And Now We Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Photo of Ukrainian soldier in front of flag

Despite all the hullabaloo about the not-coup in Russia over the weekend, this assessment that we had initially planned to publish still holds true for the tactical situation in Ukraine…as well as some of the strategic implications with the Russians.

Note: If you were following the Russia Coup Series over the weekend, you might have already seen the tactical update in this video. The second half (starting around 8:40) is the fundamentally new material.

Today’s newsletter comes to you from my parents’ front porch in Iowa.

We’re about three weeks into the Ukrainian counter-offensive, and most of the reports have left (more than) a little to be desired. While these tactical reports are lackluster, we must step back and break down the strategy behind everything. I’ll let the video speak for itself, but the main pieces we’re looking at revolve around movement and politics.

The Ukrainians are shifting their focus from command and control centers to munition dumps and infrastructure, allowing Ukraine to limit or, at the very least, complicate resupplies and the flow of Russian troops.

The nuclear discussion is finally happening in the US. A proposed joint resolution states any Russian (or Belarusian) action involving nuclear consequences will be considered an act of war under Article 5 of NATO. This is just a statement of intent, but at least they got the ball rolling on the strategic nuclear policy conversation.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here. It’s the 23rd of June coming to you from Iowa and I’m at my parents, where I am in town for a birthday. So I’m here on the front porch talking about Ukraine because why the hell not?

There have been a lot of reports over the course of the last week about how the Ukrainian counteroffensive is not going particularly well. I’d be lying if I said that that is a thought that hasn’t occurred to me. But I’ve always tried to step back and not use tactical developments to inform strategic discussions because there is the whole fog of war thing going on. The Ukrainians are keeping mum about a lot of the details, whereas the Russians are just flat out lie and no one really has an accurate picture of what’s actually going on on the various fronts.

That said, we’re now well into the third week of the conflict and the Ukrainians haven’t achieved any sort of breakthrough. There’s two main lines of defense that the Russians are trying to hold. The first is a series of minefields, and the second is a series of more strategic defensive emplacements like Dragon’s Teeth and Trenches. And the Ukrainians haven’t really been able to get past the minefields to get to the real defenses yet.

And what that means is they’ve just kind of been bogged down in attritional fighting. And because the Russians have an order of magnitude more industrial plants and reserves and at least a factor of three more population, any battle in which the Ukrainians are duking it out a mano a mano is not one that they’re going to do well.

And in fact, any battle where the Ukrainians only kill three times as many Russians as they lose in their own troops is a battle they’ve lost. So instead of seeing the dramatic breakthroughs that we saw in person in Kharkiv last summer, it’s been a slugfest and it hasn’t gone well. That said, a couple things. Number one, we’re still early in the offensive, are still probing for weaknesses.

They’re still going after command and control. And then second, in the last 96 hours, a few things have changed. First of all, three or four days ago, Ukrainians shifted from using their missiles to target command and control systems to going after ammo dumps. And you would do that when you’re getting to the next phase of the operation. You feel like you’ve broken up their ability to react and now you’re trying to not just to trick their forces, but make sure that the forces cannot actually get meaningful supplies.

But the real issue happened with the morning of Thursday, the 22nd of June, when the Ukrainians put some serious holes in a few supply bridges that are critical for Russian forces. And to understand the significance of that targeting shift, we need to look at a few maps. Here’s our first map of the Ukrainian space. Nothing too exciting here.

The red line is roughly where the front is. The Russians occupied the territory to the east and south of that line and the yellow bars are where the Ukrainians have put their primary thrusts. Now, the the one on the left there, that’s the separatists, the front. The Ukrainians have been expected to go in that direction since the very beginning of this conflict, because if they can push down to the Sea of Azov, they can basically isolate the entirety of the southwestern front and Crimea, because not only would there no longer be a land bridge between Russia proper and Crimea, but the Ukrainians would be able to target the Kerch Strait Bridge directly.

But they’ve had more success going further into the east because there are fewer defensive works. But still in all these cases, you’re talking about advances in the single digits of kilometers. No sort of strategic breakthrough where mobile Russian forces excuse me, where mobile Ukrainian forces and getting behind the Russians and isolate them and break them up and for strategic retreats and routes.

Okay. Here’s a zoom in on Ukraine. The single most important thing here is, of course, the Kerch Bridge, an attack, unclaimed attack. We don’t really know who did it, but either the Americans, the Ukrainians took out one of the spans of the Kerch Bridge last summer. Now the Kerch Bridge has three lines to it to two lane road connections and one rail connection.

