Turkey, After America

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Today’s country shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Sure, Turkey has been relatively silent over the past 70 years, but as American guardianship of the global seas declines, Turkey will reemerge as a dominant power.

Much of Turkey’s significance stems from its very, very fortunate geography; it controls the Turkish Straits and several other key waterways. This means that if anyone wants to move anything in this region, guess who they have to work with – Bingo – Turkey.

That’s the driving factor here, but it leaves Turkey with some big decisions. Should it partner with Ukraine against Russia or expand its influence in the Caucasus? Should it try to dominate the Aegean or displace German power in the Balkans? Should it absorb Mesopotamia and become the determining power of the Persian Gulf or make a bid for control of the Eastern Mediterranean? Given Turkey’s limited power to pursue all options simultaneously, it has some hefty strategic decisions to make that will shape its future.

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First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

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

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

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TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado today. We’re doing the next in the Post American series and we are going to focus on Turkey. Now, the Turks have been a major power in the world going back to the date that they basically split off from the Mongol hordes back in the 1200s and eventually settled in the territory that we now know is Istanbul.

Well, subtle, wrong word conquered. Since then, they’ve been an indelible part of Middle Eastern and European politics. And the reason that I would say a lot of us don’t think of the Turks in that way is because they have been taking a little bit of a break from history. Their defeat at the end of World War One was so dramatic and shattered their political and economic orders that they basically pulled the welcome mat in and kind of fell in upon themselves.

For most of the last century, and it’s only with the rise of the current President Erdogan in recent decades that they’ve started to emerge and they’re kind of relearning the world around them and discovering is a lot messier than they remember. Most of the problems that you see in the Southern Balkans or the Levant in Mesopotamia can in some way be linked back to the disintegration of the sublime port in Istanbul from a century ago.

It wasn’t a pretty imperial collapse, and the region still shows the scars. Anyway, the Turks have been coming back into their own and they’re finding out that they have to make a lot of decisions. So one of the many, many, many, many, many reasons why the Turks are so important is the land that they occupy. Istanbul sits on the Golden Horn and it sits on the Turkish straits, which are the only source of water access between the Mediterranean.

Beyond that, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. And on the other side, the Black Sea. And through a series of navigable rivers that include the Dawn, the Dnieper in the eastern deep into the Ukraine and even into the the Russian interior, There’s a there’s a canal now that links the dawn to the Volga. So that goes all the way to Moscow.

And that means that by water, the Istanbul area has always been a linkage point. Then there’s, of course, by land, because if you go east into Anatolia, you’ll eventually hit Persia and beyond that, India and China. Or you can go to the Northwest through the Balkans and you get right up into Europe. Danube goes that way, too. So in any world where global trade is not a thing for whatever reason.

Istanbul is arguably the richest and most important city, economically, strategically on the planet. But that’s not where we’ve been living for the last 70 years when the Americans created the global order. The Turks had this great geography, but all of a sudden the Americans made it not matter because we made the global seas safe for everyone. And so all you had to do was get to a body of water and go anywhere, which is something that you could not do in the pre globalized era, because anyone who had a Navy would basically jealously guard their own commerce and shoot at everybody else’s.

So we had this flip in how commerce works, and the Turks went from having the best geography in the world to arguably among the worst. And so they disappeared. Well, that’s ending. The Americans are bit by bit removing their guardianship from the waterways, and the Turks are discovering that they’re becoming incrementally more important. They’re also discovering, as they re expand their influence back into all their old imperial territories, that a lot of these zones have developed opinions of their own about how things should run, but with very, very few exceptions.

The people who are developing those opinions aren’t particularly competent, and they’re certainly not very powerful. There is there’s not a country that is within arm’s reach of Turkey, with the possible exception of Iran, where they could stand up to the Iranians in any sort of meaningful fight economically, politically or militarily. And as long as that is the case, the Turks have this wonderful buffet of options in front of them.

But while the Turks here can go in any direction, they lack the power to go in, all of them at the same time. They’re going to have to do something that no one likes to do. They’re going to have to make some choices. So they just kind to go around the clock here and give you an idea of what’s in front of them.

In no particular order here, I’m just kind of picking a direction, going north into Ukraine. They’ve been there before. And by controlling the miles of the Dnieper in the East River, they were able to keep the Russian Empire at bay for a good century. They were also able to use their naval forces back in Istanbul. And any time the rivers would thaw, they’d sail up, they’d smash anything the Russians tried to build, and then they’d come back and, you know, be fine for the winter.

The Russians have a naval problem that they can’t really focus on any one particular direction. And so the Turks were kind enough to hit him with a hammer every time. So with the Ukraine, we’re going the Turks, while they’ve been politically on the fence and economically on the fence, strategically, they are cheering on the Ukrainians day by day and providing them with all the drones they can possibly use in order to fight the Russians.

Because the Turks know that with the exception of Ukraine, obviously, that if Ukraine wins this war, the Turks are the natural and largest beneficiary of a Russian defeat and disintegration. Working from that same theory. You go to the northeast, you hit the Caucasus, which is a place where empires often go to die. The Turks know this. Their empire kind of died there, too.

But that doesn’t mean the urge on opportunities, especially in the industrial age. You’ve got Azerbaijan, which is one of the world’s oil producers, kicks out about a million barrels a day, which flows through the Caucasus region and ultimately ends up in Turkey one way or another. There’s either a pipeline that crosses the land into Turkey to the super port of Jihan in the Mediterranean, or there is naval stuff that comes out of the Black Sea, which ultimately has to flow through Istanbul.

So no matter who wins in this area, it’s riches are going to be tapped. Turkey has to be a part of that conversation, which of course, begs the question whether the Turks will expand in this direction. There is one of the three Caucasus nations, Azerbaijan, who are ethnically Turkic and have as a rule, been allied with the Turks on and off for all of their independent period.

Since they emerged from the detritus of the Soviet Union. All of late in 2023. The Armenian military was basically destroyed. The Azerbaijanis conquered some territory that they lost to the Armenians 20, 25 years earlier and are now on the warpath. And the very future of the Armenian state is in question. And there’s really no one who could step in to broker a deal except Turkey.

So this is, again, a very viable option. But let’s say you think that the Turks should take a little bit more bare knuckled approach. Well, I probably won’t be in the Caucasus. That would be in Iran. Go straight east. You hit what the Iranians call Iranian Azerbaijan, similar ethnic group to what is in Azerbaijan itself. The Iranians have always been nervous about an independent Azerbaijan on their doorstep because they’re actually more Azeris in Iran proper.

Well, they are again ethnic kin to Turkey. And if Turkey wanted to I’m not saying they’re going to, but if they wanted to, you could have a serious slam dunk fest where we would put the Turkish military, which is one of the best in the world, against the Iranian military, which is really just a bunch of barely trained infantry.

I have no doubt who would win that conflict in the long run. But the key word there is long run because this is a mountainous zone and every mountain crust is a new battlement. And so for the Turks to do that would be a serious commitment. They could probably do very little else. You go to the southeast, you’re hitting Mesopotamia and where the Kurds live, which are a minority that exists on both sides of the border.

Again, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria could soon meet those anymore. And again, oil and gas. Oil and gas. Oil and gas, a little bit of wheat, also access to the Persian Gulf, which would make the Turks a player in the world’s largest free energy market. In a time when global energy is no longer being protected by the Americans.

That would allow them to become a broker in any number of ways. They go straight south. They hit the Levant, which is where the Israelis are now, the Israelis and the Turks. During the first half of the Cold War going up to about 1979, were tight allies with the Iranians. And then when Iran, when its own way, they remained allies until Erdogan came on the scene.

And Erdogan doesn’t much care for the Israelis. It’s a very mutual feeling because everyone is drawing a page from Turkish history, not only who the Ottoman Turks, the economic and political military superpower of the region. They were also the religious leaders. And Islam itself was based in Istanbul for a while. Well, they see the idea of Jews primarily of Western European descent from their point of view, oppressing Palestinians who are Arabs and Muslim as a bit of a problem.

And so there is a possibility here of a fight. But to have a fight, the Turks would have to invade all of Syria, Lebanon first. God knows nobody wants that mess. So I think it’s more likely they’re going to glare each other, even though the smarter play would be to cooperate. Because if you can have the Turks and the Israelis more or less on the same page, they can easily keep other powers out of the region while at the same time projecting power themselves into Egypt to control the Suez Canal, which is, you know, many money, money, money, money.

All right. Continuing on clockwise now, looking to the southwest, the eastern Mediterranean, specifically Cyprus in Greece. Now, the economist in me is like there’s nothing there to be had. Don’t go that way. But unfortunately, the Aegean Sea is the first stop past Istanbul to the wider world if you’re using that vector. And so there needs to be some sort of rapprochement or understanding or occupation of these lands by the Turks in order to have access to the wider world.

Unfortunately, the Greeks and the Turks do not get along, and the Turks and the Cypriots hate each other so much. Also getting involved in these places means dealing with a mountainous country with a lot of naval frontage and a sea environment where the Turks are always going to be involved somewhere else. So it would make it easier for another naval power of the French to come in and muck things up seriously.

And then finally, the last direction is to the northwest, into the Southern Balkans, specifically the southeastern Balkans, Romania and Bulgaria, because here you’ve got the lowlands of the Danube system which punch up into northern Europe and you’ve got two of the more sophisticated ethnicities of all the countries that border Turkey. And so if you’re looking for general economic activity, energy reserves, food supplies, some solid choices.

In addition, those two countries are blocked off from the rest of the Europe by the Carpathian of the Balkan Mountains, making it a little easier to defend and a little bit more naturally in the Turkish sphere of influence. So those are the options. Turks can’t can’t even pretend to do them all, maybe two. Now, the the strategic genius in me would say that the two to choose are pretty straightforward.

You would, number one, want to go for the Balkan vector because the Bulgarians and the Romanians have warm to cool relationships with the Turks already, and all three of them see each other as relatively reliable economic and security partners. The bad blood that dates back to the late Ottoman period is for the most part behind them, and especially when it comes to the Romanians and the Bulgarians, they realize that there aren’t a lot of other options.

If the United States loses interest in this part of the world writ large, all they’ve got left are the Russians and that experience was as pleasant for the Romanians and the Bulgarians as the Cold War as it was for everybody else. The second route that I would go to is I’d find the deal a way to make a deal with the Israelis, because that allows you to do an end run to a certain degree around Greece, allows you block off Suez into your sphere, makes it more difficult for anyone else, whether it’s Britain, France or whoever else, to punch through from the western Mediterranean into the eastern.

But history has a way of doing things that don’t sound particularly wise from an economic point of view. And we’ve all played risk and we all know it can go any number of directions. So this is the challenge in front of them. It’s an embarrassing bit of opportunities and a lot of strength, but not enough strength to seize the day on every single possibility.

History can be hard and history forces us to be choosy, and in that the Turks are no exception whatsoever.

Armenia – Azerbaijan War: Turkey and Iran at Risk

After Azerbaijan’s lightning assault on Nagorno-Karabakh caused ethnic Armenians to flee the region, there’s potential that Azerbaijan will continue to invade Armenia proper.

The motivation for this second phase of the invasion would be to control a land corridor connecting different parts of Azerbaijan. Thanks to Stalin’s chaotic cartography, this region’s power dynamics are just a tad messy. Now mix in some complex geography and bippity-boppity-boo; welcome to the Caucasus.

There is a more significant issue playing out behind the scenes, though. If Azerbaijan is successful in this second invasion, it would place Turkish and Iranian powers within spitting distance of one another. And I can assure you that no one wants to see how that plays out.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

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

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

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Transcript

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from an exciting hotel room. The news I wanted to talk today is about something that has to do with caucuses again. For those of you who remember a few weeks ago, the Azerbaijanis launched a fair bit of a lightning assault on a place called Nagorno-Karabakh, which is an area that was populated with ethnic Armenians.

And the war was over in less than three days. And pretty much all of the Armenians who were living there have since absconded and left for Armenia proper, where there’s now going to be, it looks like a second phase of that conflict where the Azerbaijanis are likely to invade Armenia proper. What’s going on here is that the Azerbaijanis are looking for a land corridor to connect to parts of the country in order to explain the significance of that and have to do a little bit of screen sharing here to Google Zoom, which was Earth, which is one of my favorite programs ever.

Anyway, here we are looking at where the former Soviet space in the north meets with the Middle East in the South and the Caucasus is this mountainous land bridge in between. And let’s just go through a little bit more, okay. So the northern caucuses or the greater caucuses is this line here very rugged, very steep, home to a lot of ethnic minorities like you would expect in any number of mountainous zone.

This is an area where the Russians have always had a problem. The Chechens, if you remember them, live right here. And then you’ve got these two little enclaves in the north, Abkhazia here in South Ossetia here, where the Russians have sent in troops and basically occupy them and make them de facto Russian territory. And some people would say that the Russians are basically trying to do this in Ukraine as well.

But it’s I think it’s important to understand that for the Russians, it’s all about controlling the access point. So that’s Ukraine, where that’s the worst that they’ve watched here in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Russians know that their population is dying out. So they believe that they came forward, positioned troops in the access points that they will have an easier time defending themselves.

So there is a coastal road here in Kasia. There’s a path that links the northeast Russian province, which is part of the Russian Federation with the South Ossetian province, which is part of Georgia. And they’re trying to plug those access points. So you’re going to see a lot of this, whether it’s in Central Asia or the western periphery that is near Europe.

And that actually is kind of relevant to the discussion about what’s going on in this region and where media. Now, here we’ve got the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, the capital here is Baku. It’s got about half the population, the entire place, the former Soviet Republic of Europe, an independent Armenia, is right here. You have the Turks over here and the Iranians to the south know Egypt a little bit more.

And Yerevan, capital of Armenia, Mt. Ararat, is a zone that supposedly Noah’s Ark crashed into as the floods receded. It is the national symbol of Yerevan, of the Armenians, and it is not in their territory, it’s in Turkey, but they can see it. A dominates the skyline from the capital. Nagorno-Karabakh is this mountainous zone over here. This is the area that the Azerbaijanis recently liberated from Armenian control and the caravan, which is right here, is that chunk of Azerbaijani territory that the Azerbaijani would like to physically connect to the country.

And if all of this seems like just cartographic spaghetti, it is. And you can think Joe Stalin for that, because at the time that the Soviet Union was gaining control of this area in the twenties, he went through and modified all the borders to make sure that if any of these areas ever got independence again, that it would immediately be at one another’s throats.

And he wielded his pen with extreme levels of skill so that the people a little bit closer. The dominant issue in this area actually isn’t the Russians. The Russians had a defense agreement with the Armenians until very recently, and I guess technically it’s still in force. But the Russians have moved most of their troops out, moved them to Ukraine because they need every pair of hands and every gun.

And yet and that’s kind of held this area frozen. But once you get into the lesser Caucasus, remember greater Caucasus, which are the North less your Caucasus or this kind of broad zone in the south, the mountains are nearly as onerous. It’s still mountainous, it’s still difficult. But there are a lot more corridors that access this area. And in this zone, it’s traditionally not been the Russians that have been the major power.

It’s been either the Turks or the Iranians. Well, let’s see here on that. The local powers have always had those Turks and Armenians is accessing one another’s land. The Turks and the Iranians have always had a bit of a problem rubbing up against each other. There are a number of mountain passes and access points and corridors that allow access, but they’re all seasonal and limited, with one exception.

And that is this right here. This is the Cross River, and this is the best point of access between Anatolia or Turkey or the Turks in Persia or Iran in the Arabians. The thing is, Stalin, again, it’s split. So in the north, the northeast section of that corridor is controlled by Armenian. It’s home to the Armenian, the capital of Europe in the northwest chunk is controlled by the Turks and is home to Mount Ararat.

The Southeast Choke is Nikitin and it is controlled by the Azerbaijani and in the southwest Choke is Iranian, right here in Iranian Azerbaijan. So goes the thinking. The Iranians are really happy with the current state of affairs because if this corridor is split into four different chunks, then no one can really use it to pour Turkish power down into northern region.

However, what’s going on with the Azerbaijanis is they want a corridor that crosses this zone of southern Armenia and directly links Azerbaijan to Nikitin. And then there’s a road and rail system here that goes into Turkey proper. If that happens and you have Turkish power controlling over half of the corridor and the Turks can directly reinforce Baku by road and by rail.

And from the Iranian point of view, this would be a disaster, a disaster from Armenian point of view as well. Not only would they lose control of some of their southern territories, but then they would be completely locked off and surrounded by Turkish power. And if you’re familiar with your history, the Armenian genocide carried out by the Turks in World War One was pretty brutal.

And so the Armenians are looking for anything, anything to kind of grab on to a degree of independence. They need a security gear, a security guarantor. And if they can’t have the Russians and the Iranians or the all the other player in town in Azerbaijan getting control of southern Armenia would basically end that forever. And then it would just be a matter of time before Armenia itself becomes a state repeating of the Turkish system, rather than the Iranian or the Russian system, something that the Armenians would rather avoid.

But for the Iranians, this is also a national issue, because this corridor, if you continue following the south, eventually reaches the city of Tabriz, which is the capital of the northern region. Excuse me, if Iran and northern Iran is primarily populated by ethnic Azeris who are basically the same ethnic stock as the folks who run as a region.

So they have always been the group in Iran that the Iranians have been most nervous about exercising a degree of independence, that the Turks get de facto control of this area, all of a sudden that is very much in play. So we have a situation here where maybe the Russian are only being stage left because of the situation in Ukraine.

They can only focus on the things that are core to them. And since they control Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they control the access points to the Northern Caucuses, and they’re kind of declaring that good enough. But with the Turks now rising, we’re going to have a second level of contest in this region between the Turks and the Iranians, with the Azerbaijanis being a very, very, very willing ally.

So what we’re going to see over the next several weeks or months, something that the United States is concerned about, is this point becoming in play, because if that becomes in play, then this whole or all of a sudden becomes in play. And we need to start thinking about what it means to have Turkish troops in the cave in hard on another part of the Iranian border.

That’s where it is. Okay. I think that’s everything. You guys take care.

Let’s Talk Turkey

There’s been a lot of movement in Turkey’s neck of the woods, so the Turks have had to change their stance on several issues. Given Turkey’s strategic positioning and importance, expect huge regional implications.

Turkey has said it will intervene with grain shipments regardless of what Russia does. Turkey won’t operate as Russia’s middleman anymore, meaning the Turks won’t be the weak link in NATO’s chain. Turkey gave Sweden the green light to join NATO. That’s not even scratching the surface of the issues Turkey has faced.

The Sea of Marmara and eastern Thrace are some of the world’s richest chunks of agricultural land. They also happen to be surrounded by regional trading routes. Turkey will be a significant regional player if it continues to hold these areas. But there are limits to the power this gives them…

While Turkey can project a great deal of power, it can’t be done everywhere. Choosing where to focus will be done through careful evaluation of the neighborhood; given the constant change in this region, it would be foolish not to expect Turkey’s strategy to adapt and evolve regularly.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:
 
First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
 
And then there’s you.
 
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

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TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from just below James Peak in the James Peak Wilderness. Today we’re going to talk Turkey. There’s been a lot of motion in that part of the world in the not too distant past, in the lead up to the NATO’s summit in Vilnius, during the summit and days after in the lead up to the NATO’s summit in Vilnius, during the summit and days after in the lead up to the NATO’s summit in Vilnius, during the summit and days after the Turks have changed their positions on a number of significant issues with huge regional implications. So just a quick rundown. The Turks have said that they’re going to intervene

in green shipments coming out of Ukraine. Now, there has been a deal that the Russians, Ukrainians and the U.N. have agreed to that allows Ukrainian grain to leave Ukrainian ports and not get shot at by Russian ships as long as the Russian ships can inspect the ships on the way in and on the way out to make sure that they’re not engaged in any sort of smuggling. The Russians have been backing away from that agreement and it’s basically done at this point. The Turks are no longer serving as a middleman for a lot of financial transfers and good transfers from the rest of the world to Russia.They have traditionally, I should say during the war to this point, they have been the weak spot in the NATO wall, if you will. And anything that the West used to sell to Russia or something that’s under sanctions would be sold to Turkey first and forwarded on to the Russians in violation of the sanctions, or at least to an end run. But they’re no longer doing that. In addition, the Turks gave the green light so that Sweden can join NATO. They’ve been blocking that now for over a year and all of a sudden it just evaporated. Now, there are a lot of people talking on the West about how the Turks are back in the club.Both of those statements are at best premature, but they’re probably just completely wrong and the reason is that the Turks are their own thing. Now, unlike the Western world or the Russian world, with a very clear geography that binds everyone together, the Turks have their own the Sea of Marmara region and Eastern Thrace are one of the richest chunks of agricultural land in the world. It’s got a navigable waterway system, and it straddles a number of regional trade routes. So the Turks are always going to matter. Whoever controls this area is always a going to be a significant regional power, iif not a global power. But this area is not endless. This is not the American Midwest, something that allows the United States to project power globally. This is a zone that is bracketed by a number of other regions that all matter. The Agean, the Caucasus, southern Ukraine. The Crimean Peninsula. The Balkans. Mesopotamia. The Levant. The Turks can project and do project power into all of these regions. But the Sea of Marmara region is not sufficiently powerful to give the Turks the ability to project in all of them. And so Turkish foreign strategic policy has always been about making choices, and that means they have to evaluate their neighborhood on a case by case basis, and those evaluations have to be updated from time to time. Well, if you go back to ten or 15 years ago, we had the start of the Syrian civil war, and the Turks were very upset with the entire Western coalition because of the war and what had led to it. The Turks didn’t want to see an independent Kurdistan, but the Americans relied upon the Kurds of northern Iraq in order to fight part of the war against Saddam Hussein

and with the Syrian civil war. You had, again, a Kurdish enclave, northeast Syria, that basically existed under western de facto sponsorship. There were also spats with the Israelis

to a degree backed by the United States and the Europeans. And so the Turks entered into a period where they found it easier to project power south into areas where the Americans

and the Europeans were not being very successful. In that sort of environment, There is a softness in relation with the Russians because the Russians were perceived at the time as being a bit on a roll. And so the Turks found it easier to accommodate the Russians

rather than to stand against them. Well, in the last year and a half, a whole lot of things have changed. Number one, the Americans are losing interest in Iraq and to a lesser degree, Syria, meaning that the de facto sponsorship of the Kurds has weakened quite a bit. The Russians have shown themselves to be not nearly as impressive as they look like they were. And with the Ukrainians doing better, better and better day by day by day. The Turks are wondering whether or not it’s really worth the effort, especially in the face of strong American opposition. During and leading up to the summit, the Biden administration and from the very top we’re talking here, the president and Secretary Yellen, the treasury secretary, made it very clear to the Turks what would happen to their banks if they continued serving as middlemen for the Russians. And since then, many of those banks are linked to the ruling party. That message was taken loud and clear. So the costs and benefits have changed. And all of a sudden the Turks are looking at this in a different light. So all of a sudden the South is not wide open and open to fissures that they can exploit. Suddenly, relations with the Israelis are a little bit better. Suddenly the Turks are evaluating the Russians from a different point of view and seeing them as perhaps the weak spot in their periphery these days. And so we’ve seen a lot of changes. And of course, with the summit, everyone was together and everyone had to have these conversations in real time. As regards to the United States negotiations about the transfer of F-16s to Turkey were off the table  because there were concerns they were going to be used against the Kurdish minority or against countries that the United States really didn’t with the Turks going to war with. All of a sudden, that’s back on the docket. The Canadians had restarted negotiations on drone transfers, military technology to help make drones. Now, these are the same drones that the Turks have been transferring to Ukraine over the last year and a half. But the reason the Canadians had had an embargo on it is because two years ago, the Turks had transferred them

to the Azerbaijanis in their war with Armenia, all of a sudden everyone’s getting along again

and we’ll probably see some warming in relations between the Europeans and the Turks as well on a number of issues that deal with the visas, the migration, everything else. Anyway, the bottom line of all of this isn’t so much that Turkey has flipped. It’s that Turkey’s evaluation of its neighborhood changes regularly based on the strength, the power, the accession or the fall of every country in their region. And in the last two years, we’ve had a massive shift in the power balance and it would be strange to think that the Turks would not adjust accordingly. Now, winners and losers, it all depends upon who you are and what you care about. Obviously, the West broadly is pleased with the direction that the Turks are going right now, and there’s reason to believe that this has some legs. But if you’re on the other side of the equation, especially if you’re in interest of the Russians, all of a sudden this is really scary. So, for example, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijanis are ethnically Turkic. The Turks consider them their ethnic brothers and their friends. Armenians, on the other hand, are the complete opposite. And now that you’ve got countries like Canada saying, It might be okay for you to use your weapon systems in the

Armenia – Azerbaijan conflict. If you are Armenia in many ways this is the worst of all worlds, an Azerbaijan that is coming high off of the last war win. A turkey That’s probably going to start shipping weapons in mass again. And a Russia who has been your security guarantor

who all of a sudden is up to its eyeballs in a problem that it can’t solve in Ukraine. Things like this are going to be shaking out across the entire region as the larger geopolitics evolves. Okay. That’s it. 

Turkey’s Presidential Elections: A Turning Point for Turkish Politics

Turkey’s presidential elections are upon us. President Erdogan has run the country for nearly 20 years, but his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, hopes to shake things up. This could very well be a turning point for Turkish politics.

Once upon a time, Erdogan was well-liked in Turkey and beyond. He ran a tight ship, and his policies were solid. And then he fell into a spiral of narcissistic nationalism and everything went to s***. Needless to say, much of the country is ready for a change.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu is the top challenger but also comes with some baggage. Yes, he’s old. More importantly, he’s the head of a six-party coalition. Meaning at best, this is going to be a transitionary government. At least it’s a step in the right direction.

Probably.

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First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
 
And then there’s you.
 
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

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TRANSCIPT

Hey Everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from on the road. I’m traveling and I’m sick. So you’re not going to be getting a fancy backdrop on this one? We’re just stuck with the hotel room. Anyway, this video still needs to get out on May the 12th because we’ve got big things happening in the country of Turkey, which is one of the more important, more dynamic, more flexible countries that I see for the times ahead.

It’s one of the handful of countries that security forces and economy are basically right size to its neighborhood and ambitions. And I expect it to be one of the five countries moving forward for the next couple of decades to really dominate the human condition. If you want to see more about that, there’s a massive turkey chapter in my third book, this United Nations.

But for purposes of today, I want to talk about the elections that are in play, because we’re at a turning point in Turkish politics. The incumbent is a guy by the name of Erdogan who is basically run Turkey for the last 20 years. And his first decade, you know, he ran a tight ship economically. He was very inclusive.

He sought out broad coalitions and he even did some selective purges of the military to prevent the military from purging civilian governments like the Turkish government had done in four decades. And so overall, most folks in Turkey and beyond Turkey liked him quite a bit. But then he turned into kind of a narcissistic nationalism and started alienating everyone in the country beyond the country.

Also, his economic policies were great. His policies were wildly inflationary. He he was of the weird belief that if you drop interest rates to zero, that that will be counter inflationary as opposed to spurring demand and economic activity that maybe the economy can’t support. As a result, inflation in Turkey has gotten to levels that they haven’t seen in quite some time, and cost of living has really increased.

He also used this cheap money that was flowing into the system to support his political cronies, specifically in the construction sector, which generated something that looks a lot like the subprime boom in the United States, but like an order of magnitude bigger. And that bubble started to pop about three years ago. And so his political support has hemorrhaged away since.

Cronyism, of course, is not popular anywhere. But in the short term, the real issue is that we had a couple of really bad earthquakes in Turkey a few weeks ago, and Erdogan completely botched the recovery. Countries tried to provide aid and he basically said no because he thought they were spies. And since we had this massive construction boom, we now know that Erdogan had moved away from things like safety checks and, you know, sand in concrete in the regulatory structure in order to have his buddies make more money.

And so all of these things just flattened when the quake hit. On top of that turkey is a very young country demographically, and the bulk of its population is under age 30. And for most of the voters, you know, and under age 40, they’ve never known anyone but Erdogan. And so they are willing to move on. Now, his challenger is a guy by the name of let me see if I get this right.

Kilicdaroglu. Kilicdaroglu. Apologies for Mr. Kilicdaroglu if I completely bash that, I’m just going to call him by his first name. So Kemal has been in Turkish politics about as long as Joe Biden has been alive, which gives you an idea of how viable of a candidate he is in the long run. But he is the leader of a six party coalition who decided to put all of their differences aside in order to get Erdogan out.

And what that tells me is that even if he wins the presidency and even if the opposition can carry the parliament, and even if Erdogan goes quietly, none of these are given. I mean, we’re leaning our way, but they’re not given. Even if all of that happens, all of our hopes occur for these elections. It’s a six party coalition with a guy that’s older than dirt.

It’s going to be a transitional government, even in the best case scenario. So those people who are looking at Turkey from a foreign policy point of view, who are expecting big, radical changes, you know, you temper your enthusiasm. Now, I do expect there to be a significant shift, at least in tone, because everyone has become more and more erratic as he’s become more and more dictatorial.

And he’s now seen spies under every every precaution. So, you know, the Greeks are always an issue. The Armenians are always an issue. But because he’s a strong man, he’s kind of cozied up a little bit. I mean, that’s might be overly harsh, but cozying up a little bit to Vladimir Putin, I think the United States is trying to overthrow them.

He hates the Europeans with a passion and simply injecting a little bit more realism into would be perfectly blunt mediocrity into Turkish foreign policy making. To calm everything down would really be a good idea. But the biggest policy shifts we would probably see our number one, the Turks under a new government would probably lift their opposition to Sweden, join NATO.

I don’t want to said publicly that the only reason he’s holding up the the Swedish accession to NATO’s for personal reasons so he can win the election. So even if, you know, Erdogan walks away with this election again, we’re probably going to see Sweden and pretty soon. The second is relations with the Russians versus the Americans as regards the Ukraine war.

Turkey hasn’t done anything that’s technically illegal, but Turkish companies are serving as middlemen between the rest of the world and the Russians in order to get products into Russia that the Europeans have been trying to sanction. Now, the Europeans and the Americans aren’t happy with that. But until the Europeans or the Americans get a much broader sanction program, it’s nothing that the Turks are doing that’s illegal.

But getting a little bit more understanding from Ankara on what needs to be done in order to put Russia in a box is something that Kilicdaroglu Kemal seems to be amenable to in terms of other relations, really. Israel, Egypt or the big two? Erdogan Really? Butted heads with multiple Israeli governments and it’s only recently that things have started to warm and relations with Egypt are fraught.

Turkey is a former colonial power and Egypt was one of its provinces. Hell, for a while. Israel was one of its provinces. And if there is going to be some sort of new regional order in the eastern Mediterranean or the western parts of the Middle East, Israel and Egypt and Turkey are all going to be part of it.

And there was a time in the first decade of Erdogan’s rule when it looked like the old Cold War partnership with Israel could be resurrected in a partnership with Egypt, could be forged. But then Erdogan kind of went off the rails. And so simply letting history and regional geopolitics take the course. Turkey’s the natural leader of that bloc.

And since the Israelis were having some wackadoo political issues at home and Egypt has descended into full narcissistic dictatorship, it’s actually a really good opportunity for a more open and moderate Turkish government to make some some gains in this area. And really, that doesn’t take firm foreign policy making. It doesn’t take a strong leader. That just means taking advantage of the economic and proximity issues that make Turkey the logical power in this region.

Okay, so first round is this weekend. And if nobody gets 50%, we do a runoff. And that’s the same for the parliament and for the president. The runoff will be in a couple of weeks. So we’re going to know one way or another really quick how this is going to go. And as long as, you know, Kamal lives through the election process, it looks like he’s got a pretty good shot.

All right, you all take care.

Demographics Part 9: The Advanced Developing World

The advanced developing world is about to have its moment. We’re talking about India, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brazil. These countries were a little late to the global scene, but now it’s their time to shine, hopefully…

The path to globalization is well-traveled, but that doesn’t mean its obstacle-free. These countries will have to work hard to balance their shifting demographics with changes to their economic structures and movement along the value-add chain.

For a country like Brazil, their current trajectory could very likely send them into a crippling demographic situation with no way to pull themselves out. If a country like Turkey continues to move up the value-add chain steadily, I could see them flourishing in the coming years.

These countries are not facing a terminal demographic situation quite yet, but if history has taught us anything…now is the time for them to reconcile their declining demographics and prepare for what comes next.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:
 
First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
 
And then there’s you.
 
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

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TRANSCIPT

Hey Everybody. Peter Zeihan coming to you from Colorado. I am in training for my upcoming New Zealand trip and so I wanted to record a couple of videos that would last a little bit longer. So this is the most recent installment in our demographic series. And today we’re going to talk about the advanced developing world, a group of countries that includes India, Turkey, Indonesia, to a lesser degree Vietnam, certainly Brazil.

These countries have a lot of things in common, not just in terms of their demographic structure, but their economic history. So until World War Two, these were all either colonies or kind of isolated systems. And they had that traditional, pre developed world pyramidal structure that was very high consumption, high inflationary and relatively low value added. But even in the early decades of the post-World War Two era, they didn’t really join into the Bretton Woods free trade system, even though some of them, several of them were signatories to the pact. They kept their economies to themselves for nationalistic reasons. And to be perfectly blunt, there was a fair amount of the advanced world, most notably Europe, where even though global trade was available, they really didn’t globalized their supply chains. They were export products, but they tried to not become dependent upon anybody else in terms of the production cycle. Well, you play that forward until 1992. And what changed in 1992 is, of course, the Cold War ended. And that’s meant that a lot of the strictures that had made it difficult to do things went away. And these countries came in from the cold from a little bit a second in 1992, the Europeans signed the Treaty of Mashhad, which did away with a lot of the internal tariff and non-tariff barriers that existed within the European space. And that meant that the Europeans started to integrate and especially German supply chains started to link to the rest of Europe over the course of the next 20 years. That was extended first as economic links and later as full EU membership to all of the states of Central Europe, from Estonia down to Bulgaria, with Poland being the most important one. And that meant that the European space, or if you want to be honest, the German economy became suddenly this global powerhouse and started exporting products that were a lot more value added from a lot more product sectors. But most importantly, of course, 1979 was the year that the Chinese started to tiptoe into the international system and then really join in in the 1990s and 2000s, which meant that the Chinese were ravenous for raw commodities and would pay pretty much anything to get whatever they needed.

This all benefited the advanced countries of the developed world because they could get certain products from the Germans and the Chinese that they could make at home, and then they could work on either raw materials or manufacturing to fill in the niches that the bigger economies didn’t provide. So for most of this class of country, 1990 really was the break point where they started to urbanize and industrialize. It took the combination of not just the global trading system, but also a change in the way that other major economies viewed economics. In the case of Mexico. 1992 is when after was adopted and of course, the early 1990s when the WTO came into existence.

