Video Dispatch I: Future Crises in the Making

Mountain living can be…challenging. In the first of a series of video dispatches this week, I make lemons from lemonade and discuss the looming international challenges facing the American presidency, no matter who wins in November (and likely, beyond).

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

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The 2020 Elections and Beyond

I normally try to stay out of American politics. My work is in the wider world, the American system is remarkably stable and self-regulating, and if I’m to be completely honest, making domestic political forecasts tends to burn bridges no matter how even-handed I attempt to be. Case in point: many responses to my most recent newsletter on the American political system deepened my appreciation for creative expletives. And yet the 2020 general elections are only a few weeks away and their results are among the most hotly anticipated geopolitical events in years. It would be weird for me to not say anything.

Before proceeding, let me dispose of my personal politics. No one who espouses my particular mix of views on economic and social and global issues is on the ballot (and they weren’t last time, or the time before, or the time before that) so this newsletter isn’t so much an assessment of political positions with an endorsement or condemnation, but instead an explainer of where things stand along with a forecast for how both the elections and their aftermath will shake out.

Let’s begin with the incumbent:

In terms of international relations, perhaps Trump’s greatest presidential failing is his preference for personal deal-making as opposed to institutional diplomacy. What made Trump a successful real estate and branding magnate was his willingness and ability to shift responsibility – financial, legal or otherwise – around among different parties as part of his brokering.

In business, Trump’s method worked because the United States has a robust civil society, rule of law and multiple levels of government with investigatory and enforcement power. In essence, in his business negotiations Trump maneuvers the folks on the other side of the table into positions where state and the society do much of his work – and nearly all his enforcement – for him.

But the world is not the United States. There is no global, multi-layered, professionalized, largely-apolitical cadre of institutions to enforce agreements among countries. What few global institutions do exist share three fatal flaws:

First, such structures only have enforcement mechanisms should member countries choose to allow them enforcement mechanisms, often on a case-by-case basis. For example, the International Court of Justice’s rulings are technically binding, but any country can choose to withdraw enforcement power selectively or wholesale at any time for any reason. There aren’t many rules to rely upon. Only unenforceable norms.

Second, pretty much all global institutions were American-crafted as part of America’s anti-Soviet Cold War efforts. They only work if the US forces them to work, and between the gradual disengagement of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, and faster disengagement of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, they simply no longer function.

Third, in global affairs, the people on the other side of the table – Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi come to mind – have a lot more experience in breaking norms to their advantage. Both to a degree built their systems around such tactics. No wonder Trump often appears outmaneuvered.

Yet even bilateral deals where such squishiness is less common tend to be weak. It too is an institutional issue, although in bilateral agreements it has more to do with tasking and executive leadership. For example, in the final decade of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan negotiated a series of “trust but verify” nuclear disarmament deals with the Soviets. After the deals were signed Reagan didn’t simply leave to watch the Sound of Music, his administration worked out the monitoring details with the Defense Department, the State Department, the CIA, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Enforcement did not magically happen. TeamReagan had to make it happen, and that required engaging not simply the Soviets, but multiple pieces of the American executive branch as well.

Trump simply ignores such empowering minutiae. After announcing his big deals, he moves on to something else and rarely looks back. That’s a big part of why his pacts with North Korea fizzled within months or why the Phase One deal with China was dead on arrival (in China). About the only exceptions have been TeamTrump’s trade deals, but here institutional involvement not only helped make the deals happen, but helped make them stick. The same institution responsible for negotiating the successful trade deals with South Korea, Japan, Mexico and Canada – the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative – is also responsible for enforcing the deals.

From my point of view, the Trump administration has been a missed opportunity.

Nearly everything about the American strategic position – from military procurement to diplomatic positioning – is a hangover from the Cold War: The prime operating principle guiding America has been that the United States will create a safe, globalized world that empowers weak countries and fosters global trade for all, and in exchange Washington gets to direct everyone’s security policies in order to better combat Moscow. The security-policy aspect stopped working when the Soviet Union collapsed, but the Americans never changed the script on globalization and kept holding up the world’s collective ceiling. American foreign policy became ossified and rudderless.

Trump, as a geopolitical neophyte unburdened by commitments made in the previous century, had the opportunity to come up with something new. He certainly proved eager to sledgehammer previous structures and relationships, but he – like his three immediate predecessors – failed to generate a replacement.

“America First” isn’t a policy, much less a strategy. It’s a motto. It’s just like Obama’s “don’t do stupid stuff”. And so I put Trump into the same basket as Obama: leaders who left the country worse than they found it. And that’s before considering Trump’s preference for playing fast and loose with ethics or institutions.

Now, the challenger:

Biden’s first problem is that he is a black box from a policy point of view. Biden is commensurate political chameleon. His position shifts on every issue based on what he perceives the majority of power brokers within the Democrat Party currently believe. That has put him on both sides of nearly every issue of importance during his long tenure in politics. Such flexibility is particularly problematic on topics where consistency is key, such as national security and trade issues. Such an unfettered lack of convictions is part of what led former Defense Secretary Robert Gates to note that Biden has been on the wrong side of every foreign policy and strategic issue of the past four decades.

Biden’s second issue is his utter lack of leadership experience, which I realize sounds odd considering he has served in Washington since 1973. But aside from two years as a legal clerk and lawyer, he had only been a senator before becoming VP. To be blunt, senators suck at being president. They have little concept of how to manage an organization – such as the federal government with its three million employees.

Nor did Biden’s tenure as Barack Obama’s vice president provide him with many leadership opportunities. This is most definitely not Biden’s fault. Obama was famous for hermetically sealing himself in the White House and only allowing in information that supported his penchant for non-action, and his near-pathological unwillingness to have conversations with…well, anyone. But Obama refused to let policy be made without him, leaving Biden with little to do for eight long years.

(Incidentally, similar issues constrained a far more straightforward and ambitious member of the Obama administration: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Part of why Ms Clinton resigned at the end of Obama’s first term is that Obama melon-balled out of the State Department control of diplomatic relations with the world’s most important countries, transferring their management to the West Wing where…nothing happened.)

The most positive thing I have to say about Biden’s expertise is the odd combination of his lack of convictions combined with having a boss who didn’t like to interact with others meant that whenever the Obama White House needed a mediator in Congress, Biden was the obvious choice. That’s great. That’s essential. I don’t think I’d call that leadership.

But I think, for me personally at least, the issue of mental competence is Biden’s biggest looming issue. Being gaffe-prone doesn’t bother me, especially when a gaffe-prone person owns it as Biden historically did in the Senate. I find it humanizing. Even credibility-building. I’m instead talking about something more concerning: I’ve lost track of the number of times of late that Biden has stumbled over his words or looked confused, even when reading pre-prepared remarks from a teleprompter. I had the opportunity to meet Biden shortly after the Obama administration ended and my first thought was “Wow. He might…he might have dementia. It’s a good thing he didn’t run for president.”

Yet here we are. I want my president to be able to handle a crisis. And foreign leaders. And the press corps. And a phone call. Due to his disposition, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated he cannot do these things well. Biden’s recent track record suggests something potentially even worse.