The Ukrainians, Americans, whoever it happened to be, were able to take out one of those two lane road connections and start a series of fires on a railcar that was going by on the rail bridge at that time, which warped the bridge and made it impossible to handle cargo. So no more trains in and out of Crimea from this route and used to be the primary route.

And only two of the four road lanes were being asked to go on truck. And when they do have convoys coming or going, they have to shut it down to other traffic. So that was a big hit and it forced the Russians to shift their supply route over to this area, to the land connections that go into Crimea.

So let’s zoom in there. Now, first thing to understand about this area is a lot of this is not land. This entire zone here is a series of brackish lakes, which obviously you’re not going to be running cargo across. In fact, there’s only really two ways to cross. On the left, you’ve got the proper land connection, which is in all land routes that goes through southern Ukraine.

It is the furthest connection from the front. It’s not that the infrastructure there doesn’t work. It’s just that it’s not great. However, if you go to the yellow arrow, the one further to the right to the east, you’re looking at the Charnock crossing. Now, China has a rail connection and a road connection, and it’s these connections that the Ukrainians put some holes in.

They use a special kind of warhead, which I’m not going to go into detail because it’s not my focus. But it blew all the way through the concrete blue, all the way through the rebar, put a giant hole right in the middle of the thing. You’re not taking trucks across that. You’re not taking the rail across that until such time as these are repaired.

Repaired. It is not beyond the capacity of the Russians. But keep in mind that it’s been months since Kerch had that whole put it and the rail connection there has still not been rebuilt. One of the many, many downsides of the Soviet dissolution is we’ve had a simultaneous education crisis and demographic crisis now decades in progress. The technical education system in Russia collapsed back in the eighties and the demographics of they’ve had a death rate that’s been higher than the birth rate for 30 years now, which means that the youngest suite of people who have the full skill set to be technical experts, they’re in their fifties right now, will turn 60 this year on

average. They still haven’t replaced the span encouraged. They still haven’t replaced the rail system. There’s a question as to whether they can. Now, the China crossing is not nearly sophisticated. Instead of being a high elevated suspension bridge, it’s a low block bridge. It’s not blocking navigation. This is not a navigable waterway system. They probably can do it, but it’s going to take them a few weeks, which means in the meantime, any cargo going to and from Ukraine has to come from that western bridge.

And this means that the soldiers in Ukraine, the Russian soldiers in occupied Ukraine, are facing a double bind. Back to this map. Notice the city of Mariupol. Basically, any Russian troops that are west of that zone have basically been cut off from supplies that come from Russia proper off in the east. They got everything they needed from Crimea, which is, you know, more difficult to support now and now with the China Bridge off line, it’s going to take about a week for the Russians to reroute everything further west to then cross a larger just a chunk of territory that would suggest to me that the Ukrainians are as ready as they can possibly be to

make a push in that direction. Now, coming down from the Japanese here, it doesn’t really matter where they penetrate. As long as they reach the Sea of Azov, it could be east of Mariupol, it could be west of multiple. It could be anywhere in between. Any way that they can cut that land bridge forever and then have the range in order to hit the remains of the bridge to wreck if we’re going to see an attack, if this counteroffensive is going to really manifest as something, these are exactly the circumstances you would expect the Ukrainians to shape.

And now they’ve done it. And since there is going to be a window before the Russians can redirect supplies further to the west, the troops in the multiple area are now completely cut off, vulnerable. They’re not going to get reinforcements. They’re not going to get fuel. They’re not going to get artillery shells and ammo. Now would be the time.

Now, that’s the strategic picture that we’re seeing right now. There is also something going on with the politics. Also on the 22nd. 22nd was a big day. Senators Blumenthal from Connecticut and Graham from South Carolina, a Democrat and a Republican, put out a joint resolution that they’re trying to get passed that would basically say that any Russian use or Belarus should use directly or indirectly through the proxies of a strategic nuclear weapon, a tactical nuclear weapon, or taking actions that they omission or commission cause.

A meltdown at a nuclear power plant would be considered an act of war under Article five of Nito. The Russians have, we know from satellite photos, mined the coolant from of the Japanese power plant Smuckers. Anyway, what the idea is to warn not just Putin, but the people who would get the orders that if they follow those orders, that they’re not just simply going to be new, causing a nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine proper, but it will be perceived by the United States and its allies as an act of war, and they will be choosing to initiate a direct military conflict with the United States and the natural lights.

Now, this interpretation of Article five is an executive privilege. It is not something Congress can really put their their fingers in. In addition, a joint resolution is just that. It’s a resolution. It’s not a law is a statement of intent. So there’s no legal weight here. Also, Article five is something that will be decided among the allies, not by the United States, unilaterally.

