Why Huawei’s 7nm Chip Isn’t a Big Chinese Breakthrough

The Chinese telecom firm Huawei (the same firm that was caught modifying equipment on behalf of the Chinese government) has released a new phone with a seven-nanometer chip.

After some digging, it appears that this breakthrough is not as significant as I initially thought – and it comes down to what the Chinese have access to. They are using a process called deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography, and while it gets the job done, its days are numbered in the cutting-edge field. Further, the unofficially reported yield rate Huawei achieved is nowhere near the industry standard.

The other process of creating these chips – extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography – is still only accessible to the Chinese via subsidies, poaching, and theft. So, I won’t be classifying the release of this phone as a “significant” breakthrough.

If the Chinese head down this path, it’s quite illuminating as to how far they’re willing to go for the sake of saving face. Should China keep this up, it’s just one more way they risk harming their position on the global stage.

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

And then there’s you.

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 Phoenix, where it’s 180 bajillion degrees outside. So we’re into this one from inside. A lot of you have written in and honestly, I was pretty curious myself about something that’s going on in China with the telecommunications firm Huawei. Now, that is a firm that has stands accused or guilty early of trying to modify wireless equipment and cellular equipment for the wider world so that the Chinese government can have a cheap and easy inside.

And everyone’s communications. They got discovered by the Australians, the Australians basically, or everybody else. And now we’re dealing with widespread sanctions by led by the Americans, by participating by every major country in the world that does the production of cellular equipment. And it’s kind of course, their business model. Now, in the last month, they have released a new phone, which is the first in a while because it took them a while to do anything without the ability to import equipment from anywhere else.

And it has a seven nanometer chip in it. And for those of you who’ve been watching me for a while, I’ve said that there’s not a lot that the Chinese can do that’s better than 90 nanometers. That’s what they can do themselves without external help. And 28 nanometers because of sanctions is about the best they can hope for.

So seven obviously potentially a very big deal. So we took a little bit of time. We dug into the details. And the short version is I’m not as worried as I was when this first came out. And it has to do with what the Chinese have access to. There are two types of chipmaking styles. The first uses something called deep ultraviolet, and that’s what was used for this chip.

Now, this is an older technology that has a number of drawbacks. You basically have to customize your equipment and modify your equipment for each individual chip design. So every time you have a new design, you have to kind of overhaul your factory in your lithography system from the ground up. And the way that the Chinese have done this is basically pirating design details from TSMC and Taiwan and then hire you just a huge number of people to do some technology transfer.

And they basically, especially when sanctions kicked in, you just basically were told they have a bottomless budget to go out and build a SUB10 nanometer chip. And they did. And it cost them five times as much as it should have. And the chip that they end up making wasn’t that great because they couldn’t do the design, that information, those people, they weren’t able to hire away.

So it’s basically a crypto mining chip made with a little bit smaller etching, which means that for a phone it’s really not a great option. More importantly, you’ve probably, from the Dutch point of view, the Dutch are the ones who make this equipment is that this theft started well before the sanctions run, but sanctions have only been in place for two, maybe three years now.

This started five years ago. So it is the ultimate expression of what the Chinese can do with a bottomless supply of money and absolutely no business ethics and the ability to hire anyone they want, all of which is, you know, an under threat in the sanctions regime now. So, you know, kudos for being able to get something sub seven, but it’s only about as good as your average smart phone from maybe 2017 which which is not nothing, but it’s certainly not the breakthrough that some people seem to think it is.

The second sort of technology is called extreme ultraviolet, and that is what you do to do all the good chips and the leading edge chips. Now, especially the three in the five nanometers that most smartphone folks are wanting to put in their machines. This system is much more modular and you don’t have to redesign everything from the ground up.

So when it finally did come online, which which is just like four or maybe about four years ago, everyone was really excited because all of a sudden the time to target for bringing the design to production could be shrunk. Still talking months to years. But you don’t have to re fabricate everything within your facility every time you have a new chip design.

And so far it seems to be performing to snuff and it’s this sort of equipment that the Chinese can’t get at all, in fact, don’t have any of at all in the country. So the U.V., they were able to use the stuff that they had and buy stuff that was no longer restricted or that wasn’t restricted yet, combined with a huge amount of subsidies, combined with a lot of poaching.

And they were able to cobble together a phone that does use something that is technically sub10 millimeter, even though it doesn’t perform anywhere like that for a phone. The EUV is simply off the market for them and everyone else is moving forward. So from my point of view, this is really instructive. Think of it this way. Think of it like I had said, that the Chinese couldn’t build a television.

