians) and the ~high honor~ of having troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. That’s probably not going to cut it, but it does highlight how concerned the Saudis are about the US pulling out of the region.

Israel is on board with any US involvement, as it would take some weight off their struggling coalition government. But the absence of the Palestinians in all talks up to this point brings into question the seriousness of these negotiations.

This region of the world has been a thorn in the side of the US for decades, and jumping back into the thorn bush won’t be on the calendar anytime soon. If Saudi Arabia and Israel really want to make a deal happen, it’s time to head back to the drawing board.

While some speculate that Xi is moving away from G20 in favor of BRICS, he didn’t even show up to the opening ceremony of the BRICS business forum. So, this announcement doesn’t indicate any political angle; it’s just a reminder of Chinese leadership’s ongoing and accelerating failure.

Xi has purged the Chinese political system of anyone who can form thoughts and potentially challenge his power, leaving him as the judge, jury, executioner, and everything else of importance in China. Even if Xi happened to be the smartest person in the world (which I won’t even comment on), he is still human.

Xi can only do so much alone, and the lack of competence across the Chinese system means that policy stalls wherever Xi is not. While Xi will send a replacement to the summit, concerns over China’s leadership capabilities are mounting, and the question remains – what is next for the Chinese people?

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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Transcript

Hey Everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. And a lot of you have written in asking about ongoing conversations among the Americans, the Israelis and the Saudis about some sort of broad spectrum political and security deal. At the moment, there is it one. It’s not imminent. It’s not even clear what it would be. But the talks are absolutely going on.

So I would just wanted to kind of give you an idea of what is so much at stake, but what the players are thinking. So this is all Saudi Arabia’s idea specifically. Remember Mohammed bin Salman, who was the crown prince? He’s the guy who’s in his thirties who’s running the place. His father, King Salman, is the one who’s probably mentally a vegetable at this point.

So the crown prince really is already in charge of everything. There’s a lot of generational disputes going on which are shaping the talks. But ultimately, what the Saudis want is ongoing American engagement to give them a security guarantee that is on the scale of what the Americans have with the Japanese. The idea is that you station some forces in-country.

Therefore, an attack on the country is considered an attack on the United States and will raise the ire of the military forces of the United States in order to take off and destroy the attacker, who in this case would most certainly be Iran. It’s not clear that the United States is interested at all after 70 years, the United States is finally getting out of the region.

Global war on terror is over. The U.S. is broadly happy with that situation. So in order to get brought back in, the U.S. would have to be offered something fairly significant. And what the Saudis are offering is normalization of relations with Israel. And it’s not that that’s not interesting, but that’s just not anywhere near enough to justify the United States putting its soldiers in harm’s way and beating Iran into a war.

In addition, the Saudis are thinking that just the honor of having military forces in Saudi Arabia would be so high that the Palestinians could get tossed in as a side benefit, with Israel being forced to recognize some sort of shift in authority when it comes to things like the West Bank. This is a long shot. The United States is largely done with the region and the Saudis are basically etching out a position where most other players are the ones who have to give something just for the honor of having a deal with Saudi Arabia.

It screams of Saudi arrogance, specifically by Crown Prince and by himself. Remember that NBC has basically established himself as a bit of a cult of personality, and he’s steadily edged everyone with experience and the older generation out of the system. The talks are being managed by, I believe, one of his brothers. But this is Saudi Arabia. He has like a billion brothers, so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

In fact, it means that if the talks go sideways, he can always execute his brother and just move on as if nothing happened. So I don’t have particularly high hopes that this will happen. But it is interesting from a few points of view because it shows how insecure the Saudis are as the Americans are pulling back from the region.

Now, on the Israeli side, they think that this is all great. Anything that brings the Americans more enmeshed into the region to something that Israel’s broadly going to support, because that means that their troops don’t have to do it. And Israel is a country of less than 8 million people. So having the superpower do things for Israel is something that Israel’s always been a big fan of, but the U.S. hasn’t.