So this is probably not the right tool to effect, the right tool for the job. But I’m very glad that the two senators have started the conversation because the Russians have long considered for several years that Crimea is an integral part of their own territory, the annexed it back in 2014. And so anything that pushes towards Crimea, you’re crossing the gray zone where the Russians might actually consider that to be a real war where the use of defensive nuclear weapons might be warranted.

Now, that is not accepted in the United States or in the West. In fact, it’s not accepted in China. It’s not accepted by Ortega in Nicaragua. No country in the world has recognized the annexation of Crimea by the Russians. In fact, aside from some foreign pro-Russian shills like Tucker Carlson, no one in the United States considers Crimea to be Russian territory.

But it doesn’t matter what we think. It matters what the Russians think and whether or not they’re going to treat Crimea like Moscow. And there’s only one way to find out. In addition, if the Ukrainians are going to win this war, eventually they’re going to have to cross the international border, not just into Crimea, but into Russia proper and take out some logistics tackle hubs that are on Russian territory that is clearly crossing into what is internationally recognized Russian space.

And again, the defensive nuclear question comes into play. So while this isn’t the right tool for the job that the senators have picked up, I’m very happy that they have decided to at least start the conversation in this country about something we haven’t had a conversation on since the 1980s strategic nuclear, their policy vis a vis the Russians.

This is a conversation we have to have and this is going to sound really weird, but we probably have the best president in 30 years to have that conversation. Say what you will about Biden and there is a lot to say. He was there as an old man when the first nuclear weapon was detonated back in 1945, 44, four forties.

So he’s seen the entire arc of nuclear policy in this country and gives him a unique perspective that we’re going to need in the months to come. So things have broken loose. It looks like we’re on the verge of seeing the real counteroffensive, or at least if it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen now. And we’re at the dawn of a new stage of the conflict where we need to be thinking about some much deeper questions.

All right. That’s it for me. Everybody take care. See you next time.

The Russia Coup Part 4: Psych!

For those of you who did more normal things this weekend, you missed a coup in Russia!

Or not.

As the saying goes, Russia is a mystery wrapped in an enigma inside a tuna salad sandwich that’s gone off.

Apparently the guy who launched the coup, Yevgeny Prigozin, the leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, was only kidding. Whether his effort was a political stunt or negotiation tactic, it’s all over. It was fun while it lasted.

Here’s my assessment as to where things stand. There are certainly more questions than answers.

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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

The Russia Coup Part 3: Russia’s Global Footprint

Whether at home or abroad, Russia is the world’s primary provider of lies, misinformation and propaganda. With the future of the Russian government now being challenged, expect wild, competing noise on any and all topics. The issue at hand is not all the Russian propagandists are on the same side.

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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

The Russia Coup Part 2: The Propaganda War

Whether at home or abroad, Russia is the world’s primary provider of lies, misinformation and propaganda. With the future of the Russian government now being challenged, expect wild, competing noise on any and all topics. The issue at hand is not all the Russian propagandists are on the same side.

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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

The Russia Coup Part 1: What the Hell Is Going On? (And the Ukraine Angle)

An attempted coup is in progress in Russia. The mercenary group Wagner, led by a one-time confidant of Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Prigozin, is attempting to overthrow the Kremlin. The implications for the Ukraine War are…massive.

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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

Ask Peter: What’s the Deal with Manchin’s Gas Pipeline?

Democrat Joe Manchin managed to sneak a few clauses into the debt ceiling extension deal for the completion of his Mountain Valley Pipeline. Environmentalists are pissed, and fossil fuel lovers gave Machin a double thumbs up. So who’s right and who’s wrong?

For those who think wind and solar are the future and there’s no use case for fossil fuels, you might want to check the math. For wind and solar to be viable, they need a complimentary energy source…and natural gas is the best option.

For those natural gas lovers who think green energy can only work with massive subsidies, your math needs some checking too. In the right geographies, solar and wind are the cheapest energy option on an hour-by-hour basis.

While the Mountain Valley Pipeline might seem to benefit only one side of the aisle, Manchin moved us one step closer to the inevitable future of American energy. It’s not green. It’s not fossil fuels. It’s both. And I’m okay with that.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan coming to you from the ever increasingly foggy Docman Trail. This is the next in our Ask Peter series that was born out of my airline delay. Today, the question is about Joe Manchin, the Republican excuse me, the Democrat, from West Virginia, who has managed to insert a couple of clauses into the deal with the White House to extend the debt ceiling. Specifically, it’s something that it mentioned has been after a while, which is permitting and federal approval to get a new pipeline built through West Virginia to ship natural gas. Environmentalists hate it because it’s natural gas, pro fossil fuel folks obviously think it’s okay. The truth is that everyone’s right and everyone’s wrong. So let me kind of lay out what it means.

