Why Japan Needs a US Alliance

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The Japanese have looked into their crystal ball and figured out that a close relationship with the Americans is the only way forward. Before Japan is welcomed in with open arms, they’ll have to prove their worth…

Between trade issues, economic challenges, and demographic crisis, it makes sense that Japan wants to join the AUKUS group (a defense focused coalition made up of the US, the UK, and Australia).

Japan has some big changes to make. While their naval capabilities are solid, they have to make the cultural and political shift toward taking a more active role for themselves and their region. They also lack real world combat experience and have plenty of cybersecurity concerns to overcome. I wouldn’t expect to see the green light anytime soon, but eventual collaboration looks to be in the cards.

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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 going to talk about the recent batch of up to up meetings between the Japanese and the Americans. In mid-April, we had a very large number of contacts up to and including Japanese Prime Minister Kushida, as well as, US President Biden. at issue is the Japanese are angling for a much closer relationship. 

So the back story Japan in the 80s up until the 80s was a huge trade country, but then they had a demographic bomb and a debt crisis at the same time. And over the next 30 years, their competitiveness basically tanked. And so they spent the next 30 years. I don’t want to say gutting, but changing the way their industrial processes worked with as much of the manufacturing as possible. 

Closer to the end, consumers in countries that didn’t face a demographic bomb. And in doing so, they went from one of the most trade weighted heavy countries in the world to one of the least involved with today, only about 10 to 15% of GDP based on where you draw the line. comes from international trade in any meaningful way. 

Toyota says, you know, we build where we sell, and that has basically become the national motto. Now, that requires a degree of openness in the country that you’re trying to sell it. And so when the Japanese over the last 20 years saw the United States becoming more and more isolationist when it came to its economic issues, they’re like, wow, we need to we need to get ahead of this. 

So they reached out to none other than Donald Trump and cut a trade deal from the Japanese point of view, was borderline humiliating. But they knew that that was the price to pay for a long term strategic and economic relationship. And in the aftermath of Trump’s fall, the leadership of Japan has been to the United States to make it clear to Joe Biden that unlike a lot of the other countries that signed trade deals with the Trump administration, Japan wasn’t looking for any changes. 

Something that the Biden administration greatly appreciated anyway. So with that in your back pocket, we can now talk about the relationship moving forward. specifically, the Japanese are angling for membership in a group called Aukus, which is Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, countries that are now pooling parts of the defense budget. And a lot of the defense technology to build a new generation of weapons. 

the Australian specifically will get out of this nuclear attack subs and medium range air launch cruise missiles, which are, you know, very blimey. And it will tighten what is basically already one of the the tightest security relationships among any three countries in the world. the Japanese would like to get into that. and if you look at what the primary concerns of the anchor steel is China, you can see how that would be a really, really nice fit. 

  

but it’s not going to happen in the near term. Three problems. Number one, culture after World War two, when the Japanese were recovering from those twin atomic blasts. The Japanese made the very serious and probably very correct decision that we never want to be in a position again where we might even theoretically, be on the wrong side of the United States. 

So we have to have a Navy. We’re an island country. We don’t have a good land network because it’s so mountainous. We have to have a navy just for, normal commerce, maritime for us anyway. And so we’re going to have a naval force. And even today, the Japanese are the second most powerful navy in the world. 

But we have to make sure that that’s cast in a way that will never make the Americans ever blink, that we might be anything other than an ally that does as it’s told. that worked during the Cold War, that worked in the post-Cold War era. But it’s not going to work now, because if the Japanese are going to be part of an alliance with the Australians, the Brits and the Americans, then they need to take some initiative on themselves. 

They need to patrol their own zones. They need to contribute to the greater whole. And that requires a lot more aggressiveness, and especially a culture of having a military that is not looked down on. Basically, in Japan until recently, if you went into the military because people thought that you couldn’t do anything else. that needs to change, because the Japanese do have one of the most technologically advanced systems in the world. 

So, number one, culture cringe. number two. Experience. Part of being a pacifist. No matter what your equipment looks load looks like means that you don’t shoot. And so, since 1945, the Japanese functionally have had no combat experience. And this is going to sound really weird. The war on terror for a lot of countries was an opportunity to get experience interfacing with the United States and get limited combat experience on an issue that, for them was not really top tier. 