Now, specifically with the Israelis and the Americans right now, relations are not great, largely because the Kurd government of Israel is a little wackadoo. It’s made up of a series of populist and nationalist and religious parties that are somewhat either hateful or stupid. And the Prime Minister Netanyahu is fully aware of that. He had to make a lot of compromises in order to cobble together this coalition.

He knows it’s not working very well. And if he can get a deal with the United States on anything, it would relieve some of the pressure that Washington has been putting on his government versus Palestinians of housing issues and military deployment and economics and and intellectual property theft. There’s a long list of irritants in the relationship right now.

Anyway, that’s where everyone kind of stands with one other a little bit that indicates that you shouldn’t expect this to get resolved very soon and that it’s not clear from the Saudis just how serious they are or are not about looping the Palestinians into the abyss. The older generation, the one that’s in the process of being shown, the door by members.

They’re the ones who are reasonably dedicated to the Palestinian cause. And if in whatever final communique comes out of this deal, Senate, it works. The Palestinians are included. Then you know that in the U.S. is not nearly as powerful as we all thought, and the older generation still has some breath and life left in them. If the Palestinians get at most a cosmetic concession or not mentioned at all, then you know that NBS is large and in charge because he doesn’t care about Palestinians at all.

And weird because this is the Middle East and this is how it works. At this point, the Palestinians haven’t even been consulted or invited to the negotiation table, which is ironically how, you know, that this may be a serious series of talks. All right. That’s it. If something more comes of this, I’ll let you know. Take care.

Why I’m Not Worried About the Banks (Yet)

The Ukraine War has negatively impacted almost every area of life, but perhaps there’s a silver lining beneath all the global disruptions and adverse effects…It may sound like a stretch, but this war may have helped to prevent a financial crisis in the US.

One of the leading causes of a banking crisis is loan defaults, but with personal incomes on the rise and unemployment rates falling, banks aren’t facing their typical roster of issues. However, anytime a bank is overexposed to risk, a crisis isn’t often far behind.

As the Ukraine War started, financial institutions of all sizes knew they had to limit their exposure to Russia. This indirectly resulted in many of these firms reducing exposure to Chinese financial institutions.

As Russia and China continue to cut themselves off from the rest of the world, it appears that many of the US banks may have dodged a bullet. There’s always the risk of a break, but the US financial sector looks pretty good, with low international exposure, a low unemployment rate, and high growth.

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.

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Chinese Leadership Concerns: Xi Ditches the G20 Summit

The announcement that Xi Jinping won’t be attending the upcoming G20 Summit is the equivalent of friends coming together for your intervention, and you turn around as soon as you see their cars parked down the road. With China facing economic slowdown, trade wars, and a slew of other things, an intervention (aka the G20 Summit) is exactly what Xi needs right now.

While some speculate that Xi is moving away from G20 in favor of BRICS, he didn’t even show up to the opening ceremony of the BRICS business forum. So, this announcement doesn’t indicate any political angle; it’s just a reminder of Chinese leadership’s ongoing and accelerating failure.

Xi has purged the Chinese political system of anyone who can form thoughts and potentially challenge his power, leaving him as the judge, jury, executioner, and everything else of importance in China. Even if Xi happened to be the smartest person in the world (which I won’t even comment on), he is still human.

Xi can only do so much alone, and the lack of competence across the Chinese system means that policy stalls wherever Xi is not. While Xi will send a replacement to the summit, concerns over China’s leadership capabilities are mounting, and the question remains – what is next for the Chinese people?

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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Transcript

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. It’s Monday, the 4th of September. And the news out of China is that Chairman Xi Jinping will not be attending the upcoming G20 summit in India. There’s a lot going on in the world. I’m generally a big fan of the G20, but if you consider the Chinese economic slowdown, trade wars and all kinds of other things, it’s a good time for leaders to actually be meeting face to face, to do things.

Some people are saying that this is G spurning the G20 in favor of things like BRICS. But remember that he didn’t show up to the opening ceremony of the BRICS and the Business Forum, which is arguably the most important part of the BRICS forum as well. What we’re seeing here, instead of any political decision to favor or denigrate any particular forum or angle of policy, is instead the general ongoing and accelerating failure of the Chinese leadership system to cope with the situation they find themselves in over the course of the last 1213 years, Chairman G has basically progressively purged every part of the political system at his first five years.