Let’s start with the green side. For those of you who think that solar and wind is the future of energy and that any sort of fossil fuel is just antithetical to that future. You’re clearly very bad at math. Just think of every day in your life when the sun goes down. Solar. No longer works. And while you can’t use batteries a little bit, the United States right now has less than a couple of minutes of battery storage and there is not enough lithium on the planet for the United States to get to 4 hours of battery storage. And we don’t have a battery chemistry that would allow us to go not just through the night, but through the winter and through periods where there’s usually not a lot of sun, which, if you live in the American Northeast, is the vast majority of the year. So you need a complementary power source that can work with solar and wind. And the best way to do that is with natural gas. You basically use solar when it’s available and you have a combined cycle natural gas plant that can spin up in 10 to 15 minutes whenever it gets cloudy or whenever the sun goes down, you know, every day for the foreseeable future, until we have a better, better technology or better solar or probably better wind is what would get there first. This is just where we’re going to go. So if you want to build solar and wind without a complementary system, you’re then basically forcing anyone who needs emergency power to use a diesel generator. And as we’ve seen in the case of Germany, they have used Lignite coal as the backup. And you can’t spin that up and down in ten or 15 minutes. You have to leave that on the whole time. So despite $2 trillion in green tech build out, Germany’s carbon emissions have actually gone up. So, you know, there’s a problem.

Now, for those of you on the fossil fuel side who say that intermittency of solar and wind means it’s not a viable power source and it can only exist with subsidies. You’re not very good with math either. Solar and wind in the right geographies are now the cheapest way of generating power on an hour by hour basis. Now, hour by hour being the key word there, there’s something that some folks like to use called the levelized cost of operation, meaning that you average the cost out over the 24 hour, three, 24 hour day three in a 65 day year period. That’s really not a great measure, because when the sun stops shining, the power goes down to zero. You still need it. And that’s not reflected in the levelized cost, or at least not sufficiently, in my opinion, because, you know, when you don’t have power and you need power, you will pay whatever you have to do to get power. There are parts of the country that can do more of one or the other. So if you’re in the American Northeast, which is neither sunny nor windy, you know, fossil fuels are going to be a much bigger part of your power mix going forward than it can be in the rest of the world. However, if you’re in the southwest, you’re in a place that has great sun, and if you were the Southwest overlaps with the Great Plains, you’ve great, great sun and wind. And that means ultimately more and more and more things like what Manchin is after. Keep in mind the pipeline he was so much in love with the way he wants to get this done is not just a one off approval for a pipeline across a state line; he wants that for all energy infrastructure. And obviously the green zealots think this only means pipes, but it also means power lines, because if we’re going to move to a cleaner, greener future, we have to be able to move electric ones from where they can be generated with solar and wind to where we actually live. And since the single largest concentration of population is on the American Northeast coast, and that’s where none of the green power comes from, we’re ultimately going to have to run this in by wire from other places. So we need more and more transmission, more than we need something like batteries right now, at least with today’s technology.

So the future of American electricity isn’t green, but it’s also not fossil fuels. It’s both. I’m okay with that.

Mr. Modi Goes to Washington

Prime Minister Modi is stateside and prepping for his address to Congress and state dinner. While a summit with Modi may have been inevitable (as he’s the leader of the most populous country and up-and-coming power), we need to look at India’s relationship with the rest of the world to see what might come of this meeting.

Given India’s fractious decision-making system – with most decisions occurring at the state and local levels – operating as a “country” is out of the question. India is only interested in things that impact India, so relationships and allies won’t work. The Soviets established ties back in the day, but that relationship is functionally over.

India has other factors that have inhibited its ability to form strategic relationships (or contributed to its ability to remain independent). Geographic barriers have helped keep others out, but also prevent India from projecting power. India is near the Persian Gulf, so they don’t need to worry about an energy crisis. They have decent demographics and plenty of time before any problems would arise. The collapse of China will send India into an industrial boom where they will be able to manage everything in-house.

All of these factors have enabled India to become a globally significant economy without being globally wired. Now the question remains…do I see anything meaningful coming out of this meeting? No, but a conversation about the future is better than nothing.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Iit is the 21st of June. Well, here’s Loki. Today we’re talking about India. Look, he’s from India. Bengal. Anyway, Prime Minister Modi is in Washington right now. And by the time you see this on Thursday, he’ll be getting ready for his address to Congress as well as official state dinner.

There was some debate in Biden world about whether this is going to happen because in the past, Prime Minister Modi, especially before he was prime minister, hasn’t been a particularly nice guy. A little on the corrupt side, a lot of the popular side is willing to use religious divisions in order to further his political agenda, which is, you know, relatively distasteful from the American point of view and a lot of other points of view. Many would argue the Indian point of view anyway. He is still the leader of the most populous country in the world and an up and coming power.