Despite Biden’s lack of consistency or experience and concerns for his mental capacity, many hopeful for (or resigned to) a Biden administration believe this can still work out. They say that, sure, Biden might be a keg short of a six pack, but so long as he has a strong cabinet everything will be fine. I’ve heard this argument before. Recently. It is what old-school Republicans hoped about Trump back in 2016. It didn’t work out very well. At the end of the day, the president has the power and you need to trust the person in that position, not his unelected handlers.

So we’re left to choose between two seventy-something men who feature different flavors of incompetence. I have no idea who I am going to vote for.

But I’m still, well, me. So I will make a prediction:

President Trump’s seemingly deliberate and always callous mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis has contributed to the death of 200,000 Americans. In per capita terms that’s double the suffering of Europe or Canada. In absolute terms that’s higher than the number killed in any American military conflict save the Civil War and World War II itself. Forget vaccines. Forget ventilators and masks. Forget the CDC and the WHO. Forget the PR war with the Democrats. All Trump needed to do to mitigate the risk was say something like “wear a mask, maintain some distance, and look in on your loved ones”. Paraguay managed it. Bulgaria managed it. This isn’t hard. Most of America’s political middle finds Trump leadership lacking and his behavior disgusting.

Trump also faces danger on the Right. Trump has alienated fiscal conservatives, the military and the business community – all once bedrock Republicans. The Democrats have avoided – albeit narrowly – running an absolute whackjob and instead settled on Milquetoast Biden. To achieve reelection, Trump must capture every swing state as well as a couple decent sized blue states. That’s just not possible. Trump surprised last time because there was a large block of voters – the populists – the pollsters missed. That’s not the case this time around. And so Trump will lose and he will lose big.

Assuming, that is, Biden can prove he still has some marbles.

Biden has been the most closely managed candidate in modern American political history. He has not been without his ring of protectors for two years, giving him the feel of a badly operated marionette. Americans need to know if he can function, and we will all find out together on Sept 29.

Next Tuesday will be the first presidential debate, moderated by Chris Wallace. It will be the first time Biden will need to hold his own in a long-form open forum without his support crew. His performance will determine the election. Biden does not need to best Trump in the debate. All he needs to do is come across as marginally capable.

If Biden can do that, concerns for his mental capacity will ebb and he will win handily.

If the Biden who served in the Senate for three decades shows up – a likeable, master debater who can identify with people with a glance and laugh at his own missteps – he will win in a landslide.

But if Biden just…can’t, then Trump walks away with it all.

It really is that simple.

Now I’m sure that many of you are either cheering my wisdom or burning me in effigy (maybe both for some of you), so let me now say something certain to piss everyone off at once:

As regards global affairs, who wins November 3 really doesn’t matter.

Yes, the U.S. President is the single-most powerful person in the world, but ultimately the United States is fundamentally incapable of moving forward on the world stage.
 
Another four years of Donald Trump would grant us the clarity of a known quantity: continued degradation of the structures of the international system. But that system has been degrading since 1992 so I don’t see this as more than a few additional steps down the same road towards a sort of retrenchment / neo-isolationism. That’s ultimately where I saw the United States heading back when I wrote the Accidental Superpower back in 2014.
 
A Biden administration would be little different except in tone. Resetting American foreign policy in any meaningful way first requires a replacement for the Cold War structures which are now three decades out of date. No one on TeamBiden has so much as blinked in that direction. Nor do I believe for a moment that a President Biden would prioritize such an effort. Ultimately, such a task would require a clear, firm national goal. That would require something Biden simply lacks. Convictions.
 
A grand reset would also require the service of an American institution which no longer functions: the State Department. The past four administrations have alternatively neglected or gutted America’s diplomatic corps. It is largely incapable of being part of any solution without first undergoing a decade-long regeneration.
 
A grand reset would also require an American institution which is likely to be hostile to a Biden administration: the Senate. The Founding Fathers designed the Senate to act as a brake to prevent policy from evolving too quickly. One-third of the Senate faces election races every two years, so full turnover is sooooo sloooow. The Senate regularly reflects American politics as it exists…a decade in the past. In addition, each state gets the same two senators regardless of population – a measure designed to prevent larger states from trampling smaller states. That means more rural, lower-population states are more heavily represented. More rural, lower-population areas tend to prefer Trump over Biden.
 
For Biden to have a working majority in the Senate he needs to flip at least four seats. It is possible of course, but highly unlikely. (Recall that when the 2018 midterms delivered Trump a sound thumping at the national, state and local levels, Trump-aligned Republicans gained seats in the Senate.) The point of this constitutional detour is that the Senate is the institution that ratifies treaties, a classification that includes all the various agreements that underlay America’s Order-era structures: NATO, NAFTA, the United Nations, the WTO, the Japanese alliance, the International Monetary Fund, and so on.
 
A grand reset would also require time, which would also be in short supply. A President Biden would spend the first six months dealing with coronavirus and a series of legal reforms that address issues of accountability designed to Trump-proof future elections. Add in little things like summer breaks and in the most aggressive case scenario a President Biden couldn’t even begin any sort of new global effort until 2022. And don’t forget that the domestic issues Biden wants to prioritize also require the Senate. In the highly likely outcome that Biden’s domestic hopes are dashed on the Senate’s shoals, anything global is likely to be pushed not so much to the back seat, but to be abandoned on the side of the road.
 
For a good time, you too can play with electoral and Senatorial politics at https://www.270towin.com/.

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

DONATE TO FEEDING AMERICA

The End of the Last, Best Chance

Last week the American ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, attempted to publish an op-ed with his assessment of American-Chinese relations. The Chinese Communist Part summarily squashed it, banning the op-ed in all Chinese publications. This Monday, September 14, Branstad submitted his resignation from his post. (He will continue to serve in a caretaker capacity until his as-yet-unnamed replacement can step in in October.)

I hardly have the ambassador’s ear on this topic, but it is fairly clear from the op-ed that Branstad sees no hope for an improvement in the bilateral relationship and that the fault lies with Beijing. The op-ed neither has the tone of someone who is mourning what could have been, or someone ready for a fight. Instead it sounds like someone who after years–decades–of engagement is admitting the obvious: relations are not working and have not been working for some time.

You can read Branstad’s op-ed here, both in English and Mandarin:

Chinese-American relations have always been complicated, but they’ve been substantially less sunshiny and rosy in recent years. Differences over trade and finance and bank policy and human rights and navigation and a dozen other things all, independently, would have been enough to inject severe challenge into any relationship. But the simple overriding fact is the two countries have been strategically diverging for some time.

It comes down to demographics, security, trade, and America’s role in the world:

Between rapid urbanization and the One Child Policy, birth rates in China plunged below replacement rates decades ago. The only thing preventing broad-scale population collapse is improved health care among China’s older cohorts which has extended the average Chinese citizen’s lifespan. Demographically speaking, that’s a bit of a starvation diet. Within the decade that demographic dividend will be spent, and China’s population will begin a harsh decline. The most reasonable estimates project a China with half its population in 2100 compared to 2020.

That’s hardly the worst of it–or the part that will be felt first. The 2100 projection ignores the economic effects of today’s young (already numerically gutted) generation. Without sufficient young people, nothing about today’s China is sustainable. The young generation are the people who do work, buy goods, staff the army, and care for the old.

With the younger generation numerically incapable of forming a broad-based consumption-led economy, China has no choice but to lean on exports to power their system. China faces two issues here.
 
First, like all export-led systems, China relies upon others to consume, and China is hardly the only country suffering from a rapidly aging population. Within the next decade, enough countries–ranging from the United Kingdom to Brazil to Poland to Chile–will age out of the “consuming” cohort to make the very concept of an export-led economy impossible.

Second, China’s dependence upon imported raw materials and exported finished goods requires physical access. Historically speaking, countries have only been able to enjoy such access if they can militarily secure it themselves. China’s navy may have a lot of vessels, but only a tenth of them have the capacity to sail more than 1000 miles from port. Even that assumes they face no challenge. China’s primary energy supplies are five times that distance. China’s merchandise customers are even further away.
 
Strategically, China is in a box. The Chinese have only been a global trading power when the countries of the First Island Chain – Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore – have been forced by a greater power to be on the same side as China. That has only occurred once. Today. Under the American-led global Order. If the American goal is truly to destroy China, all the Americans have to do is go home.

Without the Americans negating China’s problematic regional geography and so empowering it on the global stage, China simply lacks the military heft to impose its will on Australia, much less India or Saudi Arabia or Brazil or Germany or the United States–all countries China needs access to if it is to maintain its position.
 
Which leads us to the most galling, inconvenient truth for the Chinese nation. Everything about its modern history – the defeat of the Japanese, national unification and consolidation under Mao, the turning of the tide against the Soviet Union, its bursting onto the global scene as a major economic player–none of it would have happened without American strategic sponsorship. None of it is sustainable without ongoing American involvement. And the Americans are simply done. With China. With the world. With all of it.
 
And so, China begins its rage against the dying of the light.
 
Which brings us back to Branstad. Managing relations between an administration as egocentric as Trump’s and a country as egocentric as China would have been a tough job regardless, but doing so during a period when America is disengaging and China is grappling with the consequences of that disengagement was probably always going to be a thankless task. Yet if anyone was going to eke out any crumbs of success, it was going to be Branstad.
 
Branstad was no neophyte. First elected governor of Iowa at the tender age of 36, he went on to serve six terms, making him the longest-serving governor in American history. Unlike senators and real estate marketing magnates, governors actually have to deal with people, manage things and establish compromises. In a word, governors…govern.
 
Branstad, is particularly well-known among the non-Twitter side of American politics for his educational reforms which have consistently put Iowan students at or near the top of most measures. (Full disclosure: I’m from Iowa, was a student there during Branstad’s first, second and third terms, and worked for the Iowa legislature during his fourth.)
 
Branstad was no hawk. He has known Chairman Xi in a personal capacity since their first meeting back in 1985 when Xi visited Iowa as part of an agricultural delegation. Branstad and Xi have both often commented on their friendship, a friendship grounded in their respective polities’ interactions: Iowa is America’s largest pork producing state, and China is the world’s most enthusiastic pork consumer.
 
Branstad was no dove. He was one of Trump’s first appointees (and, incidentally, one widely supported on both sides of the American political aisle). His connection to Xi gave Team Trump excellent access within Beijing when pushing on hard-knuckle issues related to trade or intellectual property or navigation rights or Hong Kong.
 
Branstad was not simply the very best ambassador America had to offer as envoy to Beijing, he may well have been the only person who could have salvaged the American-Chinese relationship these past few years, no matter who sat in the White House.
 
The question, of course, is what is next?
 
On the American side things will get harsher, no matter what occurs with national elections in November.
 
It is impossible to think someone as pragmatic and proper as Branstad would have released the op-ed without President Trump’s personal knowledge and green lighting. After all, the letter has already been endorsed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and posted on the State Department’s website for all to read.
 
At its core, Branstad’s op-ed lays bare something that wasn’t exactly a well-hidden secret: that Chairman Xi has been–personally, directly, intentionally and repeatedly–lying to the Trump administration for years on issues both economic and strategic. It stretches the imagination to think that with the cat not so much out of the bag as prancing on the countertop that Trump will treat Xi as anything less than something who has tried to make him look the fool. Cue your imagination for possible retaliations.
 
Nor would a Biden-Harris administration treat China much better. For the past two years, Biden has been far more critical of China on issues economic, cultural, trade, military, and strategic than anything that’s ever come out of Trump’s Twitter account, going so far as to personally and explicitly label Xi a “thug”. As a former attorney general (aka friend-of-cops), Kamala Harris’ diction regarding Xi has been somewhat less…polite.
 
Branstad’s op-ed is not a condemnation of a recent Chinese policy shift, but instead an admission that relations are simply impossible unless and until there is a Chinese policy shift.
 
Realizing that their future likely holds strategic, economic and national oblivion, the Chinese Communist Party–led and personified by Chairman Xi Jinping–has degenerated China into a sort of nationalist fascism that brooks no internal challenge whether racial or political or cultural. One that denies any external influence aside from foreign money that helps employ Chinese citizenry (which in turn bolsters the CCP’s political legitimacy).
 
It has already become so intense as to border on the comical. China has already closed up to the point that domestic media coverage of Disney’s new theatrical release of Mulan–meant to be a celebration of Chinese culture–is now banned in China because outsiders are lambasting Disney for kowtowing to Beijing.
 
It isn’t that things that have been in the news ranging from Huawei to Hong Kong to Xinjiang don’t matter–they do–but instead that all of them are symptoms of much deeper problems that the CCP simply lacks capacity to address. Summed up, the CCP and Chairman Xi are desperate. And if we really are approaching China’s witching hour, then all the normal niceties of diplomacy and global trade simply aren’t as important as they once were. Xi sees it as high time to lock down everything and hunker down for the long haul. Foreigners be damned.
 
And forewarned.

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

DONATE TO FEEDING AMERICA

Waking Up to Reality in the Middle East

Thursday, August 13 the Trump administration released a series of breathless communiques proclaiming the onset of formal peace and diplomatic recognition between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Shortly thereafter the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the American releases in both substance and theme. The Emirati leader, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, was far less…gushy in his own announcement, but critically contradicted nothing stated by Trump or Netanyahu.
 
Waitaminute! Don’t the Arabs hate Israel? Why in the world would a rich Arab statelet on the far side of the Arabian Peninsula want to exchange ambassadors with the Zionists??
 
It isn’t so much that the Emiratis don’t care about the Palestinians any longer (although they really, really don’t), and instead it is bound up with the rapidly simplifying American position in the Middle East. The Americans have nearly completed their pullout from the overall region, and the Emiratis are hoping to get ahead of their rapidly disintegrating geopolitical environment.
 
In the aftermath of World War II, the Americans crafted the global Order to bribe up an alliance to fight the Soviets. Part of that was funding rebuilding, financing the construction of industrial plant, and enabling the Europeans and East Asians to access the American consumer market. All that required oil, and that oil for the most part came from the Middle East. And so, the Americans went to the Middle East.
 
We are now thirty years after the Soviet collapse. Americans are done managing the world, and the Americans are especially done managing the Middle East. They’re going home. Troop rotations have outnumbered permanent deployments in-region for years. The Iraqi deployment is quickly approaching zero. The Syrian deployment is no longer more than a rounding error. Only Afghanistan remains as a meaningful deployment, and it is a deployment few Americans want to continue. The naval base in Bahrain and CENTCOM’s operations center in Qatar only continue existing to service the Afghan deployment. And that’s…all of it.
 
From the United Arab Emirates’ point of view this is an unmitigated disaster. The UAE (and  their fellow Gulf states of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar) don’t care what US troops do in the Middle East or how many locals they kill or how many US troops die at the locals’ hands. They simply want the Americans present – both regionally and around the world. So long as the global superpower is active, the Gulfies don’t have to worry about guarding the production, processing, and exporting infrastructure for their oil and natural gas. So long as the Americans are globally engaged and guaranteeing freedom of the seas for all, the Gulfies know their hydrocarbon exports will safely arrive at their customers’ ports. National safety and national bank. For them, it’s that simple.
 
Those heady days are over. America’s withdrawal from the wider world has been a longer running development than its Middle Eastern wrap-ups. It, too, is now multiple presidential administrations underway. Total US force deployments globally are at the lowest level since before the Great Depression, and still trending down.
 
For the Emiratis in specific and the Gulfies in general, the Americans’ past-the-point-of-no-return departure conjures up multiple, reinforcing disasters.
 
1: Iran
 
Unlike many who have a finger in the world of national security, I’ve never found Iran to be strategically threatening.
 
Iran’s army is designed to oppress its own population, not march on its neighbors. Its air force hasn’t been updated since the fall of the shah in 1979, and the Iranians are running out of jets to fall out of the sky. It’s navy…well, it doesn’t have a navy. It has a bunch of speedboats. Should Iran march on the Gulf states, it would face four challenges:
 
First, its army would have to march. It isn’t motorized. Second, it would have to first march through its own region of Khuzestan – a region populated by restive minorities. Third, it would have to cross a pontoon bridge into Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city. A high-school science experiment could take out the bridge, while needing to pacify Basra’s two-million-strong population at the beginning of an invasion’s supply line would about as much fun for the Iranians as it was for the Americans when they conquered/liberated Iraq in 2003. Finally, there’s a blistering six hundred miles of completely empty desert between the Kuwaiti border and any meaningful infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. That’s a loooooong walk.
 
Yet as unimpressed as I am by the Iranian military, it is the freakin’ Roman Legion compared to the militaries of the Gulf states. The Gulfies are beyond military incompetent because they’ve never had to be competent. Sure, the Emiratis and Saudis are getting some good target practice for their air forces in Yemen, but their armies are largely paperweights and none of them have a navy that’s more than a coast guard. Not only have all depended upon the Americans to do their fighting for them, most consider a functional domestic military a potential threat to the ruling dynasties.
 
2: Their own populations
 
All the Gulfies ship in vast swathes of workers, to the point that over 70% of the “populations” of Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE are imported labor. This isn’t like Western Europe or the United States where the migrants do jobs the locals don’t want. In the Gulf states, the migrants do everything. The migrants are not allowed to bring their families or own property, and as soon as the migrant men lose the ability to carry their own weight or the women lose their looks, they are rooted out and sent packing. They are regularly the target of every assault imaginable, including sexual assault.
 
In the United states, we have a word for that: slavery.
 
Treat this many people this badly, and only the existence of a wildly intrusive and brutal and unfettered internal security service can maintain domestic control for the ruling dynasties. As much of a threat as Iran is, the day-to-day internal pressures of the Gulf states are far more likely to end them.
 
Many make light of the fact that the actual citizens of the Gulf states could be a risk as well. After all, they are used to cradle-to-grave support for everything from food to rent to hookah bars. The idea being, that should social spending falter, the locals might rise up against their rulers.
 
While I don’t quite dismiss this concern out of hand, I’m not all that worried. The Gulf states in general – and the UAE in particular – have addressed this problem by helping their peoples consume as many saturated fats as possible to make them as unhealthy as possible. The idea being that overweight people laden with heart disease who can only get around on scooters aren’t the type to leave their air-conditioned compounds to riot in the desert sun. Pampered corpulence as a national security strategy might sound odd, but it works for the most part. Therefore, I am – and the local governments are – more watchful of the larger, younger, healthier, angrier and institutionally abused slave class.
 
The only way this system is sustainable is if the money from hydrocarbon sales keeps flowing in and whoever guarantees Gulf state security turns a blind eye. The Americans are leaving, endangering both the income flows and the political cover.
 
3: Outside expeditionary powers
 
Key thing to keep in mind when considering the United States in the Middle East: the US was primarily interested in Middle East oil for its alliance network, not for itself. Historically, the United States has gotten nearly all its crude from its own territories or its North American neighbors, plus Venezuela. With America’s shale revolution now mid-way through its second decade, technically, it is already independent. Its need for Middle Eastern oil has gone from minor to nearly nonexistent.
 
Not so for…pretty much anyone else. Despite all the Green rhetoric on wind, solar and the like, combined they still generate only about 2% of the world’s total energy needs. Oil and natural gas clock in at more than half. And for most of the world, it must be imported. From the Persian Gulf.
 
Outside powers who have been dependent upon the Americans to maintain energy flows can do the math. Outside powers who have navies can do it faster. The first time there’s a real energy crisis anywhere in the world after the Americans have left the Middle East, we’re going to see some records broken for sailing times from the United Kingdom, France, India and Japan to the Persian Gulf.
 
Note: China can only play in the Persian Gulf if the United States makes the Pacific and Indian Oceans safe operating zones for the Chinese navy. The Chinese navy only has a handful of ships that can sail beyond the First Island Chain. The operative word is “sail”. It is almost certain they cannot fight their way much past the Chain, much less operate five thousand miles beyond it in the Middle East. China simply is not an expeditionary power, and is a non-power in the Persian Gulf.
 
The Gulfies might not like the Americans very much, but the Americans have had a vested interest in the Gulf states remaining independent and making boatloads of money by selling their hydrocarbons. For the locals it was a sweet deal. Any post-American power that comes to the Gulf is unlikely to be nearly as…understanding.

So, what does this all have to do with a normalization of relations deal between the UAE and Israel. Simply put, the Emiratis (really, all the Gulfies) know the Americans are leaving and they are massively – hysterically – unable to look out for their own interests in the world that’s coming. Between the threats of Iran, their own populations and extra-regional powers, none of them are long for this world.

Unless they can get some help. They need someone who can help them resist Iran. They need someone who can help them infiltrate and purge undesirable elements from their own populations. They need someone who can help them stand up to far outsiders.

Banding together is off the table. As much as the Gulf states dislike Iran, they like one another even less. These are not countries. They are dynasties. It is as if each of the Kardashian sisters ran her own kingdom. (The GCC – for those of you who follow the region enough to know what that is – is nothing more than the Saudi attempt to force everyone to do things their way.). The Gulfies trust – they all trust – Israel more than one another.

To call Thursday’s agreement a peace deal is a rhetorical flourish. A bit of PR flim-flamery. The UAE and Israel were not at war. Israeli military planners didn’t lose much sleep thinking about Emirati-backed militant cells in Palestine or Syria or Lebanon targeting their populations, much less a conventional Emirati military attack. Thursday’s announcement was more about a public acknowledgement of cold, hard, geopolitical reality: the issue isn’t an Israel-Arab divide being healed, much less one of Jewish-Islamic ecumenical healing. The difference hasn’t been that broad is decades.

Rather, it is about an American security dependent heeding the writing on the wall. Of wanting to (of having to) protect their interests (their existence) without the promise (or hope) of American intervention. The Emiratis are worried about Tehran. About Tokyo. About Paris. About New Delhi. About London. (About Riyadh.)

They should be.

The real kicker? This diplomatic normalization is only the first step. In time the UAE – indeed, each of the Gulf states – will need to partner with an outside power if they are to survive the predations of the others. Kudos to the Emiratis for the first-mover advantage. They’ve not only gained themselves a diplomatic, political, intelligence and military partner, they’ve broken the ice and made it a bit easier to stomach partnering with a true infidel.

Time will tell if it is enough.

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

DONATE TO FEEDING AMERICA

The Vaccine Struggle

The coronavirus epidemic in the United States continues to accelerate. Much of the recent news has been about ongoing and unprecedented caseload increases in the large states of California, Texas and Florida.

While I pride myself on being a generalist, I do try to stick to my strengths when it comes to highly technical topics. I’m afraid that as regards coronavirus vaccines that isn’t possible. Biotechnology has veered into my lane, leaving me little choice but to return the favor.

The bottom line:

We’re likely to have a functional vaccine in the fourth quarter of 2020. As normally vaccines require a decade or more to develop, that’s truly moving at warp speed. But within this shiny nugget of good news seethes a swarm of complications and caveats.

Let’s start with the human trials. Vaccine testing proceeds in three phases.

Phase 1 is little more than a safety trial of 50 or so people to make sure the vaccine doesn’t make folks horribly ill. Phase 2 uses a few more people, but it is still little more than checking to be sure the vaccine’s components are not broken down in the body before they can do anything useful. (In the accelerated environment of the COVID crisis, many drug manufacturers are running Phases 1 and 2 concurrently.)

Phase 3 is where things get pathologically interesting. Thousands of people are injected and…released into the wild. The goal is for those injected to be confronted by the virus so that we know if A) the inoculated don’t get sick at all, B) they get sick but cannot spread the virus, C) they do not get sick but might still be able to spread the virus, D) if they get sick but suffer less intense symptoms, E) the proto-vaccine it does nothing at all, or God forbid F) the proto-vaccine actually makes people more susceptible to the virus. F sometimes happens. F sucks.

Point being Phase 3 is where the rubber hits the road. Right now, eight of the over 100 vaccines that are under development globally are in Phase 3 trials. The Russians decided they didn’t need Phase 3 and have gone ahead and approved theirs for general use. (I’m not saying this is preordained to end in unfettered horror, but I’m also not saying now would be a bad time to watch Moscow for signs of the zombie apocalypse.)

When I say we’ll have a functional vaccine in the fourth quarter, what I mean specifically is that at least one of these 100 (most likely one of the eight) will have made it through Phase 3 with a result of A, B, C or D. All those outcomes are considered good enough to qualify as “successful”. But even if the vaccine comes in on September 1 with a solid “A”, that hardly means the COVID-19 crisis is over. If anything, that’s only the start of the road back to normal.

The next piece of the process is manufacturing. Some vaccines require live virus which must be grown en masse. That, obviously, requires significant biohazard lab expansions. Some just require snippets of RNA and can be produced in days. Probably. Some of the newer RNA techniques – like that for the Moderna candidate – are only now being used for human vaccines for the first time. Some use a big vat of yeast which can be prepped in hours. Some need an extract from a specific sort of Chilean soapbark tree that can only be harvested in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. I can’t give you a production timeline because each vaccine uses a different process, the materials and processes are proprietary, and we do not yet know which one will work.

Then there’s distribution. Here I’m not too worried. Every country already has a built-in, tried-and-true system for the mass distribution and application of vaccines. Think biannual flu shots. I’ve always found the logistics that make the flu shot possible to be magical. I’ve not gotten the flu in over a decade. (Go me!)

But that hardly means there cannot be distribution complications. Some vaccines require refrigeration. Some require freezing. Based on components and temperature requirements, each has their own peculiar demands for glass vials and syringes – and even stoppers. Use the wrong packaging or transport method, and you’ve just wasted months of work and millions of doses.

Finally, there’s the far-from-minor issues of efficacy and longevity of protection. Not all vaccines for the same bug are created equal. Some might require a higher dose or even multiple doses to achieve some semblance of protection. For example, that biannual flu shot I’m so fond of requires a higher concentration for the elderly in order to stimulate an immune response. The CanSino candidate might not work in the elderly at all. If two doses are required – which is currently the best guess for the Jenna/Oxford candidate – we’ll need twice the production capacity.

If the vaccine triggers a strong immune response – like the BioNTech/Pfizer candidate appears to – that’s great! But if protection only lasts a few months, we’ll need to mass produce the vaccine for global use forever…or at least until we grind the virus out of the population. (Keep in mind humanity has only actually eliminated one virus – smallpox – to the point we could stop immunizations.)

While things can and will change week by week, at present the Jenna/Oxford candidate seems to be on track to be deemed “successful” first, while the Moderna candidate faces the fewest manufacturing challenges, while the BioNTech/Pfizer candidate appears to be the most effective. China’s CanSino is a bit of a black box, but it will likely be significantly delayed. Determining a vaccine candidate’s effectiveness requires exposing the inoculated to the virus, and the virus really isn’t in circulation in China any longer. That forces the Chinese to convince other nations to be their guinea pigs. *wince*

The dream vaccine would be a one-shot vaccine delivered via nasal inhalant (no syringe required!), be made from yeast, safe to store at room temperature, grant 100% immunity, and last a lifetime. Assuming for the moment such is possible, we’re not very likely to hit the bull’s eye on the first try.

Instead it’s more than merely possible the first “successful” vaccine to market will be one that requires two shots given two months apart, is fabricated using the pancreatic fluids of a llama, only lessens the impact of COVID rather than outright preventing it, must be frozen for transport, and must be re-administered every six months. If that’s the one that wins the race, you can bet we’ll keep developing alternatives until we find something better.

But while we develop better alternatives, we’ll hit another trough. Manufacturers of glass and syringes and stoppers are holding their breath, planning to surge output to whichever candidate proves successful first. Should the first across the finish line not be the ideal vaccine, we will then need to retool everything to supply the manufacturing process for a better vaccine once it proves that it is indeed better. Based on the product requirements, there will be a delay of weeks to months.

Which vaccine is deemed “successful” first matters. No matter which candidate proves successful, global vaccine manufacturing for a fundamentally new cocktail is unlikely to be able to generate more than 100 million doses in calendar year 2020, with an additional one billion to two billion in 2021. If the “winning” mix requires two doses or biannual injections, cut the number of people who can be immunized in half. If it requires two doses and biannual injections, then by the end of 2021 there might not even be enough doses for all American citizens. To maximize their chances of getting what they need, the Americans have thrown $1 billion plus at each of the three lead candidates, complete with pending orders for at least 100 million doses.

That’s smart, but it hardly guarantees success – and the stakes are high. For one, the United States has not only failed to eradicate the novel coronavirus, it has largely failed at even the most basic of mitigation measures. We’ve collectively placed all our chips on securing a vaccine.

For two, not all doses of the “winning” formula will be produced in the United States, and other countries will want doses for their own people. The United Kingdom is a biotech leader who isn’t faring much better than the United States. The Germans are biotech leaders…and health nuts. Should doses be produced in India or China or Brazil, do you really think New Delhi or Beijing or Brasilia will prioritize shipments to the United States? Would you want them to??

So yes, we’ll likely identify something “successful” at some point in the fourth quarter of 2020, but add in the time lags for manufacturing and distribution, and the almost-certainty that Americans will have to share some doses with other nations, and the absolute most optimistic schedule possible for achieving mass inoculation of the American population won’t be until at least April 2021.

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

DONATE TO FEEDING AMERICA

COVID-19 and The State of Global Agriculture

The coronavirus epidemic in the United States continues to accelerate. Much of the recent news has been about ongoing and unprecedented caseload increases in the large states of California, Texas and Florida, which indeed have been racking up record case numbers. Yet in terms of infection rate increases South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kansas, Idaho and Nevada have all left the larger states behind.
 
The graphic below highlights where new case loads have reached dangerous levels. Red indicates over 500 new cases daily per million population. The threshold for yellow is 200. New York state, home to America’s highest death counts thus far, currently has a rating of 50. Iran – one of the countries that has suffered the highest fatality rates – this week has a rating of 30.
 
The implications for such a runaway infection rate are many and varied. Political. Cultural. Strategic. Structural. Economic. Here at Zeihan on Geopolitics we’ll get to as many as we can as time and circumstances permit.
 
For today, however, we’re going to focus on the basics: food. Coronavirus has thrown the American and global agricultural systems for a loop. Today at 2p Eastern / 1p Central / noon Mountain / 11a Pacific Peter Zeihan will host a video conference on The State of Global Agriculture. Join us to get an update on food safety, food supply and to understand where agriculture falls in America’s ongoing trade conflicts.

REGISTER FOR THE STATE OF GLOBAL AGRICULTURE

A Look Under the Hood: Oil and COVID

Getting reliable oil data on any country outside the United States is very nearly an exercise in futility. Even a country with “good” data like the United States sources that data from a half dozen separate bureaus and 50 different states which tend to generate their data either by county or company or a hybridization of both. Muddled data and miscounts are more the norm than accurate collection.
 
Moreover, any firm that is not publicly traded tends to consider production and sales data a corporate secret, while most countries consider such information flat out state secrets. This proves doubly true for information relating to storage. After all, the core rationale of state-operated oil storage facilities is to enable a country to outlast a crisis like a war.
 
The result is that we only have decent data at the very low end (when looking at a specific firm or field) or at the very high end (when we’re evaluating something global in scope). Today’s graphic looks at the high: total oil demand broken down by major usage.
 
There’s a few nuggets to tease out, both about the coronavirus crisis and the future of the sector in general.

First, coronavirus has kept much of the world’s population cooped up, especially in the more energy-intensive developing and developed economies. That’s hit both energy demand for personal use, as well as in industries that support private consumption. Cars, aviation, marine transport and industry have all seen massive drops in oil demand, that at the trough collectively added up to nearly one-fifth of total global demand. (This, of course, is a best guess – remember, the data isn’t great.)

While all these categories have experienced significant rebounds as parts of the world have reopened, they are nowhere near pre-COVID levels.

  1. Even in places with low virus levels, people remain skittish and have cut back their activities.
  2. The pandemic is hardly over. Globally we have far more cases now than two months ago, with the bulk of the (non-China) developing world only now starting its epidemic.
  3. The United States – the world’s largest oil consumer – has backslid and is likely to experience an extended period of subpar economic activity.
  4. Europe and East Asia may be mostly virus free, but their rapidly aging demographics means they are more suppliers than consumers. Full recovery there first requires full recovery in the more consumption-driven United States and (non-China) developing world.

Collectively, these categories comprise 45% of “normal” oil demand. All of them will remain depressed for at least the rest of 2020. In the case of the aviation category, don’t expect a meaningful recovery until after 2023.

Second, one surprisingly resilient category has been trucking, a sector whose oil demand is linked to both local goods distribution and long-haul transport. Oil demand for this sector has proven stubbornly resilient for the simple reason that goods don’t magically transport themselves from farms or ports to people. Trucking is how most people get their stuff, whether that stuff is delivered to stores or their homes. If this sector’s oil demand drops, it means economic catastrophe is in full swing. It has not. So far, so good.

Finally, I’d like to highlight a category for you Greens out there: buildings.

Greens the world over have a reputation for going for big, splashy, high-tech, high-dollar, PR-friendly topics: Electronic vehicles, fields of solar panels, forests of wind turbines. That’s all well and good, but some 10% of global oil supply is burned in boilers to make heat and power for buildings. It is wildly inefficient, wildly expensive and not particularly safe. Better, cleaner, cheaper and safer methods of delivering heat and power have existed for decades. Updating the internal infrastructure of buildings block-by-block has so far been perceived by the Green community as insufficiently macro or sexy to pursue, yet addressing the boiler problem is the ultimate low-hanging fruit in any deep decarbonization effort. Food for thought.

These topics are just the proverbial iceberg-tip. Global energy patterns are spasming in the wake of the COVID crisis, and now that the initial shock is past we’re able to tease out several trends that will shape global oil for years to come. Shifts in blending patterns and trade flows. Major producers simply collapsing, never to return. And of course, the Russians are being sneaky.

All this and more will be explored in our next videoconference on July 8: Energy in a New Era.

REGISTER FOR “ENERGY IN A NEW ERA” WEBINAR

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

DONATE TO FEEDING AMERICA

COVID-19: The Breath Before the Plunge

You can also read the State of the Pandemic series’ take on the United States, Latin America, the Persian Gulf, East Asia, Europe, and the BRICS. 

The United States is in for a rough summer.

Unlike most countries in East Asia or Europe, the United States never managed to get its caseload under control. Between the economic re-openings, Memorial Day parties, and ongoing protests against police violence, cases are rapidly ticking up. On June 24th, the U.S detected 38,672 new cases – that is not only double the low of June 8th-9th, it is already more than the United States’ original peak of new cases registered 10 weeks ago.

If it doesn’t feel like there’s an imminent crisis, that’s because back in March and April, the majority of American COVID cases were concentrated in the New York City metro. It wasn’t ridiculous for many Americans to question whether or not the virus was their problem. Not ridiculous, although certainly myopic.

Those days are gone. Today, America’s new COVID wave is truly nationwide.

Fresh – record – outbreaks exist in half the states. While the New York City area has made great strides in lowering case numbers, those gains have become overwhelmed in the national numbers by exploding epidemics in California, Texas, and Florida – three of America’s four largest states by population. Heavily rural states like Montana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Iowa, and Utah are hitting record high infection levels. Arizona now leads the nation in positive cases on a per capita basis. Within a week, it is likely to surpass even New York City’s peak infection rates, making Phoenix a necessary candidate for a severe lockdown. The American South – the most infected region overall – appears to be no more than three weeks behind Arizona. So much for heat or humidity impeding the virus.

It is worth recalling how the virus progresses. From the point of a mass exposure event (i.e., Spring Break or Mardi Gras), it is typically three to five weeks before the virus spreads sufficiently to show up in the data. At the time of this writing, Memorial Day happened three and a half weeks ago, while mass re-openings around the country average to approximately five weeks ago. From that point, it is another two to four weeks before hospital admissions explode, and then an additional two to three weeks before hospitals start reporting deaths. If this pattern holds true, many hospitals will be pushed to their limits by July, and August will be a very rough period. 

There are some (faint) silver linings. When New Yorkers grappled with the first epidemic, there were no best practices or treatments or warnings. We now know that putting everyone on a ventilator is not the best plan. We have at least one drug treatment program for COVID (Remdesivir) that shows some effectiveness. And most of all, this time, we are certain that a massive epidemic is coming nationwide.

For a country as large and diverse as the United States, making broad projections is always squishy, but there are some pretty clear outcomes here:

The infection levels and timing of the new wave suggests that the fall school semester is a no-go. It suggests what re-openings we’ve seen in travel and restaurants will reverse. It suggests the next flu season, which generally begins in October, will be the worst one on record as COVID and the flu strike simultaneously. It suggests the presidential election season will be…fraught. And it certainly suggests that Americans are stuck with COVID until there’s a vaccine.

Our advice today remains similar as it was at this crisis’ beginning: Wash your hands (with soap). Get the new flu vaccine when it comes out (in September). Limit your outings (skip the bars). Wear masks when you so venture (replace or clean them often). Stay six feet apart (don’t be a dumbass). And if you catch the virus, stay home and try to limit your household’s exposure.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics hosts regular webinars on the state of the world and industries from energy to agriculture to manufacturing and beyond.

Our next webinar, scheduled for June 29th, will be on China.

Scheduling and sign-up information can be found here.

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

DONATE TO FEEDING AMERICA

The State of the Pandemic: the BRICS

You can also read the State of the Pandemic series’ take on the United States, Latin America, the Persian Gulf, East Asia, and Europe. 

Just a decade ago, the financial world was abuzz discussing the future of the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. This group of largeish developing countries had little to do with one another, and their inclusion with one another made little sense (like optimism for their respective country’s economic development). Their only commonality? These countries have some of the worst global COVID-19 outbreaks, with little reason to believe that they can be contained.

(Once again, big thanks to the FT for making data pulls like this possible. You can make your own comparisons here.)
 
Let’s begin with Brazil, whose coronavirus epidemic is downright bizarre.
 
Every country’s physical and economic geography is different. In the case of Brazil, a sharp escarpment parallels the southeastern coast where most Brazilians live. From a viral communicability point of view, it’s the worst and best of all worlds.
 
The worst: Brazil’s coastal cities are positioned on tiny plots of land, with population densities that exceed even the ant-like living spaces of Japan’s megaplexes. And that’s before one considers the extremely-tightly-packed favelas (slums) that sprawl up city hillsides. Social distancing? HA!
 
The best: because those plots are small, and because Brazilian coastal cities have pathetically thin infrastructure connecting them, locking down various cities suffering from outbreaks – particularly those at the bottom of the Escarpment – would provide a substantial viral firebreak at a minimal cost. All it would take to limit COVID’s spread from city to city is a modicum of responsiveness from the central government.
 
That…has not happened.
 
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro initially denied COVID’s existence, then derided it as a “little flu,” then condemned his political opponents for fabricating its existence to discredit him, and now has taken to leading dozens of mass press-the-flesh protests against governors and mayors who would dare COVID-response policies.
 
The data in the graphic undoubtedly understates the depth of Brazil’s pandemic by a massive margin. Initially, this was because Brazil’s near-confederal governing structure hands a great deal of policy authority to the provincial level. This complicates the gathering, collation, and cross-comparisons needed to generate accurate national-level pictures. But as of the first week of June, Bolsonaro has banned the gathering and publishing of any data that exists. The only government we are aware of that has been more militant in denying COVID is Turkmenistan, where the local dictator primly banned the term “coronavirus” from usage and called it a day.
 
Consequently, we don’t even have a guess as to how bad things really are. Even if/when a vaccine becomes available, we have very low expectations that the Bolsonaro government will allow distribution. Bolsonaro’s position flat out ends economic growth opportunities for the country until the central government’s policy shifts. Assuming Bolsonaro doesn’t change his mind and is not impeached, he will remain large and in charge until, at least, the national elections in October 2022.
 
Brazil’s COVID policies are soooo bad that they’ve done something we have long thought impossible: they have made Russia’s health policies look good.
 
It is…difficult…to know where to start.
 
During the post-Soviet Russian collapse in the 1990s, the Russian health system was arguably the sector that degraded the most. Soviet-era central planning treated most maladies with industrial-strength antibiotics. When the health system collapsed, doctors left the country en masse, and state medical guidance evaporated – but the antibiotics remained commercially available (no prescription needed). Russians took antibiotics for pretty much every malady, regardless if they were the correct drug or not, and then stopped taking the drugs as soon as they felt better. The result? Russia became a breeding ground for countless drug-resistant pathogens.
 
Security collapses played a near-matching role in the misery. Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Afghan warlords turned to growing opium to earn cash. Opium – and heroin – smuggling routes spiderwebbed out from the war-torn country, sowing addiction and crime as they went. One passed through Iran, another through Pakistan, but most ultimately transited Russian territory. Consequence? Russian health professionals and demographers speak of an entire generation lost to heroin abuse. Factor in cultural norms that demand smoking like chimneys, drinking like fish, a national diet that seems entirely made of saturated fats, and the national health picture is downright zombie-esque.
 
With the restoration of central rule in the 2000s under then-and-still-President Vladimir Putin, harsh authoritarianism – complete with violent censorship – entered the mix. Are satirical TV programs using puppets insufficiently slavish to government policy? Force the program off the air and round up the scriptwriters. Are HIV statistics causing national embarrassment? Stop testing for HIV altogether. Are doctors complaining about insufficient supplies to battle COVID? A few doctors “commit suicide” by jumping out of hospital windows.
 
Officially, Russian COVID caseloads have plateaued, but keep a couple of things in mind.
 
First, Russia only has even a basic health care system in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Testing within Russia’s two largest cities is thin. Beyond them, it is nearly nonexistent. It isn’t that the Russian government knows what is happening but is lying this time around, but instead that the Russian government has chosen not to find out what is actually happening.
 
Second, Russia is extremely sparsely populated. Most Russian cities are further apart than even American cities west of the Appalachians. Russia has no national road network; the first paved road linking European Russia to the Pacific Coast was only completed in the 2000s. What Russia does have is a pretty great rail network connecting every population center, excluding the cities clinging to Siberia’s Arctic coast. This would suggest the Russian government would have a very easy time isolating local outbreaks. Stop rail traffic in and out of affected cities and BAM! Viral firebreak.
 
How many Russian rail interruptions have we seen since COVID started? Zero.
 
The situation in India isn’t much better.
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government initially denied the virus existed in India, and then obliquely supported radical Hindus who claimed drinking cow urine would grant immunity. Government responses were slow and misaligned. Even now, COVID testing in India is criminally rare. The data above represent the results of a testing system, which is the world’s lowest in per capita terms. We can’t even attempt a projection using deaths data since roughly one-quarter of all deaths in India aren’t even recorded. If we had to guess, we’d surmise that India’s actual infection rate is roughly ten times the official figures, but that’s little more than a blind stab. What government action that has occurred broadly falls into the category of “too little, too late.”
 
One exception: the central government executed a clever scheme of stamping new arrivals in prominent locations with indelible ink, encouraging voluntary two-week self-quarantine. Low cost. High impact. Creative. We like it.
 
Anywho, India’s “normal” operations generate massive health challenges – challenges COVID has undoubtedly taken full advantage of: densely populated cities with crowded food markets, cities closely proximate to one another, extensive city slums, and massive population movements between the cities and the countryside.
 
And that’s “just” the demographic and economic geography. Raw economics doesn’t help either. India’s per capita GDP is less than one-fifth of Russia, and Russia’s is less than one-fifth of the United States’. It requires rather haughty expectations to assert India should be able to manage COVID as “well” as the United States.
 
Please don’t read our criticism of India as a condemnation similar to what Brazil and Russia both deserve. It is not. It is more…fatalism. Brazil and Russia boasted geographic factors arguing for significant viral containment, but both countries chose not to act. In contrast, the deck was always stacked against India, both economically and geographically. Once the virus was seeded within the population, a virus as contagious as COVID was always going to put down roots nationwide, regardless of what the government did. In our view, the Indian government’s relative inaction is less a catastrophe, and more a recognition as to how few tools the government had to face such a massive challenge.
 
In contrast to Brazil, Russia, and India, the government of South Africa has not been asleep at the wheel. But that hardly frees the country from an intense epidemic.
 
The South Africans have been ground zero for the HIV/AIDS pandemic for approximately thirty years. While there are many things the South African government did wrong in dealing with that virus, one of the things it got right (belatedly) was an advanced public treatment system that included aggressive contact tracing. The South African government applied that skill set to coronavirus. Unfortunately, contact tracing for a high-communicability respiratory virus is a whole different ballgame compared to listing out ones past sexual partners.
 
Doubly so once one considers the living conditions of South Africa’s Black population. Most Blacks live in ghettoized conditions known as “townships,” and most of the townships have communal toilets and water sources. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the South Africans have yet to devise a functional plan for limiting COVID spread when sheltering at home doesn’t allow for social distancing.
 
Our biggest concern for South Africa is that here, COVID is likely to have one of the highest lethality rates in the world. One of the darkest chapters of the AIDS pandemic is that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus does precisely what it says. It triggers deficiencies in the immune system, which make sufferers far more vulnerable to other pathogens. One of the darkest chapters of the tuberculosis crisis is the TB bacillus often remains dormant until another infection is in play. HIV and TB often play off one another, making co-infections far more deadly than either would have been alone. The South Africans have become bitter experts on the topic. One-fifth of South African adults carry the HIV virus. About four-fifths carry TB bacillus. Now COVID has arrived.
 
The only bright spot in the South African epidemic is that unlike the Brazilian, Russian, or Indian governments, the South African authorities are at least attempting to maintain an accurate internal picture of the virus’ march. Testing is as robust as can be hoped for, considering the country’s myriad health challenges. Out of these four countries, we only find South Africa’s data reasonably accurate (probably more accurate than the United States’), and it raises the hope that once a treatment or vaccine becomes available, the South Africans will at least know where to start.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that we have not dealt with China in this newsletter. In part, it is because the birthplace of COVID is a special case that doesn’t fit well with any other narrative. (We have a bit on that in our East Asian epidemic update.)

To that end, we plan to deal with China in exhaustive detail in our upcoming videoconference on June 29th.

Our next webinar, scheduled for June 29th, will be on China.

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

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The State of the Pandemic: Europe

You can also read the State of the Pandemic series’ take on the United States, Latin America, the Persian Gulf, East Asia and the BRICS. 

There is no such thing as “Europe.” Yes, there’s this political-economic grouping called the EU, but two of Europe’s most important countries are not members. Yes, there’s this political-military grouping called NATO, but it is functionally run from a different hemisphere. Recent developments might – emphasis on might – change this, but the Europeans aren’t there yet. 

With over 30 different political and decision-making systems, there is plenty of room to find fault with any broad assessment. But as regards the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the fact remains that overall, Europe has been moving in the direction of fewer and fewer cases. 

(Many, many thanks to the Financial Times for providing the data interface that makes this graphic possible. You can visualize your own data pulls here.)
 
The early phases of the epidemic were harsh in many places. In large part, it was because the Europeans had, at best incomplete information from which to base their policies. For the Italians and Spanish who suffered through coronavirus’ initial assault, they were simply caught off-guard. The result? Much of Europe enacted lockdowns whose intensity and airtight nature was only surpassed by the 1984-style lockdowns in Wuhan. (In Paris, you had to apply for a government permit to leave your home to shop for food. The permit only lasted for one hour.)
 
There’s also the issue of vectors. The suspected patient zero in Italy was initially misdiagnosed and so went from the hospital almost directly to a massive soccer game, becoming Europe’s first superspreader. Most people came to and left the game via bus, enabling the virus to spread liberally. A few of those buses went to Spain, which is why Spain became the second hardest-hit country in Europe.
 
In contrast, Austria and Germany’s superspreaders were a bunch of 20-somethings at ski parties in the Alps. The Austrians and Germans not only had a bit more warning than the Italians and Spaniards, but their epidemics were also among young millennials – a group that COVID doesn’t impact that harshly. The Austrians and Germans locked down their elderly populations, ran a rigorous testing and tracing program, and more or less nipped the problem in the bud.
 
Of course, despite caseloads moving in the right direction overall, this is not over. The variation of Europe’s COVID policies to date will also define the epidemic’s future:
 
Germany is playing it safe and has retained its de facto ban on all extra-European travelers until at least August 31st. Considering caseloads in the Western Hemisphere and the Middle East show no signs of dropping, expect this date to get pushed back. 
 
In contrast, consider Portugal. Portugal is one of the many European countries suffering from a terminal demography; its birth rate crashed back in the late 1970s, never recovering, and the Portuguese economy is now a moribund mess. Since Portugal lacks the industrial base of a country like Germany, Portugal’s only growth sector is tourism. COVID killed tourism. Portugal recently released all restrictions in a desperate attempt to forestall what threatens to be an unending economic depression…which means Portugal is one of only three EU countries where caseloads are increasing.
 
Nor did everyone in Europe follow even remotely similar lockdown protocols. As mentioned earlier, the Europeans were working with incomplete information as the pandemic started, and not everyone came to the same conclusions. The British and Swedes balked at the economic damage full lockdowns would cause, and reasonably believed any effective vaccine would not be available for years. Add in that coronavirus has the highest infection rate of any public health threat since measles and a fairly low mortality rate, and both governments felt containment was a fools’ errand. They opted for management. Both decided to pursue herd immunity in an attempt to build a firewall against the virus within their populations.
 
Britain ultimately blinked, largely due to the carnage being wrecked in Italy which suggested much higher death counts than initially suspected. The Brits belatedly followed a more traditional lockdown approach. The delay landed the Brits with one of Europe’s highest infection rates as well as a lengthy plateau. It was only in mid-May that the Brits finally got COVID cases bending downward. The Swedes, on the other hand, stuck with the plan. Sweden now faces infection rates among the world’s highest, recently surpassing even the United States. 
 
The real tragedy in Sweden was that knowing what we all knew back in April, the herd immunity strategy wasn’t silly, but instead a calculated risk. The Swedes assumed a functional vaccine would remain unavailable for years, and so concluded that building immunity within the population was the only sustainable route forward. Now it appears a functional vaccine will be available before the end of 2020, with mass distribution beginning (although not being completed) in 2021. The facts as we understand them have changed. Sweden’s sacrifice may have been for nothing.

If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.

The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.

Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.

Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.

The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.

DONATE TO FEEDING AMERICA