He called it an anti-corruption push, and he went after all the regional power centers. And the next five years he went after the two factions that actually put him in power, that of his predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. And the last couple of years, he’s going against anyone who has basically had an opinion or shown any competence who might be a theoretical successor.

And we’re now at a point where there’s no one left. So if something pops up that JI thinks needs to be dealt with, he is now the only one who can deal with it. So he sent his premier, Li Keqiang, who is got the personality and the competence of a block of wood to sit in for him, where he’ll basically just be reading policy papers and not acting to engaging in any sort of meaningful negotiation on anything while he does whatever it is he feels he needs to do.

And remember, he’s still a person, so this might not be policy related, it could be personal. But he is now found himself in a very similar situation to that of Donald Trump and Barack Obama, that he just doesn’t trust anyone to do anything. And so not a lot is going to get done that’s going to get done competently.

And even if he is the smartest person and the best manager on the planet, he can only be at one place at a time, doing one thing at a time. And as a result, Chinese policy in every other field at best stalls. Not a good sign. All right, that’s it.

Astropolitics: How Are the Aliens Getting Here?

All this talk of little green men has both disturbed and intrigued my inner nerd. While I don’t know if aliens have actually visited us, talking about the possible tech being used is a fun little distraction for all of us.

These three transport technologies should sound familiar to sci-fi lovers, Trekkies, and everyone in between. If they don’t ring any bells, I suggest you go do some extensive “research” and return once you have a baseline appreciation for the finer things in life. Now, back to the aliens.

Three transport technologies could explain how our extraterrestrial friends might be visiting us. Option one (and the least likely of the three) is a system of rings that allows ships to travel from point to point, but since we haven’t detected any infrastructure – this isn’t super plausable. Option two (and Han Solo’s personal favorite) is hyperspace. This tech would be problematic because anyone could jump to hyperspace, and since we haven’t been visited by the Empire or a bunch of space-minivan-driving carpetbaggers – this probably isn’t happening either. Option 3 (as seen on Star Trek) is warp, and it’s the most feasible explanation. This technology would likely come with a degree of government regulation since top-of-the-line systems would be expensive and large.

While talking about aliens is a fun diversion, please take all of this with a grain of salt. I haven’t seen evidence or information about any of this, but it sure makes for a fun discussion.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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Transcript

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here from the top of Silver Hills. I’m going to give you the quick run of the oil before it’s too strong. You’ve got Silver Hills Rich there, a lost wilderness behind it. Whose ridge? Ten mile reach near brick and rich mosquito range. Down here, we’ve got South Park, the old interglacial that is fair play.

Best breeders in the state. I don’t know why some asshat works where he keeps trying to take it off the menu and then the southern front ranger, which southern front ridge really doesn’t have all that many really top points except for this guy, of course, is the mighty Pikes Peak. Okay, now I’m going to move over here to a shelter so I can talk to you out of the wind about aliens.

I have been a little disturbed by how many people have written in asking me for comment about all this new stuff that’s going on with you.So UFOs are just a new acronym as Uaps. I’ll tell you what I know, which is nothing. I’ll tell you what I think. I have no indication that there are aliens. I have no indication that they’ve been visiting us.

I just know that people are talking about it. So let’s talk about the technologies that would be involved and what that would mean in each scenario. How about that? That I can do as we’ve seen with the world here, as transport technologies change, how it evolves, the way we interact, the way we move, the way we deal with one another with the economy and the political system looks like.

So, for example, when deepwater navigation was developed by the Liberians in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, they had the ability to reach out and interact with the rest of the world. The rest of the world could not really return the favor. And so they were able to build these giant empires. So if you had some kind of an analog for that, for space travel, in theory, we could be the ones who were visited as opposed to the ones who are doing the visiting now.

Science fiction is very, very rich with different kinds of technologies that can be used to do different things. I just love to talk about three. It’s not that these were the only three. These are the three that I think it’s easy to kind of wrap your mind around. So first rings, basically, you put rings in space and you put a ship into the ring and it gets shot to the next ring.

