The World is Screwed
but the U.S. is Slightly Less Screwed than Everyone Else!
“Futurist” Peter Zeihan’s new book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Civilization continues the theme of his other books, The Accidental Superpower and The Absent Superpower in heralding the end of the Bretton Woods System. This was an international agreement in which, essentially, most other nations in the world agreed to free trade, which was protected by the U.S. Navy on the high seas and by the American nuclear umbrella in Europe and Asia.
This agreement resulted in the largest, most rapid sustained period of world economic growth in history. It came at the price of the United States pouring money into defense, and, when deemed necessary, fighting foreign wars, few of which turned out well.
But, in the end, the “free flow of oil at market prices” remained in place until the United States under Donald Trump achieved for the first time in a century energy independence. Europe and China entered our markets at will, hollowing out American production and manufacturing.
Rapidly, however, that era is over. It started politically unraveling with American discontent over the Afghan/Iraq wars. It is absolutely true that the end of Bretton Woods came before Donald Trump came on the scene, but it is equally true that of all American politicians, only he recognized what was coming and tailored his policies around a post-Bretton Woods world. In many ways, he accelerated the trend.
In the area of demographic collapse, however, no politician had any control. Every nation in the word, sans a few Islamic countries, saw birth rates fall below replacement levels. In Germany, Spain, Russia, and China, the collapse was sharp. America saw a demographic slide too, though nowhere near what other countries were experiencing. By 2030 the US will be younger, on average, than China. The removal of millions of producers around the world will have a profound effect globally, but particularly destructive effects individually on certain countries.
Most notably, China, which Zeihan says cannot cope with the collapse that is coming.
As the United States withdraws its international naval protection (recall that in the Iran-Iraq War, Ronald Reagan prevented a worldwide insurance meltdown by re-flagging and escorting tankers into the Persian Gulf) local shipping will be at routine risk of piracy. Zeihan is at his best describing the carrying capacity of the massive super-cargo ships, which are extremely slow. Think of the targets they will present for a world without the Top Cop.
In addition to depopulation, there is massive debt that occurred as nations tried to hang on during the idiotic China Virus lockdowns. Once again, China is worse off here, and by several orders of magnitude. Five years ago CHina crossed a threshhold in which no nation with such outstanding private credit had ever survived.
As I have written before, the United States has unmatched internal waterways (more than the next three nations put together), and if you include our intercoastal waterways, more than the next five nations combined. More important, our waterways go to something important, namely the world’s richest and most abundant arable farm land. Zeihan goes through the steps but it comes down to this: without international trade protected, nations revert to regional or even intra-state economies. These, in turn, will be lucky to produce enough food for survival, but tradeoffs are immense (diesel for transportation vs. natural gas for cooking or heat). Already Germany has reverted to a pre-Industrial Revolution assault on its forests.
The bleak future is that many nations won’t be able to feed themselves, lacking the manufacturing base to make their own tractors, for example, and finding animal and human power insufficient to support the population. Japan, France, Russia and the U.S. will maintain a level of self-sustainability: Germany, India, and Chy-na are screwed.
But what Zeihan routinely misses is that physical geography isn’t a big enough advantage by itself: you need a political system of common law, private property with written titles and deed, and a judiciary capable of preserving contracts. Much of the undeveloped world does not haev any of those, even if they have food.
For now, any President who doesn’t see this coming and act in line with America First will be presiding over a disaster.
Larry Schweikart
Rock drummer, Film maker, NYTimes #1 bestselling author
Join us in making “Patriot’s History” the feature film into the next “Sound of Freedom”:
Link for Patriot’s History Vimeo
Link to buy larry a coffee
http://buymeacoffee.com/larrys