And I’m thinking of like those OLEDs that you hang on the wall that way, like £20 have a slight curve and the deep black and blah, blah, blah, blah. And the Chinese are like, Oh, we can totally built a TV. And they came out with like a 48 inch tube TV. It’s technically a TV. Technically, I was wrong, but under the terms of the technology, this is not something that really takes them forward.

If anything, this is a one off because they can’t use the stuff to advance because they don’t know how to make the better chips. And the reason that do you’ve was ultimately abandoned is by the time we get to about 15 nanometers, it was really skirting the edge of what you can do with physics because the wavelength for the light is wider than what you need to etch on the chip.

And they basically had to tweak the laws of physics to get down to seven, but that’s the upper threshold. But even doing something a little bit dumber than that, it’s not clear that the Chinese have the ability because they no longer have access to the expertize of the Dutch. So this is really, really illuminating to me for how far the Chinese are willing to go in order to say that they broke the sanctions, but they really did it.

There’s nothing about this that is home grown. There’s nothing about this that is replicable. In fact, there’s a possibility that may kind of fall into that category of stupid things that they’ve been doing lately in that you’ve got a number of people in the American Congress who are not interested in doing a week of research to figure out the details or just like, oh, always breaking sanctions.

Well, we’ll show them. We’ll just put it in front of the president, a bill that says that all technological transfers and sales to Huawei are now illegal. So not just the top, but stuff, everything. It’s Congress. Who knows how that’s ultimately going to shake out. But the Chinese are finding more and more ways to sacrifice their position on the altar of ego.

And it looks like this might be one more. All right, everyone, take care.

Processing: The Greatest Threat to US Economic Security

As we continue down the path of deglobalization, the US has checked most of the boxes needed to thrive in a disconnected world. Between shifting supply chains and moving manufacturing closer to home, there is still one box that the US hasn’t checked off – processing.

That unchecked processing box just so happens to be the most significant threat to economic security for the US. The US needs to flesh out its processing capabilities in three major areas of concern: industrial materials, agriculture, and oil.

The US must develop processing capabilities and partnerships for materials like lithium, copper and iron ore to support the industrial buildout. To improve food security and avoid famines down the road, finding ways to add value and expand food production close to home will be essential. The US is already a significant oil refiner and exporter, but there is a mismatch in the type of crude produced domestically and what US refineries can process; to reduce import dependency, the US will need to retool its refineries to process domestic crude.

Overcoming these processing challenges will prove crucial for the future of the US and its continued economic security. Regardless of political, ideological, or environmental stance, developing these processing capabilities will allow the US to prop up various industries and avoid catastrophe down the road.

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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 everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from the road in Colorado. Yesterday I gave you a quick talk about what I saw as the greatest national security threat to the United States for the next foreseeable future. I’d like to do the same thing now for economic security and in a word, processing. Before I explain what I mean by that, let’s go back a little bit.

The whole idea of globalization is that any product can go anywhere, take advantage of whoever can produce that product, the lowest cost and the highest quality, or at least that’s the theory in practice. As soon as countries realize they can reach into any economic space. They take steps to benefit themselves. Maybe they put in trade restrictions or in the case of processing, maybe they subsidize.

So different countries around the world are throwing a lot of money at making sure that certain industries are headquartered, or at least heavily emphasized in their own places. So Taiwan, Korea, Japan, they do this heavily with semiconductors to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies. The Russians use a lot of the d’etre is from the Soviet system, which used to supply a an empire which now only supplies them.

And, you know, they’re pretty economically backward. So they use all the extra stuff to produce things for export or in the case of the Chinese, in order to ensure mass development and mass employment. They throw basically bottomless supplies of capital at industries, really anything that they think that technologically they can handle. They want to be able to produce and if they can, cornered the market.

What this means is that other countries, United States, are reliant on countries that have put their thumb on the scales in order to participate by anything else. And now the globalization is breaking down. The United States is facing a double threat. Number one, a lot of manufacturing that used to be done here or could be done here or, you know, from an economic efficiency point of view should be done here, is done other places.

And so a lot of that has to be reshore at or near shore to French. Second, none of this works unless you have the processing. If you have iron ore, but you don’t have the processing to turn it into steel, you can’t do construction. If you have silicon, you don’t have the ability to process it in the silicon dioxide.

You can’t play in the semiconductor space and on and on and on. So things kind of fall to three general categories. The first are industrial materials like lithium and copper and iron ore and the rest. The United States in most of these is a bit player in the production and nearly a non-player in the processing. And since the United States is now attempting a mass industrial buildout, it needs to get good at that again.

It needs to make partnerships with the countries that have the raw materials. Australia is at the top of that list. Brazil’s probably close second. And then it needs to work with those countries either to do the processing in them or at home. Now, one of the things that I do like about the Biden administration’s economic policies and there aren’t a lot, is that the Inflation Reduction Act prioritizes this and says that in order to qualify for certain subsidies for things like EVs, the materials that go into them must be processed within a NAFTA country or an ally that is identified by negotiations such as Australia.

So we are moving in the right direction there, but we need to think of a much broader net. So for example, aluminum not only to the Russians and the Chinese dominate about three quarters of aluminum production in the world. Aluminum as a byproduct, generates a lot of trace materials like, say, gallium, which are really useful for solar panels.

Same thing with silver. Silver processing or copper processing generate a lot of the stuff that you need for rare earth metals. All of this stuff needs to be recaptured in some way. Otherwise, the industrial rail building that the United States is attempting really isn’t going to go anywhere. Because if you don’t have the materials to do it in the first place, it’s going to be kind of a pointless endeavor simply to build up what you would need to make them every single day.

That’s number one. Number two is food. The United States is the world’s largest food exporter and is the number one exporter of any number of materials and food products. But we don’t do a lot of the value add as part of those exports. This is missing a lot of really low hanging fruit. And if you look at the world writ large, the same thing that applies to globalization and processing applies to agriculture.

Lots of countries for food security issues, national security issues, protection issues whose have made it very difficult for the United States to export, say, soybean meal. But they still allow the import of soy by expanding the footprint in American agro industry so that we do more of the processing here. Not only do we get a higher value added product, but as global fertilizer markets around the world get problematic, a lot of major food producers are simply going to vanish because most food production outside of certain areas that have been producing it for centuries can only do so with massive applications of fertilizer.

Again, in China is the case in point. The EU’s about five times as much nitrogen fertilizer as the global average. So not only with the United States earn a little bit more money and have more food security. If we did this, we’d also be able to step in and help other places that are suffering from famine more quickly because we’d actually have semi-finished or even finished food products rather than just the raw material.

And then the third one is one that the Biden administration is not going to like to hear about, and that is oil. Oil by itself is useless. It has to be refined into diesel and gasoline and naphtha and the rest. And the United States is the world’s largest oil refiner and the world’s largest exporter of refined product. However, there’s this huge mismatch within the American energy sector.

Back in the seventies, in the eighties, when we were all running out of oil, American refiners became convinced with good reason, that the future of global crudes were very heavy, very sour, very polluted crude streams. And so what they did was they refined the entire American refining complex to run on the crappiest crude you can imagine, stuff that’s just goo or even solid at room temperature.

But then we had the shale revolution. And the shale revolution is different in that the crude that is produced from it is super light and super sweet. So right now, American refiners prefer to import the heavy crap stuff from the white world, leaving the light sweet stuff. We produce ourself available for export. So the smart play here would be to retool or even better expand the American refining complex in order to process not just the crappy stuff in the world, but also the stuff that we produce ourselves.

So we are less dependent upon the inflows and outflows of exports and imports in order to keep our refining complex alive and keep fuel the tanks. And for those of you who are super ultra mega greens, who are convinced that the internal combustion engine is not the way of the future, that’s fine. Consider that the most aggressive, realistic plan.

And it’s not very realistic for getting the EVs on the road and and stopping the production of internal combustion engine vehicles is now before 2040, which means as late as 2050, the majority of the vehicles that are still on the road are still going to be internal combustion. So even in the most aggressive plan, we are still going to need tens of millions of barrels of gasoline and diesel and the rest for decades to come.

If we’re going to avoid an energy shock where the whole system just cuts down. All right. That everything. Yeah, I think that’s everything. So processing it. Lots of processing. Oh, yeah. And even if you don’t buy into the green transition or even climate change, we still need to do this because without the Chinese and the Germans and everyone else in global manufacturing, North America has to at least double the size of its entire industrial plant.

That’s a lot of steel, a lot of aluminum, a lot of copper and all the rest. So really, it doesn’t matter what your ideology is. We don’t have enough of the intermediate stage of process stuff that we need to even attempt to do everything else. So let’s focus on that first and then.

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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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?

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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 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.

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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.

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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.

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Ukrainian Drones: A New Issue for Russia and China

Photo of a solider throwing a drone into the air

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
Support medshare's global efforts

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