So, you know, if something went disastrous, there might be some political fallout, especially with the Americans. But it’s not like Japan would face a threat to the home islands from Al-Qaeda. Well, now that the Americans have wrapped up the war on terror, that opportunity, if that’s the right word, is gone. And the Japanese, if they want to look around and get some practice, you know, you got the Russians and the Chinese, but if there’s a fight with them that is not small scale, that does not have a low risk. 

so it’s not clear how. Aside from drilling, drilling, drilling, drilling with your own forces, with the Americans, with Australia, it’s not clear how they can get that experience before they get to a real fight. The third problem, luckily, is something that is a little bit more short term and a little easier to fix, and that’s cybersecurity. If you are a pacifist and if you believe that military activity is passé. 

Well, you don’t really worry about your information control. And I would argue that aside from the Chinese, where a lot of cryptography is functionally illegal, so the government can hack its own population. The Japanese people are probably the most hacked people on the planet. That’s got to change if they’re going to be part of any sort of deep information and technical sharing, because nobody wants to develop a new nuclear submarine. 

Share the plans with the Japanese and you see it on TikTok the next day. Luckily, there’s plenty of ways to get experience combating that, and I have no doubt that the Japanese are already working on multiple cylinders in order to get that experience built up. But still, that’s not something you do in three months or six months, or nine months or 12 months. 

It’s also your process. So will this happen in some version? I think almost guaranteed. But the question is how fast can the Japanese make? The changes are going to be necessary so that the rest of their would be allies are willing to trust them? That’s not the case here. 

America’s Nuclear Supply Chain

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We’re finally seeing signs of life in Congress with the recent progress made on the establishment of a domestic uranium supply chain. This move aims to cut dependence on the Russians – who dominate global uranium processing.

This will be easier said than done though. Much of the nuclear infrastructure in the US is outdated and will need to be modernized in order to ensure a steady fuel supply. We’ll likely have to call in some favors from others who are already in the process of developing their own domestic supply system, like Canada and Australia.

This new development coming out of Congress is a step in the right direction and begins to address two major concerns facing the US: energy and national security.

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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 coming to you from Colorado. the news at the moment is that late last week, we finally got the first functional laws through committee. and actually getting action on the congressional floors for building out a domestic uranium supply chain system. the idea is that if we can refine enough fuel to enrich enough fuel, being the technical term, we will be able to cut the Russians out of the mix. 

It’s all together. the Russians are the world’s single largest producer of enriched uranium. and they are responsible for nearly half of the global market in about one quarter of ours. the process is you take raw uranium from somewhere with Kazakhstan being the single biggest player and the Australians being the biggest up and comers. You then spin it up so that the fissile component makes up somewhere between 3 and 5.5% of the mix. 

You take that enriched uranium and build it into a fuel rod that eventually ends up in a nuclear power reactor. the issue that we have is peace. Ironically, at the end of the Cold War, the Americans and the Russians were left with literally tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. And we collectively decided that we were going to get rid of them. 

So the question was, what do you do with all the enriched uranium that is in a bomb? Now, the enriched uranium that’s at a bomb is at 3 to 6% enriched. It’s like 90 to 95% enriched because you want it to go kaboom. And so we basically spend that stuff down instead of up and used it to make fuel rods going from the other direction. 

Well, you do that for 25 years, which is what it took to get rid of all those weapons. And there really wasn’t much of an economic impetus for any company in the United States to do the more normal type of and other enrichment, up from uranium ore. So we basically stopped doing it altogether in the United States. It was only in places like Russia or China where was a national security issue. 

to build the stuff up, where they kept producing it. And so now we have to rebuild an enrichment system, at the civilian level. And that’s what these new laws are about now. right now, nuclear power provides about 20% of the American electricity mix. I think we’ve got 95 reactors out right there right now. the issue is we there’s only so much flexibility in that system because with a couple of exceptions, all of this reactors are more than 40 years old. 

Most of them are 50 years old. Actually, Three Mile Island was that 1973 or 1970 that I can’t remember anyway. They all predate Three Mile Island, except with two exceptions. so the idea that you can really update these things to more modern technology, and there’s not a lot of modern technology to do. So we have to go back to the old system to keep these online. 

  

on the upside. everyone has seen this coming, and they’ve been stockpiling for some time, so we probably have about two years of fuel supply here in the United States for a reactor system. And that should be plenty of time to basically replicate technology that dates back to the 50s. in order to build a domestic supply system. 

And we’ll also be getting some help from the Canadians and the Australians who are in the process of building out their own system for very similar reasons. So this Congress, while it has been difficult for it to do anything, has seemingly found an issue that is both energy related and national security related and seems to be actually progressing forward. 

So, you know, one miracle at a time. But I take my good news where I can’t these days take care. 

