Demographics Part 6: The Orthodox Predicament

It’s time we talk about a region that has long held the title of “worst demographics”…The Orthodox Christian countries.

The big dog of the region – Russia – has entered a point of no return for its demographic situation. Ukrainians are even worse off. Regardless of the outcome of this war – they’ll end up with a s*** stew of demographics. 

Other countries like Bulgaria and Romania aren’t any better off. They’ve basically sent out all of their youth to other countries for economic opportunities…and even if they do return, they’re not adding to the population once they reach their 40s and 50s.

Serbia had the opportunity to flourish into the most rapidly growing economy in the region. Still, they’ve made every wrong policy decision in the book…so no dice for them either.

Each of these countries will likely come face-to-face with its inevitable demise within the next 20 years, and there’s not much they can do about it. 

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.

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TRANSCIPT

Hey Everyone, Peter Zeihan here coming to you from snowy Colorado, where, as promised, we’re going to be talking about the next chunk of our demographic series, specifically talking about the Orthodox Christian world, which is a huge swath of territory stretching from Russia to Belarus and Ukraine and Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. Now, these countries have three characteristics in common that have really shaped their demographic destinies, and none of them have been great.

The first is broad scale economic dislocation. These were the parts of the former communist world that didn’t do well, even at the height of communism. They weren’t very advanced. And especially when the post-Cold War system erupted, they didn’t have anything really to contribute aside from raw commodities. Their industry was outdated. They weren’t producing steel like the Czech Republic or I.T., stuff like the Latvians. They were only doing grains and raw materials and energy. And you can get growth from that. You can get wealth from that, you can get infrastructure and development from that. But unless it is really, really well-managed, the population just doesn’t see a whole lot of it. So these countries were in and out of horrible recessions for really 30 years.

It’s less bad in places like Romania and Bulgaria because they did ultimately get into the EU in the late 2000s, but they were the last ones in line. Serbia took a kind of a double hit because they don’t have a lot of raw materials that they can export to the world. And in the aftermath of the NATO bombings in the Yugoslav wars in the early 1990s, Serbia never moved on. So even with the Russians under Putin going from win to win, in terms of global policy and generating a lot of income from oil in Serbia, there was a whole lot of nothing. And politics basically became locked down in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars, and the country really was never able to advance to whatever is next. And that holds true even today.

Okay. What’s second because of the economic dislocation, because so many people didn’t see a lot of opportunity. You had huge immigration from all of these states, mostly to Western Europe, some to the United States and Canada in the cases of Romania and Bulgaria once they got into the EU. If anything, the outmigration accelerated because there were then fewer restrictions.

The Russians easily lost 10 million people in the 1990 and early 2000s to the wider world. And in the case of Moldova, perhaps as much as one quarter of the female population under age 50 left never to return, some of them going, a lot of them going into the sex trade because there really wasn’t a lot of an option because education in Moldova during the Soviet periods was even very low.

Serbia is probably the country that has suffered the most from this outmigration because again, the government just has never moved on and there’s never been a plan economically for what’s next. 

The third one kind of flies under the radar and is probably going to piss a few people off. But here we are. Birth control in this region. The primary method is abortion.

So on average, more than seven out of ten pregnancies across this space are terminated. And if you have one abortion, I know I’m a dude. I really have no right to say this, but, you know, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that it’s not critical to your health. But if you have ten, you’re probably endangering your future fertility.

So between a very low death rate, a very high abortion rate and very high infertility rates because of the weird intersection of health care and birth control and economic collapse, it’s arguable that a lot of these countries, probably Russia, right at the very top of that list, simply could not repopulate, even if the economic conditions were to turn around. So this is the part of the world that is duking it out with Northeast Asia for the lowest birth rates and the fastest national mortality, if that’s the right term in the world. So that’s kind of the overview.

Those are the three big issues that shape the region as a whole. But we do need to give additional attention to the Russians and the Ukrainians.

Now, the Russians have had a series of stacked geopolitical disasters World War One, World War Two, Stalin’s famines, Brezhnev’s mismanagement, Khrushchev’s mismanagement, and then the post-Cold War collapse. All these kind of stacked on each other. And so that the current generation that is now in their twenties is the smallest one they’ve ever had.

The Russians say they’ve got a metric ton of teenagers and that the demographic turn has been made and they’re going to be fine if they are telling the truth about that. That would be the only of their data that they’re telling the truth. More likely that we actually have fewer teenagers than 20 somethings. And you’ll see that in the demographic graphic that we’ve patched into the show.

More likely, their data is more similar to the situation in Ukraine. One more thing about the Russian demographics. They’re not equal. Just as in the United States, where places like Utah, Texas have higher birth rates in places like New York or Connecticut because they’re less urbanized or have different cultural norms. The same is true in Russia. Russia is not just Russian. The Russian state was originally founded in the area in Moscow, and they discovered that they really had no borders that were secure. So the way they decided to deal with that was to expand, conquer all their neighbors, consolidate and expand again, conquer all of those neighbors and so on and so on and so on until they get to the Russia that we more or less know today and during the Soviet period.

That means that there are dozens of conquered peoples living within the Russian system. Some of them have demographic stats that are just as bad as the Russians, but not all of them. A lot of the Turkic minorities, most notably the Chechens, the Dagestanis, the Basqueirs, and the Tatars actually have very robust demographic structures and are doing very well from a health and a growth point of view.

Well, the last decent number that we’ve got from the Russians was done by the 1989 Soviet Census. And at that point, the best guess – Soviet numbers, after all, was that 20% of the Russian population within the Russian Federation was non Russian. So 80% Russian, 20% non-Russian. Well folks, that was over 30 years ago. It’s probably closer to 25 to 30% today.

That’s non Russian. And if you fast forward another 20 years, you’re talking about probably 30 to 35%. Now these are all guesstimates upon guesstimates because this is Russia and getting good data is next to impossible even before there was a war. But we do know for sure that even if you include all of the minorities, the Russians, only have 8 million men aged 20 to 36 months from now.

At least a million of those are going to be committed to the war in Ukraine. We already have over 100,000 dead. We already have about a million who have fled the country. So one way or another, the Ukraine war is the last conventional war that the Russians are ever going to be able to fight because they simply won’t have enough people.

Now, the Ukrainians have no reason to lie about their demographic data, aside from the fact that it’s absolutely atrocious. And if you look at it and you look at just the collapse from the fifties to the forties to the thirties to the twenties, to the teens to kids, you’ll notice that this isn’t just a demographically spent country. This is a demographically dissolving country.

So unfortunately, even if the Ukrainians achieve runaway success in this war this year, it’s already too late. Even before the Russians started kidnaping children in the thousand, perhaps hundreds of thousands from Ukraine, this was a country that simply didn’t have enough people under age 40 to even theoretically repopulate themselves. So within 20 or 30 years, we are looking at the Ukrainian ethnicity vanishing from this world and probably the Russian ethnicity, no more than 20 or 30 years behind that.

Like I said, they are duking it out with Northeast Asia to see who vanishes faster, which means we have to turn to Northeast Asia next, because that is going to be the part of the world where from an economic point of view, these demographic turnings have the greatest impact. Okay, take care. Until next time.

Germany Green-Lights the Tanks

After months of discussion, the Germans have opted to allow the Leopard Tanks to be sent into Ukraine…and while it may seem like this resolution took far too long, anyone that has read a history book can at least understand the reason for the delay.

There are two main factors to understand in this situation. First, the Leopards within the countries near Ukraine can get there and into the fight for the spring offensive. That’s huge. Second, the Germans put a clause into their policy that states the Americans must also provide some of their tanks – the Abrams. That one’s a bit more problematic.

The Abrams is less tank and more “armored weapons system” – and some of those systems are still classified. On top of that, just imagine all the heavy lifting required to create Abrams-specific logistics and service infrastructure stretching from the USA to Ukraine…it’ll be a while before those Abrams hit Ukrainian soil in any useful manner.

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 a hotel room where I am in a hurry to get ready for a presentation. I have to be mic’d up in 20 minutes, so we’re just going to do this as we go. The big news on the 24th of January is that we seem to have a deal between the Germans and everybody else in the Western Alliance about the Germans providing leopard tanks to Ukraine.

Now, this is a main battle tank. It is the primary battle tank for most members of the NATO Alliance. It is obviously German made and there are export clauses that you can’t share your tanks, your leopards, with anyone unless the Germans give it the official approval that has been withheld until this moment. The Germans have been saying that they don’t want to be the ones taking the lead on this and they will only provide leopard 2s in the instances where the Americans provide the Abrams battle tanks, which are the American primary system.

It appears that there has been a compromise between the Scholz government of Germany and the Biden government of the United States to do some version of that. Now, there’s a few things here. First of all, why the Germans have been so hesitant. I don’t know if you know your history, but the last couple of hundred years of history has not been well, based on your point of view, it doesn’t necessarily put the Germans in the best light.

And so the idea that the Germans would ever, in a peaceful environment, decide that they should take a leadership position on military affairs is something that is antithetical, not just to the German population in general, but the government of Scholz specifically. His party is the Social Democrats and they have basically made their bones in geopolitics about making sure that Germany is never an offensive power at all.

Now the Ukraine war is forcing everyone to reassess what ideology shapes strategy and vice versa. But the idea I got to say, the idea that the Germans are beyond hesitant to be a leader in military and affairs in Europe and in the former Soviet Union. This is a really smart move. If the Germans just started providing weapons to one side or another in any war, regardless of what you think of the belligerence, I think we should all get a little bit nervous.

So while the Ukrainians are the ones who are paying the price for this reticence and I can understand why they’ve been upset to this point, you’ve got to admit, if you take an honest look at history, this is an a-okay situation. The second issue has to do with the Americans, specifically the Abrams tanks themselves. Now the leopard’s – they’re good hardware.

I’m not going to tell anyone that German engineering, especially when it comes to weapons systems, isn’t top notch. The Abrams should be more accurately thought of as the pinnacle of armored equipment development. This is a system that is not merely a tank. It’s a weapons system that has several integrated programs within it, some of which the Americans still consider top secret.

So anything that the United States sends from its arsenal is going to honestly have to be dumbed down a significant amount, and that is going to, at a minimum, take time. There’s also a question whether or not these weapons are going to be getting to the Ukrainians in any sort of reasonable time. Now, in the case of the leopards, there are over a dozen countries in Europe that use them. And everyone except for the Germans has been arguing for sending these things for weeks now. So the leopards can actually be on the front lines in Ukraine probably within two or three or four months, which means that can actually make a difference in the coming spring offensive, which will happen in May and June. And so from the Ukrainian point of view, that is absolutely essential.

Now, from the American point of view, that is equally essential and is part of the reason why the Biden administration to this point has not provided the Abrams, because it is not battle ready in that way. Even if the Biden administration could just turn them over tomorrow, which it honestly can’t. No one in Europe at the moment operates Abrams at all.

And because so many systems on the Abrams are cutting edge and have not been replicated anywhere else in any country, the maintenance and supply, the logistical tail that’s necessary to operate. Abrams doesn’t exist anywhere in the world except for in the United States itself. So the United States does have to build facilities in Europe, probably some in Germany, certainly some in Poland, which is in the process of purchasing some Abrams, but that is going to have to stretch all the way to Ukraine. And if you want to talk about something that might cross a red line or two with the Russians, a NATO logistical tail going all the way back to the continental United States for everything from arming to repairs, we’re going to do a lot of gray areas there.

But most importantly, the infrastructure does not yet exist. But for the leopards, it’s right there. Not only is Germany the manufacturer, it’s operated by Finland, and the Balts and Poland. All countries that border the conflict zone. So you can get leopards on the field of battle very, very quickly. ABRAMS Even if the training requirements were identical, which they are not.

You’re talking a minimum of a year, probably closer to three, to build out the physical support and infrastructure to get an appreciable number. Abrams In play now, there’s some people who are saying, you know, you know, by getting an Abrams into Ukraine, that is a vote of confidence in the Ukrainians. Absolutely. That is a signal that the United States is not going to quit.

Absolutely. Those are relevant conversation points. But an Abrams in theater without that support infrastructure is a target that the Russians will try to take out. You do not use an Abrams battle tank for a photo op. You use it to ruin someone else’s photo op. So do we have a political deal now to get Abrams into Ukraine? Sounds like it. That doesn’t mean they’re going to be on the battlefield anytime soon. And that’s okay.

Alright. That’s it for me. Got to go. Bye.

The 2nd Holodomor

In the 1930s, the Soviet Union attempted to crush the Ukrainians in a genocide known to history as the Holodomor. 

Key to the strategy was deliberate efforts to destroy agricultural production to ensure famine. In all, 4 million Ukrainians perished. Today’s Russia is about to switch gears in the ongoing military conflict and attempt a second Holodomor. 

Here’s how we should expect the next chapter to begin…

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here

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

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey, everyone. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Calgary on the Bow River, just outside of downtown. Today, I wanted to talk very briefly about what’s going on with Ukraine and the path of the war, not necessarily from a military point of view, but from an economic and strategic point of view. 

One of the key things to remember about the war right now is that the Ukrainians are wildly outmanned. The Russians have a population of roughly 140 million, and it has no problem throwing bodies and nearly limitless numbers into the war effort. Right now, we have had a first stage mobilization of about 300,000. There’s another stage of at least 500,000 coming probably within a few days, which means that by the time we get to May and June, the Russians will have a minimum of another half a million men in the field. And it’s not clear that the Ukrainians have enough bullets to take them all out. In this sort of conflict where the Ukrainians simply can’t trade a body for a body. It’s more than training, it’s more than morale, it’s more than equipment. It’s about speed, it’s about mobility. So as important as rockets and missiles and jets and tanks are and they are all critical to Ukrainian survival here, ultimately what the Ukrainians really need is the ability to move when the Russians can’t.

Now, in this, they’ve won at least half the battle. Russian forces historically and currently can really only resupply by rail. That is how the Russian system has always worked. They don’t have a Russian road network, so they have to move things by train. And when the Kerch Bridge was taken out last year, the Russians lost their primary method of supplying to the southern front. They’ve had to make do with trucks. But the Ukrainians have been attacking the truck fleet, the tactical support truck fleet of the military ever since the very beginning of the conflict. The Russians began the war with 3000 military support trucks. They’re probably down to only about 500 now. And so they’ve been going back to Russia and confiscating things like vans and city buses in order to ferry troops and even artillery shells around the front. And I got to say, when a city bus loaded with artillery shells hits a bump, things get a little exciting. But that’s not enough for the Ukrainians. They have to inflict casualties on the Russians in excess, minimum excess of 5 to 1. And we’re just not there yet. If the pace continues, if this 3 to 1, 4 to 1 ratio, that we’re seeing of Ukrainian fatalities versus Russian fatalities continues. The Ukrainians will lose in time. They have to turn this into a war of movement. And in that, the weather has really not been very cooperative. You can split the seasons in Ukraine to basically four chunks. You got your summer when the ground is hard and dry, you’ve got the winter when it’s hard and frozen. And then in the spring and the autumn, you have what are called mud seasons where it’s just not cold enough to freeze the ground, but it’s wet enough that everybody gets stuck. So if you’re on foot, you get stuck in mud. If you’re in a vehicle, all that mud turns your treads into just mush. And that is exactly the scenario the Russians found themselves in in the first part of the war. This is the primary reason that the assault on Kyiv failed and the primary reason that the Russians ended up abandoning their entire position in the northern part of the country. Their troops, their army, their tanks were limited to just being on the road. And that made it very easy for infantry to pick them out with things like javelins.

In this sort of situation, what do you do? Well, you wait for it to be winter and then you attack when the ground is hard and you use your superior air mobility to cut Russian logistic lines. I’ve been expecting to push south, not necessarily to reach the sea, but simply to get all of the roads within artillery range so that the Ukrainians can cut the supply line once and for all. That has not happened because it has been freakishly warm in Ukraine for several weeks now. Now here in Calgary, it has not been above freezing for over a month and so the river is frozen for the most part.

But in Kyiv, it hasn’t gotten below freezing during the day for over a month. And in that sort of situation, they’re experiencing a wildly, unexpectedly, unprecedentedly extended mud season. Now, this could change in ten days, although the extended forecast doesn’t suggest it. And we could get a hard freeze before the end of January, in which case February, which is normally part of the frozen season, could still see a lot of dynamism out of the Ukrainians. But that is not in the cards at the moment. 

And that means it’s time to start thinking about what the next stage of the Russian assault happens to look like. At the moment, the Russians are waiting for spring so they can throw those extra half a million men and just come at the Ukrainians from multiple angles. And if they do enough with enough, then it really doesn’t matter if the Ukrainians are mobile, they’ll be overwhelmed and that could be the end of the war right there. So right now, the Russians are just biding their time. They know they lack the logistical support to do any sort of broad scale, multifaceted, complicated assault right now. So they’re just throwing some bodies at a few places. If you’ve seen Bakhmut in the news, that’s exactly what’s happening there. But mostly the Russians are kind of sitting on their hands and waiting, but they are doing what they can to destroy morale and destroy the Ukrainian economy and kill as many Ukrainian civilians as possible. They’re using drones. They’re using fighter launched missiles. They’re using cruise missiles. And they’ve started to use ballistic missiles to target specifically Ukrainian physical infrastructure, most notably electricity generating plants.

They’re thinking is if they knock the electricity off in the depths of winter, you will, number one, kill a lot of civilians. Number two, you will demoralize the soldiers because if they see that their families back home are losing power, they’ve got to wonder why they’re on the front line if the front lines aren’t very dynamic. It’s an utterly despicable and inhumane strategy, but that doesn’t mean it’s stupid. And right now, the Ukrainians are suffering over and over and over again from these assaults. But once we get to spring, the Russians are going to change targets, not strategies, but targets. In addition to pushing for a broad based assault on multiple axes. They will then shift their targeting from electricity infrastructure to something else, because in the summer, taking out the power doesn’t have the same impact that you do it on the winter. Ukraine is just not that hot, that it needs mass electricity, electricity for air conditioning. I mean, this isn’t Alabama or Texas. In the winter, you have to have it for heating. But in the summer, it’s not so important.

So at that point, expect the Russians to change their targeting from electricity infrastructure to something a lot more insidious. Agricultural infrastructure targeting the factories that make the parts that repair the tractors, targeting the tractors themselves, targeting cold chain systems, targeting grain silos, targeting ports.

Right now, the Ukrainians have a series of deals that have been brokered by the U.N. with the Russians for getting grain out of their ports. It’s mostly been corn because it’s denser, both in terms of weight and in terms of economics than wheat. Wheat exports have fallen to almost nothing. But if the Russians start targeting their ability to produce and transport grain at all over the summer, then any country that is dependent on what has historically been the world’s fourth largest corn exporter and fifth largest wheat exporter is going to have a really, really tough year.

We should probably expect to see targets shifting in May and into June, and there’ll be obvious the impact that this is having by the time we get to September and October. And then the countries that would normally import from Ukraine come October, November, December are going to realize it’s just not there. Most of those countries are in Africa, some are in South Asia, and the one I am by far the most worried about is Egypt.

Egypt is poor. They import over half the grains they need to survive, mostly wheat. The wheat is already offline. And so we should expect to see significant upheaval, economic, humanitarian, political, across the Arab world and into South Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa, all later, in the second half of 2023. And at this point, there’s just not a lot that anyone can do about it.

Fertilizer supplies are already constrained, and the Black Sea is probably going to become a no go zone once the Russians start targeting the ports altogether. I don’t have a cheery note to end this one on. This is just pretty dark. I’ll see you guys later.

A Toasty Winter in Europe

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here

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

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

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

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

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Ukraine War and the End of Russia—Repost

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

JDAMs: Ukrainian Bombs Get Smarter

If you’ve ever spent time in a pub throwing back (a few too many) pints, you’ve probably wandered over to the dart board. And hopefully you can at least hit the board, but beyond that…who knows where that dart is going. Take that analogy and apply it to Ukraine’s current arsenal of bombs.

The Ukrainians have struggled to hit a target with any degree of confidence until now. Introducing JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions). Relying on our analogy…JDAMs are like putting that same dart into the hands of a 65-year-old chap from the UK…and he doesn’t miss often.

This technology has the ability to change the tactical and strategic scope of this war. With Ukraine’s unrestricted airspace, they can now hit any location within range with pinpoint accuracy. More like J-DAMN…

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

Ukraine: The Problems and Potential of Plopping for Patriots

At the onset of the Ukraine War, the Americans laid out 3 criteria for providing weapons to the Ukrainians: it must be a weapon system not critical to US defense operations, the technology must be outdated and it must be something that the Ukrainians can operate on their own. But things are changing…

In the West’s eyes, the Russians have escalated this war through their genocidal actions. Resulting in discussions over the use of the Patriot Missile Defense System. Now, this brings plenty of implications to the table.

Perhaps the most notable is that the Patriot Missile requires “advisors” to aid in its operation – meaning boots on the ground. Nothing is set in stone, but this could significantly impact the trajectory of the war.

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

Ukrainian Drone Strikes: Waging a New War

Western countries have gone out of their way NOT to provide the Ukrainians with weapon systems capable of striking Russia directly. So they are building their own.

This will not change the tides of war overnight, especially since Russia has never backed down from a fight without losing at least half a million men first. However, it does present an interesting opportunity for the Ukrainians.

By targeting Russia’s nexus points (i.e., oil refineries), the Ukrainians could eliminate Putin’s economic ability to sustain its military complex. Then we’ll have a much more interesting conversation to have.

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

Ukrainian Consequences: Who Will Win…And When?

Want to know when the war in Ukraine will end and who will emerge victorious? Unfortunately, I don’t have my magic 8-ball on me, but I can give you a timeline on when we should all be able to answer those questions – May.

Before we get there, let’s not forget about the path ahead. Both sides will come face-to-face with Mother Nature in all her glory – meaning mud, rain, snow, cold…all of it. The Ukrainians will have time to fix up those shiny new toys they captured. The Russians will push more and more troops to the front lines.

As all of those pressures compound over the next 5+ months, both sides will be ready to duke it out come May.

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

War, Winter, Ukraine

The tides of war are beginning to shift in favor of the Ukrainians, so the Russians are resorting to attacking the very infrastructure that enables Ukraine to function as a country. This means water and power are being targeted at a time when Ukraine needs them most.

If Ukrainians can’t function as a society, then they can’t fight a war, which is a roundabout way of saying that there is a whole lot of human suffering coming. MedShare has a fund explicitly dedicated to helping Ukrainians, providing these communities with much needed medical care and attention.

This is why I chose MedShare as the charity to which all of my book sales for the remainder of the year will be donated. Please consider purchasing a book or donating below.

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