So obviously there was going to be a summit. The question whether he would be welcomed as warmly as he has. A few things we need to talk about India, the Indians and the relationship with the wider world and the United States in particular. First and most obviously, the Biden administration has a few things that it wants from the Indian administration, that it would like more cooperation on things like the Ukraine war and sanctioning Russia.

They would like more cooperation on things like tech sanctions and in general, the diplomatic isolation of China. And the Biden administration is going to get none of that. The key thing to remember about India is that India looks out for India’s own best interests. And while every country does that to some degree, the big difference between India and everyone else is that India is not really a country.

It’s more like the Holy Roman Empire, where there is technically a central government, but almost all decisions that matter are made at the state and local level. And so while Modi is nominally the leader of this, and that does give him significant power and influence, he is only the most powerful of several dozen personalities across the Indian system who have decision making power.

And so the capacity of India to act like a state in the way that we think of that with France and China and Japan and the United States and the rest is very, very weak. Second, because of this internal, fractious, ever shifting coalition in competition, India, first and foremost concerned about how do things in the world impact India and makes it very, very difficult for the Indians to identify with any other power in terms of friendship or family or alliance or in sometimes even partnership.

So unless they see someone on the outside that is backing them and to the hilt for absolutely every little thing they care about, they’re going to call the relationship at best complicated and cold. It’s a very myopic way of looking at the world. But India has a very peculiar geography. It’s basically locked off from the rest of the world by a series of geographic and geopolitical barriers.

There are mountains and deserts and oceans and jungles and jungle, mountain and jungle deserts that general deserts. Sorry, desert mountains that separated them from everyone. And that’s not even all of it, because in a lot of these border territories, you’ve got hostile powers, whether it’s Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar or, of course, China. So the ability of India to interact with the rest of the world has always been circumscribed.

And unless you are willing to back India on everything that involves their immediate neighborhood, without question, they’re going to view you with a bit of suspicion. This is one of the reasons why the Soviets during the Cold War were able to make India into a bit of a partner because they had no interests in Southeast Asia. So they just backed who ever happened to be the biggest power India, against everyone else.

And so the Indians developed a bit of a shine on all things Moscow, which has persisted long after the communist system has ended. What this means for the United States is India cannot ever be family. It can never be an ally, it can never be a friend, but it can be a partner from time to time. But because the Indians view everything through the very short sighted lens of national interest, they don’t have anyone who will watch their back.

The Russians have proven they’re not a reliable partner and the Indians are backing away from their defense cooperation with them, because the Indians now realize that the money that they’ve spent has been wasted, that the Russians can’t maintain their own output. They’re actually asking for some of the components back in order to support the war in Ukraine and at the high end works like the Brahmos cruise missile.

That’s just not going to happen at all. And so the Indians, you know, they’re not dumb. They’re short sighted. There’s a difference. And eventually you get to a certain point where they realize now they would only be putting good money after bad. And that means the Russian partnership, if that’s the right term, is now functionally over as well.

India is also not going to help the United States in boxing in the Chinese because they have a hard time seeing past their own nose. And anything that reeks of American leadership, which, you know, obviously would be in play here is something the Indians are going to reflexively recoil against. Now, does this mean that I think India is doomed?

No. Far from it. A couple of big things to keep in mind. Number one, geography works both ways. India has a hard time projecting out other powers, have a hard time projecting in, especially on land for naval powers like the United States and Japan. That’s less true. And that’s one of the reasons why this quad idea exists, because Japan, Australia, the United States and India can cooperate to a degree on naval issues that affect the Indian Ocean Basin because Japan, Australia, the United States don’t have strong interests in the Indian Ocean Basin, especially now that the war on terror has been closed down.

There was a period for the last 20 years where Indian American relations were not hostile but problematic because the United States had to be up to its hips in all things Pakistan in order to get military supplies to its operation in Afghanistan. Now that that’s over, the Indians and the Americans can commiserate about how much they dislike all things Pakistani, and that’s done wonders for their relationship.

Second, India is the first major country after you leave the Persian Gulf, which means that no matter what happens with global commerce or global energy, India is the first in line and it will never really have an energy crisis compared to what’s shaping up for the rest of the world. That’s amazing. Third, India’s demographic structure, while not perfect, is night and day different from the country they love to compare themselves to?

And that is China. New data out of China in just the last few weeks indicates the demographic profiles of Harvard. Worse than even I thought. The Chinese are now publicly admitting they have about half as many five year olds as ten year olds. So you carry that forward with some of the other problems that dividing reified with their own demographic strategy.