So what this means is that these countries started this rapid process not in the forties or fifties, like, say, the Koreans or the Japanese or the Europeans, but not until the 1990s. But by that point, the process of developing and industrializing and urbanizing was kind of old hat for a lot of the world. So these countries were able to proceed down that path a lot faster than the countries that have come before. So for the Brits, it took seven centuries. For the Germans, closer to five. For the Americans…America’s a special case, let’s leave them out. For the Spanish, it really only took 2 to 3. These countries have done it in really one, one and a half to two. And as a result, starting in the 1990s, their birthrates plummeted, in most cases dropping by half to two thirds. So if you look at the population structure of their demographics, it’s a pure a pyramid for people who are above about age 35 and then it goes straight down in a column. Now, this is hardly a disaster. By having fewer children, more money can be focused on education, on infrastructure, general business investment. And so all of these countries have been moving bit by bit up the value added scale. We’ll look at Mexico from a value add point of view, comparing the value of the inputs versus the value of the exports. It’s probably the most high value added economy in the world. So, you know, no slouches in any of these categories.

But this has some consequences because if this continues, these countries are going to age at a much faster rate than the countries that preceded them. So, you know, we’re talking about these countries reaching a mass impact in really under 20 years. And in the case of the United States, as a point of comparison, the U.S. is going to be a younger country, demographically speaking, on average, than Brazil in the early 2040s in Mexico and Indonesia are going to pass by us in the early 2050s and probably even India by 2060.

Now there’s a lot of history to be written between here and there, but these countries all have a demographic moment and if they take advantage of it, to become developed by moving up the value added chain very, very rapidly, kind of like Mexico is, then by the time they get to these points, they will be developed enough to deal with those sort of demographic consequences. But if they become stuck in the middle, which is definitely what seems to be happening with Brazil, they’re going to have some real problems because they’ll have gotten old without becoming developed.

The case of Brazil is a special one and it’s almost entirely because of China. The Chinese came in under President Lula, his first term, and they signed a number of deals to build joint ventures for producing products in Brazil. But the Chinese basically lied and stole all the technology from all the Brazilian firms and then took it back home, produces in mass and basically drove all the Brazilian companies out of the global market. So the Brazilian industry now only basically services the Brazilian system. Indonesia has not fallen prey to that because they didn’t have the technological aptitude in the first place. They’re trying to move up the value added scale, getting out of raw commodities into processing and ultimately into things like battery assembly, which is overall a pretty good plan, inconvenient for the rest of the world, who is trying to go green quickly, but definitely in Indonesia’s best interests. Mexico is definitely the furthest along overall and moving up the value added scale. And in terms of labor productivity, I’d argue they’re above Canada already. Who am I leaving out? Turkey? The Europeans have integrated with Turkey to kind of be the Mexico for Europe. And Turkey began with a much more sophisticated labor force and infrastructure than the Mexicans had in the 1990s. They haven’t moved as fast, but you have a much deeper penetration of these technologies in these skills throughout the Turkish system than in any other countries in this class. So if the Europeans were to vanish tomorrow, the Turks would obviously feel it. But they definitely remain the most powerful country in the neighborhood, and their demographics are young enough and their neighbors are even younger that I could see a Turkish manufacturing system really taking off. Obviously, this isn’t Germany would be the same quality, quality of product, but would still be a pretty good result anyway.

Bottom line of all of this is that these countries all had a moment, the historical moment that is approximately as long as the one we’ve just completed with the hyper globalization of the post-World War Two era. But it is still only a moment, and they all need to really buckle up and get down to business if they want to do well in what comes next.

All right. That’s it for me today. See you guys next time.

Turkey Navigates the Ukraine War

Despite the threat to Turkey’s national security that a Russian victory in the Ukraine War poses, the Turks are taking a far different approach to international affairs than Japan…and it makes a lot of sense when you take a broad look at Turkey’s geopolitical situation.

Unlike Japan, Turkey doesn’t need to buddy up with the US to ensure a bright future. Turkey has some of the strongest demographics in G20 — thanks to high birth rates and a young population. They are blessed geographically — a land invasion would be futile since they are located on a peninsula and they fall at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia, so trade isn’t an issue.

Turkey’s main concern with the Ukraine War is that if Russia wins, they will likely head after the Bessarabian Gap next and jeopardize the Turkish Straits — a.k.a the heartline of the Turkish economy. This is one of the main reasons Turkey has stuck with NATO, as they are patrolling these areas.

Outside of the protections offered by NATO, Turkey is broadly self-sufficient. Even if they left NATO, they still have a massive army to protect themselves. Thanks to recent industrialization efforts, they are a high-value-add society, they produce much of the necessary foodstuffs to feed their population, and their energy needs can be imported from several different places.

While the Turks don’t want to see the Russians win, they know the value of keeping them around. Until recently, Turkey was profiting off Russia by providing them with a number of materials on the secondary markets and access to the US/EU financial markets. NATO has recently cracked down on this issue, but it shows that Turkey is navigating this situation with one goal in mind: to position itself as a significant world player for years to come.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:
 
First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
 
And then there’s you.
 
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from the tail end of the Routeburn Track on the way to the divide. Sorry, no scenic highway. It started raining last night and hasn’t let up and the view is well….white and trees. Anyway, yesterday we talked a little bit about how the Japanese have realized that they’re never going to be a singular great power again and so have found a way to partner up with the country that is most likely to either encourage them or dislodge them and that’s the United States. And today we’re going to talk about Turkey in kind of the same context.

Now, unlike the Japanese, who have admitted that they will never be the dominant naval power in the Pacific and never the economic power of the Pacific again. The Turks are nowhere near that stage and with good reason. Their geography is different. Their economic structure is different. Their demographics are different. Demographically, they are the youngest of the G20 countries. With the exception of Argentina. And they’ve got the highest birthrate again, aside from Argentina, which gives them a lot of opportunities moving forward. Meaning that if current aging and urbanization trends continue, they’re not going to face a German style situation within the next 50 years. So you know, they’ve got the most valuable of commodities…time. Second, they’re on a peninsula, so it is relatively difficult to attack the Turkish space by land and to make sure that no one tries. Turkey today maintains the second largest army in NATO. So unlike the Japanese, who were overwhelmed back in the forties by American naval power, there’s really no one even on the horizon who could potentially challenge the Turks at home. As to their neighborhood, Turkish interests are a lot more varied and there are a lot more questionable calls. I mean, the Japanese, they’re a series of islands with very few resources, so they have to go out and there’s certain things that they have to achieve in terms of security and economic control or at least influence in the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan, and the Chinese mainland and Southeast Asia and all the sea lanes going across the Pacific. They really have to have it all if they’re going to succeed, and they know they can only get that all hand-in-glove with the United States. Well, the Turkish situation requires a lot more thought, not because there’s “a” right answer, but because there’s many potential opportunities. They have interests in the Caucuses with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. They have interests in northern Iraq and the Levant, which involves the Israelis, the eastern Mediterranean, which of course involves the Egyptians, the Aegean Sea with the Greeks, and most importantly, in my opinion, in the Eastern Balkans, with Bulgaria and Romania. And that’s where today’s conversation kind of takes us.

There are plenty of hot takes out there, including for myself, on how this war may or may not roll out. We’re talking about Ukraine now. But if the Russians are successful and honestly, still by the numbers, this is still Russia’s war to lose. Ukraine will in time fall. And the place that the Russians are most likely to turn to next is a zone of territory called the Bessarabian Gap, which makes up what is today’s Moldova and a northeastern slice of Romania. Roughly 20% of Romania’s territory. Because the Russians see the Bessarabian Gap as one of the primary invasion zones that access the Russian interior and they want to concentrate a military footprint in that zone to make sure that no one can try. Well, the Turks see it basically the same way just from the other side. A number of assaults that have come for Istanbul over the millennia have gone through that same gap. Right now, the Turks kind of have the best of both worlds. It’s NATO’s territory. And so it has NATO’s security guarantee, especially the Romanian chunk. But the Turks don’t have to plug it themselves. So they’re a big beneficiary, almost incidentally, from the current security order. But if the Russians were to take that, then the Turkish heartland, the Turkish capital, the Turkish Straits, would all be directly vulnerable to Russian power. And the Turks cannot tolerate that. So the primary reason that the Turks are still remaining engaged in the NATO alliance, at least for the moment, is because of that promise of a security block in that zone. And if, for whatever reason, the Americans back away from Ukraine, the Turks would have no choice but to step in directly and partner with Romania. And forward position military forces in the gap to make sure that the Russians can’t try anything cute.

But on the broader issue of power, Turkey is just in a better position than the Japanese are. We’ve already talked about demographics in terms of geography. It’s not like they’re kind of dangling at the end of Asia. So they need a globe spanning Navy to access raw materials and resources markets. They’re at the crossroads of Europe and Africa and Asia. So as long as there is trade, whether it is by water or by land, the Turks have some cards to play. In addition, whereas the Japanese have bit by bit deindustrialized and moved into services and high tech. Over the last 30 years, the Turks have been rapidly industrializing, in part to serve as a kind of a supply depot and a middle manufacturing zone for the Europeans, much in the way that Mexico does with the United States. And in terms of value add, if you compare the cost of the stuff that goes in versus the cost of the stuff that comes out, Turkey is one of the most high value added economies in the world already. Turkey is broadly self-sufficient in all the foodstuffs that it produces for itself and never kind of got into this craze that a lot of countries have, that they have to have organic avocados that are out of season. So even if global trade shut down tomorrow, the trade system would be broadly okay. And for energy, they may be a significant importer of everything but coal. But the places that they have the options of importing from are many. Today, they’re getting a lot of their natural gas and oil from Russia, but tomorrow could very easily be northern Iraq or Azerbaijan. In fact, several of those pipelines are already in place, and it’s only been some political squabbling that has kept them from running at full capacity. So nothing like a blackout to motivate.

And so what we’re seeing in terms of how the Turks versus the Japanese are dealing with the Ukraine war, the Japanese have signed on to the American led system. And so they are going in up to their armpits with helping out the Ukrainians. However, is appropriate for their own cultural MAU. The Turks have been a lot more circumspect. They definitely, definitely, definitely don’t want the Russians to win, but they see the advantage of not having this blow up and have the Russians just disappear altogether, especially if you think, like I do, that ultimately this is Russia’s war to win. Now, to that end, the Turks have been very active in not so much bypassing the sanctions that are on Russia, but providing the Russians with ways to get around them. So there are a lot of things that are under secondary sanction restriction like semiconductors that the Turks have been importing four or five times as much as they normally do, and then they’re just selling them on to the Russians. There’s a very strong mercantile culture in Turkey. If you’re familiar with Star Trek, this is basically a nation of Ferengi when it comes to trade. There’s also been a number of banks within the Turkish space that have helped the Russians access the dollar and the euro market because the Russians discovered early on in the conflict that Yuan aren’t worth the paper that they were printed on. Basically, if you buy Yuan assets, you’re stuck with Yuan because the Chinese don’t want it back. They find their own currency borderline useless. So that little mistake cost the Russians a few hundred billion dollars.

Anyway what’s changed in the last couple of weeks is that the two things, number one, pressure from Europe and the United States on the Turks to push stricter compliance with the secondary sanctions regime has been fairly successful and the Turkish government is now shutting down a lot of these middlemen that allow banned goods into the Russian space. We’ve already seen semiconductors from things like washing machines end up in Russian cruise missiles. So it’s clear that the Russians have been working to establish an alternate supply system, and anything that chokes that off is going to force them to start over. Second, the banking issue, the federal government in the United States has specifically warned the Turks, if they don’t cut that out, that they risk pulling under the sanctions themselves. And that didn’t require a lot of prodding from the Turkish government to the Turkish banks were like okay, message sent, you’re serious about this and they kind of shut down that window as it was.

The bottom line here is that the Turks have a little bit more wiggle room, despite the fact that they are more exposed to the security issues that are going on in Ukraine. And because they see themselves in the long run as having options to great power hood, which is an accurate assessment, they don’t want to just follow blindly in the way that the Japanese are willing to. This is a country that in the long term is unlikely to be part of the American Alliance Network because it’s going to lead its own. And who all gets involved in that will in many ways be dependent upon how the war in Ukraine proceeds from this point forward. Because if the Russians do prove to be successful, well, then Bulgaria and Romania are going to be the first countries to sign up willingly for a Turkish centric defense system.

Alright. That’s it for me. I’ll see you guys in drier weather.

Talk to you guys later. Bye.

Earthquakes Wreak Havoc on Turkey and Syria

In the early hours of Monday, Feb. 6th, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit the city of Gaziantep in southern Turkey. The quake was felt across Turkey and deep into Syria, leaving behind a path of deadly destruction.

At the time of recording, the death toll in Turkey and Syria was in the 2,000s. At the time of scheduling this newsletter, the death toll in Turkey and Syria is well above 3,500 and will continue to rise throughout the coming days.

Natural disasters happen at random, but that doesn’t mean they can’t also be geopolitical events. The 2011 Togoku earthquake/tsunami that took the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear reactor offline had grave consequences for global nuclear energy policy. In Turkey’s case, expect Sweden and Russia to offer humanitarian aid and try to get back into Ankara’s good graces.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here

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First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
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TRANSCIPT

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from somewhere in Florida. On Monday, the 6th of February in the early hours, an earthquake hit the city of Gaziantep in south central Turkey, which is hard up on the Syrian border. And the destructive capacity of it was 7.8 on the Richter scale. It was felt as far away as Hatay, which is where the Turkish territory meets the Mediterranean as well as, well into Turkish Kurdistan. And of course throughout most of Syria.

Devastation is considerable. This is definitely the strongest earthquake that has hit the area in about 20 years. Early death estimates are already well over 2000. They’ll probably be over 20,000 within a week. When earthquakes hit this area, they can really be awful. We are in a very seismically active area here and a lot of the construction is not what you consider up to, say, a Japanese style standard. So the idea that you could actually reach 100,000 deaths is not out of the ballpark.

Earthquakes are often geopolitical events, not in that they wreck countries, although they do, but instead they provide opportunities for diplomatic breakthroughs. And as regards Turkey, at this moment, there’s really two countries that would be really, really looking to provide some aid in order to tilt politics and Turkey in their direction.

The first one would be Russia. Turkey is one of the very few outlets that the Russians have right now for getting their trade in and out. And the Turks have been acting as middlemen. So if the Russians were able to provide some sort of diplomatic and economic emergency assistance and bridge building relief crews, that sort of thing, then you could see some significant warming in relations. The problem, of course, is that all the Russians’ capacity is already spoken for in Ukraine, and it’s not clear that it’d be worth the Russians time to pull people off of the front lines in order to give supply to the Turks. The Russians have something called the Disasters Ministry, which is actually really good at doing stuff like this. Used to be run by Shoigu, who’s the current defense minister, but it’s really just a paramilitary arm of the government, and it’s just completely spoken for already. 

The second group that would have an interest of maybe tilting things diplomatically with the Turks would be the Swedes. The Swedes have been trying to get into NATO’s for about a year now, and the Turks have been threatening to veto over membership because of the Swedes taking a certain position on Kurdish issues with the Turks think is FEMA to them being an alliance. But if Sweden, which does have some spare capacity and does have a good record of humanitarian effort, even with the Kurds, were to provide that with the Turks, it might just provide the sort of opening that the Swedes need to get over Turkish hesitance in terms of letting them join the alliance.

So those are two to watch for.  You won’t have to wait very long. This is the kind of thing that either happens or it doesn’t within just a couple of days because after that it’s too late and the people buried under the rubble are already gone. So we’ll know soon.

That’s it for me. Until next time.

The Collapse of Empires

The success of Ukrainian forces against Russian troops over the last week is forcing a series of reevaluations of Russian capabilities–especially in the places most of us might not yet be thinking about. There’s been a lot of focus on whether or not Russian threats have teeth. But what of Russian promises of support? 

For a certain swathe of the world, particularly those countries hostile or indifferent to the US-led Order, Russia was about as good or proximate a neighbor as they could hope for. With Russian capabilities under serious scrutiny, countries from Armenia to Belarus to Syria to Mongolia and Moldova are going to see their strategic environments change rapidly. 

There is an elephant in the room in many of these scenarios… and that’s Turkey. Whatever their current economic headaches, the Turkish state under Erdogan has maintained a constant march toward realizing a populist, Islamist-tinged, pan-Turkic nationalism that has played out in several ways. One of the most recent has been Turkey’s arming and not-so-tacit support of Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia. Even with Turkey’s erstwhile EU aspirations and current NATO membership, Ankara has been equally at ease in pursuing its own priorities during the bloc’s conflict with the Russians over Ukraine.

But perhaps nowhere will see the full unfurling of Turkish geopolitical ambition in the wake of Russian strategic senescence more than Syria. The Alawite regime in Damascus relies (relied?) heavily on its Russian and Iranian backers, and with Moscow out of the way Ankara faces little opposition. Squashing Kurdish ambitions, redrawing borders, setting up a puppet state, coordinating with Israel to counter Iran–all are on the table for a would be neo-Ottoman Turkey without strong pushback from Russia and Iran.

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Sweden, Finland, NATO, and Turkey

Most NATO members have met Finland and Sweden’s joint application for membership with open enthusiasm. The US, UK, France; even the Italians and Greeks are cheering, in a rare moment of pan-European positivity. 

But not the Turks. Long kept at arm’s reach from EU-membership (including by self-appointed human rights stewards like the Swedes), Ankara is going to savor its ability to make Sweden and Finland’s ascension process be as much about Turkey’s needs as it is about Russia.

The Turks aren’t just being spiteful for spite’s sake.

Turkey and Greece were the first states to gain membership in an expanded NATO in 1952, joining the 12 member nations who formed the bloc in 1949. In addition to being one of the bloc’s longest-standing members, Turkey (not unrealistically) views itself as one of NATO’s most strategic. Its geography, particularly the control of the Turkish Straits, affords Ankara outsized influence over the Black Sea, the Danube Basin, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Ankara also happens to have the bloc’s second-largest army, second only to the United States. Turkey isn’t just cribbing from a Rodney Dangerfield act when it angles for more respect from its supposed Western allies; it is an important partner and now has the geopolitical heft to make sure everybody knows it.

Ankara is also one of a handful of countries around the world that is willing, able, and actively seeking to establish itself as a meaningful regional power. Turkey’s neighborhood (especially along its southern and eastern borders) has always been…spicy. The Turkish state’s long-standing conflict with Kurdish separatists has been an easy target of criticism for its European neighbors. But now Turkey gets to point the finger at countries like Sweden, who it claims is doing too much to encourage Kurdish separatist militias in places like Syria. Ankara is well within its rights to claim how it can be expected to call Sweden its ally, when Stockholm’s actions risk directly threatening the security and stability of the Turkish state.

Turkey also famously straddles Europe and Asia, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. We should not be surprised that a country that shares land borders with Bulgaria and Iran, Greece, Georgia and Armenia has a different worldview than the northern Europeans or Portugal. Or that a country that borders the Syrian Civil War, the remnants of Iraq and an intensifying Azerbaijani/Armenian conflict is going to have different security realities than the land of Ikea, H&M and Volvos. And here we see how one of NATO’s strengths–its size–complicates its ability to move swiftly as a unified bloc.

Is Turkey going to use its veto authority to block Sweden and Finland from joining NATO? I think the more important question is whether or not Sweden and Finland are ready to recognize and respect Turkish security prerogatives as being as legitimate as their own concerns over Russia. 

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:
 
First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
 
And then there’s you.
 
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

Goodbye to the Middle East

This day was always going to happen.

On October 7, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a partial withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. Soon after, Turkish forces began moving south across the border to strike Kurdish forces which had been until extremely recently under American protection. Two days later the partial American withdrawal was upgraded to a full evacuation of all forces.

Wailing and gnashing of teeth across the American political spectrum quickly erupted, with many condemning the tactical and political aspects of the president’s decision. I’m of mixed minds:

On the one hand, the Kurds – whether in Syria or Iraq – have been America’s only reliable regional allies since America’s first major confrontation with Iraq back in the early 1990s. When we have asked, they have answered. Every single time. In many cases U.S. forces didn’t even do the heavy lifting, but instead relegated themselves to providing intelligence and materiel support. Without the Kurds’ assistance the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would have been far nastier affair, post-Saddam Iraq would have been far less stable, the defanging of ISIS and the destruction of the ISIS caliphate would not have happened. In Syria in specific, the Kurds habitually provided at least five times the forces the Americans did.

On the other hand, the United States was always going to leave Syria. If the Americans were unwilling to commit 100,000 troops to the overthrow of Syria’s Assad government and its subsequent forcible reconstruction, then there was little reason to become involved in a decades-long, grinding multi-sided civil war.

The primary reason American forces remain in Syria at this point is to limit Iranian penetration. That battle was lost six years ago when then-President Obama allowed the Syrian government to cross Obama’s own red line on the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. Obama made it crystal clear that any U.S. military action would be small scale, focused on Special Operations Forces, and largely dedicated to backing up the Syrian Kurds. Whether under Obama or Trump, an American withdrawal has always been inevitable. It’s just taken seven years of Syrian-Russian-Iranian victories on the battlefield and the large-scale dismemberment of the ISIS Caliphate to make it imminent.

Aside from the Iranian vector, American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent. Syria – even backed up by Iran – is a military pigmy that Israel could easily shatter. If Jerusalem really wanted to, it could roll into Damascus in a long weekend. (Sticking around, of course, would be a barrel of shiv-wielding monkeys.) American interests in Lebanon are less than American interests in Syria. Jordan has been a de facto Israeli client state for years. And that is quite literally all she wrote.

The far more important fact – comfortable or uncomfortable depending upon your view – is that the evolving American view of Syria is really little more than a microcosm of an evolving American view of the Middle East writ large. American troop deployments throughout the region have been plunging for a decade and are now down to about one-tenth of their peak. America now has more troops in Afghanistan than the rest of the region combined, and that deployment is well on its way to a complete phase out. CENTCOM HQ in Qatar will almost certainly be closed soon (you don’t need a forward command center if there’s nothing to command). The Iraq advisory force is leaving. Kuwait, once the launchpad for multiple wars, has been reduced to lilypad status. The Turks are certain to eject U.S. forces from the Incirlik base within a year.

Within two years the total regional deployment figure will be in the low-to-mid single digits of thousands, at most one-fifth of what is there today.

That sounds shocking and, considering it wasn’t that long ago that the Americans had a quarter-million troops in-region, it kind of is. But take a step back and look – really look – at the region, and it actually isn’t all that mind blowing.
 
Iraq is falling apart. Mass unrest is now entering its third week and if it continues along its current trajectory it risks bringing down the government. That isn’t “bring down the government” European-style which would mean new elections, but instead “bring down the government” in the post-Arab Spring style, which means an extended period of mass chaos, violence, and very likely a return to some degree of civil war. While it is true that Iraq has experienced cyclical public unrest since 2015, never has the regional climate been more tenuous, with Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia openly involved in regional conflicts – meaning the normal balancing act between Iraq’s Shi’ites, Kurds and Sunnis (and their foreign backers) is over. Stabilizing this mess would require the Americans (re)injecting 100,000 troops. Far more likely, the Americans will remove the five-ish thousand troops which remain, taking the last thin reed of stability with them.
 
Iran is the regional bugaboo that most Americans fear. Since the end of the Clinton Administration American policy has held quixotic goals: we want the Iranian government gone, but we don’t want to use U.S. forces to do it. Under Clinton that meant the dual containment. Under W Bush it meant a forward blocking position in Iraq. Under Obama it meant trying to set up a regional balance of power. Under Trump it means economic sanctions backed by exactly zero military force.
 
None of it has worked. None of it was ever going to work. The Shia clergy is the Iranian political elite, giving the Iranians the deepest bench of political leadership in the region. You’d literally have to kill 10,000 mullahs to induce a shift. Nor is Iran revolution-prone. The first task of the country’s infantry-heavy military is to occupy Iran to ensure domestic unity. There are solid reasons why Iran’s 2009 “Green Revolution” was over in under a month.
 
Nor is knocking Iran off feasible. Iran is a mountain nation, granting it a defensibility which partially obviates the sort of air and tank warfare for which the Americans are renown. Moreover, Iran’s population in 2019 is over triple that of Iraq in 2003. Overthrowing the government would necessitate a force over twice as powerful as the one that took down Saddam’s Iraq, followed by an occupation force three times as large. No thank you. The U.S. military and public has exactly zero interest in putting 400,000 troops back into the Middle East to fight another grinding war of occupation.
 
What about America’s “allies”?

The Persian Gulf

Qatar is the perfect example of a friends-like-these ally. In per capita terms it is almost certainly the top financial supporter of Islamic terror groups in the world (I say almost certainly since Qatar doesn’t disclose their terror accounting). On the nicer end Qatar fundees include the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, ramping up to more knifey groups like al Qaeda and ISIS. Doha also has a nuanced-to-positive relationship with Iran for various reasons, not the least of which is its gas wealth stems from the shared North Dome/South Pars gas field. Qatar has hosted the operational headquarters for most U.S. warfighting in the region for the past two decades despite being a place that is in part responsible for the Americans needing to do the warfighting in the first place.
 
That’s nothing compared to Saudi Arabia. A half century from now when today’s headlines are parsed for the history books, the world will remember Saudi Arabia’s current de facto leader – Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) – as one of the evilest individuals in modern history.
 
The sheer volume of public support, money, arms and ideological cover given to religiously-tinted fighters – that’s jihadis or terrorists based on your politics – by various Saudi citizens and royals alike has boomed in step with the Kingdom’s regional ambitions. (Qataris have been implicated in plenty of terrorist financing schemes, but fewer than a relative handful have taken up arms themselves; 9/11 shows that the same cannot be said for Saudis.) Saudi Arabia habitually backs the most extreme, violent interpretation of Islam and regularly exports it far and wide at the end of a gun or leading wave of an explosion.
 
MBS has taken things further. Once he realized the Americans were serious about leaving the region, he shifted tact and instead of simply seeking destabilization of his enemies, he now seeks to burn down the pillars of civilization across the entire field of competition. Much of the Sunni Islamic extremism in Syria can be laid at his feet, as can much of the ongoing violence and chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor are MBS’ actions limited to the battlefield. About a year ago on MBS’ orders, a hit squad suffocated and dismembered a Washington Post columnist in Istanbul, transported his remains to the Saudi consul general’s house where they were incinerated in a custom-built “barbeque pit” just before the consul hosted a massive party that utilized the same pit to help degrade any lingering forensic evidence.
 
MBS is not a friend, nor is Saudi Arabia an ally. America used to have to put up with this sort of activity from the Saudis during the Cold War because without Saudi oil, the global trading system would have collapsed and taken the American alliance network with it. Courtesy of America’s shale revolution, those days are over.
 
Rhetoric aside, even President Trump doesn’t see the bilateral relationship as all that close. Last month the Iranians launched a drone and missile attack on Saudi energy facilities, taking some 5 million barrels of daily output offline. Under normal circumstances that would have prompted massive American military retaliation. Instead, Trump’s response to MBS’ call for assistance was something along the lines of, “sorry, I have a fundraiser.” For those of you who think oil is a globalized commodity and so the U.S. remains vulnerable to price swings, think again. The president has preexisting authority to limit U.S. crude exports. Should global prices get too crazy, an executive order can keep U.S. shale output at home, splitting the North American energy market off from the global market. The Saudi headache is now optional.
 
Even Israel isn’t what it once was. Within the next decade the country’s mostly-Palestinian Muslim population will become the majority, although about 90 percent of them have no political rights in the Israeli system. The two-state process that sought to generate a country for the Palestinians has been dead for years and we have already seen the Israelis implement a very successful separation plan more than a bit reminiscent of South Africa’s Apartheid.
 
In fact, Israeli ultranationalists in private conversations even welcome the comparison to Apartheid, because they think Apartheid was gentler than what modern Israel has achieved. Under Apartheid, the black South Africans could travel to white-controlled zones for work. Under the Israeli program the Palestinians languish behind 35-foot-tall concrete walls in what are little more than open air prisons with the Israelis controlling Palestinian access to power, food and water. As the thinking goes, who cares if this radicalizes the Palestinians if they are radicalized on the other side of a wall. Arguably, places like Tunisia or Pakistan are now “more equal” democracies than Israel. (Ugh, I’m going to get so much hate mail for these last two paragraphs.)
 
Turkey and the United States have been pulling apart for three decades. In a world where Soviet containment is the end-all be-all, the alliance was everything. Remove the Soviet threat, however, and the Turks have interests in the Balkans, Caucasus, Persia, Mesopotamia and the Levant that have next to nothing to do with American interests. Turkey is reasserting itself as a major regional power, and since the American military position in places like northern Iraq and Syria are largely dependent upon supply routes through Turkey, there is no long-term American strategic position in these regions without express Turkish assistance. That assistance has been removed, so the Americans – regardless of domestic policy preferences – have no choice but to leave.
 
That just leaves the Kurds, a mostly mountain people. That makes them a fractious bunch whose fractured leadership has traditionally been willing to fight to the last Kurd to determine who is in command, while enabling more homogenous ethno-sectarian groups on all sides to easily demonize them, oppress them, and play them off one another. They are the largest ethno-sectarian group in the world without a country, and their entire land-locked population is split among Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. For those familiar with West Virginia, Switzerland or Chechnya, squabbling oppressed mountain people make great fighters, and since they lack a country they have little to lose by allying with, well, anyone. No wonder the Americans depended on them so much.
 
But the Kurdish dream of independence was never going to be more than a dream. Landlocked and partitioned, the only way a real Kurdistan could emerge would be if one of the four countries which house Kurds actively sponsor it. That’s just not in the cards. The Kurds are a lost cause; They were never more than an ally of the moment.
 
They are hardly the only ally of the moment the Americans have abandoned. At the end of the Vietnam War the Americans left the Hmong – another fractious mountain people who allied with the Americans – in the lurch. Their massacre at the hands of the Vietnamese is the stuff of legend. Something similar is about to happen to the Syrian Kurds at the hands of the Turks. The biggest difference between the two groups is there are too many Kurds to resettle them to Minnesota.

So why all the noise back in the United States? Aren’t the Americans exhausted with the Middle East? Shouldn’t they be celebrating?
 
In part it is because the extreme unpopularity of Donald Trump means any decision he makes is going to be parsed for negative sound bites, and there is no end of hypocrisy in play. My personal favorite are the former Obama team talking heads hitting the airwaves who only now find Syria’s murder and mayhem worthy of American military action.
 
In part it is because abandoning an ally is bad form, particularly if you think the U.S. should play a role in preventing genocide, promoting human rights, stymieing traditional rivals, or keeping a hand on the throat of the global economy. Even if you think none of this is the U.S.’ business, you’ve got to admit a lot of stuff happens in the region, and having a finger in the pot does prove useful from time to time. In the grand scheme of things, 2000 troops in Syria isn’t that big of a deal.
 
A deeper (and IMO far more substantive) issue is the fate of America’s national security professionals. Trump initially liked the generals because of their “yes sir” and “can do” attitudes. After all, civilian supremacy means the president is in charge, you do what you are told and if you have a problem with the president’s policy you don’t undermine him, you leave. Well, two years on, pretty much all of them have left.
 
The break has become so extreme that Trump now considers national security-minded Republicans to be greater ideological foes than the Democrats. One of the big outcomes of the 2018 mid-term elections was the wholesale ejection of that faction from Congress as well as from the Republican Party leadership itself. For many of this group, Syria is the prefect example of poor leadership: Trump’s policy not only betrays a loyal ally, it abdicates an American role throughout an entire region. We can debate the pros and cons of that abdication, but for folks in the military, intelligence and diplomatic communities this is a step that unwinds a half-century of painstaking military, intelligence and diplomatic efforts paid for with untold resources and blood. You don’t have to view the world their way to understand why they’re pissed.
 
That doesn’t change the simple fact that if not for the seemingly bottomless volume of TrumpDrama in America these days, most Americans would probably be sighing in relief right now. If the Americans really don’t have an interest in maintaining a global Order, then the Middle East is barren of American national interests and it can now firmly be someone else’s problem. It isn’t nice. It isn’t responsible. It won’t be pretty. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
 
Of course the road from here to there is neither straight nor level. There are still plenty of land-mines to dodge:

  • The evacuation of U.S. forces has been ordered, but it has not been completed. That evacuation has to proceed through the Turkish advance and through Turkey. Things are already looking dicey. Shortly after the initial withdrawal order some Turkish forces apparently (intentionally) dropped some artillery near remaining American outposts, forcing the remaining Americans to scramble lest they find themselves in a shooting war with the Turks. The U.S.-Turkish alliance is over, but based on how events unfold in the next couple of weeks a U.S.-Turkish hostility may emerge.
  • The Kurds of Iraq and Syria are both armed and trained and experienced and on the edge of statehood. Just because they (especially the Syrian Kurds) are doomed to fail does not mean they are doomed to fail today. How they fight back and/or seek alignment with Syria and/or Iran and/or Russia will determine the region’s next set of battle lines. This matters the most for the Turks. The Turks are out of practice, having not fought a meaningful military campaign since World War I. If they perform badly it will reshape their regional ambitions. If they perform well there are lots of regional players – Armenia, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia come to mind – who will be extremely worried.
  • Of those, by far the most important one is Russia. Like American forces, Russian forces can really only operate in Syria with Turkish acquiescence. With the Americans gone and the Turks ramping up, it’s probably the Russians’ turn to GTFO of the region. If they don’t, a direct Turkish-Russian clash that leaves the Russians on the wrong side of all their backup will ensue. The climbdown and/or massacre would be globally humiliating.
  • One smallish bit of good news is that the ISIS Caliphate is definitely gone, and the ISIS militant movement is broken and on the run. Many have opined that without the American-Kurdish alliance ISIS in any form would have never been defeated. That is true. But that’s not the same as saying that ISIS is doomed to rebound. Historically, the territory that comprises eastern Syria and western Iraq – the ISIS heartland – has been on the bleeding edge of useless. Rain doesn’t happen and the only crops grown are those in the Euphrates floodplain. In most places that band is less than 20 miles across. Civilizing this region is wildly expensive, and so the powers of the region tend to ignore it…until some wackadoo group like ISIS starts causing problems. Then one of the region’s powers invades and burns everything to the ground. From 2003 until 2018 the region’s powers were non-functional: Iraq and Syria had civil wars, while Turkey was gun-shy. The fact that the ISIS Caliphate lasted as long as it did was testament to how abnormal the region had become. Well, Turkey is now invading. It will burn everything to the ground. The atrocities the world is about to pin on the Turks mean we are returning to something a lot more normal.
  • Europe is… screwed. It is one thing to have to deal with a prickly Turkey who stays at home. It is quite another to have Europe’s largest land army deploying in force in a way that most Europeans have publicly condemned. With the exception of the French, no European power has the capacity of independent power projection to the region. And now Turkey is publicly threatening to herd millions of Syrian refugees to Europe’s doorstep unless the Europeans shut up about Turkey’s new military campaign. After the United States, Turkey ties with Russia for being Europe’s most important partner. Expect those ties to burn in the months to come.
  • Finally, there’s Saudi Arabia. In the aftermath of the Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities, the Saudis have paid the Americans to deploy 3,000 troops to the Kingdom. Two things from this: First, sooner or later the Americans will internalize just how messed up the Saudis are and will evacuate everything at once, precipitating a whole new regional crisis. Second, the Americans going pseudo-mercenary is about to be the new normal. If you cannot provide something shiny to bait the Americans into your region (cash is shiny), then you are on your own. That development will reverberate far beyond the Persian Gulf region.