And the next one, the next one makes one noise and on and on. Basically, think of it like an old style bank service too. But you put ships in it the up and the down side of this. Well, the upside is I’m positive that we’re not dealing with this if there’s aliens visiting us now, because you have to have rings that go to the next solar system.

So you will need hundreds of them over light years and we would see them coming. And if there was ever a problem, you could probably blow up the infrastructure. We’re also very glad we don’t have that here because it’s not like a road. It’s like a single artery. Everyone has to use it. And so whoever built it and controls it and operates it as an immense amount of political and economic power builds a very oligarchic system.

We’re glad we don’t have that second one. The one that’s probably most problematic would be hyperspace. The idea that you can put a device on any sort of vessel and it just can just show up and pop out somewhere else and might have to do multiple jumps to get between star systems. This is what they use in Star Wars.

Now you’ve all seen the Millennium Falcon and Han Solo. And if you haven’t, I don’t even know why I’m speaking to you right now. But his ship was kind of a piece of crap, a poorly maintained, but had a good hyperdrive. And that was kind of the point. Anyone can have a hyperdrive. So Star Wars, the political system flips back and forth between periods of centralization where they try to control everything.

And then it all spins apart because they can’t, because of the technology, because anyone can in their family space system can go to a different star system. If this is what is visiting with us, we’re going to have problems because it’s either going to be something like the empire, where it can be an invasion, it can bring literally millions, if not billions of troops, or it’s going to be dozens of warlords and hundreds of carpetbaggers who can just get a small cargo ship and pop over here and exploit us.

Now, I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here, because it would be obvious if it was the empire, I’d be a big ass ship with a lot of troops, and they’re not going to be subtle. Even if it’s a nice empire, they’re not going to be subtle. And if it was tens of thousands of small traders, there’s no way they’d be operating in any sort of organized hierarchy.

They’d just be coming and going and everyone would know because they’d like sit down in Chicago, Central Park every once in a while. So it’s probably not that the more realistic, just for the information that we’re seeing right now is warp, you know, the Star Trek approach, where it’s not all that hard out at warp drive, but if you want one that’s fast has to be on a pretty big ship.

And that means government and that means you can have a degree of hierarchical control over policy. And if you’ve got things zipping in and out that we can’t really see, the idea that that would be stealth to some degree makes a lot of sense. So of those three technological tucked logical pathways, I’d say Warp is the one that we’re dealing with right now.

If it is indeed happening. And that’s probably the best because it’s kind of a middle ground between the the chaos slash centralization of Star Wars and the ossification and oligarchic of the rings. This is like cowboy bebop. I if you know, if were found by the federation, there would be a anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little diversion.

I honestly have not seen any of the information that is circulating out there about whether or not anything is actually going down with the uaps. So take this for what it is and just a little bit of fun. All right. That’s it.

 

The Recruiting Crisis: US Military Adapts to Zoomers

I’m about halfway through the Geissler Peak Traverse, and the plan for the rest of the day is to head down to Aspen, find the nearest bar and shoot the shit with some strangers…if that sounds like your worst nightmare, then today’s video is about you.

The US military has had recruitment issues for a while, and the next generation reaching the recruitment age (aka those who hate any and all things social) won’t be making it any easier. But this isn’t just a US military issue; this is the leading edge of a recruiting crisis for everyone.

The good news is that we already have a solid understanding of Zoomers. Not just from an inflow to the labor market perspective but also culturally. They are ethnically diverse, open-minded, good with tech, highly educated, loyal workers…but very anti-social.

Adapting to the expertise and preferences of Zoomers will help shape what the US military looks like over the next few decades, and it’s likely a sign of things to come. Making accommodations and adjustments for the next generation will be necessary for anyone looking to attract talent.

The US military lucked out here too. The areas where Zoomers excel are areas that the military wants to expand into. So it’s kind of a win-win. As long as nothing goes wrong…

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

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

Ukrainian Drones: A New Issue for Russia and China

The super moon (or blue moon or whatever it was) didn’t have just the animals stirring last night…and since I couldn’t sleep, I figured we should talk about Ukraine’s recent drone attack and its ramifications.

While Ukraine being able to strike deeper inside Russia’s border is a significant strategic win, I’m not just up late thinking about the damage they inflicted. As Russia continues to face more and more attacks like this, the ability to defend and uphold its national coherence is now threatened.

Russia is a multi-ethnic empire; it expands and absorbs territories until it reaches defensible natural geographic barriers. The Ukraine War is just another example of this in practice (and success would mean delaying Russia’s demographic collapse). However, as dissent bubbles up amongst these various ethnic groups, what happens if Russia can no longer monitor and put the lid on it immediately? How could it possibly project power outside its borders?

The Russians aren’t the only ones feeling the heat after this drone attack. When a country like Ukraine can practically walk into a Walmart and get what it needs to launch a large-scale assault, that’s one heck of a conversation starter for the Pentagon.

Once the US amasses a – flock – of drones, they’ll have another way to attack the Chinese navy should they need to. The irony is that most drone parts come straight out of China. So the Chinese could stop exporting this stuff and hurt their economy, OR they could continue handing over the very thing that might end them. I’d say that was worth waking up for…

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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Transcript

Hey Everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. It is early in the morning on August 31. It’s the supermoon and the woods are kind of crazy with the animals. And I couldn’t sleep. And whenever I can’t sleep, I just kind of let my mind wander and see where it goes. So I’ll let you to be the judge of whether this makes any sense or not.

Yesterday, my time on the 30th, the Ukrainians launched their largest ever drone assault on Russian positions across the length and breadth of western Russia. At least a half a dozen different locations, some of which were several hundred miles from the Ukrainian border, doing a moderate amount of damage to a few things and taking out some long range aircraft, specifically the aisle 76 long range transport aircraft that the Russians use to transport paratroopers.

They’ve been building in terms of their drone attacks, doing more and more, further and further. And a couple of weeks ago, they took out a couple of backfire bombers, which are long range bombers, which launch long range cruise missiles which were designed to shoot an American carrier, battle groups and military convoys in the North Atlantic. You know, all very long range aircraft, strategic aircraft.

And it occurs to me as I was lying there in bed, that we may have had a turning point in the war, not on the Ukraine front, but on every other front that matters. Well, let me kind of dial that back and explain what I mean. Russia is not a normal country. It’s not a unitary republic like France or a federated country like the United States.

Instead, it’s a multiethnic empire. The Russians have never really had territory that is, from their point of view, secure. So what they do is they expand through the flats of Western Eurasia, absorbing ethnic group after ethnic group, until they reach a series of geographic barriers that you can’t push through easily, like the Carpathians. So this is one of the reasons why I’ve always thought that this war in Ukraine was inevitable, because the Russians are trying to rebuild that outer crust of defense that they had during the Cold War and with their own demographic decline.

If they don’t do this while they still are able to field a large army, they are looking at collapse over the course of the next 10 to 30 years. This is all about buying time for them. So from a strategic point of view, the war makes sense. A lot of sense. That logic works both ways. However, in order to maintain control of a multiethnic empire, you have to have a really deep intelligence system that monitors the population for any sign of dissent, and then you rapidly rush troops to any areas where there is a rebellion in order to quash them, which means that the Russians don’t simply need a long range power projection capability in

order to fight Naito or China or Japan or anyone else. They need it simply to hold their country together. And over the course of the last month, especially on the 30th, the Ukrainians have demonstrated that the strategic deployment assets, those IL 76 is those backfires that the Russians need simply to maintain their national coherence are now being threatened.

So everything that I’ve said about the Ukraine war to this point I think still stands. But we now need to consider that an aspect of the Ukraine war is that Ukraine is demonstrating that Russia proper might not be sustainable, even if they win the war in Ukraine. And that is something that has got to have a lot of people in a lot of capitals stroking their chins thoughtfully, because the Ukrainians didn’t do this with neater weaponry.

The United States, NATO’s, everyone else, the refusing to provide the Ukrainians with weapons that could be used for deep strike capability within Russia because they don’t want to risk any sort of nuclear exchange. This Ukraine did this by themselves and Ukraine did not start this war with a drone fleet, much less a long range one. This is stuff that they built with off the shelf commercial components, primarily from China.

 

You know, irony of ironies. And if you can do that by basically shopping at Wal-Mart, then the stability, the very existence of the Russian state is all of a sudden called into very serious question just from an internal coherence point of view. And there’s issues about this that carry over outside of the theater of the Ukraine war, Russia.

 

I mean, I’m talking here about China because over the course of the last couple of days, there’s been a lot of noise out of the American Pentagon, specifically from Admiral Hicks, about something called the Replicator initiative, which is to take off the shelf inexpensive commercial grade drone technology and make literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of attack drones that can be used to basically sink the entire Chinese navy.

They’ve seen in Ukraine how effective the strategy can be. Supposedly, they’ve already built the technical specs for what they want and they hope to have the entire fleet deployed in under two years. Now, a couple of things to remember about the Chinese side of things. Yes, the Chinese have a very large navy in terms of number of ships about twice the size of the American Navy.

Now, the American Navy still outclasses it. We have much larger ships with much larger ranges, and most of them are centered around the aircraft carrier battle groups. China has nothing like that. But the biggest restriction the Chinese face is the ability to operate far from shore. About 90% of the ships can’t operate more than a thousand miles. So you’re talking about most of them operating within the first island chain of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and so on.

That the East China Seas. The South China Seas. Well, if the United States has these long range legacy ships that can operate over a thousand miles from their adversaries and just poke at them first with fighter craft and with bombers and now apparently with drones. And you’ve basically turned the entire East Asian littoral into a graveyard for the entire Chinese navy.

The biggest problem is Admiral Hicks point out, is that the Chinese have mass a lot of ships, a lot of people. But if you throw a thousand drones out and all of a sudden that’s not so much of a problem. And the irony of ironies, the Americans are going to be using off the shelf, commercially available drone tech for this.

Most of that comes from China. So the U.S. military is going to be mass sourcing from China, the very systems that are necessary to end China. And the only way that China could stop that is by stopping exporting drone parts, which would mean, you know, destroying a section of their economy right now, which we would probably be fine with if that is the retaliation.

The United States gets a lot of crap sometimes for good reason for investing in weapons systems that maybe were designed to fight the previous war. But the Chinese have done that too, and they now have a very large fleet of vessels that is simply incapable of dealing with the American military as it is now, much less one that might have additional backbone because of something like the Replicator initiative.

Okay. I’m going to go try to sleep again now. I hope everybody has a great night. Take care.

The Problem with Central Bank Digital Currencies

With all the buzz around central banks starting digital currencies and one of these entities controlling all transactions, I think it’s about time I burst everyone’s bubble…

Fintech has blown up because it slims down the traditional money transfer process and removes some of the associated fees, meaning you can transfer money faster and cheaper. However, the Federal Reserve will wipe out most fintech startups within the next five years with their service – FedNow.

FedNow allows for the instantaneous clearing of funds when transferred using the Fed as the intermediary. Oh, and it’s functionally free. Put the hype for this or that financial product – whether crypto or otherwise – to the side for a minute and dwell on how said systems might compete with free, immediate, and from the source. Queue the gnashing of teeth.

What we’re seeing in China is different from this. They’ve married digital currency to social currency scores, making Orwell look alright. This could never happen in the US, but if China continues down this road, its entire financial space will be under the government’s thumb. Any dynamism left in the Chinese economy will be stamped out fairly quickly if this continues.

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

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

Why Is a US – Cuba Deal Inevitable?

Most people would scoff at the idea that Cuba could end the US as a major power, but that small country has something no one else does…

Looking back at the Cuban Missile Crisis, you might think JFK overreacted. In reality, JFK saw the Soviets’ move into Cuba for what it really was – a direct threat to America’s existence. Cuba straddles the access points to the Gulf of Mexico, and if they had the military power to shut it down, the US would be in big trouble.

Since the Cold War ended, I’ve expected a warming in relations with Cuba, and to some degree, they have. Obama struck a (shitty) deal with them, which Trump later repealed. Don’t focus too much on the deal, but consider these actions by opposite presidents an indication that Cuba is top of mind.

Cuba is still grasping onto any major power that will give them the time of day, aka Russia or China, but we all know how those countries are doing. Cuba’s position is simply too critical for the US to ignore, so a US-Cuba deal is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it’s imminent.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

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

Transcript

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from the Collegiate Wilderness Forum in a bag a few 14 hours this week. Today we’re going to talk about Cuba. Now Cuba, the island pinches. Access to the core territories of the United States. What makes the United States a world power is not just the fact that it’s basically a continent in size, but it’s got the greater Mississippi right in the middle of it, which overlays the world’s most productive arable land.

Water is the most efficient way by an order of magnitude, to move things around. And so as long as you have a long waterway in an area where you actually have things to ship, you can’t really help but not mess it up. And believe me, we’ve been trying for decades. If you look at the last four presidents who and yet we’re still here.

Now, Cuba, because it straddles the access points to the Gulf of Mexico, has the possibility to end of that to enter the United States as a major power. But that would require a lot more military force than Cuba is capable of producing itself. So the biggest threat to the United States going back well over a century has been that some foreign power will build a partnership with the Cubans that will break American power.

And that’s one of the reasons why JFK reacted so strongly during the Cuban missile crisis, because he saw it rightly as a Soviet effort to on the cheap and the United States. Now, since the Cold War ended and Cuba lost its Soviet sponsorship, I have been expecting a warming of relations and a change in the bilateral relationship for some time.

Under Barack Obama, we got a ham fisted attempt at that. That was basically negotiated over a short period of time with very little buy in from the president because he didn’t like to have meetings with anyone. And what we got was a deal of limited economic opening, minimal political connections, and it was a bad deal. Start to finish.

It was sophomoric. It was lazy, but above all, it was stupid. And so when Donald Trump came in, he killed that deal, saying that, you know, we should have gotten a better deal. And he is right. But then he proceeded to not do a damn thing. And that was sophomoric and that was lazy and that was stupid. But consider in today’s political climate that the two most polar opposite presidents that we’ve had both recognize the opportunity, even if they proved completely incompetent at building something out of it.

So there is movement, there is possibility within diplomacy and economic diplomacy to shift this. Now, the window of opportunity we had after the Castros died is obviously gone. And the new regime, which is the old regime just with like the third stringers, has definitely thrown in its lot too a little bit with the Russians, but the Russians won’t have the money that they used to.

So now the Chinese. Now, if you’ve been following my stuff, you know that I don’t think that the Chinese and the Russians are going to be around all that much longer. It’s certainly not an ability to project power hemisphere away. So this is going to come up again and again and again, again. And hopefully the next time around we will have a competent president who is capable of making a basic deal with a country that has less than 1% of America’s economic and military heft that is right on our doorstep that can’t possibly reach for support.

Gives you an idea of just how little I think of both the two previous administrations. I don’t think that’s going to happen under the Biden administration. However, there are a lot bigger fish to fry right now, and at the moment the Chinese are still there. And as long as the regime in Cuba feels that it has a foreign lifeline, it’s going to grab on with both hands.

So a deal on this is inevitable. Doesn’t mean it’s imminent. All right. That’s it for me. You guys take care.

Understanding the Limits of Innovation

Thanks to the right demographics and cheap capital, we’ve been living in a period of extreme technological advancement and innovation. As our environment changes and new problems arise, will innovation be able to keep up?

Innovation requires a fairly specific set of circumstances. You need enough people in their 20s and 30s imagining a future and developing the tech, along with a capital-rich environment (since you won’t see any $$$ until you hit the backend of innovation). Our world is changing, and these conditions are no longer present, so we must temper our expectations.

Anything that hasn’t reached operationalization…probably won’t make it. Below are a few industries where transformative innovations are still getting lots of attention, so let’s look at those on a scale from least likely to happen to most likely: modular nuclear reactors, artificial intelligence hardware, space and satellites, biologic drugs, shale, and agriculture.

These technologies and industries will make some of the most significant impacts on the world, but it will be no small feat. There will be hurdles and obstacles along the path to innovation, and every country will have a different outlook, but I would expect the US to be one of the first through the gate on most of this.

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

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