The TikTok Ban Is (Almost) Here…One Year Later

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A little over a year ago, we discussed a potential ban on TikTok in the US. Well, President Biden finally signed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”, which would ban TikTok or force its parent company, ByteDance, to sell it.

You can bet that TikTok won’t go down without a fight, so we’ll probably still be talking about this a year from now…but the video below is a little reminder about why I’m not torn about this ban.

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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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Secretary Yellen Dumps Cold Water on Chinese Dumping

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is fresh from a trip to China, and she is fired up. Well, perhaps as fired up as one can surmise the Secretary gets.

But first: China.

As long-time subscribers and readers well know, China’s demographic situation is in shambles. The Chinese Communist Party even admits it, which should be an indicator of how bad things are given the CCP’s creative and liberal license with reality. One of the several negative impacts of a shrinking population is a correlated decline in consumption. For an economy as dependent on industrial overproduction to fuel growth as China’s, this presents a stark and simple reality: the Chinese population will never, ever be able to fully consume Chinese industrial output.

China’s only option is to start dumping more product overseas, as slowing down output causes myriad headaches at home: shrinking economic growth, higher unemployment, exposure of the CCP’s rising ineptitude, etc. Chinese overproduction has already dramatically restructured the world of manufactured goods since China signed onto globalization in the 1990s. The US, its European and Asian allies have simply had enough.

This is beyond simple trade protectionism and market competition. From Boston to Brussels to Busan, there is a rising awareness and unwillingness to endure the various economic, national security and environmental costs of allowing Beijing’s economic imperatives to run roughshod over the world’s industrialized and emerging economies.

Enter Big, Bad Janet Yellen.

Whatever policy disputes one might have with the Secretary notwithstanding, she has a well-documented support of limiting barriers to international trade and the flow of goods. Simply put: Secretary Yellen is a fan of free trade and the general global economic lift associated with globalization.

But Secretary Yellen is not a fan of Chinese economic bullying and product dumping. Even before she left China, there were reports of threats of US trade tariffs and other barriers. The Europeans are at work with several policies of their own, and the Chinese Communist Party? Well…

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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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Things I (Do) Worry About: Higher Education in the US

If mommy and daddy told you to go college and then you’d be set for life…you’re not alone. With traditional models pushing everyone towards white-collar jobs and university degrees, we’ve created a massive oversupply of finance bros and marketers, but left those blue-collar industries begging for some fresh meat.

As the US faces a demographic shift and shrinking population, the educational system is struggling to adapt to the changing demands. With a need for more blue-collar workers, higher education in the US is dropping the ball.

Employers are already seeing these worker shortages play out and are struggling to find a solution. As more and more graduates enter the workforce and struggle to land that ‘dream job’, those lucrative and accessible blue-collar fields might start poking holes in the higher education system in America.

Prefer to read the transcript? 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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TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from a beach. A love, a good beach. Today we’re going to dip into one of the ask Peter questions and I’m going to drop that into our open ended series on things that I worry or don’t worry about. This is definitely something I do worry about. The question is, in this demographic shift that we’re experiencing as populations age and shrink, what do I think is the future of higher education in the United States? 

And the short version is it doesn’t look very good and things are going to have to change. So let me give you a little bit of backdrop and then we’ll talk about the concerns. When the baby boomers started entering the workforce in the late sixties. They discovered that their numbers were so many that they pushed down the cost of labor. 

This is one of the reasons why the baby boomers have a reputation for being very mobile, because they would move wherever there’s a job, they could get better pay. This is also one of the reasons why women tend to enter the workforce in this period, because they had to do so to make ends meet. But that only put more pressure on the labor market, which is why the baby boomers have the record for the highest divorce rate in our country’s history. 

Anyway, point is that from a financial point of view, life was kind of rough. So the belief back in the sixties, seventies, and especially early eighties was that if you wanted to get ahead, you didn’t want a blue collar job because that’s where all the baby boomers were. You wanted a white collar job where you didn’t have to be in a factory, you didn’t have to be in construction or farming where you could work in an office, being a doctor, be a lawyer or whatnot. 

And so the baby boomers ruthlessly pushed their children, the millennials, to go to university, get a four year degree, get a white collar job. And so now we have the opposite problem. We have an oversupply of white collar workers and not enough blue collar workers. So that’s the baseline. Now, we’ve got three things going on in the labor market, in the educational system right now, with China approaching its end, we need to massively expand the size of the industrial plant in this country, even if you ignore all the national security concerns. 

That means we need to expand industrial construction spending and do a lot more manufacturing. And almost all of those jobs are blue collar and we haven’t been training up enough people to fill them. So we’re already in a situation where you can get a six week welding or excuse me, electrical degree and earn more money in your first month than a white collar worker can after four years of college and five years in the workforce. 

That’s just where we are. Until such time as the educational system transforms to adjust to this new reality, and it’s only going to get more intense as we go. And so if you’re looking at a four year university that’s doing traditional things, especially in the liberal arts, we already have an oversupply of labor in that space. We are just desperate for blue collar workers. 

So that’s number one. Your traditional liberal arts colleges, especially the smaller ones, are not going to have nearly the level of demand that they used to. Two year universities that focus on white collar jobs, same thing to your universities that work on more technical skills. They’re going to be in very high demand. And in between you’ve got the legacy universities. 

You know, your Harvard’s, your University of Texas is who either have a very large endowment or a lot of notoriety or both and will always be able to attract folks. So that’s number one. Number two is numbers. The incoming generation is no longer the millennials. The older millennials turned 45 this year. They’re way out of college age now. 

The new kids on the BLOCK are Generation Z or the ZOOMERS, and they are the smallest generation we’ve ever had. So the number of potential students that university systems can attract is simply lower than it’s been at any time in recent American history. And that means we probably have about 15% fewer students that can potentially enroll than we had before. 

So the competition among universities is going to be fierce for them. And a lot of universities are simply not geared for the jobs of the next 15 years. That’s number two. Number three is candidate quality. The Zoomers are loners. They don’t like to be around other people. The idea of the social experience of university is not something like, Ooh, I can’t wait to do that. 

They want to code in a closet. And that’s a different sort of job experience and a different sort of educational experience. Now, it usually takes about five years for universities to meaningfully change their curriculum because, you know, students are going through a four year process right there. And if you’re talking about a state school, it can be as much as ten years because you first have to get it through a review. 

And oftentimes the state legislature likes to weigh in. And certainly tenured faculty does. So by the time we have retooled our educational system to deal with the influx of blue collar job demand that we’re now already seeing, we’re are going to be most of the way through this transition. And it’ll be time to switch again. So if you are an employer, you’re basically going to have to raise your own, bring in kids who are younger than you normally would train that up within the system in order to convince them that there is a job with a good paycheck doing interesting things that they want to do. 

And the more successful companies that I have seen have been engaging in that process aren’t starting in college or even high school, but middle school, to make sure that their community is part of their success story. 

Russian Tech Transfers and Propaganda in the US

Photo of St Basil cathedral in Red Square, Russia

It should come as no surprise that the Russians love meddling around, so let’s see what they’ve been up to lately. We’ll be looking at tech transfers with Iran, North Korea, and China and Russian propaganda in the US.

Russia has promised satellite launches to the Iranians and North Koreans in exchange for Iranian Shahed drones and North Korean artillery rounds. In fact, the Iranian satellite was launched about a week ago. The Chinese are getting in on the action too, with naval technology and weapons systems changing hands.

Now with all that going on, you would think America could agree that the Russians are NOT our friends…sadly that’s not the case. The MAGA movement has fallen victim to Russian propaganda, which reaffirms Russia’s ability to disrupt American politics and sow discord (especially during election season).

Prefer to read the transcript? 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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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TranscripT

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado, where we are recovering from Snowmageddon 2024. We’ve gotten about 40 inches of snow in the last 36 hours. pretty though. Anyway, the news today is that the Russians are making some adjustments to things. Number one, they’re starting to pay back countries that have helped them in the war with Ukraine.

So, for example, they’ve promised a satellite launch to both North Koreans and the Iranians. And the Iranian one launched in the last few days. So if you think of all of the operations where Iran has activities in Iraq and Syria and Lebanon, in Jordan, in Gaza, they now have the ability, at least in a limited way, to have a bird’s eye view of what’s going on, which is going to cause significantly more problems for anyone who happens to be on the other side of the ledger.

The Russians are doing this in exchange for the Shaheed drones that the Iranians have been providing. Those are the ones that are basically flying mopeds. They have a £10 warhead. The Russians have been using those targets in power centers. The North Koreans will be getting one soon as well. Of course, North Korea has been providing the Russians with about a million artillery rounds.

And for those of you who have forgotten, North Korea has intercontinental ballistic missiles. So getting satellite recon for any reason is something that vastly increases that threat. And then, of course, there are weapons systems being traded to the Chinese, things like naval technology, where the Chinese could use them to hurt the United States and any number of ways.

That’s kind of half of what’s going on. The other half is the Russians are in a celebratory mood because they’re discovering that they can widen, that the sort of propaganda that they spread in the United States and certain factions of the American political system, specifically the MAGA. Right. Because, I mean, here we’ve got the Russians providing aid and comfort to three countries, North Korea, Iran and China that even Mogga agrees are all bad.

But that doesn’t seem to be registering. They’re still thinking of Russia as a friend. Let’s see. The background of this, of course, happened during COVID, when the Russians were the most active peddler of anti-vaccine disinformation in the world, which resulted in the death of over a million American. You know, the kind of death toll that the Russians could have never achieved during the Cold War without some sort of horrible response.

But now they have enablers across this branch of the Republican Party. And so the Russians have started to diversify what they’ve been saying just to see how far they can push it. And last week, they were able to actually get Donald Trump to stop campaigning against the ban of Tik Tok, which is something that is broadly popular even among the American right.

So it’s going to be interesting to see how Donald Trump’s shift on this is going to now translate into Moscow’s opposition to Chinese issues. I don’t know how far this is going to go. The general breakdown in civics education in the United States is definitely having a very deep impact on our political system at home, but it’s providing a lot of opportunities for the Russians to drive wedges between the various aspects of American society.

So far, with minimal blowback. So this is something that is definitely on my worry list and not something that I have a very clear idea of how it’s going to go. There’s just too many pieces in play. I can tell you that because it’s an election season and because Donald Trump is defending himself from 90, I think, indictments, that there’s going to be ample fodder for the Russians to work with over the next several months.

This is definitely one of those things that’s going to get far worse before it even begins. Do you get a hint of better?

A Faint Glimmer of Hope in the House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is looking like dysfunctional family as of late, and of course, the weird uncle stirring up the pot is the Greenpeace faction. Opposing nearly every bill that dares to exist, they’ve essentially halted all legislative proceedings.

Despite the need for aid to Ukraine, bulwark assistance for Israel and Taiwan, defense reform, entitlement reform and more, all were hearing from the House are a series of steady shrieks. However, we might be seeing some action very soon thanks to discharge petitions. A discharge petition, requiring 218 signatures, forces debates on critical issues and gives bills a fighting chance at being passed. Even if – especially if – the Speaker would rather the bill not see the light of day.

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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Tourism Trends: Where Are You Spending Vacation?

Before I take the stage at the Country Music Hall of Fame here in Nashville, I figured we should talk about the future of tourism and where all the bachelorette parties are heading next.

There’s three demographic groups impacting tourism trends, and each of them is looking for something a little different. The baby boomers want specific experiences tailored to their preferences (less walking, but a bit spendy-er). The millennials are realizing kids are expensive and trips are going to have fit into tighter budgets. And the most interesting segment shaking up tourism are the blue-collar workers; they make up a large portion of the workforce and are leaning towards places like Nashville over traditional destinations.

Consumer preferences are changing, budgets are evolving, and international travel is just filled with too much uncertainty. So pack a duffel bag, ditch the passport, and go enjoy those domestic (or at least safe and stable) travel plans.

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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Should We Worry About Chinese Land Purchases in the US?

I’ve had a lot of you write in concerned about Chinese land purchases in the United States. There’s not much to be concerned about here, but let me paint the full picture for you.

Foreign ownership of US land is quite limited, and the Chinese portion of that is just a sliver of the pie (Canada has the largest piece of the pie for those curious). To temper worries even further, most of this US land is being bought by Chinese individuals simply trying to park their assets outside of China…and you can’t really blame them for that. If you need even more reason not to stress, just look at the historical precedence of foreign assets being seized in times of conflict.

It’s good to ponder these questions and keep an eye on things like foreign land ownership in the US, but as of now, there’s really no need for concern.

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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Europe Goes Nuclear: Is America Leaving NATO?

Flag of NATO

During a rally last week, former President Donald Trump stated that European allies that do not contribute enough to NATO (in his eyes) would not receive support if Russia were to attack them. Regardless of where you stand on this issue, we need to consider the repercussions of the US stepping away from the NATO alliance.

Trump can smell the populist/nationalist sentiment in the air and he’s going all in. While he might be on the extreme end of it right now, there’s ever-growing momentum in America taking us down that path. We’ve enjoyed decades of a largely peaceful Europe, but what happens if the Americans leave?

I would expect the Europeans to revert to their old ways, including renewed military competition and something even scarier for us Americans, nuclear proliferation. We all know how quickly places like Germany can ramp up military production.

Trump’s statements may seem wild and disconnected at the moment, but there’s more than just an election on the line here; all it would take is one country’s knee-jerk reaction to send us back to a not-so-peaceful Europe.

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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts