Zeihan on Geopolitics

About a year ago, I somehow came across some content put out by Peter Zeihan. I believe it was a YouTube video of him talking to an audience at some sort of economic forum. His YouTube channel doesn’t have any new content, but other people have uploaded many of his appearances at various economic forums or corporate events.

Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical analyst with decades of experience who makes his living as an author of books, as well as doing presentations for corporate audiences. He got my attention because of the relatively flashy nature of his presentation compared to the traditionally dry fare which seems to be a common theme in geopolitical analysis.

Mr. Zeihan’s predictions kept my attention and impressed me. I would consider making predictions a dangerous game, as a failed prediction could disgrace an analyst. Zeihan makes many predictions. Off the top of my head, some of his more memorable ones are that the People’s Republic of China will no longer be a unified country in a matter of years (I believe 10?), that the European Union would break up in approximately the same time frame, that the Russian Federation would attempt to expand their borders to previous geographical anchors (meaning attacking Ukraine and other Eastern European countries), and just the general statement that we are currently undergoing a transition as important as the European discovery of the American continent.

With so many predictions, many people have discredited Peter Zeihan as being too bold. I myself think that he goes one step too far in predicting specific wars, such as an East Asian war and an Eastern European war. I think the nature of war is too unpredictable, and despite Mr. Zeihan’s clear demonstration of the situation providing conditions for a war to be launched, it is not possible to make a prediction on that subject with any degree of certainty.

I think most of the other predictions that Zeihan makes are very likely to occur, and I think he has a good track record, having done basically the exact same presentation to his audience for several years. It is just now, at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, that some of the chaos that he has been predicting has gotten started.

As an American living in France, his prediction that the United States will be sitting at the top of the world for the foreseeable future, with France perhaps in second place (though a relatively distant second), is a welcome one. But whatever a person may say about his predictions, it is impossible to my mind to argue the facts which form the basis of these conclusions:

• The United States is one of the only developed countries with decently young demographics (France being the other notable case)
• The United States just recently became energy independent thanks to the Shale Revolution, which shows no signs of slowing down in the long term despite setbacks in the short term
• The United States is pulling back from the world stage because of its energy independence, its changing internal politics, and its realization that its foreign policy as an engaged superpower no longer serves the purpose for which it was put in place

Peter Zeihan’s conclusion, therefore, is that the United States is removing itself from the world stage, and all the countries (and people) who have been profiting from its protection will suffer a reset to whatever natural position those places can sustain without the Americans. For some places, this could be famine. It’s certainly a grave picture, and one which I think demands attention in order to be informed enough to atleast understand the argument behind Zeihan’s position.

My final conclusion is that Zeihan is basically right, and that the USA will become isolated to the North American continent, and that the world at large will suffer. One subject that Peter Zeihan does not cover as in-depth, however, is the effect on many individuals in places like the United States or France, where the country may have high relative power, but may also receive many immigrants. That is a personal subject which I have been dwelling over for some months, and continue to do so.