The EU was established to promote unity and peace, but times have changed and priorities have shifted. So, what does the future of the European Union look like and how does France fit into the mix?
The EU’s expansion throughout the years has involved integrating some diverse countries, at first for stability and later for economic and political strength. Recent challenges like Brexit, a financial crisis, and the Ukraine War have demanded a shift from an economic focus, to a political and military focus.
France is well suited to lead this transition, thanks to its centralized government and strong military. In order to ensure long-term stability, the French will have to decide what their role is in all of this and where to go from 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.
After the first round of European Parliament elections, the French far-right (represented by the National Rally) had a great showing. President Macron wasn’t too happy with that outcome, so he called snap elections to give his party a second shot at capturing a majority.
There are a few reasons that Macron knew this might yield more favorable results. There is a known shift in voting patterns between first and second round votes, where voters start more emotional and end more practical. There are lots of voting tactics Macron’s party could use to garner some more votes, like removing multiple candidates to prop up a single one. The most important one here was the timing; the other parties didn’t have enough time to pull together strong candidates, so Macron’s party could use that to their advantage. And Macron was right…mostly.
The National Rally took third in the snap elections, Macron’s party took second, and the Left came in first. The French aren’t out of the woods quite yet though. Since none of the factions had a majority to form a government, we’re going to see some French cooperation, and you can expect how that will go.
The threat of political instability within France could prove to be a big problem for the rest of Europe too. Without France (attempting to be) at the helm, and no other countries fit to step into that role, Europe will need to figure something out ASAP.
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.
Hey everybody, Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from the Lake of the Ozarks in southern Missouri. We’re going to finish up our election series today by talking about one of the most convoluted of the big elections that just happened last week, and that is France.
The backdrop is that a few weeks ago, we had European Parliament elections. The French hard-right, represented by a group that calls themselves the National Rally, did very, very, very, very well. The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, who’s of a more centrist alliance, saw this as a threat and decided to try his hand at snap elections to force the French people to support a more pragmatic government, i.e., his. In a way, it worked out in two rounds of voting. At first, the National Rally did very, very, very, very well. Then they did very, very, very, very badly. Ultimately, they came in third behind a couple of other alliance groups, one on the left, one in the center, supporting Macron.
There are a couple of reasons for this. The first reason is that there’s a typical pattern in French voting where, in your first vote in the first round, you vote your heart, and in the second vote, you vote your head. So, the idea is you might vote for what you’re passionate about the first time around, but you’re much more practical the second time around. That was definitely in play. A second reason is that there’s a lot of tactical voting where you could have five, six, seven, or eight candidates contesting the same seat in the first round. In the second round, basically everyone who was third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh dropped out in order to concentrate the oppositional votes to make sure that the National Rally would not get the seat. That meant that the National Rally went from being the faraway favorite to coming in a relatively distant third.
But the third, and far more important reason why the National Rally busted, was simply time. From the point Macron called the elections to the point that we had the first round, it was only two weeks, and then only another week before we had the second round, so they really didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. There are 577 parliament districts in France, and going into these elections, the National Rally really wasn’t a true national party in that they had representation and supporters in every single district. So when they had to come up with 577 candidates, one for each district, one who lived in each district, a lot of times they went with just some activists.
And if you guys are politically wired, you know that there are activists in your party who are wackadoo. There were some wild racists and some wildly incompetent people who found themselves on the ticket for the National Rally, which meant not just that they didn’t have a chance, but the candidates on the left and the center were able to parade these people nationwide and show what fools the National Rally were. At least that was their view. Take this together, especially that last piece, and it worked.
But we’re not out of the woods yet. Remember, there are three big factions here. You had the hard right, the National Rally, you had the centrists around Macron, and then you had this left alliance that is actually four different parties made up of radicals, communists, socialists, and Greens. They had the same problem that the National Rally had; they only had a couple of weeks to build this electoral alliance to contest the elections. While they came in first, they have nowhere near enough seats in parliament to run a government. Nobody does. In fact, if you were to take any of these three factions and throw all the minor parties in with them, there’s still not enough.
So to have a majority government, two of these three factions have to be able to work together. Well, no one wants to work with the National Rally, so that eliminates them. For the new leftist alliance, the single largest chunk is the party of a guy named Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The best way to describe this is he has the personal charm of Marjorie Taylor Greene in the United States, the intelligence of Cori Bush, makes up math like Elizabeth Warren, and has the personality of a cold, hairy pile of vomit. He’s a hateful person, he’s a snake, and no one wants to work with him. But his party in that four-group coalition that is the left alliance is the single largest.
We already have party leaders throughout the leftist alliance saying that Mélenchon is a problem and he will never be prime minister, but he now represents the single largest chunk of seats in parliament as part of that alliance. So we’re entering into something that is very unexpected and unfamiliar for France: political instability. The single largest party in the overall parliament, the National Rally, no one wants to work with. The ruling party that works with Macron has been a little bit discredited. The left is an absolute mess, with its titular leader being a complete moron. There is no clear path forward here.
This isn’t Israel, this isn’t Italy; no one here has experience building coalition governments. According to the French constitution, you can’t have another election to fix this at the ballot box within a year. So you take France, which until now has been the Eurozone country with the single strongest political leadership, and you basically remove it from play until such time as the French can find a way to make this work. I doubt that’s going to happen in this calendar year or next calendar year. This is a really bad time for Europe to not have leadership.
If you look around Europe and see what’s left, the French are out to lunch dealing with their own internal stuff. The Germans have a three-party coalition that is already incredibly weak, led by an even weaker chancellor. The next country down is Italy, which is led by someone on the right, Giorgia Meloni. That means if you’re the United States and Russia at this time, all of a sudden Europe has become a little bit of a piece of taffy to be pulled.
At the moment, because of the Ukraine war, that means the ball is very clearly in the United States’ court. But never forget, this is an election year in the United States too. Whether it’s Biden or Trump, it’s going to be difficult for Washington to focus the kind of attention on Europe that it honestly deserves right now.
So we basically took the last big pillar of European—not solidarity, not leadership, not democracy, but coordination—and we’ve knocked it down. This is going to be a big problem, as you’ll see in the next video, because this is only the beginning of what needs to be done within Europe.
In the post-Cold War world, France, Germany and Poland concocted the Weimar Triangle as a way to foster cooperation amongst the three countries. The trio has weakened over the years – due to differing national priorities – but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might necessitate getting the gang back together.
Thanks to their renewed military collaboration, the Weimar Triangle will be working to develop long-range weapons to enhance their defensive capabilities; the aim is to prevent Russia from falling back into its old ways. While these three countries have a good thing going, Henry Kissinger argued that a Weimar Quartet might be even better – if not necessary.
Ukraine would strengthen the triangles’ ability to ensure regional stability and effectively counter Russian threats. The bottom line is that when (or if since we’re feeling optimistic) the Russians come knocking, these countries sure as hell want all the tools and partners necessary to stop them in their tracks…
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.
Hey everybody, Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from the base of the serious part of West Spanish Peak in New Mexico, adjacent to southern Colorado. I’m waiting for a storm to pass before I get out on the ridge line. Being 6.5 feet tall and a Thunder Boomer isn’t really the best call. Anyway, on the topic of things that have been mehhhh, but very soon may be incredible.
Today, 27th of June, there was a summit with a group called the Weimar Triangle, which includes the leadership of France, Poland, and Germany, the three critical countries of the Northern European Plain. The Weimar Triangle was envisioned in the aftermath of the Cold War when Poland was no longer a Soviet satellite country and was on the way to joining the European Union and NATO organizations that Poland has since joined. The idea was that in the long swath of bloody European history, France, Germany, and Poland tended to find themselves on different sides of most major issues, leading to many of the major wars.
Anyway, the idea was that if you get them all on the same side, then the Northern European Plain, instead of being the most blood-soaked part of the planet, can become something better—a path of trade and cooperation.
And you could argue that the idea of the Weimar Triangle has been realized, but it’s not because of the triangle. This is how it all started in the 1990s, but by the time we got to the 2010s, the three countries drifted apart. France tried to be an independent pole in international affairs, which is always a mixed bag. Germany tried to forego the politics and security talks and simply focused on trade by exploiting labor and infrastructure in Central Europe, taking a completely amoral position on everything that mattered. And Poland was in and out, in and out, with every possible interpretation of what it means to be Polish. Remember that Poland had its first democratic elections in the early 1990s.
So here we are, really only one generation later. There are a lot of deep divisions within Polish society about the role of government and where Poland fits within Europe and the wider world, and it’s not going to reach equilibrium anytime soon. By the time we got to about 2002, especially with the Iraq war in 2003, the Weimar Triangle had basically fallen apart until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Now, the three states are starting to talk a lot. Instead of collaborating on economic issues, they have decided to start working on joint military acquisitions and development, specifically for long-range cruise missiles with a range in excess of 2000 km. The reason is simple: as the Germans will tell you, if you go to war with the Russians and take a defensive position, the entire wealth and resources of the Russian Federation, Soviet Union, or Tsarist Imperial Russia, whatever it happens to be, can be collected into a single fist and punch at you wherever it wants. If you are left playing defense against that, you are going to lose. You have to have a deep strike capacity that shatters the infrastructure and logistical capability of the Russians far from the front. Throughout the Cold War, this is basically what NATO did by practicing things like the North Cape exercises, which weren’t necessarily designed to plug the Fulda Gap but instead to prevent the Russians from reaching the gap in the first place.
Now, where to go with this? It’s a realization, especially in Germany, where the defense minister is heading up this effort, that we are in a fundamentally different world. The foreign policies of the French and the Germans in recent years simply don’t work anymore. Getting that sort of weapons capacity in Europe gives the Europeans the ability to forestall a Russian invasion if Ukraine falls. The Poles know they’re next, and the Germans are fearful they’re after the Poles. So it makes sense to do this as soon as possible.
The question, of course, is whether it’s going to work as well as my hike. The answer is probably not, because even if the triangle can come up with the perfect weapon system, launching from the eastern half of Poland, you’re still a long way from huge parts of the Russian industrial base. Remember, during World War II, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin built a lot of industrial plants on the other side of the Urals. We’re talking about a big place here, which is why that greenie peacenik Henry Kissinger always said in the post-Cold War era that no matter what your goal is vis-à-vis Moscow, it can’t be achieved by the Weimar Triangle alone—it has to be a Weimar Quartet. Ukraine has to be involved. If Russia is hostile, then you get a civil war among the Slavs, and you can launch an assault from 1500 miles further east, throwing a huge amount of Russian territory open.
Remember, from the Ukrainian border to Moscow is only about 350 miles. That’s not that far. More importantly, Ukraine is not technically part of the Northern European Plain; it’s actually in the Eurasian heartlands itself. So you split that territory between Russia and Ukraine, and instead of Russia being able to focus all of its attention on the Polish Gap, it suddenly has this massive frontier to worry about.
That’s in part why Putin launched the war in the first place. But second, the better option, as Kissinger put forward, is to assume that Russia gives up its genocidal irredentist ways and decides to join the family of nations. Splitting the territory ensures that you can never have a retrenchment that would be sustainable. If there is a way forward where Moscow is a decent place and Russia becomes a normal country, it will do so with Ukraine on its side. The only way to ensure that works is to have the Weimar Quartet fortify Ukraine, not just economically but also militarily, so there can’t be any backsliding.
Of course, the question then is: will that work? Well, that’s why we call it making history. All right, see you on the next mountain.
Photo in header by Občanská demokratická strana | Civic Democratic Party in the Czech Republic | Wikimedia Commons
WEBINAR – Peter Zeihan’s Risk List: What Keeps a Geopolitical Strategist Up at Night
Please join Peter Zeihan for a webinar on June 5th at 12:00 PM EST on a topic that is near and dear to the hearts of the Zeihan on Geopolitics team: geopolitical risk. This webinar will feature Peter’s reasonable-fear list, focused on issues that in his opinion have the most potential to impact market outcomes.
It’s no surprise that the French like to be “involved” in as many places as possible, but what’s going on with the current rebellion in the French protectorate of New Caledonia?
The independence movement is gaining traction in New Caledonia, but the French are changing electoral laws to prevent the movement from succeeding. Given France’s recent moves in Armenia, they’ve attracted the attention of Azerbaijan to this little foothold in the Southwest Pacific.
While Azerbaijan might not have the most experience in supporting dissidents, they do have the financial resources to piss off the French. Tensions are rising and this little island known for nickel mining might be getting more interesting than usual.
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.
Nothing says power politics quite like a castle. So I thought this backdrop would be a great way to talk about the Southwest Pacific. specifically, we’ve got a rebellion going on in the province of New Caledonia. It’s an island that’s a French protectorate colony. And we’re starting to see people walking around with flags of Azerbaijan. So, you know, this requires a little bit of unpack.
So, first of all, this is a territory that survived as a French protectorate. even after the rest of the colonies were hived off. And, on purpose or not. In the aftermath of World War two, during the decolonization period, the French held on to New Caledonia for two reasons. Number one, strategic position in the Southwest Pacific gives them a leg in that part of the world.
And second, and from an economic point of view, far more importantly, New Caledonia is the third largest mine for nickel in the world. Nickel, obviously is using stainless steel, and of late it’s becoming far more important for green transition technologies. Everything from solar to, electrical grade steel to electric vehicles. Now, New Caledonia has had a kind of a rough time over the last few decades, because their nickel isn’t all that economically viable.
the mines are the best in the world and far more importantly, takes a lot of energy to process nickel. And to be perfectly blunt, if you’re on a small island in the South Pacific and it’s really, really expensive. So it hasn’t broken even for much of the last 30 years. And even companies like Glencore, which are how should I put this?
Typically not bound by a lot of ethical concerns are in the process of trying to get out. but but but but but if the green transition really does happen, we need ten times as much nickel. And that’s going to change the math for pretty much everything involving the island, which is why we’ve got the unrest right now.
There is an independence movement that is gaining steam, and the French are in the process of making sure that it cannot succeed. So they’ve changed the electoral laws. It used to be that if you had been in the province, on the island for more than 25 years, you could vote in local elections. And that gave the local Kanak minority majority status.
But, the French are in the process of changing that. So you only had to have lived there for ten years. And if you include all the mainland French imports to the island that have moved in the last decade, all or in the last 15 years, you’ve got a very different picture and the independence movement will never succeed.
So that’s what’s going on to the French point of view. That’s what’s going on from the island point of view. That just leaves the observers. How do you flags? as we talked about recently, France is getting involved in the caucuses, specifically helping out Armenia, where it can diplomatically thinking that that’s going to give them a leg up in the caucuses.
And that might provide them with some diplomatic heft that they’re losing in West Africa. Azerbaijan’s on the other side of that conflict, as a region in Armenia for a number of wars. And at the moment, Azerbaijan’s doing a lot better for a number of reasons, twice the population, 20 times the economic strength, much more powerful military and has recently kicked the Armenians ass in a couple of regional wars.
Well, so France mucking about in Armenia has triggered a counter response, with Azerbaijan now monkeyed around in New Caledonia. Now Azerbaijan brings nothing to this fight. They have no experience in supporting it with dissidents. They don’t know how to do paramilitary attacks at all. But what they do have is a metric butt ton of money. This is a country with barely 10 million people who have a million barrels per day of oil exports, and they can throw a lot of cash at a lot of things, at a lot of places if they want to.
And for their first big trick, they’re trying to sponsor a revolution in the South Pacific just to piss France off. It’s working.
WEBINAR – Peter Zeihan’s Risk List: What Keeps a Geopolitical Strategist Up at Night
Please join Peter Zeihan for a webinar on June 5th at 12:00 PM EST on a topic that is near and dear to the hearts of the Zeihan on Geopolitics team: geopolitical risk. This webinar will feature Peter’s reasonable-fear list, focused on issues that in his opinion have the most potential to impact market outcomes.
Today we’ll be looking at why the French are considering sending military aid to Armenia…and no, its not because they’re looking to swap croissant and nazook recipes.
Let’s disregard NATO and EU ties to Azerbaijan for this discussion, because this move by the French is more motivated by Turkey’s support of Azerbaijan and Iran’s declining regional influence. There’s also some Armenian ex-pats who might be helping push this forward.
The French are coping with their loss of influence in West Africa by expanding their reach to Armenia in hopes that it will help give them some influence in a new sphere. This move would also help to position the French against the rising Turkish influence in the region, so two birds I guess.
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.
France recently has been, entering conversations about military assistance for aid or supply to Armenia. France, you know, famously has a large Armenian ex-pat population, but NATO, the EU, very broadly have deep energy trade monetization ties with Azerbaijan. is there a future quagmire facing, the individual elements of EU member states, the EU as an organization, NATO membership, with what seems to be a intensifying conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
This is this is purely a France issue. NATO’s actually involved with the Armenia Azerbaijan issue. If anything, it’s going to be decided by which direction the two other powers in the region decide to go Iran and Turkey. In the case of Iran, they don’t bring a lot to the table anymore, especially if the Russians are out in.
The Russians are out. the Turks obviously out of a partnership and an ethnic relationship with the Azerbaijanis, and that is getting more robust by the day. And Azerbaijan has proven to be a wonderful testbed for Turkish drone technology, which has absolutely obliterated any strategic independence at the Armenians may have once had. So the French basically are playing a little bit of a double game.
the French have lost their position. West Africa, which from a strategic and an economic point of view is no big loss. But it was a hit to the prestige. And they absolutely blame the Russians and absolutely accurately blame the Russians for that. So now the French are in the process of doing a strategic realignment. And that means, first and foremost, take a good, hard look at the interests of the country that are causing them to do that.
And that is the Russians. So the French are considering putting troops in Ukraine very seriously, in order to provide a bulwark for the Ukrainians and most importantly, for the French to learn about all these changes in technology, as we saw with the Azerbaijani, Armenia war of late, as well as Ukraine war. Drone drones are the newest thing and the French have no experience with that.
So in both of these theaters, that’s one of the things they’ve got their eyes on in terms of the Caucasus, the French have a little bit more room to maneuver there than, say, the Germans or the Italians, because they’re not dependent upon as of any energy at all. and we are seeing a rising what’s the right here interaction of Turkish interests and French interests.
Because as the United States steps back from a lot of things, the eastern med becomes a potential zone of competition. And if that turns harsh, the French are gonna want some cards to play on another front. As a region, Armenia, the Caucasus plays into that. I’m not saying that these two powers have to not get along. I’m saying that they need to figure out whether they’re going to get along or not.