And it looks like whatever I was thinking was going to happen, which was already pretty atrocious, may have already happened. And we’re looking at a complete hollowing out. Now, India started to industrialize in a big way 35 years ago, and so the birth rate has dropped. But at current rates of birth rate decline, India will not find itself in a Chinese style situation for another 60 to 70 years, and that’s a long time for things to go right.

So India does have a demographic dividend to go along. A young adults that had fewer children in the past, that generally spells an opportunity for a 20 to a 30 year consumption driven growth opportunity. That’s not without risk. But on the mechanics of it, the next couple of decades look great. And then the fourth, as the Chinese face problems, a lot of the manufactured goods that the world has been importing from the Chinese system are going to go away.

Now, that means if countries still want stuff, they to have to build out their own networks to build that stuff themselves. If that applies to India just as much as everywhere else. So we should expect to see a 2 to 3 decade industrial boom in the Indian space as well. Now it will be different from what’s happening in Mexico because remember India has no allies, no friends and very few partners, and those partners are erratic.

So the sort of manufacturing synergies that Canada, the United States and Mexico and to a lesser degree Central American Columbia can generate. India has to do it all itself. And that means it’ll be more expensive, more time consuming and slower to happen and use more labor, be less productive, less efficient at the end of the day, have lower quality product.

But in a fractured world, India will have something that a lot of countries won’t. It’ll still have stuff. And in that sort of world, India looks good. They are perfectly capable, the Indians, of running an economy that is globally significant without being one that is globally wired. So for Biden, do I think anything of substance is going to come out of this summit?

No. The geography of India, the politics of India, the ideology in India probably precludes that. But that doesn’t mean that the relationship has to be hostile. And if there’s going to be a major power in a different hemisphere, in a strategically interesting area, you should at least have a conversation. And so think of that as what’s going on with the Biden administration right now.

Not a plan for the future, a conversation about it. We could do a lot worse. All right. That’s it. Take care.

Ask Peter: Will Azerbaijan Try to Take Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia?

Armenia and Azerbaijan have some “history” together…and not in a good way. As the Ukraine War ramps up and stress is added to the Russian system, will we see the Armenians and Azerbaijanis creating some new history?

This conflict boils down to ethnic and religious differences and a shared desire to control the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. While both sides have proven their lack of skill on the battlefield, Armenia has been able to deter Azerbaijani assaults thanks to their “partnership” with Russia.

For the past 30 years, we haven’t seen much movement from Azerbaijan; this is to avoid jeopardizing their oil exports and risk retaliations from the Russians. But as Russia becomes overcommitted in its war on Ukraine, we might see some movement on this front.

The territories across the globe that have benefited from a Russian presence are all in a precarious situation. As soon as one domino falls, so will the rest…and the entire global position of the Russian Federation could be wrapped up in a matter of months. But will it be Azerbaijan that falls that first domino?

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

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TRANSCIPT

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from the Docman trail, continuing with the Ask Peter series that was born out of my flight delay in Monterrey a few days ago. One of the other questions was about Armenia and Azerbaijan. The two of them have a well, let’s just say a history of not getting along. They fought several wars. And in the light of the Ukraine war, how do I see things unfolding? The not too distant future? This is going to be one of the really big hot spots as the Russian system falters. One of the things we have seen is that as the Russians put more and more of their men and material into the Ukraine conflict, they’re having to pull it from somewhere. And while they do have nearly bottomless reserves from the Soviet era, a lot of that stuff requires refurbishment and modernization before it can be thrown into combat. But any Russian equipment that is at a base somewhere else in the world can be brought home. And we’re seeing exactly that now in the case of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The crux of the issue is that the Armenians are Christian, the Azerbaijanis are nominally Shia muslim. But really they’re kind of non-religious. And the two have been duking it over a chunk of territory called Nagorno-Karabakh. Now, the Armenians claim that Nagorno-Karabakh is the birthplace of their nation, which it’s not. But, you know, Armenia has a very nomadic history. They’ve wandered all around, he’s going to tell you in the Caucasus. But this is one of their older settlements. And so the belief that this is theirs is very real, very palpable, and is shared by the locals. The Azerbaijanis see this as part of their territory, as it has been since the 1920s, predating the Soviet period and in a war as a Soviet and was breaking up, the Armenians were able to take control of it. And the Armenian diaspora in the world, most notably in France, in the United States, was successful in getting a lot of Western aid, not to Azerbaijan, who was the victim of the war, but Armenia who launched it because of the whole Christian thing. The Armenians aren’t very good Christians either, but that’s a side issue in conflicts. Ever since the Russians have established a relationship with the Armenians. The Russians like to side with minorities who are surrounded by majorities very similar to the U.S. strategy in order to try groups apart. So in this case, they sided with the Armenians against the Azerbaijanis. It got them a military base just outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, where they have about 5000 troops. And now the Azerbaijanis are always concerned that should they launch a war to retake what they see as their territory, that the Russians will get involved and they’ll just absolutely get slammed.

Azerbaijan has half of its population in the city of Baku. Almost all of their exports are oil and they go by pipeline either through Russia or these days through Georgia and Turkey, going by another area that the Russians are backing called Ossetia in Georgia. And the Russians could break that line with ease. And so the role of the aggressor has traditionally been with Armenia, because Armenia feels rightly that it’s hiding under Russia’s skirts and can’t be hurt. Well, the map of that has changed a lot in the last two years. We now have two things that have shifted. Number one, the Russians are overcommitted in Ukraine and have actually drained some of their supplies and a few of their troops from Armenia, as well as their bases in Georgia. In order to keep the Ukraine war rolling. Second, the technological suite has shifted. The Armenians and especially Azerbaijanis, are dealing with old Soviet equipment that were the hand-me-downs from the Soviet Union. The Soviets or the Russians hung on to their better stuff and left some of the crap out in the provinces. And the Azerbaijanis have proven over and over and over again that they are absolutely incompetent fighters, especially when it comes to infantry and or tank warfare. And the Armenians are just wipe the floor with them because they’ve been in a superior morale position. They’ve had the high ground and they have more support from abroad independent of Russia. What has changed, though, is that the Azerbaijanis and the Turks are friends. They’re the same similar ethnic group and the Turks have become world leaders in small drone technology. And the Turkish drones have proven excellent at taking out armored tanks and aircraft guns and the like. So in a military conflict back in 2019, now summer 2019, there is about a one month long war where the Azerbaijanis, using almost exclusively drones, rolled into parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and just blew the Armenian position to pieces, destroying almost their entire air defense network. The only part that survived is the part the Armenians turned off any tanks that were in the area. And by the time we got to the third week of the war, there was so little hardware to go after they started targeting people and the result was an absolute route that for the first time since 1992 saw the Azerbaijani is actually gain ground and quite a bit and now with the Russians overcommitted in Ukraine, the question is how long it will be until the Azerbaijanis move again.

So one of the things that people forget is between 1993 and today, the Armenian economy really didn’t change in size. It was basically a very corrupt system. It had an old nuclear power plant that the Russians maintained for them badly, I might add. And there was a lot of money that came in from the diaspora. While they were doing that, the Azerbaijanis were very successful at going out and courting foreign investment and they brought in tens of billions of it. And over the course of the last 30 years they’ve grown from this provincial backwater economy that was basically based on caviar to being a major oil and natural gas exporter. And so today, the Azerbaijani economy is roughly a factor of 25 larger than that of Armenia, and their defense budget is larger than Armenia’s entire GDP. So there’s still no reason to expect our Azerbaijani troops to be very good, but their equipment is now becoming interesting. What that means moving forward is as it becomes apparent or if it becomes apparent that the Russians really are losing in Ukraine and they are all in, then other entities around the world are going to take action in places where the Russians have held them at bay. And I think the single most likely place for that to happen is negative, horrible, because as soon as the Azerbaijanis feel they can get their land back without suffering reprisals, I’m pretty sure they’re going to take it.

So for those of you who want to like, you know, encourage this to happen, the play is in Azerbaijan. If you can do defense cooperation in Azerbaijan, like we have done in Ukraine for the last several years, that would raise the cost to Moscow of any sort of reprisal anyway. It’s a cold war that is turning warm and very soon is likely to turn hot. And it’s going to have some very big implications. Once one of these dominoes falls somewhere, everyone else around the world is going to realize that the Russians really can’t do anything. And then the entire global position of the Russian Federation will be wrapped up in a matter of months.

Alright. See you next time.

A Chinese Listening Post in Cuba: What It Means for the US

The news of a “new” Chinese listening post in Cuba sparks the question: why is Cuba so important to the US? No, we’re not talking about cigars. We’re talking about Cuba’s role in American strategic planning.

With control of the Florida Straits and the Straits of Yucatán, Cuba commands access to the Gulf of Mexico. For those who need a refresher, the gulf is critical to American power, capital generation, agriculture, and energy, second only to the Mississippi system. Hence the whole Cuban Missile Crisis back in the day.

Now I’m not worried about China playing any significant role in Cuba because they’ve had this post for years and China cannot command power at a distance. However, this doesn’t mean things won’t get interesting with Cuba. There are only a few ways that I could see this playing out.

Option one is the diplomatic route of bringing Cuba into the North American family or even NAFTA. Option two is the military route, which would involve America’s favorite pastime of overthrowing the government and/or occupation. OR Cuba and the US can meet somewhere in the middle and play a good ole fashion game of economic warfare.

In all reality, the US will probably just wait this out…unless a real threat to American security decides to try its luck.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey, everyone. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from the slightly less smoky Okanagan. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about Cuba. Specifically, there is news recently that the Chinese are maintaining a new listening post. That’s pretty much bullshit. It’s been there for years. In fact, the Biden administration came out a few days after the initial report said, yeah, it’s been there at least since 2019. Probably been there a little bit earlier.

Now, Cuba will always figure hot and heavy in American strategic planning because it controls the Straits of Florida in the Yucatan Straits, which command access to the Gulf of Mexico. And if, for whatever reason, the Greater Mississippi system could not trade with the rest of the world, that is the core of American power, capital generation and agriculture and energy. So kind of a big deal. And this is the reason why JFK almost got us into a nuclear war over the Cuban missile crisis back in the sixties because the Soviets were militarizing Cuba. Cuba itself certainly doesn’t have the military capacity to challenge the United States or to close the straits. But it could be a base for a hostile power from another hemisphere.

Of course, the conversation now is whether or not the Chinese are in that role. Not yet and probably not ever. The Chinese don’t have the ability to project power that sort of distance without, ironically, American assistance. So the only Chinese military base abroad, anywhere in the world is in Djibouti and it is only able to function there because the Americans basically indirectly help out with logistics and naval patrol.

So I’m not worried about that right now. That doesn’t mean that things with Cuba aren’t going to get interesting in the post-Cold War environment with the Russians no longer a significant factor in Havana. The question has been how long can Cuba last in this sort of environment? And there’s really two big paths that this could go. Number one is a diplomatic solution to the embargo and relations between the two. This is something that Barack Obama attempted sloppily and sophomorically, and ultimately was shot down by Congress. But the idea of bringing Cuba into the North American family, perhaps even into NAFTA, makes a lot of sense because the workers in Cuba are probably about a third as productive as Americans, but they work for 1/10 the cost. So it’d be a really good complement to what the Mexicans really need to industrialize more of their system right now. It would be a huge value add. Not to mention the boosts in agriculture and tourism. So some sort of negotiated deal makes a lot of sense, but we’d probably need a better negotiating team than what we had under Obama. But is literally every other president we’ve ever had. So, you know, don’t rule it out. It’s a political question on both sides. There just has to be willingness to work on it again. The second option is a more direct military option, which would include overthrowing the government or occupying it. And we’ve done that in the past, too, although not recently at the moment that is off the table. It would take a lot more provocation from the Cubans than hosting a listening post. They would have to actually accept more advanced military assistance and have a base. And the Chinese are simply not the power to do that. And the Russians no longer have the capacity either. So it would only happen if the United States president just woke up one day and said, you know what, let’s conquer Cuba. I don’t find that likely. And then between those two extremes, you get economic warfare. One of the things that we’ve discovered in a system that is as dysfunctional politically and economically as Cuba is, there are a lot of weak points. Probably the single biggest one is food. And that’s one of the reasons why when we had that proto deal with the Obama administration, that the United States used its agricultural surpluses as a way to induce the Cubans into making concessions. And it worked. The other one would be energy. The Cubans get almost all of their fuels from Venezuela. And so if you have a break in the Venezuelan system, all of a sudden the Cubans are high and dry and without fuel, diesel or power. So there’s a lot of ways that the Cuban system can kind of collapse under its own weight.

And as with everything with the United States, there is a belief in Washington accurately that we can outwait this problem. And unless we have some sort of acute challenge to American security, that’s just kind of the safest thing to do. It’s probably a good bet, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to last forever.

Alright, everyone, take care. See you next time.

Mr. Blinken goes to Beijing

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to China to attempt to reset relations. He’s getting flack from both sides, and I won’t talk about that, but I do want to bring up three things…

China has descended into a cult of personality thanks to Xi Jinping. He’s ridded the government of anyone capable of conscious thought, so whatever he says = law. In a situation like this (where one man is trying to do EVERYTHING), it’s impossible to have meaningful diplomatic relations.

We have a dying super-power on our hands, and if America’s mitigation plan is to ignore them…there will be no options to manage the fallout. Blinken’s visit, at the very least, is a step towards figuring out what those options might be.

At its core, Blinken’s visit is about intelligence gathering. When you have a leader like Xi (who doesn’t talk to or trust anyone), it’s incredibly difficult to get information. So the only decent way to get info is through a trip like 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY