Sweden’s (Not So) Rare Earth Metals

A state-owned mining company in Sweden has just stumbled upon a million metric tons of rare earth metals…but what does that mean? Any addition to the rare-earths supply is great, but I don’t see this moving the needle much.

These metals aren’t all that rare, they’re not difficult to process and they’re not all that expensive…plus we won’t be seeing any of these metals hit the markets for at least 10 years.

While this is a nice discovery for the Swedes, plenty of countries have excess processing capacity should a need arise.

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

Hello. From cloudy and soon to be snowy Colorado. The big news of late is that in Sweden, a state owned mining company has announced that it’s found a million metric tons of rare earth oxides. And a lot of folks are saying, oh, this is what’s going to break China’s stranglehold on that space. A rare earth metals are used in a lot of different technological applications. A little goes a long way. They’re used in everything from sunglasses to photo development to green tech to semiconductors. So it’s kind of a big space. And the Chinese do dominate. At the moment, about 90% of total supply. But I’m really not all excited about this Swedish announcement for three big reasons. 

Number one, this is Europe, and you don’t have to find a lot in the ground for it to be Europe’s largest deposit of anything. So a million tons of oxides sounds like a lot, but generally out of every tonne or two of rock, you only get about an ounce of material. So while a little does go a long way, this really isn’t all that much.

Second, this is this is still Europe. And the Swedes themselves are saying 10 to 15 years before the first ounce of this stuff makes it to market. The technologies involved in purifying Rare Earth requires several hundred vats of acid, as you slowly dissolve and then tease out the materials from one another. They all have similar physical characteristics and atomic weights, so separating them is very difficult and honestly a little toxic.

Third, but most importantly, it really doesn’t matter because we really don’t have a rare earth problem. Yes, yes, yes. 90% do come from the Chinese. But there’s a few things about rare earths that most people just have forgotten. 

Number one, they’re not rare at all. They are produced as a byproduct of almost every type of metal mining that is done, especially things like zinc and nickel and copper and silver, none of which are in really in shortage. Second of all, the technologies involved in doing this date back to the 1920s, so they’re not particularly difficult, even though they’re toxic and time consuming and they’re not even really expensive. And then there’s number three. The Chinese dominate the space because they subsidize the industry. So they’re doing us all a favor. Back in the 1980s, when rare earths were priced more normally, we were skimpy with them. But in the 1980s and moving into the 1990s, the Chinese started just hyper subsidizing this entire sector, and they out competed everyone on price, but they never stopped subsidizing. And so we’re still getting rare earths for less than a 10th of what we used to pay for them. So whenever there is a stress in terms of supply, like about a decade ago when the Chinese threatened the Japanese with a cutoff, we just dust off three decades worth of efficiency gains and then figure out how to do with less. So the Japanese in less than a year were using only a quarter of what they had used before, showing that there’s not nearly as much influence here as you might think.

Finally, people have learned after the Japanese threat. Lots of countries and lots of companies did two things. First, they started building up a stockpile. So if the Chinese did threaten any sort of cut off again, they’d have six months to a year of supplies in their back pocket. And second, a lot of countries started building out that processing capacity anyway. Now, they haven’t turned it on because the Chinese are still subsidizing everything. But Australia, the United States, France, Malaysia and some others have more than enough spare capacity for processing now that if there was a cutoff tomorrow in less than a year, most of the world would have most of the rare earths that they would need.

So more power to the Swedes. I hope this stuff comes online. More is merrier in this sort of environment, but this really just doesn’t get me all that excited. Alright. That’s it for me. Until next time.

Where in the World: Adair and Winds, Pt. 2

Read the other installment in this series
WHERE IN THE WORLD: ADAIR AND WINDS, PT. 1

NB: The following video is one I recorded while on my annual backpacking trip in August; please excuse any potential anachronisms.

With the foundation laid out in Part 1, we’ll now look into agricultural zones that are most at risk based upon changes to their moisture and input profiles. More specifically, areas that were not capable of being global producers of foodstuffs until the Industrial Age.

Each of these agricultural zones are already experiencing impacts to their inputs, whether that’s fertilizers, equipment or chemicals. Compounding these impacts with changes to their moisture profiles could be catastrophic.

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. I’m still at Adair. Just look in the other direction. So this is after the next pour off. I’m standing on the last little bit of granite that the glacier was able to flow over rather than through. I forgot to mention parts of the world that are going to see more versus less disruption from what’s coming from wind current disruption.

The three areas I’m most concerned about are ones that are heavily dependent not just on a certain moisture profile, but also a certain input profile. These are zones that until the industrial age really were not on the map in terms of being global producers of foodstuffs. Elevation. The first is Brazil. The Brazilian Cerrado really has no nutrient profile in the soil, and so they’re completely dependent on imported fertilizers, primarily from the Russian space. Those haven’t been disrupted because of the Ukraine work, but that’s not long coming. That is primarily a soy region.

The second is the Russian wheat belt itself, particularly the eastern three quarters of it stretching roughly from the north west corner of Kazakhstan, east into eastern Siberia. It’s not that this area can’t grow, it’s just that it can’t grow without high level inputs. Russia’s enterprise farms import a lot of foreign equipment and chemicals, and that is basically stopped. So you change the nutrient excuse me, the moisture profile at all. And a lot of that just goes off the market. And Russia is no longer the world’s largest wheat exporter.

The third is Western Australia. In a situation somewhat similar to what’s going on in Brazil. They’ve got a very special soil type that has very low nutrient profile. There the problem is that when water hits it, the clay particles in the soil enlarge until they dissolve within the water. And then you basically just have a swampy mess and you cannot farm this at volume without a huge amount of capital and foreign inputs for equipment and fertilizer. You can add peat, but it takes a long time.

Anyway, disrupt the moisture profile in any of the three in an environment where already the input profile is being disrupted and you’re looking at the world losing three of its great bread baskets. Okay, that’s it for real. Until next time.

World Leaders of the Present and Recent Past

A note: The following newsletters were originally published in Oct. and Nov. of 2022. As the newsletter continues to grow, I will occasionally re-share some of my older releases for the newer members of the audience.

In this series I cover some of the world leaders of the present and recent past…with a strong focus on US presidents. You can find a compilation of all the videos here:  

Xi Jinping And The Challenge of Chinese Leadership

No matter the official line that comes out of the Chinese Communist Party Congress, Xi Jinping is China’s president for life. Rather than bringing stability to a very uncertain future for China, Xi’s leadership is almost guaranteed to further exacerbate the pressures Beijing currently faces. 

The polity we know as China today is composed of an amalgam of historically competing regions, with several regions often closer to invading/foreign powers (be they Mongol or European) than each other. These geographic and cultural differences persist today, even within the Han majority. But China’s problems under Xi are more a result of Xi’s leadership style and the method by which he consolidated power than any historic, geopolitical fissures that have persisted through Chinese history.

Xi Jinping And The Challenge of Chinese Leadership

Vladimir Putin and the Dearth of Russian Leadership

Many people would consider it difficult to manage a country like Russia. It’s not. Or at least for Vladimir Putin, he’s following a well trod path mapped out for him by the former Soviet Union and its heavy-handed imperial predecessor. The Russian center maintains absolute control, and any internal threats are simply crushed.

Putin, like his predecessors, must maintain a sprawling internal security apparatus and intelligence service, to infiltrate and eliminate (often defenestrate) any would-be competitors or questioners of his rule. Is this particularly good for economic and social development? No. But, Putin has managed to stay in power for decades. But one of the most salient downfalls of such a system is the concentration of authority within the hands of a chosen few. Chosen by whom? Not fate, or success, or a meritocratic system. But by Putin. So Russian leadership now is more or less a fraternity of people who neither threaten nor challenge Putin, and the greatest distillation of the shallowness of the depth of expertise of such a system is current Russian performance in its invasion of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin and the Dearth of Russian Leadership

MbS and the Long Reach of Saudi Leadership

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia exists as an odd mish-mash of geography and geology. It’s large, desert frontiers are remarkably ill-suited to economic activity. Before the discovery of oil, the main financial rainmaker was the annual Hajj. What we now know as Saudi Arabia’s primary significance to the region was its role as the birthplace of Islam and the bedrock of Bedouin culture.

Fast forward a few centuries and enter the British, who not only empower the region’s local tribes to oust the Ottoman-backed tribal leadership of Mecca but also discover vast oil deposits. Saudi Arabia today is a wealthy, centrally-located key petroleum supplier to pretty much every industrialized economy who wants to be a buyer. And it has not been shy about using its vast cash and oil reserves to shape events on the ground as it sees fit–from wreaking havoc in oil markets to funding transnational jihadism.

At the center of the Saudi Arabian system is the vast, multigeneration House of Saud. Much elevated in stature from their days as desert brigands and bloody rivals of the Hashemite dynasty, they haven’t forgotten their roots. The size of the ruling family, its material resources, and ability to transition to a younger generation gives the Saudis an advantage rarely seen in most dictatorships: longevity.

MbS and the Long Reach of Saudi Leadership

Bill Clinton and America’s Post-Cold War Leadership

For all of Bill Clinton’s considerable intelligence, bouts of intense curiosity, and ability to make dazzle a room of even his opponents, there was not a lot of deep domestic or international policy crafting during his presidency. His focus on topics tended to follow polls and his own episodic interest. Good for his own approval polling, but in the end the inability to commit would take its toll. 

But part of the reason his approval ratings stayed so high was the fact that his presidency overlapped a sort of halcyon age for Americans (according to Gallup, Clinton’s final presidential approval polls are the highest of any president going back to Harry S. Truman). But just because he got away with it doesn’t mean his leadership style didn’t cast a long shadow. We are still dealing directly with foreign policy decisions he made–and chose not to make–in the present day…

Bill Clinton and America’s Post-Cold War Leadership

George W. Bush and the Texan Style of American Leadership

Before becoming president of the United States, George W. Bush was famously the governor of Texas. There are few state-wide offices in the country as relatively weak as the Texas governorship, and it’s hard to find another state executive whose day-to-day role is as different than what the US president does as the Texas governor’s. 

George W. Bush attempted to make the transition by assembling one of the most impressive cabinets in US history. In true Texan style, he was ready to let them loose to pursue their respective policy prerogatives in order to reshape the United States, and the world, for the post-Cold War Order. All that changed after 9/11 happened. 

George W. Bush and the Texan Style of American Leadership

Barack Obama and the Disengagement of American Leadership

Many people are surprised when I say that Barack Obama was the second-smartest American president of recent history, after Bill Clinton. I should also say that in no way serves as an endorsement or that I think either was necessarily successful. 

President Obama in particular seemed not only ill-suited to but ultimately disinterested in engaging with the management of the massive, sprawling bureaucracy that is the US Federal Government. Some presidents relish the cooperation–or combativeness–of engaging with the legislative branch. Obama? Not so much. 

Was he engaged with his cabinet, suggesting policy and working to overhaul the federal bureaucracy? No. What about rebuilding his party? Famously not. Was he interested in managing the post-Bush, post-Iraq global order? Absolutely not.

After four terms of presidents who were charismatic and personable leaders, the Obama presidency presented a very “the man in the ivory tower” vibe–one that I’d argue laid the groundwork for Donald Trump’s runaway popularity with so much of the American electorate. 

Barack Obama and the Disengagement of American Leadership

Donald Trump and America’s Leadership by Tweet

The best way to understand Donald Trump is to compare him to his immediate predecessor, President Obama. Both were outside candidates who came with their own political support and ran on charisma, rather than policy. When President Trump came into office, unlike Obama, he embraced his party; taking it over by systematically kicking out factions he found problematic and recreating the party in his own image.

President Obama really understood what was going on in the world, but had no interest in meeting with the people who could create policy, resulting in 8 years of nothing. Donald Trump was similarly disinterested in what others had to say, but he loved the limelight. He released policy via Tweet and hoped the government would take it and run. There was no shortage of loud, brash and bold policies, but they were never implemented because the President was already moving onto the next thing. Trump’s ever-present government by speech and tweet was the same across domestic and foreign policy.

Donald Trump and America’s Leadership by Tweet

Joe Biden and Asking His Way through American Leadership

The last modern American president we’ll be discussing in our leadership series is – you guessed it – Joe Biden.

Similar to Barack Obama, President Biden didn’t spend much time working a “real job” prior to entering the U.S. Senate…a few centuries ago. Throughout his ~plentiful~ time spent in government, he has learned his fair share, but hasn’t actually done much. Although his leadership style may lean more ideological than most presidents’, he can undoubtedly run a meeting better than many of his predecessors.

Given Biden’s understanding of how to utilize the tools of government and willingness to ask questions, we are seeing the most engaged president of the past 13 or so years. This doesn’t necessarily equate to great policy, but it is a promising sign of a return to industry-informed policy.

Joe Biden and Asking His Way through American Leadership

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

A Toasty Winter in Europe

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here

As much as we analysts like to make predictions and forecasts, Mother Nature is always right there to throw all of it into a tailspin. The crazy temps across Europe are no exception to this.

While this abnormally warm winter season has been a godsend for energy prices across Western Europe, its also thrown a wrench into Ukraine’s plans for a winter offensive.

I’m not saying Europeans should get used to shorts and mai tais all winter long, but this season could hold lasting impacts (good or bad) for the year ahead.

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 my hometown of Marshalltown, Iowa, where I’m visiting the ‘rents for a few days. Today, we are going to be talking about winter. It has been a really weird winter, specifically in Europe over the course of the last few weeks. In the second and first weeks of January, temperatures have been and are expected to continue to be in the fifties in Paris and the forties in Berlin and Warsaw, and in the high thirties in places in Ukraine, most notably Kiev.

Now, this is throwing a lot of my forecast into a bit of a tailspin. But, you know, weather does what weather does. Temperatures are based on where you are somewhere between 20 and 40 degrees above normal and have been relatively consistently for almost a month at this point. In the case of Western Europe and Central Europe, this means that energy demand has plummeted because normally these guys would be approaching zero degrees Fahrenheit. And in those sorts of environments, they simply need to use a lot of energy in order to keep the lights on and especially the heat going. But there have been times that Berlin is broken 50 in December, and in that sort of environment, keeping everybody warm is really easy. And that means that energy demand has plummeted and the need to cope with the cut-offs that have come from the Russian space because of the Ukraine war simply are very manageable.

And in that sort of environment, you have to play it forward because it’s not just about electricity and heating. In the European space, they use a lot of natural gas for a lot of industrial needs. And when the war began and the Europeans began weaning themselves off of Russian energy, they discovered they had to shut down a whole lot of industry in order to keep people alive.

Well, now, with the weather warmer and energy freed up for other uses, we’re seeing everything from industry to specifically fertilizer production, nitrogen fertilizer production coming back at scale. This is something that is wildly unexpected. This is the warmest winter on record by a very large margin. We shouldn’t expect it to last. We shouldn’t expect it to be repeated.

But at least for this moment, Europe is having a great time of it and considering the obstacles in front of them and the situation with energy supply in general. You know, enjoy it while it lasts. The problem, of course, is it’s weather. It could change tomorrow, probably will change within a couple of weeks. And then we’re going to be back in the same place.

The issue is that energy demand tends to be inelastic. And so if you only remove 5 to 10% of energy inputs and with the Europeans I’m sorry, with the Russian stuff going off like we’re talking 40%, you can easily see a doubling or tripling, quadrupling six tripling of energy prices like we saw consistently last year. But it also means that it goes the other direction as well. So you reduce demand by 10% and prices absolutely plummeted. And that’s where we are today. Won’t last. This is not the new normal. All the forecasts are still in place. But if we can hold warm weather throughout, say, January, then you can see the end of the winter on the other side. And we might get to a better position for the Europeans and for global food supplies this calendar year. And that would be unexpected, but very, very welcome.

The other big weather thing is further east in Kiev where temperatures are in the thirties. Now, normally you have certain seasons that you can and cannot do things in Ukraine. You have your deep freeze in the winter, which is normally mid-November through late February, when temperatures have been so far below freezing for so long that the ground freezes solid and tanks can move around in fields just fine.

But then you’ve got the shoulder seasons in October and early November and then in March and into April that are kind of mud seasons. And in those sorts of environments you can really only drive on roads. Well, my standing forecast for Ukraine is that the Ukrainians were going to try to do a broad spectrum offensive south in the Zaporizhia Province, aiming roughly for the Sea of Azov.

It’s not that they needed to reach the sea itself. They just needed to get close enough that their artillery can target the trucks that are the primary supply line for equipment being shifted from Russia proper to the southern front and Kherson. Remember that the Kerch Strait Bridge was blown up a couple of months ago and because of that the Russians can no longer use rail connections from Russia across the Kerch Strait and into the Crimean peninsula.

That option is gone so everything has to be supplied by truck. The Russians don’t have a lot of tactical military support trucks left, so their only option is to use basically city vans and Scooby-Doo vans and city busses in order to ferry artillery shells. And, you know, every time you hit a speed bump, everyone’s like – ehhhh – and when those things go up, wow, they really go up.

But if we are in the thirties in Ukraine for temperatures, mud season has been getting a second lease on life here. And in that sort of environment, the Ukrainians can only operate on the roads and that makes it much more difficult to do any sort of artillery or especially mobile warfare based assault in Zaporizhia because they can’t put things into the fields and into the dirt. They have to stay on the roads or they get stuck in the mud.

So this has provided a bit of an operational pause, which is really working against the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians don’t have as much equipment and men as a rule than the Russians do, and if they can’t fight a war of movement, then the Russians, with their better air force and especially their better missile forces, can just keep pounding Ukrainian cities over and over again, doing a lot of economic and humanitarian damage. And there’s not a lot the Ukrainians can do about it in the short term if they can’t operate.

So for the Western Europeans and the Central Europeans, this has been a godsend. For the Ukrainians, they were probably hoping that they were going to be able to have a big offensive right about now. And that’s just not an option if the ground isn’t solid.

Alright. That’s it for me. Until next time.

Changing Tides in the Chinese System

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here

If we were to take the age-old saying of “s*** hitting the fan” and apply it to China…we would need a wind turbine and a few acres of cattle pastures.

To put it nicely, China’s outlook is…grim. They’re facing demographic dissolution, a dying tech industry and a risk exposed energy sector, and we’re barely scratching the surface. They are the single-most internationally exposed country in our collapsing world.

So how does a country like that continue on? The short answer is CHANGE and perhaps a little collaboration with the USA. To that tune, President Xi may have just given us a sign that he gets it.

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. Coming to you from my parents backyard in Marshalltown, Iowa. Today, we’re going to talk about some of the things that are in motion, apparently in the Chinese system. Now, for those of you who have been following me for a while, you know that I am not very bullish on China. It’s facing, not demographic collapse. It’s far faster than that is complete demographic dissolution and economic collapse that goes along with that within the decade, assuming that there are no other problems.

The United States is put in a series of technological restrictions that basically kill the entire tech sector. Their energy sector is completely dependent upon the ability to access the Middle East, which is an area they can’t reach in force. Their trade system and their economic structures and their employment structures are utterly dependent upon the U.S. Navy, making it safe for their civilian vessels to hit the world over. They are arguably the most internationally exposed country in the world. And on top of that, their financial sector and their agricultural sectors are absolute messes. Things that make Enron look really well run.

This is a country that is not going to last a whole lot longer. And in that environment, the question is, how do the Chinese prepare for the economic and if they want to politically continue to this point, their solution has been absolutely rabid, foaming at the mouth nationalism, convincing their people that it doesn’t matter if you can feed your kids. It doesn’t matter if you have your job. You’re Han Chinese and Chairman Xi is your leader. And that’s enough. And to that end, Chinese propaganda has gone from the aggressive to the absolutely hateful, the person who has probably played the biggest role from an international point of view in this is a guy by the name of Zhao Lijian, who has been the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

And he is kind of the the poster child for what the Chinese call warrior wolf diplomacy, which is an unapologetic ultra nationalist, very hate and invective filled approach to dealing with the rest of the world. So this is the guy who was popularized art that shows Australian soldiers with their knees on Third World children. This is the guy who insists that COVID started at Fort Detrick in the United States and was then spread to the world as a way to wipe out nonwhite people, that sort of thing. He’s a real piece of work and he’s a general asshat.

Anyway, as long as he was at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was the voice of China on the International stage. Welllll in the first week of January, he was transferred very quietly away from the MFA and he is now a small-whig at the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, which is about like getting taken from being the spokesman of God and all of a sudden now you’re responsible for what would be a great example here…You’re in charge of Border Patrol in northern Idaho. It’s difficult to imagine someone falling so far so fast. Now, the challenge we have in interpreting this is that no one really knows what Xi is thinking because Xi is in such a tight cult of personality that he doesn’t really confide in anyone.

And it’s very difficult for Intel to penetrate that sort of environment. But we know that Zhao was one of Xi’s favorites. And so for Xi to be not just demoted, but put into a complete cubbyhole in the middle of nowhere in terms of the bureaucracy is an indication that Xi knows that this strategy has utterly failed. There is no version of China that survives this unless it finds a way to work with the United States in a constructive way and one that basically gives the United States everything from a strategic point of view that it wants.

The United States is the only country that even theoretically has the tools that could help China survive what’s coming. And having somebody whose job it is to throw gravel into the gears of the diplomatic relationship, obviously is not helping at all. But to have him so dramatically demoted indicates that perhaps, just perhaps, just maybe kind of sorta Xi is realizing that the end is approaching and he really needs to change diplomatic gears if there’s any hope for China surviving the rest of this decade.

So it’s very perspective at this point. But if there was one person who needed to move in order to make a new approach happen, it was Zhao. And now he’s gone. Okay, that’s it for me. Until next time.

Crossover of the Year: Rogan x Zeihan

First off, hello to all the new subscribers/readers (and thank you to the OGs). As a reminder, I release a newsletter every weekday at 6:00 am ET. The newsletter is often accompanied by a short video which will be linked in the email or you can find it on my YouTube channel – Zeihan on Geopolitics or here on the website

Now onto the good stuff…I’m talking 1 hour and 57 minutes of pure entertainment. If you haven’t heard already, I had the pleasure of jumping on episode #1921 of The Joe Rogan Experience. We covered many of the topics I often talk about on here, as well as some new ones.

Feel free to click the link below for the full podcast or check out the YouTube video for a snippit of the fun!

THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE #1921 – FULL EPISODE

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

Mexican Cartels: The Fallout of El Chapo

We all know the story of El Chapo’s capture and escape…and capture. But the lesser known – and perhaps more important story – is the disarray he left behind.

The Sinaloa Cartel, once the world’s most powerful organized crime group, owes its success to a business-first approach (violence was just a means to an end). The power struggle caused by El Chapo’s vacancy has changed everything.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, emerging as the new big-dog, has settled on a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach…and while effective, it has garnered some unwanted attention for the cartel’s operations.

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

A Ukraine War and the End of Russia—Repost

It’s important to reflect from time to time, not only on where we have been right but where we have been wrong. With that, here is a repost from a newsletter originally published on December 29, 2021. 

All anyone can talk about in Europe these days is Russia. Russia is constricting natural gas flows to Europe in order to drive energy prices higher and extract geopolitical concessions. Russia is using irregular state tools — think cyber — to manipulate European politics and exacerbate the COVID epidemic by planting misinformation about vaccines. Russia is threatening war in Ukraine, up to moving over one hundred thousand troops to the Ukrainian border region, and tapping the global mercenary community to recruit thousands of fighters to throw at Kiev. Russia is demanding the right to fundamentally rewrite the security policies of not only Ukraine, but Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Turkey and Germany in exchange for a de-escalation in Ukraine.

I’m down on paper and video saying that Russia’s impending doom (more on that in a minute) will force it to take a more aggressive security posture, specifically on Ukraine. Today much of Russia’s border regions are indefensible. There are few geographic barriers to block potential invasion, forcing the Russians with their dwindling numbers to attempt to defend massive stretches of territory. What barriers the Russians do have — Crimea and the Caucasus come to mind — are only because of the sort of strategic adventurism that Putin is now threatening to Ukraine as a whole. There is a method to the madness. To paraphrase Catherine the Great, Russia can expand, or Russia can die.

But a few things have changed since I laid out my position in The Accidental Superpower back in 2014 and sketched out the general outlines of the hypothetical Twilight War in The Absent Superpower  in 2017.
 
First big change: Ukrainian politics and identity.
 
Back in the 2000s, Ukraine could be very charitably called “messy.” It was an oligarch playground, sharply divided into three competing regions. The biggest region in the east was populated by either Ukrainians who spoke Russian as their first language, or actual Russians who due to the quirks of history happened to live on the Ukrainian side of the dotted line on the map. Ukraine has always been home to the greatest concentration and number of ethnic Russians outside of Russia’s borders. And these groups — both the ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking Ukrainians — were unapologetically pro-Moscow.
 
It was the mix of this pro-Russian sentiment with the Kremlin’s view that large-scale political violence is often useful, that set us onto the path to where we are today. In early 2014 then-Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych — one of those pro-Russian Ukrainians — dealt with pro-Western “Euromaidan” protesters by using Ukrainian special forces to shoot up a couple thousand people. He was driven out of office and ultimately out of country and now he is living in exile in, you guessed it, Russia.
 
Yanukovych’s actions against his own people — actions publicly supported by none other than Vladimir Putin — started Ukraine down the road to something I had once dismissed out of hand: political consolidation and the formation of a strong Ukrainian identity. Putin didn’t — hasn’t — figured that out. Later Russian actions — starving the Ukrainians of fuel, annexing Crimea, invading the southeastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas War — only deepened the Ukrainian political consolidation that Yanukovych inadvertently started.
 
Far from capitalizing on strong and legitimate pro-Russian sentiment, Russia’s policies towards Ukraine these past seven years have turned even the most pro-Moscow Russian citizens of Ukraine into Ukrainian nationalists.
 
In 2010, Ukraine was not a country. It was simply a buffer territory between Russia and the European Union with no real identity, and it would have been ridiculous to admit such a non-entity into either the EU or NATO. Today Ukraine is a country, and the idea of EU or NATO membership isn’t nearly so crazy. And that evolution is all because of Putin’s ongoing miscalculations.
 
Second big point: military reality.
 
Back in 2014 when the Russians launched the Donbas War, Putin boasted that should he choose, Russian forces could easily invade Ukraine. He noted Russian troops could be in Kiev in under a month.
 
It may have been a brag, but it most definitely was neither a bluff nor an exaggeration. The Russian military may be a pale shadow of its Soviet forebearer, but it is far better than the war machine which ground to humiliation in Chechnya in the 1990s. Ukraine’s military in comparison? Phbbbbt. Wracked by corruption, enervated by a lack of motivation, armed with nothing more than the pre-1992 equipment that the Russians chose to leave behind when the Soviet Union fell? There’s a reason Yanukovych used the special forces to suppress the Euromaidan protestors. The military wasn’t even up to that job. Fighting a hundred thousand or so Russian troops? That’s funny.
 
Since 2014, some things have gotten better. Western assistance has helped professionalize the forces. The Russian invasion has charged Ukrainian commanders some high tuition at the school of Real-Life War. Strengthening national identity has improved force cohesion. But the biggest shift is in weaponry.
 
Arming a country the size of Ukraine with sufficient military equipment to fight the Russians solider-to-solider would be a Heraclean effort. So that’s not what the United States has done. The Americans have provided the Ukrainians with Javelin anti-tank missiles. Javelins are man-portable and shoulder-launched, weighing in at under 50 pounds. They shoot high and plunge down, striking tanks on the top where armor is weakest. And above all, they are sooooo eeeasy to operate. If you can make it to level 3 on Candy Crush, you can use a Javelin.
 
Considering any drive to Kiev will be a tank operation, giving Javelins to the Ukrainians is like giving water to firefighters. It’s the perfect tool for the job. The Javelins made their wartime debut on the front lines in Donbas only in November 2021…about when the Kremlin started getting all screechy and demanding wholesale changes to European security alignments. Coincidence? I think not.
 
Now don’t get carried away. I’ve little doubt that Javelins would be enough should the Russians get truly serious. Any Russian invasion force would massively outnumber and outgun the defenders. But that’s not the point. Unlike in the 2000s or in the Donbas War, the Ukrainians can now slip a knife through the chinks in the Russians’ armor and make them bleed. A lot. And unlike in the 2000s, the Ukrainians now have a national identity to rally around and fight for. The Ukrainians now have the means and motive. It’s up to the Russians to decide if they’d like to provide the opportunity.
 
If war comes, the Russians could still reach Kiev. But it would likely take three months instead of one. The Russians could still conquer all of Ukraine. But it would likely take over year rather than less than three months. The toll on the invaders would be high and most of all the war would only be the beginning. After “victory” the Russians would have to occupy a country of 45 million people.
 
Which brings us to the final bit of this story: demographics.
 
Russia’s had a rough time of…everything. The purges of Lenin and Stalin. The World Wars. The post-Soviet collapse. Horrific mismanagement under Khrushchev and Brezhnev and Yeltsin. Sometimes in endless waves, sometimes in searing moments, the Russian birthrate has taken hit after hit after hit to the point that the Russian ethnicity itself is no longer in danger of dying out, it is dying out. And for this particular moment in time, there just aren’t many teens today to fill out the ranks of the Russian military tomorrow.

The implications of that fact are legion.
 
Least importantly, if somewhat amusingly, is the Russians are now flat-out falsifying their demographic data so the situation does not look so…doomed. Check out the bottom two age categories in the above graphic; the section for children 10 and under. A few years ago the Russians started inflating this data. Best guess is there are probably one-quarter to one-third fewer children in Russian than this data suggests. That’s roughly a four million child exaggeration.
 
Most importantly are the implications for a potential Russian-Ukrainian War. Any Russian solider lost anywhere cannot be replaced. If Putin commits to an invasion of Ukraine, Russia will win. But the cost will not be minor. The war and occupation will be expensive and bloody and most importantly for the world writ large, it will expend what’s left of the Russian youth.
 
Will Putin order an attack? Dunno. There was a demographic and strategic moment a few years ago when the Russians could have conquered Ukraine easily. That moment is gone and will not return. But the strategic argument that a Russia that cannot consolidate its borders is one that dies faster remains.
 
Perhaps the biggest change in recent years is this: the United States now has an interest in a Russian assault because it would be Russia’s last war.
 
Demographics have told us for 30 years that the United States will not only outlive Russia, but do so easily. The question has always been how to manage Russia’s decline with an eye towards avoiding gross destruction. A Russian-Ukrainian war would keep the bulk of the Russian army bottled up in an occupation that would be equal parts desperate and narcissistic and protracted until such time that Russia’s terminal demography transforms that army into a powerless husk. And all that would transpire on a patch of territory in which the United States has minimal strategic interests.
 
That’s rough for the Ukrainians, but from the American point of view, it is difficult to imagine a better, more thorough, and above all safer way for Russia to commit suicide.

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

Demographics Part 4: The European Breakdown

Let’s continue our demographic discussions with Europe. It would be foolish to lump all of Europe together, but we can place most of these countries into 1 of 4 categories.

This classification system ranges from “they’ll be alright” to “it was nice while it lasted” – using factors like industrialization timeline, economic policies, and geographical features to categorize each country.

This video will touch on the first 3 groups and map their demographic shortcomings and/or strong points.

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

EV’s Not-so-little Dirty Secret(s)

Ok ok ok fine I’ll do it. For the past few months I’ve been putting out videos on a host of topics, and in pieces on automotive or trade or greentech or whatnot I’ve mentioned as an aside that electric vehicles are on average a bad idea that will not be with us all that much longer, but I’ve failed to make good on the promise of “a topic for another video”.

Well, here it is. It doesn’t really matter your angle of attack on this topic. EVs in their current form are a disaster strategically, economically and environmentally, and that’s before you consider the withering of Tesla.

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