And France establishing a few flags on the ground in Armenia is a way to do that. Doesn’t mean they’re going to be hostile. It means they’re going to be rubbing up against each other more often. And this is preparation.
There’s been recent discussions by French President Macron regarding deploying French troops to Ukraine. Is this really going to happen and why would they do this?
Given France’s nationalist stance, stable demographics, and the evolving European landscape, this appears to be a feasible endeavor. The French stand to gain some insight to tech and new tactics, some resource regulation, and the obvious strategic positioning to support Ukrainian forces and the security interests of wider Europe.
Given the relative speed with which France can make decisions and implement them (when compared to the Germans), this is likely the emergence of the French as an assertive power in European strategic conversations. This move could shake up all of Europe, so I’ll be monitoring this situation as it continues to unfold.
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.
Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Colorado today. We’re going to kick around with the French are doing in Europe, specifically in Ukraine. You have French President Macron, who has been recently talking about sending French troops into Ukraine. And not only is this week broken the eyes on a broader strategic discussion. It bears the question of what the hell the French are thinking, how they fit into the alliance network, how this might play out.
And I got to say, in traditional French fashion, it’s it’s interesting. So the French have a reputation well earned, I might point out, for being rather narcissistic. They’re convinced that the world revolves around them. They they believe that oftentimes the Americans are just as much of a problem as the more legitimate strategic threats, because the Americans tend to take the lead in everything because they’re providing the men and the money and the intelligence and the satellite system and the transport, you know, other pesky things.
But the French have always, always, always been at the center of decision making in Europe, largely because they’ve had a relatively strategic position out on the western edge where they’re not being constantly hit from multiple directions so they can focus their forces when they want to, not the the degree of a naval power like Britain, of course, but for a land power, they punch pretty hard and it’s kind of hard to hit them back.
Now, what this means is that the French being on the far side of Western Europe are directly impacted by the day to day goings on of the Ukraine war. And even in the worst case scenario where Ukraine falls, they’re not in the next line of attack. That would be Poland and Germany and then the low countries before you would get to France.
So from a certain point of view, the French can take an almost American approach to this and take the very long view. And that’s been shaped by their political culture, their geography, their military system. You know, this is nothing new here. But why? Why, why, why, why would they be talking about sending troops? Well, we’ve got a few things going on that are making this more and more feasible.
Number one, the very nature of Europe needs to change. So the EU, as it was originally envisioned, was an economic and trading club, but everything that allowed it to work has basically broken down in the last few years. Number one, globalization is going away. So the Europeans are losing their ability to sell on the international market bit by bit.
France, being nationalist, never really got into that. So they don’t have anything to lose. Second demographics. Most of Europe is aging so rapidly that all of the major countries basically ceased functioning as modern economies. And 5 to 15 years. But not France. France actually has needless policies and so has a pretty high birth rate or complications that come from that.
But this is not a country whose economic models in danger. Third, if Europe as an entity is going to matter at all. It has to be able to stand up for its own security concerns. And we now know very clearly that the Russians are not going to stop unless they are stopped. That means France, despite being on the far western edge, can’t take a completely hands off approach.
You can take the long view, but it can’t do nothing. You put all this together and the French see, putting boots on the ground as you create is something to very seriously consider. Number one, there’s a lot of resources, especially in agriculture in Ukraine, getting that under the European EGIS so it can be regulated by European norms is something the French like, just as it is.
Number two, technology. Ukraine has become a background in a new type of warfare using mass drones in the hands of not just strategic decision makers, but everyday troops. And if you are France, you would rather understand that before it comes to your borders. So having folks there not just to train the Ukrainians, but to be trained by the Ukrainians makes a lot of sense.
Three, whatever the future of the European Union is going to be, it’s not going to be a major trading bloc. They no longer have the population to sustain that. It’s going to be based more on politics, security, culture and identity. Well, these are things that the French are much more comfortable with. And if you can bring Ukraine into that family, it makes the overall unity of the system much stronger and more coherent.
This isn’t like the old days when the French would oppose European Union expansion because they don’t want to have to subsidize anyone. Those days are over anyway. The European Union is losing the ability to do that as the Germans age out. There’s no one left to write the check except for the French, and they don’t want to. So they’d rather change the nature of the union itself.
And then finally, there’s a leadership issue here. A very short term leadership issue under German Chancellor Schulz. Germany is basically getting dragged into a lot of strategic positions. They’ve got a fractured government made of libertarian businessmen, Greens and social Democrats. And there’s very little that they agree on. And it’s really hard for them to change their mind on any policy or take a leadership position, because before Germany can act, the coalition has to come to an agreement.
So whether it’s been on subsidies or health care or labor negotiations or the Ukraine war or EU policy, everything has just been so damn slow. And then you have France, where there’s a majority government run by a major party under a relatively airmatic leader who can make decisions and implement them very quickly. And if you put that in the context of what’s going on Ukraine right now in this conversation of troops, people are looking to Germany to set the strategic conversation at all.
They’re looking to the French and may they may not like what the French have to say. But there’s a lot of different opinions, because if you are in Estonia or Latvia or Lithuania or Finland or Sweden or Poland, well, of course we’re going to have to get involved in Ukraine. Of course, the Russians are not going to stop.
Of course, we need to consider putting boots on the ground in order to protect the Ukrainians and look out for European values to have someone on the other side of Europe and far west saying that. That’s a rallying cry, not something to argue against. So for the first time in quite some time, the French are getting some very real strategic kudos from other European countries for being aggressive as opposed to just arguing with the United States.
And then there’s the final issue of what would they do when we get there. We’re not talking about French troops going to the frontline and fighting the Russians. No, no, this is not a Napoleonic invasion. The idea is threefold. Number one, you put them there in order to repair equipment that the Ukrainians need. So it doesn’t have to get shipped all the way to Western Europe.
So speed the process up. Number two, training it both ways. The French training the Ukrainians, especially things like Special forces, the Ukrainians training the French, and especially in things like drone tech. And then third, provide a strategic backstop in places that you don’t expect to get hot but could. So you put French troops on, say, the border of Belarus or the border of Moldova, where the Russians have forces in a place called Transnistria, where they’re basically sponsored a secessionist operation 30 years ago, and they’re still there.
And that way the Ukrainian forces that are there now can redirect to the front line. So there’s a lot of reasons that we should treat this seriously. I mean, yes, it’s the French, so there’s a lot of bombast and pomposity. But this is a very, very real strategic discussion that Macron has started. And if I was a betting man, I’d say it’s going to manifest as something that is actually real before the end of this year.
There’s been a surge in coups throughout African countries, and there’s a common thread connecting them – most are former French colonies.
Looking back at the colonial histories of the French and the British, two very different strategies were implemented. The Brits opted for the economic route – targeting regions and areas of strategic significance. The French took a more ego-driven approach and focused on the biggest swaths of territory.
While the Brits primarily wanted a cut of the profits from their colonies, the French wanted to be in charge of everything, so they hollowed out systems and put their people in charge. Fast forward to the present day, the French have packed their bags and left shells of colonies primed for coups and prone to external influence from China and Russia.
As these coups run their course, French involvement could take on a number of different forms. That’s what makes this so interesting….the French are a wildcard, and their involvement comes down to how they see themselves.
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.
Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. If you’ve been watching places like Africa, you notice that coups are just happening fast and furious. Obviously, I’ve lost track of how many we’re at now, at least five. But almost all of them have been former French colonies. And that is not just a correlation. There’s some something very real there linking them together.
And so I think it’s worth exploring how this is going down and why and why it’s here. And that will allow us to project for the future a little bit. So the French colonial experience was significantly different than that of the British one. The Brits were a mercantile empire, a corporate empire. They saw the empire as a way to make money.
And the French had a very keeping up with the Joneses sort of approach. So the French like the way the maps looked, whereas the Brits like the way their accounting books looked. So the Brits would go out and they would look for connection nodes, productive lands, if they can find them. But mostly with the notes where everything linked together and they put themselves in there into a cut of everything coming through.
They didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. They just tried to profit from the wheels coming through. Whereas the French it was more an issue of national prestige. So the bigger the block of territory on the map, the better. And it was kind of a sorry French people. It’s kind of a kindergarten approach to geography, trying to make your political map look great, whereas the Brits were concerned with the economic map.
So I think the best example I can give you in this region, in West Africa, there’s a country called Senegal, which was a sizable chunk of territory, former French colony. But there’s a little bite right out of the middle of that along the Gambia River called a country, say, the Gambia. And The Gambia is a former British colony.
So the productive capacity mostly is on the land that the French controlled. But all of the ins and outs and the logistics and the trade was controlled by the Brits. And so the Gambia was a much wealthier colony, would generate a lot more income for the locals and for their British overlords were Senegal. Even today is kind of not the best.
And this is reflected throughout the entire region. So the Brits would go after things like the Nile, so they would take them to Egypt or they’d go after the Highland Plains that have good agricultural zones and minerals like, say, South Africa, where, as the French would take the entirety of West Africa regardless of what was there. So a lot of the French territories are in a place called the Sahel, which is where the desert of the Sahara starts to get a little bit of moisture.
And so, you know, you can have some people and then transition into the rainforest. It’s the transition zone that economically is subpar and based on climate shifts, whether from human made climate change or things going back, it moves what areas are dry and wet. So the French were able to take control of it very easily because the local populations were, in many cases nomadic, but they never had dense population patterns.
They never had a lot of cultivation. They never had a lot of mining. They never had a lot of wealth. But the French could control it. And these are the territories that are now going through these political ossification and breaks. And now so no coincidence that it’s the French territories that are not as durable politically and economically as the former British colonies.
The second issue is one of political culture of the empires, since the Brits were primarily concerned with the income that they could get. They did not want to disrupt the initial original political and economic classes. They just installed their colonial overseers as governors general about that and allowed the locals to run. Most businesses themselves. And the Brits just took the cuts.
The French? No, no, no, no, no. It was about French control. So one of the first things that the French did whenever they came into a community is get rid by death or otherwise of anyone who was in charge. And then the French colonials would take over everything directly. They might not understand the local economy then that might not be permitted wormwood which could be a problem.
But more importantly, it meant that when the French colonials finally did leave, they didn’t leave a whole lot behind. I mean, the Indians will tell you no end of stories of how horrible the Brits were to them. It’s a case to be made there, but the Brits never really disrupted the political leadership. And so when the Brits did leave, the Indians were perfectly capable of ruling the country themselves.
In the case of the French, the French might have helped set up a specific group to take over when the French left, but that group, because it was hand-picked, would probably be resented by everyone else who was there. And by the time you fast forward to the 2020s, some of these dudes have been there for 50 or 60 years, or the sons of the original deputies and the locals don’t think very highly of them.
And so they’re getting offed in this sort of situation. The French have gotten pretty good at interpersonal relationships, and they’re very comfortable at backing the big man who’s in charge of everything. But because they never got into that kind of societal management of the British, they’re not very good at fighting the support mechanisms, aside from, say, guns and intelligence that are necessary to allow these big men leaders to actually run their countries in a capable way.
So you have a coup before all institution of government fails and is replaced by something else. It becomes very much a blank slate. Now, in blank slate scenarios, it’s fairly easy for an outside power to come in giving them on the ground floor or something new and try to usurp French power a little bit. Because the French power got wiped away when it got turned into a blank slate.
And this has provided significant opportunities for, say, the Chinese and the Russians to go into an area where they were never the colonial powers, where the historical experience is minimal. It actually makes a real gains. But this is temporary. It’s a blank slate. Nothing is established and the French are still much closer. And the local language is typically French.
And you’re dealing with an environment where the French know how to play this game, because if it’s someone else’s institutions, the French are perfectly capable of coming in and making their own blank slate. Remember, the French are much less squeamish than the Anglos about things like suitcase, size of cash and assassinations. And so what we’re seeing right now is the French are trying to decide their plan of attack.
Do they want to wipe out the people who wiped out their people double blind slate? Or do they just want to see if these people can successfully consolidate, in which case they go with that suitcase of cash? Or are the French or the Chinese going to get there first and set up their own institution, in which case the French have to come in and assassinate someone?
These are all viable options from the French point of view. But perhaps the single most important thing that people miss when they’re looking at the French and their former colonies is because the French ran their empire is basically a giant ego stroking machine as opposed to a moneymaking machine. That means that they don’t actually have significant national interests in most of these countries.
And there is nothing like, say, the British exposure to a like Gibraltar, where it’s actually a strategic interest for India, where there’s an economic interest. The French are capable of just swallowing their ego and walking away. But I think the most important thing to think about here is the French are much more comfortable in this environment and know how to manipulate it.
They’re better at assassinations if they don’t like the way it’s going to go. And because they don’t have any sunk national interest in this stuff, they have no problem walking into someone else’s experiment and just destroying it. So don’t think a French intervention or not intervention in West Africa as the sort of thing you might see out of the Americans or the Brits or even the Russians.
The sunk costs here are low, and that makes the French perhaps the most interesting thing that can happen in an interaction all tussle unpredictable because it all comes down to how the French see themselves and everyone else. Due details.
The French have found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, and a coup in Niger happens to be the catalyst for this predicament. To be clear, we’re only talking about Niger because of what it means for the French.
We all know the storied past of the British and French colonies, and a keen history buff would know France set up shop in the Sahel and West Africa. Well, this coup in Niger could mark the end for the French in this region.
There are a couple of options on the table. France could make the political decision to go in and kick out Wagner (who is a major foreign backer), which would be a roundabout way of attacking Russia. Or the French could pack up and march back to Europe, where they would also have to duke it out with the Russians, given the EU’s stance on the Ukraine War.
The French have long had their hands in many different pots, made easier by their geographic degree of separation from any rivals. However, it appears that the French will be making moves against Russia regardless of how they handle the situation in Niger…and that’s what makes this coup so important.
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.
Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from the front range foothills above Denver. And today we’re going to talk about the French and what they’re gonna be doing in the next several months. Specifically, the trigger is a coup that occurred in the African state of Niger, which is roughly at the intersection of no. And where people are trying to rack their brains about why Niger is important.
And let’s be very specific about this. Economically, it is not. Yes, it is a uranium source for the French, but uranium is not rare. Kazakhstan and Australia and Canada are three of the world’s fourth largest producers, and all three of those are increasing their output. So it’s not like this is going to cause a huge shock to the international system in any meaningful way.
The withdrawal of Russia from the uranium market would be far more substantial, and that hasn’t happened yet anyway. Why it matters is because it matters to the French. During the Imperial era, the British and the French were basically duking it out and competing for this or that colony wherever it happened to be. And the Brits were very, very smart about it.
They would look for places where there were natural markets or even better transport nodes, such as rivers that allowed them to take control of a local trade system without controlling all of the surrounding countryside. And that left all the countryside largely available for the French. And the French looked at it as a national ego issue and a size issue.
And so for them, the Sahel in West Africa was great because it was these huge expanses of territory. Well, you fast forward today and the Brits have the Commonwealth, which allows them to maintain some of those trade links. And the French are basically looking out for a number of countries that don’t like them very much, that are broadly economically worthless and difficult to defend throughout the Sahel and West Africa.
You have jihadist insurgencies because a lot of those areas near desert and it’s very difficult for the local countries to build capacity. And so they have to invite the French in to try to maintain a degree of security order. The problem with that strategy is when you have very low population density and very fragile systems, coups happen. And this is not the first coup in the region.
There’s already been one in Mali and Burkina Faso, which are two other former French outposts where the French troops have had to withdraw. Now, if Niger goes the same way, that’s pretty much the end of the French post-colonial jihadist era anti-insurgency operations throughout the region. It really is what’s left. It is the linchpin for what’s left. So the French now have to make a decision.
Well, let me give you the two options. Number one is they go in hard and kill or capture the losers. This is something that would be dramatic. Now, the French have the capacity. Nobody’s doubting that in terms of bullets for bullets, soldier for soldier, you’re talking about a force that is on par with American special forces. Probably don’t tell the special forces that.
And with a lot fewer political restrictions on their mode for action. So when they go in, they go in very hard. I have no doubt they could do that. The problem the problem is that the computers in Burkina Faso, in Mali and probably now in Niger are in part successful because of their links to Russia’s Wagner Group. Now, if you guys remember Wagner, that was the group that threw their little abortive coup a few weeks ago and were basically purged from the military system in Ukraine.
And the question is where they do now. Looks like a lot of them maintain operations within the African landmass because honestly, the routes are a little bit more flexible there. And if Wagner is in Africa, then they’re not in Moscow. There are are some operations in Moscow to take over Wagner directly to purge it of some of the senior leadership that might be more amenable to throwing a coup back home.
But part and parcel pieces of it will still remain active in Africa. The question is, what does everyone do about that? Wagner has been accused quite accurately of war crimes and crimes against humanity. And now that we know it’s the Russian state and has been all along. States are going to treat it differently. And this is an opportunity for France a very, very capable country, in an area that is near and dear to its heart to actually do something.
So we very well way see the French and the Russians going at it in Africa. And that would be a situation where the Russians would be eviscerated because Russian logistics are completely dependent on international trade and shipments. And France has an expeditionary navy in addition to some of the world’s best special forces. So that would be delightful to see.
But it’s a French political decision that would have to be made to pull the trigger. They can either have imperial retreat and the humiliation that they perceive that goes along with that, or they can take the fight to the Russians, which is a country that they attempted to not break relations with completely. Not an easy choice. Option two They suck it up and they go home.
One of the things that makes France. France is that it is far enough away from all of the global hotspots, whether it’s East Asia or Ukraine, that they have the flexibility to have fingers in a lot of pots. The quintessential statement is France has no enemies, no allies, only interests. And there’s a lot of truth to that. Well, if an entire region, Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, specifically, all of a sudden is a no go zone for the French, then they have a significantly lower number of interests in their neighborhood, and that will force them to focus on the ones that remain.
And if they can’t project power to West Africa, the idea that they can project power to a place like East Asia is kind of silly. So all of a sudden Europe becomes a lot more important to them, and Europe is involved in a war with the Russians. So one way or another, Paris is about to decide or be forced into circumstances where it’s going to be taking a lot more direct action against all things Russian, whether that’s in Ukraine or Africa, doesn’t really matter.
And that is something we have not seen the sort of lockstep agreement in the Western world is pretty rare, historically speaking, to have a cultural group form an alliance that’s already rare and it’s already been significant. But France has always been a bit of an outlier. And what we’re going to see over the rest of this year is that’s going to be a lot less true.
And that’s a real problem if you’re Russian because, you know, say what you will about the French. They are not shy and they are very capable and they’re about to throw in their lot. It’s going to be fun to watch. All right. Take care.
Riots have broken out in France after police killed a 17-year-old kid. When a similar situation occurred in ’05, there were weeks of riots. We can’t be sure if the same will happen here, but it’s worth looking into based on France’s unique demographic situation.
The US is no stranger to issues of race, but there are constant conversations on the topic, and members of most minorities are represented throughout all levels of government. The French haven’t quite figured that out yet.
France deemed their ethnic conflict so extreme they had to redefine what “being French” meant. So whether you were Catalan, Basque, from Paris or Marseille…you were now just French. This made tracking and collecting ethnic data illegal and unconstitutional. So France doesn’t even know how big their racial problem is…
They’ve essentially institutionalized racism and created massive divides between urban centers and marginalized areas where these “2nd class citizens” live. Lacking a proper understanding of the situation has made allocating resources outside of law enforcement a non-starter, further dividing the groups and adding tension to an already unstable situation.
Despite this vulnerability, I remain optimistic about France’s future. Given its self-reliant economic system and strong demographic picture, they should be just fine…they’ll have to sort this other stuff out ASAP though.
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.
Hey, everybody. Hello. From Sunny Colorado. Today we’re going to talk about France. There have been a number of protests and a number of schools and police officers have been burned in the last couple of days. The triggering event is the police killed a kid. I want to say it was like 15, 17, something like that. And so there’s been this spontaneous uprising of violence. We haven’t seen activity like this since 2005. Back then, similar cause police killed a couple of kids that were hiding from the police and it triggered riots that lasted several weeks. Too soon to know if this is going to be one of those sort of explosive, protracted events. But it’s worth considering because France is not like a lot of other places. Now, here in the United States, we obviously have a checkered past and a checkered present when it comes to issues of race. And it’s part of the conversation all the time. And there are members of a number of minorities that are represented have been governments at all levels, especially the national level. We’ve even had a black president. That is not the situation in France. In France, they made the decision back after the revolution that ethnic conflict was so extreme that they had to redefine what the term French mean. So it didn’t matter if you were Catalan or Basque or from Paris or Marseilles or Alsatian, didn’t matter. Everyone was French now and all of the various groups that had been part of a series of civil wars and disturbances in France going back a millennium all of a sudden were considered all of the same family. And in the modern age, what that means is it’s illegal, unconstitutional, even to collect ethnic data on the French population. And if everyone was just Basque or Catalan or French or Alsatian, that might be okay. But that is not the France of today. As part of the colonial legacy, a number of people from the former colonies have moved to the mainland. France, metropolitan France and even have French citizenship. In fact, in some cases, their great great grandparents had French citizenship. So these are not people who arrived recently, but because it’s illegal, unconstitutional to collect any sort of racial data. They exist as a sort of second class. That is from the American term almost undocumented because of the racism that exists in all societies. So in the case of France, they don’t even know how big the racial problem is. It’s probably about 15% of the population is non-ethnic French, but legally French. And that has institutionalized the racism in a way that we have a really hard time processing here in the United States. In many cases, it’s more similar to what they’ve got in Brazil. You’ve got an urban center where the ethnic French live that is relatively well-off. And then you’ve got a ring of suburbs that is more akin to slums where most of the non-ethnic French who are still French citizens live. And because the French can’t even do the first step of collecting data in order to get a good grip on what the size of the issue is, it’s really hard for the government to apportion resources outside of law enforcement. So in many ways, parts of France, even in their major cities, resemble a little bit of armed camps. And that makes it very easy for violence to erupt, because it’s it’s not a big reach for people who are the subject of be living in the armed camps to rebel against the people who are supposedly providing law and order. Now, for those of you who know my work, you know that I’m very bullish on France in the long run. They never bet their economic, much less their political system. On globalization. And they never integrated their economy into the European Union. They’ve always seen themselves as a step apart. And that means that they’ve sacrificed a lot of efficiencies and a lot of the reach they could have gotten under the globalized era in order to maintain a more nationally oriented economic system. But comes at a big cost. But it does mean as globalization breaks down one, that the French don’t have that far to fall, because if the EU were to dissolve tomorrow and Freedom of the Seas were to cease to exist next week, the French economic system is largely in-house. There are massive producer and exporter of agricultural products. They’ve got energy nearby in both the North Sea and in northwest Africa. They’re several countries removed from the Ukraine war. And what’s going on with the Russians and their primary economic competitor is also their primary political partner in the current environment, and that is Germany. And unlike the French, the Germans have gone whole hog on globalization to the point that we’re already seeing massive problems there when it comes to exposure to the Chinese systems or the Russian systems or whatever. The French have none of that. And then finally, the French demographic is strong because there is a neo natal sort of policy set that encourages people to have kids in large numbers, giving France the healthiest demographic structure in the world outside of New Zealand and the United States happens to be third in that regard among the advanced countries. So all of these things add up to a strong prognosis for the French over the medium to long term. But the racial issue is absolutely France’s Achilles heel, and we’re seeing that boil up right now. All right. That’s it for me, you guys take care.
Today’s video is coming to you from Charteris Bay, New Zealand.
The week’s major news is that French President Macron is trying to bring Chinese President Xi to his senses. As Macron urges Xi to drop his support of Putin and the Russian war on Ukraine, we need to see why this conversation is even happening.
Russians like to blame the Americans for their shortcomings, and while this may have held some truth in the years following the Cold War, just about every country out there has an anti-Russian policy. The Chinese have jumped on the bandwagon and want to blame the US for their issues, but now most countries have developed their own anti-Chinese policies.
As the US steps back as the world’s police, these countries’ policies will play an even bigger part in the international space. While countries like the US and France may still operate as partners, each will put its own interests first. And countries like Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia, and India can even shape how China interacts with the rest of the world.
So what does all of this mean? China is simultaneously dealing with a multi-vectored opposition and mounting internal struggles. Between impending demographic collapse, single-pronged politics, and a crumbling financial system, the world can sit back and watch the Chinese system implode.
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.
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Everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Charteris Bay on the South Island of New Zealand, just outside of Christchurch. This is going to be one of my last recordings from New Zealand, but these are all being released out of order based on current events. So you’re going to see a little bit more of this gem that I used to call home in the weeks to come.
Anyway, the big issue from this last week, from my opinion, was that French President Macron has been visiting China to have talks with chairman is using ping and to try to talk him out of some of his degree of support for what’s going on in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now, Chinese media has been blaring about what a wonderful summit this is and France’s idea of strategic independence, the idea that France, specifically in Europe in general, don’t have to follow the cue of the United States.
They’ve been really hitting that hard. And it kind of shows the degree of political disintegration within China has now even reached the diplomatic core. Let me unpack that a little bit. So one of the things that the Russians have always believed that the Chinese are now starting to say that they believe is that behind every plot and every downside and every setback that Moscow and Beijing have ever experienced is the American hand and that the Americans have been orchestrating and creating this alliance in order to contain and beat them back.
And during the Cold War, there was definitely something to that, because the policy really was containment. And in the aftermath of World War Two, all of the traditional powers that had bordered, the Soviets were broken in one way or the other. So the United States physically reconstructed them, provided them with economic aid, created a global system that allowed them to trade and access energy and markets.
And as a result, the United States received the authority to set their security policies. And while that certainly did contain and ultimately beat back the Soviet Union, it also gave the Soviets a lot of space. Because if you look at the time before 1945, the Soviets were dealing with a couple of dozen major countries, all of which had their own interests and all of them which viewed Russia as a mortal threat.
So whether it was Finland or Sweden or Norway or Denmark or Poland or Germany or France or Turkey or Japan, each of these independent countries had their own anti-Russia strategy. And one of the reasons why the Russians are so hosed now is a lot of these countries are coming back into their own because we are entering a post-American world.
Yes, the United States is, to a degree, riding a herd on what’s left of the alliance structure. But because the United States is a military structure has shifted now, because it’s now super carrier focused as opposed to having hundreds of ships, it can be everywhere at once. The United States just physically can’t be there at any given time.
And in the aftermath of the war on terror and the Iraq conflict, the United States isn’t going to be deploying land troops on a global basis for a very long time, if ever again. That leaves it to these independent countries to look after their own policy sets. And they have, historically speaking, been far more incisive, using far more invective and far more subtle and far more disruptive and far more subversive than anything the United States has ever done.
Yes, the United States is has been and will remain the single most powerful player, but it’s not the only one. And because of the nature of American foreign policy making, where you’ve got the president and the secretary of state and the national security adviser, and that’s about it. That’s the decision makers. The U.S. really has a hard time focusing on more than two or three things at a time, whereas if you’re in, say, France, you can focus on issues closer to the horizon with more intensive ness.
And so the Chinese inability to make this distinction means that they’re preparing for a world where the United States is riding herd in an alliance that doesn’t exist. And that means everything else is going to be able to come through the crap, because anyone who has studied French policy knows that the French are wildly creative at causing problems for countries they don’t like, for whatever reason.
So are the French and the Americans going to operate side by side with no light between them? No. The partners were friends to a degree. We’re even family, but we don’t always see the things through the same light. And yes, Washington does find that annoying from time to time as the French, from our point of view, go off.
But the French are doing things for the French and they’re not for certainly not doing it for the Chinese or the Russians. So that’s kind of piece. One piece to is look at the array of countries that are going to be doing this. The French are actually a minor power in the East Asian sphere. I would be far more concerned about countries like Japan, which has the world’s second largest blue water navy, who has the capacity of shutting down the sea lanes that go to and from China without help from the United States.
I’d be worried about the Taiwanese because, well, militarily, they’re not going to conquer the mainland anytime soon. They still have the intelligence apparatus operating within China already. This is the only thing that they care about because a significant amount of harm and disruption and of course, gather information for others and worry about Vietnam, which has a coastline on the South China Sea that’s over a thousand miles long.
But the Chinese have to sail down. The Vietnamese don’t even need a navy to disrupt Chinese commerce. I’d worry about Australia, which is in the process of building nuclear submarines and more importantly, mid-range air launched cruise missiles, which could disrupt everything the Chinese can do. I would worry about India, who doesn’t even have to leave home in order to completely wreck the Chinese economy.
None of these countries, with the possible exception of Australia, really operate as deputies of the United States. All of them are creative. All of them have their own capacities and all of them have their own reasons for tearing down the Chinese system in its current form. China is dealing with a multitude vectored opposition of countries that can think for themselves and act for themselves.
Now, why would the Chinese let them fall into this trap? I mean, this really is Soviet style groupthink in play here. Are the Chinese smart or don’t they think three steps ahead, aren’t they the chess players while the Americans are the checkers players? Yeah, that’s a bunch of bullshit. About seven or eight years ago, the cult of personality forming up in China reached the point of no return, and it started taking the official form of something called Jinping thought.
And that sounds a little bit groupthink ish. It’s because it is. The idea is not only do we have a party ideology, we have one dude who’s setting our goal, setting the process that we use to think and evaluate everything. And we need to all think like him. So in his first five years as Premier, she purged the party of everyone who was an alternate power center against him.
And in the second five years, he went against anyone who has any independent decision making at all. So there’s no one left. It’s just him and his little form of groupthink is now all that is left. So Chinese diplomacy, Chinese defense planning used to be multifactor. They used to have a good intelligence system. They used to have a good propaganda system.
But over the course of the last few years that has dissolved completely and all that is left is this monochromatic thought process that is fixated on a story that is wildly inaccurate, and that is what guides all Chinese decision making now. For those of you been following for me for a while, you know, I think that the demographic situation in China is far passed terminal.
It’s a country killer, you know that. I think the financial system is far passed terminal and that’s a country killer. And now we have a race with political incompetence as to what is actually going to kill the country first. Now and the long view of history. It doesn’t really matter if you’re killed by the car wreck falling off of a cliff or heart disease.
But for playing up the history in the here and now for the next several years, it really will matter. And if it’s policy incompetence that really leads China to its end. The impact on the Chinese population will be particular, really horrific because this is a country that is dependent upon international connections, not just for its economic wear for all, but for its energy and its food supplies.
And the last time we had that sort of break, it was another period where an individual on the Chinese system impressed his version of ideology into everyone’s thinking and that was Mao Zedong thought. And that led to the Cultural Revolution, the great leap forward and the death of tens of millions of his own countrymen from famine and political purges.
We are entering the situation where that’s one of the better scenarios for China for the next decade or two. All right. You all take care. See you next time.
