Despite probable ideological disagreements with the author, I absolutely loved this book, for several reasons. The reasons are legion and I will cover them later, but for the most part, I think its that I’ve discovered geopolitics is the field my years of leisure study have been working toward. This book brought it all together and has made me a geopolitical addict.
The basic premise is relatively simple. The post WW2 era of a globalized economy is pretty quickly coming to an end. The American maritime role of policing the seas and taking a vested interest in unmolested global trade is winding down. The light speed ascent of China is going to descend even faster than it went up, and the world is going to devolve into regional factions. This transition will be very rocky for most of the world, but North America, alone, is positioned to not only survive, but thrive under these conditions.
Zeihan goes into a readable level of depth as to the major reasons for this. Besides the aforementioned role of the United States in creating the conditions for the last 80 or so years, Zeihan covers the major factors and how they will unfold. He does a very good job of giving just enough historical background on most subjects to give the context for where we are today and where he thinks we’re going.
The book begins as an overview of sorts, giving a quick synopsis of how the world got to be the way it is, and where things are headed, from a very high level. Then we get a a breakdown of the major forces: Transport, finance, energy, industrial materials, manufacturing and agriculture.
Transport: Basically, the ships that make this whole thing go round are really big and really slow and they are partially the lifeblood of the global economy. But the only reason they can move all over the world, and not really worry about being sunk/hijacked by pirates, navies or privateers, is because the American Navy has guaranteed it. What we forget in the modern era is that the industrial age, until the end of WW2 was not this way. There was constant danger and interruption to deep water sailing. That is largely gone now. But it wont remain that way for long. As the US pulls away, things will get dicey. Japan being the only other country capable of fielding a long range Navy, things will be very interesting in Southeast Asia in the year to come.
Finance: After a nice little primer on the literal history of money, we are treated to what it looks like now. As most people know, the United States emerged from WW2 as the financial juggernaut of the world. It is still the reserve currency of the world and gives the US a lot of power. After the advent of fiat currency, and the arrival of the Asian tigers, things got crazy. Places like China have turned to hyper-finance. They are essentially pumping rocket fuel and any slowdown makes the whole house of cards crumble. They and others (like Japan) have begun creating debt that will never, eve be paid and they know that. This is when we start really getting into demographics. The upshot is that with declining populations the capital is no longer invested by the older people (who are the huge bulk of many countries) and the younger workers are not able to create enough. Consumption goes down and things get really bad.
Energy: This one is simple. Noth America is energy (as well as everything else) rich and self sufficient. Asia and Europe are not. Even the energy juggernaut of Russia is having troubles. This will be a huge factor. The bad part is that as things get really terrible, globally, we will likely end up creating more co2, not less.
Industrial Materials: This is where the insane complications of the modern global system really from into view. All the things we love, like cars and phones and cheap plastic toys take an enormous variety of raw material inputs and most places (North America excepted) dont have most of them. Mining, and other such activities are hard and take equipment and transport.
Manufacturing: Again, we are shown the insane complexity of all of this. What we learn is that while places like China make a lot of stuff, they dont make the whole thing there. Things are very specialized and no one knows how to make a whole thing anymore. The Chinese, in particular, know how to assemble and make low end things very well, but they continually struggle with very complex things like high end chips or advanced military technology. But who can figure out how to make a lot of things? You guessed it. North America.
Agriculture: This is where things get extra scary. The headline? A lot of people are going to starve to death. Places like China and lots of Southeast Asia simply have to import a lot of foodstuffs. The mass urbanization of these places has stuffed everyone into cities and most of the highest density population locales on the planet (with the continual exception of North America) do not have a huge amount of tillable land anyway. Without massive imports from North America, things will get ugly, fast. Not to mention the costs of an interrupted supply chain for fertilizers, and the problems with getting enough water. We could really be looking at famine on a scale our species has never seen.
All said and done, this book paints a very bleak future if you live in Asia and are not Japan. The points are hard to argue with. Everything is going to change and the dice are very likely to roll in favor on the western hemisphere, especially the United States.
With the nuts and bolts done, lets talk about why I loved this book. Zeihan threads the needle of very authoritative analysis and being quirky and funny. He makes minor jokes throughout the book and isn’t afraid to be tactfully unprofessional. It only works if you’ve seen him speak or be interviewed. If I hadn’t seen him speak, I might have been a little put off by his fast and loose language.
I also appreciate that he doesn’t seem to be worried about planting anyone. He has very distinct opinions and he doesn’t seem to care who they’ll annoy, which is refreshing. One thing I notice in books like this is that authors will spend a lot of time arguing with a nameless character that they’ve built up, who is usually an amalgamation of their critics. Zeihan does not do that. He has as case to make and he makes it, with little regard for what those who disagree with him ( I assume there are a lot them) think.
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Great book - learned how much of the modern world works
Great book - could probably read this 10X and still pick up something new each time - a ton of data. In technology specifically where we see different manufacturers struggling with supply-chain you get a glimpse behind the scenes of how all that works. Going further you get data-based visibility into transportation, energy, agriculture, workforce generations, and finance segments. Lots of content on China & Russia. Long but written in such a way that you just keep turning the pages. Talk about a conversation starter - you'll never be at a loss for an interesting lunch topic after reading a few of these chapters. I'd like to think that humanity will continue to adapt, overcome, and address some of the potential food and energy shortages that are forecasted.
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