Taking Naval Options Away from China

A Chinese Naval chip in harbor

There were some recent tests in the Philippines involving the Japanese Type-88 anti-ship missile system and the U.S. Typhon launcher. These truck-mounted systems can move throughout the islands, rather than relying on fixed bases.

Deploying these systems across the first island chain would limit China’s naval access to the wider Pacific. We’re also seeing Japan step into a new era of defense policy, reflected by a broader regional effort to contain Chinese naval power.

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Transcript

Hey all. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Queta in Umbria in Italy today. We’re talking about a couple of events that happened in the Asian rim in the Philippines specifically last week. We had two test fires of weapon systems. First, the Japanese launch something called a type 88 anti-ship missile. And the United States launched something from what’s called a typhoon. 

Excuse me, typhoon launcher, which is basically a tomahawk, those long range cruise missiles the US is famous or infamous for, based on whether you’re target or not. Both of them launched from the Philippines. Both of these are truck mounted systems. The Chinese threw a bit of a shit fit, but there’s really not a lot they can do about them. 

The issue is two things. Number one, the first island chain, which is the line of islands including Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia, they’re all at least nominal US allies. But more to the point, they block the Chinese from accessing the wider world unless these nations allow it. What are the things that has held up during the Cold War? 

The post-Cold War era is that the United States has not reinforced the first island chain, because during the Cold War, China was an ally against the Soviet Union. And it’s only in the last couple of decades that that has really changed in the last few years, where they’ve become outright hostile, which means that we are now in the early stages of fortifying the island chain, not just the United States, but the countries in question. 

Because if you can install weapons systems that can hit ships, then the Chinese are permanently locked into the lake that is the west side of the the island chain. And now that is happening. Second, like I say, we have three things. Second, the weapon systems involved are truck launched. So you don’t even need a fixed installation. The Typhon Tomahawk launcher, you know, has the range of a normal tomahawk, which can be pushing 1500 miles. 

And the type 88 is shorter. It’s actually an older system that only has a rate of about 100 miles. But they have newer systems that they haven’t just put into place in the area right now. But you take the Philippines, which is one of the most erratic, probably the best word countries in the region with the lowest military capability. 

You have a bunch of trucks running around, some driven by the Japanese, some driven by US Marines, and all of a sudden everything within several hundred miles of the archipelago is completely no go for Chinese vessels. And that’s before you consider more capable states such as, say, Taiwan. So these two weapon systems are basically enough to completely castrate the entire Chinese military position. 

So of course the Chinese are kind of losing their minds. Third thing, this is the first time that Japan has tested an offensive weapon system outside of home islands since World War two. 

Japanese were forced by the United States in the aftermath of the war to have permanent neutrality, and that is now rapidly eroding away. And if you take a country that has the second most capable navy in the planet, you allow them to start stationing military assets outside of their country. And it doesn’t matter, really, what the relationship with the United States happens to be. The Chinese aren’t going anywhere. So we’ve now had a very, very clear example of what can happen with these new systems or even old systems. 

Something to keep in mind. There are a number of countries in the world that, operating all by themselves, that have the ability to completely destroy the Chinese economy because they can interfere with any sort of corporate shipping. China is the most dependent country in the world on globalization because they import a lot of their food, they import the inputs they need to grow their own food. 

They import the raw materials they need to make their manufactured goods, and then they have to export the manufactured goods to pay for it all. You interrupt the sea lanes and it all falls apart. So Japan and the United States obviously have the direct naval power to do that whenever they want to. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia do, because they control the straits that allow the Chinese access Middle Eastern crude and European end markets. 

The Australians have weapon systems that can reach that entire zone as well. And now the freaking Philippines has a bunch of dudes running around on trucks that are getting weapons systems so that they can do it to the degree to which the Chinese are in a box here is immense. So it really doesn’t matter from my point of view, what happens with demographics or relations with the United States or globalization in general? 

Every time you look at this from a fresh angle, the Chinese are screwed and the state media really realizes that, which is why they’re having such an outrage rejection of what’s going on right now. And the Japanese side, this is barely even talked about. They’re just kind of sneaking in the background. Anyway, that’s it for me for today. Until next time.

Latvia’s Political Flux Caused by Drones

Photo of a military drone

Latvia’s government is in flux following the firing of the defense minister, his party leaving the coalition, and the prime minister resigning. All of this was caused by some Ukrainian drones being electronically redirected by Russian countermeasures and striking Latvian infrastructure.

This specific event involving Latvia highlights just how quickly drone technology is evolving. The Ukraine War has been a testing ground for all of it, and several countries are now partnering with Ukraine to mass-produce Ukrainian drone technology. The U.S. is not on that list of countries and will likely fall behind the eight ball on the drone front.

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Transcript

Hey all, Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Umbria in Italy. Olives. Because, you know, Italy today we’re talking about a little nonstandard thing about a government falling in Europe. Now, there’s 30 odd governments in Europe, and one of them is always in crisis. So I usually don’t follow the blow by blow. But this one’s really interesting, Prime Minister. 

Let’s see if I get this right. You silly. Is the Prime Minister was the Prime minister of Latvia, which is one of the three Baltic countries population of about 2.5 million. She resigned this past week over a defense crisis. The situation has to do with drone technology and the Ukraine war. So specifically the Ukrainians have been using drones more recently, new types of drones to attack various chunks of Russia’s energy sector and trying to destroy the logistics support that makes Russia’s participation in the Ukraine war possible. 

So they’ve been very active around places like Mariupol in going after logistics. They’ve been very active in places like the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea in going after energy assets. Now there are multiple types of drones, but let’s talk about two. So in the first one you’ve got something called an FPG first person visual. And that’s your typical drone that you might buy from a company like say DJI in in China you have a controller. 

Sometimes it’s on your phone, you require a digital tether to it and you send it off. And if something interrupts that tether, the drone just goes in a straight line or crashes or returns to you based on its programing. Option number two is something called a GPS drone, for lack of a better phrase. There’s lots of subtypes here, and it follows GPS coordinates that you kind of lay down like a breadcrumb. 

And it goes from point to point to point to point to point. And then when it gets to its end destination, it either crashes into the last point you gave it. It takes a quick glance around and makes a decision as to what to hit. Now, with this second type of drone, you don’t need a digital tether to it, but it does need to be able to receive a signal from a satellite or some other sort of signal that allows it to know where it is. 

So cell towers, for example, work. So if you can jam that signal, the drone then flies off into the night or crashes or return homes based on its programing, what it’s capable of doing. And it might have a little bit of buffer, so you might have to jam it for more than, say, 30 to 60s in order to make sure you really wreck it. 

But within this type of drones, that requires on external signals for guidance, not from the controller, from something else. With good enough electronic warfare, you can convince it that it’s somewhere else and flying somewhere else and basically give it new targeting instructions. And that appears to be what has happened in the Latvian situation. So last week, well, last month actually, what went down is the Ukrainians started doing more and more and more attacks that the Russians were starting to twist the instructions. 

And some of these drones were bent back into the Baltic states and at least on two occasions, were actually able to successfully target Latvian energy infrastructure, specifically fuel tanks. And so there was a spat among the coalition partners in the Latvian government. The prime minister is from one party, the defense minister is from another party. The defense minister was fired, the Defense Ministers Party pulled out of the coalition that kept the prime minister in office. 

It’s a whole to do in Latvia with, you know, 2.5 million people. Doesn’t take much people to have a whole to do. And now the government is in flux and were trying to figure it out. They need to have a new government or just have new elections. They were already scheduled for October. So from a big point of view, it’s not really there from a political issue, but from a military issue. 

It shows the ongoing evolution of drones, because if the Russians can somewhat reliably undermine this class of drones, then the Ukrainians have no choice but to stop using them. Now, I would argue that Ukrainians are well on their way to that point. Remember I mentioned that one of the subsets of these drones are ones that when they reach their final target coordinates, they can look around and make a decision that is already a significant step up from what the Russians can do. 

And if you just up the amount of memory you have in the drone that’s capable of doing that just a little bit, then all of a sudden it doesn’t need that external signal. It can follow geographic landmarks like mountains or buildings or roads, and then it doesn’t have to have a signal. And so there’s nothing to jam. And we’ve already seen the Ukrainians start to introduce drones like that, just not across the board. 

So as with everything with Ukraine war, there is an ongoing tug and war between attack and defense and attack and defense and attack and defense. It’s way too early to know how it’s going to turn out. But what I can tell you two things. Number one, in the last two and a half months, the Ukrainians have introduced more models of drones with more active internal decision making capacity than the Russians have in the entirety of the war. 

To this point. They’re also have launched more drones day on day for the last two months than the Russians have, even though the Russians have bottomless supplies of Chinese parts. So we really have turned the corner where the Ukrainian pre-war defense base, which is where the Soviet Union got its rocketry and its aerospace stuff, has really come into its own and now surpassed what the Russians can do. 

Number two, the Ukrainians are no longer alone because the Trump administration is looking for fresh ways to shit the bed. With all of the allies in Europe and the Middle East, we now have a dozen countries, ranging from Poland and Sweden and Germany, the United Emirates and Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who are actively building out physical infrastructure in partnership with Ukrainians to mass produce Ukrainian drones for their own use and for Ukraine as well. 

So if you fast forward this to the end of the summer, the volume of drones at the Ukrainians are likely to be able to bring to bear is just going to dwarf what the Russians can do, and they will be more technologically advanced. Now, under normal circumstances, I would say that’s going to change the nature of the war. 

Of course, it’s going to change the nature of the war, but it would probably turn the tide. But keep in mind that this is a fresh technological revolution. I didn’t see this coming three months ago to project three months for and say, this is how it’s going to go. It would be really stupid of me. All I can tell you is that the pace of this is overwhelming. 

What we understand aerospace, what we understand, automation, what we understand war to be. And we’re about to have some crazy stuff happen in calendar year 2026, as all of this comes to a head in multiple theaters. Because keep in mind, just because the Ukrainians are succeeding at this doesn’t mean the Russians can’t try. And we’ve already seen some kernels of this sort of technology in play in Iran recently. 

This technology will go global, and at the moment, the country that’s at the back of the line to kind of play with the technologies, the United States, because the Trump administration doesn’t like the president of Ukraine.

So You Want to Break Iran…

Satellite view of the Strait of Hormuz

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has forced Iran to get creative with its oil storage.

Iran hasn’t been able to get its oil out of the Gulf, so they’ve started using available shadow fleet tankers as floating storage near Kharg Island. But as the other tankers begin to return from their delivery routes from before the blockade, dozens could get stuck waiting to get home.

Now, I’m not one to give targeting advice, but if the U.S. needed to do something that would force Iran to the negotiating table…I can think of a couple of really appealing targets.

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Transcript

Hey, all. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Utah today. Today we’re going to talk about an aspect of the energy crisis is going on in the Middle East and a possible partial solution. I don’t want to oversell. It has to do with what you go after. Now, I don’t provide military targeting data. Oh my God, no. But if I were to, this is where I would nudge things. 

It has to do with tankers. We know that with the double blockade in place, the Iranians are losing access to places to put crude. Normally they export about 2 million barrels a day, mostly on shadow tankers, mostly in violation of sanctions. That goes out of the Strait of Hormuz to India, around India, around the Strait of Malacca and up into Northeast Asia, primarily China, but also a little bit to Taiwan, Korean time and Japan. 

Anyway, that is currently blocked for them. So they’re pulling tankers out of mothballs, parking them near Kharg Island, which is their primary export point in the northern extremes of the Persian Gulf, and loading them up to use as floating storage. They can do this until they run out of tankers. Here’s part two. The type of tankers that the Iranians use are very large. 

You either have the literally VCs, very large crude tankers that can carry up to 2 million barrels, or even a few ultra large crude carriers. It can carry up to 4 million barrels. Now, when those things take this trip, they can’t go through Malacca, especially the ulcers, because the strait isn’t deep enough. And the draft of these ships, when fully loaded, makes them detour further east around a place called Lombok. 

Well, getting from Cargo Island out of the strait around the subcontinent, through Lombok and up to Northeast Asia, that takes about 28 to 30 days and then about five days for them to kind of turn around and queue into port, unload everything, and then come back, usually come back through Malacca because they’re not as heavy then. You do that time frame and you look at the point where the US really started the, blockade, and next week is when the last of those tankers comes back. 

So what we’re seeing is the development of a tanker parking lot off the coast of Iranian parts in the Indian Ocean, which means there’s already about 20 there. We’ll probably have another ten there next week, and then that’ll be all of them. Well, these are all Iranian government owned. These are all shadow tankers. And if something were to happen to them, then the Iranians, even if the sanctions were lessened, couldn’t export without using unsanctioned tankers. 

So if you’re looking for a way to force the Iranians to accept a deal that also closes down the shadow fleet, this is probably the way to go. And since these tankers are being held out in the Indian Ocean well away from population centers in Iran, you also wouldn’t face the same degree of damage or threat from Iranian military capabilities if they were to all be seized and relocated. 

So again, I don’t provide targeting information, but if you’re looking for an economic way to force Iran to the table in a more serious way, going after the royal production is probably not the right way. But if you take away their transport options, then they really don’t have another choice.

This Ain’t Your Father’s Tanker War

Navy warship with guns facing forward

No, the U.S. can’t escort tankers in the Persian Gulf today as it did during the 1980s Tanker War.

Back in the 80s, the U.S. swooped into a regional conflict where attacks on shipping were limited, and the Strait remained open. Neither of those is the case with the Iran War. The U.S. Navy has fewer ships today than it did back then, so widespread protection is a much different conversation (especially with thousands of commercial ships trapped). And of course, modern warfare has evolved. We’re dealing with drones and missiles that leave the U.S. Navy much more vulnerable.

You add all that up, and we’re looking at a very different Tanker War than the one your daddy saw in the 80s. So, the only path forward is likely a political one.

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Transcript

Morning everybody, from a foggy Colorado. Today we’re taking a question from the Patreon crowd specifically why the US can’t escort tankers and civilian ships like them to and from the Persian Gulf like we did back in the 1980s during the Tanker war? Well, three big differences. Number one, first, the nature of the conflict. 

The last time around in the tanker war, the United States was a late comer. It was originally a conflict that was a subset of the Iran-Iraq War of 1980 to 1988, and by the time we got to the town of that conflict, both sides were trying to destroy the other’s economic opportunities. And since they lacked the military capability to make a meaningful pushes towards oil production, they went after concentrations like the tankers. 

And so you had Iraqi aircraft that were Iranian tankers, and the Iranians would use a combination of surface ships, speedboats and missiles like the Chinese Silkworm to go after Iraqi and everyone else in the street was just kind of caught in the crossfire. 

Most of the damage done, most of the attacks were in the northern part of the Gulf, where most of the was originally exported. And so the United States came in with an aircraft carrier battle group, put it in the Gulf along with multiple task forces. And at any time involving 40 to 80 ships and some ships like Kuwaiti tankers would be reflagged and others would just be escorted in. Each cluster typically had five destroyers and a number of Coast Guard cutters assigned to it, and they would go in big convoys. 

That’s all different this time. This time it’s a direct conflict between the United States and Iran. And Iran has chosen shutting down the strait as a direct means of attack in the United States has chosen shutting down Iranian shipments as a direct means of attack. So unlike last time when the strait itself was open and the Iranians and the Iraqis were selective in their targets, now are on is willing to attack, pretty much anything in the United States is blocking all shipments from all Iranian ports. 

So that’s the first big difference. The nature of the conflict is very, very, very different. Second, the the nature of the US Navy is very, very different. Back then the United States had a 500 plus ship Navy. Today we’re under 300. And while today ships are faster and tougher and far more lethal, they are fewer in number. And so putting as many vessels into the Persian Gulf is just not an option. 

Also, something that was present back then was the Coast Guard. But the Coast Guard has been steadily whittled down over the course of the last 40 years and doesn’t have enough ships to spare. In addition, the US ships that are involved are tend to be larger and tougher, and if they’re going to slow down in order to convoy, that’s a bit of a problem. 

So remember, there were like 60 ships at any given time that were part of the escort effort last time. Today we only have 60 destroyers, and half of those at any given time are designed to protect the carriers and United States under Donald Trump, I think, wisely, has chosen to not put a carrier in the Gulf. Yes, you would be able to use closer munitions that are cheaper and easier to replace, and that’s our very real consideration. 

But it also means that a carrier could be attacked by the third difference, which is a new generation of warfare. Back then, Iran was only emerging. I was on the tail end of a really long, grueling war with Iraq. Its weapons choices were somewhat limited. You had the Chinese silkworms that had a range of about 50 miles and 1,000 pound warhead, and the Persian Gulf isn’t 50 miles wide. So it was pretty easy for something like a carrier to be over the horizon, be basically immune to anything that the Iranians can do. That’s not where we are anymore. Today’s drones might need GPS targeting, but we now have a series of things called super heads, which don’t, which means that they can choose their own target when they get close. 

And if there was a carrier in the Gulf, I can guarantee you that the United States would be under constant missile bombardment. And as we’ve seen with the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, the U.S. is basically run out of interceptors, and the ability to protect its own ships would be limited. Over the weekend, when we saw the first effort by the United States to escort vessels, that was really the first time we’d seen major surface combatants from the United States in the Gulf at all. 

In this conflict, we’ve been doing everything at arm’s length. That means we’re running out of long range munitions, which is a problem. But it also underscores the degree to which that this is contested space now. And the United States can’t just sail in and break it open. In addition, when we did this in the 1980s, you were talking about typically 11 ships at a time as part of the convoy group. 

There’s 2000 ships trapped in the Gulf right now. So we’ve got different ships. It’s a different kind of conflict. We don’t have the numbers, and the numbers that need to be moved are just massive. The only way to open the Gulf is with a political solution with Tehran. And again, talks have yet to begin on that topic. 

About the only good news I can give you is that we’re now seeing early signs that the Iranians are starting to shut in oil production because they don’t have anywhere to put it. Just keep in mind that the Iranians do consume a couple million barrels a day themselves, and that will never get shut in. So they can be selective about what they’re shutting in. 

It’s not like you just flip a switch tomorrow and all of a sudden they’re out of money. But for the first time in the conflict, we are now seeing economic pressure on the elements of the regime that are making the security decisions. That is encouraging conversation. Those conversations just haven’t really started yet. The biggest takeaway is that the United States is the world’s most powerful navy, with the best projection power in human history, and we now know for the mix of geographic reasons and economic reasons and technical reasons, that the US Navy no longer has the ability to impose a strategic reality on a local basis against a to be perfectly blunt, fourth rate security power. This is a big change in how the world works. It is very, very, very easy to deny civilian access now. And it is very, very difficult to restore it. And you can play this specific scenario out on almost any place in the Eastern hemisphere. And it’s difficult to see the US Navy doing any better. So if we do get into a fight with a real country in the future, we should count on those waterways being closed for at least the duration of the fighting.

Why U.S. Deployments in Germany Matter

German military doing exercises in the field

Relations between the U.S. and Germany are quickly deteriorating. German Chancellor Merz has criticized the U.S. for lacking a coherent negotiation strategy. President Trump responded by floating the idea of reducing U.S. troop deployments in Germany. It’s one big mess.

The issue with Trump’s proposal is that it assumes the only reason for the bases is to defend Germany. These bases aren’t just some peace offering; they are the backbone of U.S. global power projection.

Without key facilities like Ramstein Air Base and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, U.S. operations in the European theater (and beyond) would cease.

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Transcript

Hey all. Peter Zeihan here. We recorded this video on German relations with the United States and the future of U.S. military power. Back on the 1st of May. That was Friday for release today on May 4th. But events have kind of accelerated. So we need this little topper. Very, very short version is Donald Trump announced the imminent withdrawal of 5000 US troops from Germany. So it’s not a threat to more. It’s actually happening. This is the beginning of the end of the alliance with Germany specifically, which has huge implications for everything the United States does. But we’ll get to that in the video. 

Hey all, Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Colorado. Today we’re going to talk about the most recent leg of the American alliance system that looks to be breaking. That is the relationship between the Americans and the Germans. The key issue is that last week, Mertz said  Mertz is the chancellor of Germany, said the quiet part out loud that the United States doesn’t have a negotiating strategy and doesn’t even really have negotiators. 

And it’s just kind of embarrassing to watch how the Iranians, who have both are humiliating the Americans at every turn. It’s an assessment that is not particularly controversial outside of manga circles. The State Department has been gutted. The prime point person for American negotiations is Jared Kushner. Not that he’s incompetent, but his assistant is Steve Wyckoff, who is incompetent. 

And the only other person who’s been involved at this point is JD Vance, who has never negotiated anything. So, yeah, it’s going really badly for the United States in these talks. And in the meantime, the global economy is starting to sag. Something impressive. Anyway, Donald Trump being a little sensitive, a little sensitive snowflake decided that now is the time to talk about cutting the American troop deployment into Germany. 

So I thought it would be useful for everyone to understand what the United States gets out of that. There’s this feeling in some parts of Washington, the American political spectrum, that the American deployments to Germany are about protecting Germany. And there is a degree of truth to that. But keep in mind that Germany has not been a front line state since the expansion of NATO in the early 2000. 

And now there’s this whole Poland thing between them and the Russians. So the two main facilities that the United States has are an air base in the hospital. Ramstein is one of the largest air bases in the world and allows the United States to project power throughout the European, the former Soviet spheres, directly and then indirectly into the Middle East. 

We basically ferry troops and equipment through there. And then there’s Landstuhl, which is the military hospital that over the course of the war on terror, serves as the primary evacuation destination for any forces operating throughout the broader Middle East who were injured and in the end, probably saved 100,000 lives. If you’re going to slim down the American position to either of those facilities, and collectively they are, one of America’s top three deployments, kind of moves around with Korea and Japan. 

That is it for American power projection in Europe, in the former Soviet Union and in the Middle East. If we were to try to project power to any of those three regions, without those German facilities, we would have no logistics support and no backup should something go wrong. And as we’ve seen in every single military conflict the United States has ever been involved in any of those three regions, something always goes wrong. 

That’s just the nature of war. We would also, and perhaps this is the one that will resonate more with some people. We will also have significantly higher death rates. Landstuhl is a crisis center for medical needs. And so if you get hit by an IED or shrapnel at the time it takes to fly you back to the American mainland, you’re probably not going to make it. 

But if you only have to make the Germany, that’s a different question. Anyway, bottom line is, with the possible exception of American military forces in Okinawa, in Japan. This is arguably the most important footprint the United States has anywhere in the world for power projection. And if a real effort is made to slim that down, you honestly can’t slim it down too far before it simply becomes nonfunctional. 

It takes 30,000 American forces to keep these things open to the degree that’s necessary to facilitate American military power. Now, if you just want to abandon the entire Eastern Hemisphere to its own devices, then yeah, by all means, close it down. Just be prepared for spending a lot more than $2 trillion a year on the defense budget, because at that point, doing everything alone means having to have the equivalent of carrier stationed around the world at all times simply for logistical support. 

That is by far the most expensive way to do.

Russia Tucks Tail in Mali

National Flag of Mali

The Russians are getting the boot from the Sahel, and it’s all thanks to an unusual alliance between Tuareg separatists and a local branch of Al-Qaeda. These rivals have teamed up in Mali to drive back the Africa Corps, Russia’s paramilitary force.

When the French withdrew from the region, the Russians stepped in and picked up operations. However, maintaining control in the region is no easy feat, and the Russians are figuring that out. The Sahel’s harsh geography, the war in Ukraine, and now, jihadist groups partnering with Tuareg separatists, are all weakening Russia’s position

Without reinforcements or easy extraction points, this could turn into an embarrassing retreat from the region for Russia.

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Transcript

Hey all. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Colorado. Today we’re talking about Africa, specifically the central African country of Mali, which is in the transitional zone where the tropics bleeds into the desert and an area called the Sahel. What we’ve had is over this past weekend, Tuareg forces, their local ethnic separatists and a branch of Al-Qaeda which operates in this area. 

Both of these have been militant forces operating in the area for quite some time, decided to coordinate their attacks, their normally quite robust rivals, and attack the city of Kadal in the northern part of the country, in the Sahara, as well as a number of other places throughout the country. And in doing so, they forced Russia’s Afrika Korps into full retreat. 

The Afrika Korps is the successor to what used to be called Wagner, basically, a group of people who have had the ethical part of their brain. Mellon scooped out and basically sent to kill people for the power of Russia. In the case of the in general in Mali, in specific, they cut security agreements with local governments that are not particularly nice to their people, and in exchange, they get mining concessions, most notably. 

And for them, definitely, what they’re after is gold, because it allows the Russians to evade sanctions more effectively. They just fly gold for payment instead of having to worry about, say, the US dollar system. Anyway, the quick back story is as Ukraine war got going really, really hard in the last couple of years, Wagner became more a group of paramilitaries. 

With the ethical center scooped out, Ragnar became more and more important to the Russians in manipulating not just events in Ukraine, but throughout the world, because they were basically soldiers for higher that would carry out the interests of the Russian state, which in general is to cause as much trouble in as many places as possible to cause problems for Western governments. 

So in the case of the Sahel, the target was always France, where in French former colonial territories here and the French had troops throughout the countries in order to fight the jihadist remnants of al-Qaida. And in that they were doing, I would argue, a relatively decent job. 

For the French, Al-Qaeda was the target, and they would cooperate with anyone who had helped them against al-Qaida in this case, including the Tories. And the government of Mali was like, well, you’re cooperating with one of our secessionists against the militants. We don’t like that. It’s a sovereignty issue. And then the Russians came in and the French were booted out. 

And some version of that has happened throughout what is once known as French West Africa. And the French footprint in the region now is basically zero. And we have Russians now across the entire band. But as as I said, what happened when this went down is the cell is not a particularly great place for anybody. There’s not a lot of water. 

So you don’t have population density, which means you have these isolated populations, posts like Cadle that have a few tens of thousands of people. And that’s it, which means that any sort of rebel group or militant group can run fast and free through the rest of the country, just like we saw in Iraq or Afghanistan and the war on terror, just like we see sometimes in northern Mexico with the cartels, just like we see in Syria with ISIS. 

You can’t really impose any sort of control over this region long term, because you can’t have the civilizational tools that are necessary to do it. And so now it’s the Russians turn to get their asses kicked. And so the issue here for the Russians is unlike France, which is not involved in any sort of broader military conflict, and unlike France, which actually has some expeditionary capacity, the Russians don’t. 

They’re involved in a large war. So only so many forces can be dedicated to the Afrika Korps or Wagner or whatever you want to call it. And in addition, there’s no chance of backup, which is a real problem. So the Russians only have about 2500 troops in region, and that includes their logistical tail. So most of what they have been focused on is destabilization and wealth extraction. 

And now that the actual fight has been joined, they are not doing very well. I always assume that by this point, countries be working to remove the Russians for any other reasons, because they are really a trouble. But when it comes to the countries of the Sahel, where state capacity is so low, getting any sort of assistance is good, especially once you’ve kicked out the French. 

So the the Russians are still fighting these groups in other parts of the country. They’ve only evacuated Cadle. But if the Tuareg, Al-Qaeda, it’s not an alliance that’s too strong. But if their truce holds, they can keep up the attacks. The Russians really have nowhere to go. You’re looking at a potentially a particularly embarrassing retreat they can’t count on the Russian state airlifting them out because the capacity isn’t there. 

And it’s just way far, too far away. Whether or not this will be the beginning of the end of the Russian presence across the cell. We’ll see. But there is a relatively embarrassing retreat in store now that will probably continue from north to south across the entire country.

Japanese Weapons Are Open for Export

Japan tanks and military parade

Japan has lifted its long-standing restriction on exporting weapons. This will bring some fresh dynamism to the global defense industry, specifically in naval manufacturing and drones.

While the impact will likely be gradual, Japan is already fleshing out plans to supply ships to Australia. The real impact will be seen when Japan’s decades of investment in automation are on display, which positions it to become a major drone producer. Collaborations with Ukraine are just the first glimpse of what could evolve from this.

As Japan leans into defense exports, it could very well reshape modern warfare and emerge as a leading global drone power.

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Transcript

Hey all. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Nashville. Today we’re going to talk about something actually happened about a week ago. The Japanese changed their legal structures so they can now, for the first time since World War two, export weapons. So the question is, how big of an impact that this have? In what sectors over what sort of time? 

Japan has the world’s second largest navy, but they have always, by design, not had a particularly large military because of the whole World War II thing. And in all operational terms, the United States more or less operates their military on a tactical level whenever we decide what we want to. So that is, encourage the Japanese to not do a whole lot. 

And so in terms of percent of GDP, which is a threshold that most people use for defense spending, the Japanese have actually dipped down to as low as about 1% as of ten years ago. Now, as China has become more of a threat, that has risen and they’re now spending just under 2%. And, you know, if you double the size of your defense budget, you would think that your military industrial complex would expand. 

And it has, but not by as much as you might think. The Japanese are working from the theory that before we get all the hardware, we should make sure that we have the right people and the training regimen works hard to argue, and that means that the defense expansion hasn’t really kept up. So a sudden change and the ability to export weapons doesn’t immediately translate into those weapons being available. 

But this is still Japan, one of the most technologically advanced cultures with the fastest rate of change in technology, in manufacturing, in human history. And now that they can access the market, they’re going to. So kind of phase one is there are 20 countries that they consider allies, which can includes most of NATO where weapons are now legal to sell to. 

And the question is what are they going to do? The obvious one is ships, especially small ships. And they’ve already cut a number of deals, including with, say, Australia, to turn more ships out of their shipyards and get them out there. And since the Japanese Navy is one of the three most powerful on the planet at the moment the Brits, the Japanese and the Americans, I don’t doubt that they can do that in number in a relatively short period of time, but it’s the second phase that I’m really interested in. 

Japan is a partially robotic society. This is a country that has been aging very, very quickly and as the world’s oldest average population. And so 15 or 20 years ago, they established a national robot strategy to basically automate and robotics, whatever part of their economy that they could, because they knew they weren’t going to have the people and they knew that the people were going to need the obsessed. 

You mate that with what is going on in this second phase of the revolution in military affairs, and all of a sudden some really interesting things can come out of the drone world, because when it comes to actuators and things like that, the Japanese have been doing it for decades. So we now have a deal in place already between the Japanese and the Ukrainians to bring Japanese production capacity to Ukrainian drone tech. 

You put those two things together a fast adapting, automated workforce with a very quick turnaround on things like prototyping. And you’re talking about Japan becoming a massive drone power in probably less than two years. And now they have export capacity. So I don’t know what they’re going to look like, but we’re going to have Japanese built drones produced in mass and exported in mass in the not too distant future. 

And we’re only at the very beginning of understanding what drone warfare means in general. We are utterly unprepared for what it means when the Japanese take lead in that sector.

The Iran War Approaches a Tipping Point

Missiles with Iranian flags on them

The Iran war is approaching a painful tipping point this week. Global energy flows remain in a chokehold, and economic conditions are worsening worldwide.

This week’s shift will be caused by Iran’s oil storage reaching capacity. Once that happens, Iran will have to shut in wells, which will cause long-term damage to production capacity. The fallout from that will be sure to get the IRGC riled up.

Now that the real decision-makers will feel the pressure, there will be an opening for policy change. The outcome, however, remains uncertain.

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Transcript

Hey, all. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Nashville. You are going to see this video on Monday the 27th. And this week is going to be a big week in the Iran war. We’re in this painful economic state where both the Iranians and the United States are blockading traffic in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused any number of problems downstream, whether it’s jet fuel shortages or just general economic dislocation, it’s bad. 

It’s getting worse. It will continue to get worse for months. This is not something we’re going to fix this year or probably even next year. But for the first time, by the end of this week, the people in Iran who matter will finally feel some pain. One of the aspects of the American blockade is to make sure that the Iranians cannot get crude out. 

Now, normally, Iran only exports about a million barrels a day, but based on buffers in their storage system at a place called Kharg Island, they can surge out if they have stuff that’s already on site. What that does mean, however, is that once the blockade is in, that storage starts to fill up. Most people estimate that they have between 30 and 35 million barrels of storage and Kharg. 

And that’s really all the storage they have in the country for crude. And now that we’ve had the blockade in place for quite a bit, we’re probably going to see that storage hit full capacity this week, probably on Thursday or Friday, which means for the first time, it’s not an issue of short term income disruption. It’s a question of the Iranians then having to forcibly shut in their wells. 

You see, it’s one thing to cut off their day to day income for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, a few years, whatever happens to be if they know they can ultimately still get it out. But if you clog up the system and prevent exports completely, then they have to shut in wells, and those wells will never come back on in the same way. 

And they might have to do some redrawing, which means a long term degradation of their capacity to generate income at all over the years to come. Now, the people who are calling most of the shots right now are with the IRGC. That’s the paramilitary organization that enforces security, that controls the missile force that has been doing most of the drone attacks, and they make their money by a combination of smuggling and oil sales. 

So for the first time in this war, they actually have a reason to change policy. Is that something that is going to happen? You know, who knows. But this is the first time they will actually feel pain. And if there is going to be something that the Trump administration is going to do to take advantage of that, we get the beginnings of that strategy by the end of this week. 

Way too soon to suggest that there’s going to be success or failure in any particular direction. But this is the first thing that the United States has done for long enough that matters to the people who are actually making the decisions.

Underwater Drones and the Future of Naval Warfare

An unmanned Underwater vehicle drone about to be dropped into the ocean | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_underwater_vehicle#/media/File:Unmanned_Underwater_Vehicle_operations_130605-N-AZ907-046.jpg

Drones have been all the rage in the Ukraine War, and they will continue to be one of the primary topics of warfare in the near future, but do underwater drones have any place in this conversation?

Underwater drones just don’t have the same use case that airborne drones have. Torpedoes have been around since the 19th century, so these underwater drones aren’t doing anything groundbreaking. Surface maritime drones are a different story. These remote-controlled jet skis strapped with explosives have been wreaking havoc on Russian vessels.

So, forget the underwater drones and focus on the surface-drone tech, especially if you’re in places like the Taiwan Strait or the Japan Strait. As these innovations roll in, we’re looking at a full restructuring of the global maritime shipping sector.

Note: This video was recorded last year during one of Peter’s backpacking trips.

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Transcript

Hey, all. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Lost canyon. Got a little interesting stuff. I’m gonna have to climb through tomorrow, but you know, that’s tomorrow’s problem. Today we are taking a question from the Patreon page, and it’s specifically about drones, specifically underwater drones. And the question is, as did globalization really kicks in, do I expect underwater drones to play a role in some of the major things that are coming, like the just incorporation of China or perhaps Korean unification? 

Probably not. Unlike airborne drones, underwater drones are missing a couple key factors and its range and detection radius. The technologies that have allowed airborne drones to do their thing better optics, better power management, lighter materials really don’t change the math for an underwater, weapons platform, but can’t see any further than they did before. 

The range is limited by the fuel type. It’s having a little bit bigger Battery isn’t going to do all that much of a difference. And being able to get things to where they need to go, probably not a very big play. The only way that underwater drones might make, might see bigger plays are, is if they were dropped off by submarines closer to their targets. 

But, you know, we would call those normally torpedoes. We already have that technology, so we’re not really, doing much here. We’re just kind of reinventing the wheel. Now, that’s under water. Drone. So does it mean that maritime drones aren’t moving forward and don’t have a role to play? But it’ll probably be surface drones. One of the things that the Ukrainians have shown us is they can take a jet ski or a small motorboat packed with an explosives, basically strap a control system to the steering column and off it goes with five, six, 700 pounds of Boom-boom. And when it hits a ship, that ship has a big problem. And using water, drones, maritime drones, surface drones, Ukrainians have done an immense amount of damage to the Russian Navy because pretty much all of the weapon systems that are on traditional naval vessels are designed to shoot up at things like planes. They’re not designed to shoot down at things that are in the water. 

And so we’ve seen the Russians basically have to defend their vessels with dudes on the deck with machine guns and RPGs, and it’s not a very effective thing. So if you take maritime drones and introduce them into constrained waters like, say, the Taiwan Strait or the Japan Strait, all of a sudden you do have a very different sort of system because these sorts of drones do have ranges of a few hundred miles, already. 

And that’s just by retrofitting, platforms like jet skis that already exist. As soon as you start taking, the technologies that the Ukrainians have built and use them on a completely new chassis, you can have a lot more range. And then we’re talking about a fundamentally different system. And if you’re talking about defending a civilian vessel in that sort of environment, that’s going to get a lot harder. 

At least naval vessels have the possibilities of having jamming and having things like a ready supply of RPGs. Now, this does bring us to another topic that we’re going to have to find out the hard way. And that’s the general militarization of cargo ships. Because it’s coming soon. There are not not not not enough military vessels on the planet, to be able to patrol the sea lanes to a degree that would be necessary for the type of security breakdown that we’re facing. 

So the only way we’re going to be able to maintain even a modicum of globalized trade is if cargo ships, whether they’re container ships or, bulk ERS or tankers themselves, are able to mount their own weapons systems, and that will also most likely be airborne drones, because that’s the only thing that can get the radius and maybe the strike capacity to take out something like a surface drone before it gets to you.

U.S. Ground Troops Coming to Iran

Squad of Soldiers Running Forward and Atacking Enemy During Military Operation in the Desert | Licensed by Envato Elements: https://app.envato.com/search/photos/b369387a-4bc2-43d2-808a-0341aa11dbcc?itemType=photos&term=military+desert&sort=relevance

The U.S. is preparing for a potential ground operation in Iran. Marines from the USS Tripoli and Boxer, as well as elements from the 82nd Airborne, could be looped in. That’s roughly 8,000 troops, which is just a small-scale, fast-response force, but no matter the size, boots on the ground is a scary endeavour.

If Kharg Island is in fact the target, the retaliation from Iran would be massive. This is Iran’s main oil export hub, which means it’s the main revenue source as well; with that gone, Iran would unleash hell. And Kharg Island would be extremely difficult for U.S. forces to defend; they would be under constant threat of drone strikes, and quite exposed.

Another plan would be to use these troops for targeted raids along the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting Iran’s ability to attack shipping.

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Transcript

Hey all, Peter Zeihan here coming to you on March 25th from inside the house in Colorado because, false alarm. I’m not getting better and sicker. Anyway, I’m going to talk about, Iran today, specifically what’s going on? Ground troops, which looks like they’re absolutely going to be used. This is a bad idea from any number of matters, but let me give you an idea of what’s in play and what it might be used for, and we’ll go from there. 

So, as you may remember, the USS Tripoli, that’s one of America’s amphibious assault carriers, carries a clutch of F-35 fighter jets, as well as 2000 to 2500 Marines. Relocated from the Philippine Sea and the ceiling through the Indian Ocean. Now, it will probably arrive in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf in the next day or two. 

We also have the USS boxer, which is another EU marine expeditionary unit. That’s basically what the Tripoli is, which has left San Diego. It will not be an area for probably close to three weeks, but the news from yesterday is that the 82nd airborne, which is kind of America’s rapid reaction force, troops that are run by the army, that are mated with permanent transport aircraft that can deploy to anywhere in the world in less than 48 hours. 

They were given the marching orders to move to the Middle East, last night. And we’ll probably. Well, they could be moving right now. You know, all hush hush classified. But when the, orders are given, it’s usually not too long until they’re on their way. Collectively, in three weeks. This means we have about 8000 troops in the region. 

And they’re really heavy hitters. Basically, unless you’re going to move into special operations, the Marines and the airborne are about as good as they get without having armor. And that’s something else that’s important to note. So this is not a traditional ground invasion where we’re driving tanks and using artillery. This would be a relatively light force that punches above its weight for what it is, but is not designed to take on another major force. 

Keep in mind that if the Iranians don’t have another major force, so that should be fine in that regard, they may have a million man army, but it’s apparently designed to shoot civilians rather than swarm over foreign countries. Now, the news is going on and on and on and on about something called Kharg Island. As someone has highlighted Kharg Island 15 years ago, part of me is like, yeah, you finally, but I really doubt that’s the target. 

Or more to the point, I really doubt that that should be the target. Kharg Island is a small facility off the western coast of southwestern Iran. It’s up in the northern Gulf. It doesn’t have a bridge to it. It was built by foreigners, and it has a subsea pipeline that basically carries all Persian Gulf crude to it, because the Persian Gulf Coast is really, really bad to accept tankers. 

It’s just very shallow and muddy. So they have this island out where they can accept tankers. And it is the point for plus of Iran’s oil exports. And what we’ve seen in the war so far is that the United States came in completely unprepared for the idea that something might happen to the Persian Gulf and really didn’t have the hardware or the positioning in place to protect ships in the Gulf, or make sure that the Iranians couldn’t attack ships in the Gulf. 

So everyone’s now focusing on Kharg. And the logic seems to be that Donald Trump wants to make another fucking deal. And the idea is that if the United States occupies Kharg Island, then Trump will have a negotiating card to play against Iran elsewhere. So we will give you Kharg Island back. If you stop attacking places in the Gulf, specifically if you allow the Strait of Hormuz to be open. 

I will tell you bluntly, in anyone who studies, the Middle East will tell you bluntly and, that that will not work, because that will remove Iran’s oil income and then the gloves will really come off. And as we’ve seen, when the Israelis attacked a natural gas processing facility last week, the Iranians had more than enough, weapons left to open up on infrastructure throughout the Gulf. And they did well over $100 billion of damage in a matter of hours. You would probably get something like that. In addition, Kharg Island, is not going to be easy to defend. 

one of the things the United States has been doing is its carriers haven’t even come in the Gulf. One has been off in the Arabian Sea, the other one has been off in the Red sea. 

They’ve been fighting Iran at a distance. If you’re going to put a few thousand troops in Kharg, you’re going to need close in support. And it is within 30 miles of the coast. And the Iranians will hit it with everything they have, because the ability hit several thousand American troops with limited defenses right up and close. Oh, man, they’ve been waiting for a situation like that the entire war. 

It would basically be putting them in the most vulnerable way you could imagine. And now, like I said, anyone who knows anything about this region or oil politics or how defenses work would have told president that this isn’t how things go. But the president isn’t being told anything. The people in the Department of Energy and the DoD who were responsible for studying things like chokepoints and, the Strait of Hormuz specifically, were all fired last year. 

And the same goes for basically any sort of strategic planning or think work. Pete Hegseth, the secretary of Defense, has been going on a crusade in his, Anything that does not actively support the warfighter is being cut out of the Department of the defense, and that removes all education that would allow people to make educated decisions about, say, what you do in war. 

So when I say that this is a Donald Trump plan, this is a Donald Trump plan. He’s no longer allowing information to reach him, with the possible exception of through Dean Cain, who is Joint Chiefs of Staff. And that’s about the only voice of caution he’s get. And so far, he has overruled Cain on really everything of substance. 

So if this is where we’re going, this is going to end in a bit of a debacle. The only other thing that I can think of were 8000 troops that are heavy on the insidious component might be of use, as in the Strait of Hormuz itself, if you put, Marines and airborne in that area, and enable them to do land strikes, rapid and then retreat land strikes up and down the Strait of Hormuz, you can probably limit the ability of Iran to launch attacks on civilian tankers. 

And since the United States doesn’t have the ships, doesn’t have the hardware to do a meaningful convoy system, this might be the next best plan. It’s not a great one, but I would find it much more viable than, say, going after Kharg. That’s my $0.02. Anyway, that’s where we are right now. The Tripoli will arrive within 48 hours, and the 82nd could be there at the same time. 

So if you only feel you need two thirds of these forces, you get going on it right away. If you decide you need the full 8000, you have to wait for the boxer to arrive. And that will not be until the second week of April. Anyway, pieces are moving so that these options are available. Whether they are used, of course, depends upon, what Trump feels, because that’s all that matters in this war.