Russia To Attack NATO Next? Western Troops In Ukraine By Year-End Says Peter Zeihan

Russia To Attack NATO Next? Western Troops In Ukraine By Year-End Says Peter Zeihan

so going back to what you said about Ukraine not being the last stop for Russia their uh conquest or Ambitions for Conquest won’t stop here so from the Russian point of view the Ukraine war was always going to happen and it was only the next step in a stage of conflicts that would eventually take it to the baltics and Poland and Romania are we close to a nuclear World War well recent escalations in the war in Ukraine have put this thought back on the map so let’s evaluate this risk with our next guest geopolitical expert Peter Zan he is a president and founder of Zan and geopolitics former vice president at stratfor one of the world’s four most strategic intelligence consulting firms he’s the author of four books including the most recent one the end of the world is just a beginning mapping the collapse of globalization uh being a New York Times bestselling author he’s also worked for the US Embassy in Australia and the center for political and strategic studies welcome to the show Peter I’m a big fan of your work big fan of your channel I encourage everyone to check out his YouTu yoube Channel link down below thank you for being here Peter great to be here so we’ll be discussing whether or not the US is be treating from its role as a global hedgman that’s the general theme of our conversation today and we’ll be looking at two geopolitical hotspots Ukraine and China starting with Ukraine now it’s been reported that in early June Ukraine has fired us supplied missiles into Russia as you know up until end of the end of May early June uh it was a policy that the ukrainians were not allowed to strike into Russia using their weapons or Western weapons that has changed that policy has reversed and now we are getting reports that Ukraine did indeed hit the belgrad region with us supplied missiles the question is what’s next while Putin has said that he’s now going to retaliate by supplying weapons to enemies of NATO that’s my first question Peter who who exactly are the enemies of NATO the only enemy of NATO is Russia so problem solved there no it’s uh we we’ve had a series of red lines that the Russians have established I think this is the 37th um that uh we’ve been pushing against one after another I mean the core issue here is that for the Russians to feel safe they have to occupy a lot of territory that gives them a more defensible external perimeter and a lot of that territory is in NATO so from the Russian point of view the Ukraine war was always going to happen and it was only the next step in a stage of conflict so we eventually take it to the baltics in Poland and Romania um there’s an understanding especially in Europe that this is the situation and so the red lines are on both sides and we don’t know exactly where the Russians are because they keep making them up um I understand the caution that everybody has and why everyone is concerned about this step in particular hitting the Russians directly with Western weapons in Russia you know that’s not a minor issue uh and we only have to be wrong once but the Putin government has been made it has made it very clear of what Russian success looks like and that steals a lot of backbones across Europe and I think the fact that it was the U the Germans that were like the fourth country to sign up for this and they’ve been the most cautious country so far speaks volumes about just where Europe is mentally when it comes to confronting the Russians if anything they’re being more aggressive than the Americans are now on one of your videos that you posted on June 3 you said uh in a quote we can expect by the end of the year we will have some Western troops most notably French operating within Ukraine itself can you elaborate on this sure so France is looking at the future of the European Union and realizing that everything is not stacked up the way it has been for the last 70 years uh the European Union to this point has been an economic structure a free trade zone a common regulatory space and more recently a common currency area but for that to work you need two things number one you need Global access for resources and end markets and number two you need a young enough population in Europe in order to produce the goods in the first place well they’re losing both of those things the Americans are sliding back into a more populist isolation stance especially on economic issues especially under Trump and Biden and then the populations of countries as varied as Italy and Poland and Germany and Spain are aging so quickly that within the next 10 years the economic model that we’ve kind of become accustomed to with the Germans being the industrial Powerhouse that ends and so the French know that if Europe is going to have a future it can’t be based on economics it has to be based on security and politics and so we’re going to need a new structure and here we are with the Russians directly threatening European coherence and territory so from the French point of view there’s really no other alternative here uh getting French forces into Ukraine even if they’re nowhere near the front line makes a lot of sense for Stak out the future of Europe and for defending Europe as a whole and on top of that I encourage people to think of what’s going on Ukraine a little bit like the Crimean War the American Civil War where those were the first two conflicts we had of size where Industrial Technologies were part of the contest well drones are serving the same role here and while the French may have a military that punches above a its weight for a country of its size have absolutely no experience in drones so training the ukrainians in Ukraine on French equipment makes a lot of sense having the ukrainians train French troops on drones also makes a lot of sense before we continue the discussion on Ukraine and then later China I’d like to take a minute to talk to you about today’s sponsor nordvpn on this show we regularly cover how to grow and protect your 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to learn more wait a minute this is this is isn’t this like a hard red line for the Russians no NATO troops inside Ukraine I would argue that the NATO troops inside Ukraine if they’re not in a combat role is actually less of a red line than the other 37 that we’ve already crossed interesting so what in what capacity will these French troops operate if indeed they cross into the Ukraine borderers yeah officially it’s still to be determined trainers are definitely big a chunk of it um both ways I would say that the only place where the French might get into a place where they might actually get shot at and it’s very very low chance is if they decide to put the French on the Northwestern part of Ukraine up against the Belarusian Border in order to basically provide a DMZ Korean style trip wire so that the Russians don’t decide to come in from that direction they they haven’t made this announcement yet not yet okay but this is something that we’re probably you know looking out for and the French won’t be alone it’ll be France Finland Sweden Poland the balts probably the Czechs as well and probably the Romanians you know I’m wondering whether or not the this Green Light Strike into Russia gives Ukraine an incentive or at least the the the the um the the imagination to strike other uh you know Russian cities outside further into the Russian Harland Beyond belgrad right well let’s start by talking about belgrad belgrad is absolutely Mission critical for the Russian assault on Ukraine there’s really only two logistical hubs that are near the Ukrainian border Bel garad is one of them and it’s within artillery range of the Ukrainian border so that’s that one was always going to be at the top of the list especially when the Russians tried to renew cariv offensive in the last several weeks the other one is for the future it’s Roston Dawn it’s on the other side of the Dawn boss and the ukrainians have very few weapon systems that can strike it in any meaningful way so that’s a discussion for you know a year from now three years from now once the dawn boss is cleared if the dawn boss is cleared uh other targets within Russia they’re not close if you’re looking for rail Junctions or pipeline Junctions they’re just not sufficiently close to Ukraine to kind of hit a red light period now that said there is no way that Ukraine eventually ends this war on something that it would be satisfactory to Ukraine and Europe without taking the war into Russia proper to break those logistical infrastructures so sooner or later this will expand beyond the Bel belgrad access into broader sweep of territory but we’re going to go for this whole escalation management as they like to call it in Washington where you do it in baby steps oftentimes a single country G green lights its weapon system to be used in a simple way you see how the Russians respond and then everybody else piles in that’s how it’s happened to this point and to this point it’s prevented the Russians from deciding that this is it this is the end um the danger here the danger since the first day is that the Russians are in part fight fighting this for demographic reasons their population is literally dying out and if they feel that they don’t get to that better exterior crustal defense in the next few years they’ll lose the capacity to do it they’ll lose the capacity to try and they’re right so if if if we get to the point where the Russians realize that they have completely lost then and only then are we talking about a meaningful escalation because it will be the Russians throwing some nukes when they realize that they’re already dead we’re not there I I looked in a map if you the the the Norther the northeasternmost cities of Ukraine is within 500 kilometers of Moscow in theory they have the range to strike Moscow yeah but if you can’t hit it with artillery you’re not going to be able to do enough damage to say logistical Hub right well I could make a statement oh yeah well and the ukrainians have already done that with their own homegrown drones is there an incentive to put Ukrainian boots into belgrad that’s when you get to the point that the the Russians May realize that they really have lost everything and so no one is pushing the ukrainians to do that belgrad needs to be neutralized that doesn’t necessarily mean needs to be occupied but we’re not to the point yet of having that conversation what then is the likely uh next step for Putin what is the likely Russian retaliation that we can expect from launching missiles into belgrad we are still early in terms of the Russians hitting flight kits to their old Soviet Arsenal uh they’re only using uh those two ton bombs about 10 or 20 a day they can sustain uh that flow rate probably at five times that rate if they can get enough flight kits so from the Russian point of view it’s taking what has proven to be a reasonably successful tactic just taking these massive cold war bombs hitting with a flight kit and then dropping them wherever they feel that they need to drop them and obliterating everything within a half a kilometer of where the bomb drops that to this point has been the Russian’s most successful tactic but they’re limited by the number of flight kits so look for the Russians and the Chinese to be collaborating on that and then look to see how NATO responds to the Chinese I I I think you’ve discussed in your own channel that up until at this point the West has been reluctant to Grant Ukraine uh the permission to strike into Russia because they are afraid the West is afraid of Russian retaliation clearly that no longer is the case what change why are they no longer afraid of any retali I would say that they’re still afraid of retaliation and they should still be afraid of retaliation the Russians do have the world’s largest nuclear Arsenal and the Russians do feel that this is their last military conflict now they don’t think it’s going to end in Ukraine they think it’s going to go all the way to warsa as long as the Russians are holding out a re of hope that they can win they’re not going to throw nukes so the trick the challenge the balance is to find a way to reinforce the ukrainians so the ukrainians can continually make gains without convincing the Russians that it’s all going to fall apart because at that point when Russia feels it has nothing to lose when it’s launched a major war suffered all the pain of a major war got none of the gains that’s when the Russians might actually get serious about hitting the West so going back to what you said about Ukraine not being the last stop for Russia they uh conquest or Ambitions for Conquest won’t stop here you wrote about this in the blog you said if the Russians get pastuk Ukraine they won’t stop there Poland and Romania will be next but the Russians know that facing off with NATO isn’t going to end well and that’s when the nuclear question comes up well first of all how do we know that conquering all of Ukraine is even one of their objectives so in their Smo directives they special military operation keep in mind the Russians aren’t calling this a war with Ukraine they’re calling this a special military operation but correct me from Rong Peter but I believe in their Smo directives it was never intentionally or explicitly stated that conquering all of Ukraine was one of the directives at least it wasn’t you know stated publicly I would disagree with that I think the Russians have been very clear that until Ukraine is completely fallen and absorbed they’re not going to stop why haven’t they done that yet because they haven’t been able to the ukrainians have proven to be significantly more resilient and the West has shown a backbone in security matters in a way that you know four years ago I wouldn’t have thought was possible well Russia has stated uh quite clearly in their in their uh in their press that should Ukraine obtain weapons from the West that allows them to strike into Russia they would need a further 500 kmet buffer zone which is to say they would need to push their boundaries 500 kmets further west that would imply uh I would suggest that you don’t get caught in the minutia of Russian propaganda because it is entirely designed to get the West to self- detour and I’m not saying that the risk is zero here we’re talking about a country that thinks it’s fighting its last war and that has a few thousand nukes this is this is not a small issue uh but the Russians for the Russians this isn’t the first posts Soviet War it’s the ninth and they’re not going to stop until they get everything that they feel they need to have and that doesn’t end with leiv that that ends with Warsaw right so are they are they going to move and take KF now that the ukrainians have these long range missiles just to move the buffer zone West is that is that prior they would try but they wouldn’t stop at k okay okay uh do we I mean have we seen any evidence or any any movements of troops that to move past uh the west or you know move Westward right now well the the most recent assault was kke that was just four weeks four or five weeks ago that it began the idea was that the Russians would be able to Surge forces into a relatively unprotected front before American Military Support could arrive uh and they made some progress at horrendous cost but now the ukrainians have sufficient artillery that they’ve stocked that off frence of cold if if if the Russians are to restart an assault that has a meaningful chance of capturing the whole country they simply need more men uh the slow motion mobilization that they’ve been doing right now has allowed the Russians to maintain their War Tempo and bringing in new weapons like the Fabs uh has given them a a degree of fire power that Ukraine simply can’t match but they still need more bodies uh we have not yet gotten to the point that the majority of the Russians who were in that core territorial axis from St Peters St Petersburg to Moscow have entered the draft yet when that happens you’ll know that the Russians are preparing for something very very big now does the West have enough ammunition to supply to Ukraine so according that the question yeah well so I’ll let you answer that but according to CNN basically the Russians have been currently outproducing the West in terms of making uh conventional shells so Russia produces about 250,000 artillery shells per month Europe and the US collectively according to this report produces only 100,000 per month the US is spending $5 billion do to ramp up production from 14,000 to $100,000 100,000 shells per month but that’s still shy of what Russia’s producing oh yeah we’re we’re never going to match the Russians in terms of the scale of production because we are not an artillery Army in the United States we are a lightning fast military that basically strikes at the core of a system and destroy it from within rather than doing a broad front like you would see in World War I the Russians are much more comfortable fighting that sort of War that’s what the Soviet system was trained for so we’re never going to be able to match them shell for Shell we have to match them with precision and reach uh on the Russian side they’re also of course tapping North Korea and Iran and to a lesser degree China for a wide array of different weapon systems so their existing pipeline is significantly larger uh the Russian weakness is in armored vehicles and tanks uh there’s this weird little disconnect going a lot of folks are making fun of the Russians for bringing all these t-62s you know tanks that are 50 years old out of service the thing is the t-62s are so old they don’t have Optics so basically you take an old tank you change out all the tubing you put the equivalent of a military gra GoPro on the front of it and you send it to the front the t70s the t880s and the t9s all have Optics that have degraded so they have to be ripped out and replaced with something that just takes more time so we’re seeing a lot of really crappy Russian equipment coming in but it is not a sign that the Russians have run out of the better stuff it’s a sign that the better stuff is in the process of being overhauled so I would expect over the next two years for the quality of Russian armor to steadily increase as they bring those production lines online and the Chinese are very very important for that on the western side since the United States isn’t doesn’t train for artillery Wars we’re in many ways building up our artillery capacity for the first time since Vietnam and so it’s basically coming up from scratch now the Europeans whose militaries are not as advanced overall as the Americans are finding this to be a little bit easier but none of the European countries are as large or can flood as much Capital into their industrial complex as the United States can so it’s starting from what I would say is a higher base but the pace of increase is going to be much slower could you could we expect Russia to I guess fund its own proxy war against the US basically what the NATO countries are doing in Ukraine against Russia right this just came in a couple days ago Russian warships arriving at Havana Cuba what are they doing there the Russians send a fatila to Cuba every couple of years as part of a show the flag prove that they still have a Navy but keeping this in mind uh that that flotilla has no logistical tail and no Regional support it is purely a flag waving operation and if we ever were to get into the position where the Americans and the Russians were actually shooting live shots at one another that entire fleet would be sunk in a matter of probably less than an hour uh also if you think back I think it’s been about 15 years now they had a flotilla that came once and one of the ships broke down and so basically had to hang out in Havana for three months while it could get repaired I don’t see this as a security issue we’re not expecting another Cuban Missile Crisis uh the Russians have a very seared searing memory of that they basically tried to achieve strategic parody with the United States on the cheap and in doing so triggered such a massive International humiliation that caused a coup in Moscow uh as Putin is the heir to the successors of that coup he is in no interest in triggering that sort of risk okay well we talked about artillery shells what about the financial aspect does us have the financial capacity to continue supporting Ukraine if we had a balanced budget amendment absolutely not but we don’t so it’s not a problem okay well uh fiscal conservative me just kind of cringes inside as I say that but it’s really not an issue right I mean we are the country is running a fiscal deficit huge unless there’s pressure to close that Gap you’re not concerned about more money going into Ukraine what about the public support yeah I’ll also keep in mind that about I mean the numbers are squishy and there’s some top secret stuff in there that I’m not a privy to but as a rule 75 to 80% of the aid so far is stuff that’s been stored in warehouses um only about 10% of it is actually financial aid and then the rest is ammo so the the uh the fiscal hall for the United States of this conflict so far has actually been very very low what are you what are you expecting the public uh to think and want in regard to this war public opinion of this War uh that would ultimately affect whether or not Congress renews spending poing is inconsistent because Americans are inconsistent we really have a hard time focusing on more than one at a time and at the moment Gaza is attracting a lot of attention um most polls for the last two years have shown a steady support for the war in excess of two thirds of the population most of them are three qus or more uh the challenge is is it’s an election year and there’s a very vocal minority who basically believe whatever they’re told and are insisting that people lie to them and so the Russian love that um that faction how well they do in these upcoming elections I mean that’s going to determine a lot um whether you consider this a plus or a con we’re probably going to see a republican Wipeout uh in this elections uh Donald Trump has done a series of things and the the constellation of forces against him is really firmed up in the last couple of months so we’re probably going to see a significant deete for that faction but it’s not going to wipe them out um beyond that I’d say the biggest weakness of the Biden Administration on this topic because it really hasn’t set down and done a a stateof the union type address from the White House about what’s going on and why uh that’s something that has kind of been common for all administrations predating Trump and Obama Whenever there was a new military conflict explain it to the American people what’s at stake and why we need to be involved that still hasn’t happened and until that does I would not consider American political support at the voter level to be particularly sticky demographics now for Ukraine and Russia there’s a huge population disparity so the question is whether or not uh you know Ukraine can replenish its Army at the same rate as Russia it can’t far none any battle in which the ukrainians don’t inflict at least a six to1 casualty ratio on the Russians from a demographic point of view is a battle the ukrainians have won and so the Western weapons and Western Intel are in many ways forc multipliers and as we saw in the Second Battle of kke that was just concluded the Russians suffered 8 to1 casualty ratio so you know these these numbers are possible but they require a little bit of luck and a lot of planning a lot of really good training and hopefully soon some air support with the f-16s and the mirages coming in uh but this war is no where near over it is nowhere near settled it is nowhere near to the point that anyone who is confident in their numbers can actually call how it’s going to go um the other side of the demographic equation is that the Russians are dying and this is their last military conflict but the ukrainians are dying too so the Russians feel they have to fight to the end to have a chance to survive in the midterm and they’re right but even if Ukraine wins this war the Ukrainian ethnicity disappears from the world in the next 50 years so we’re in a situation where both sides are fighting for timeing the officials earlier in the year have admitted they are losing the war so zalinsky has said and he said Ukraine will lose the war if US Congress does not step up and Supply more Aid so to what extent can you evaluate the statement to what extent is he just posturing for more Aid or does he actually feel that way and he and his AIDS and other military officials in Ukraine well just because he’s postering doesn’t mean it’s not true uh the Ukrainian industrial plant is limited what they’ve done with drones is revolutionary and impressive and it’s insufficient to the challenge before them uh the Russian excuse me the Soviet Arsenal that resides in Russia all by itself is probably enough to win this war if nobody else gets involved in fact I would say it’s a little surprising that it hasn’t won the war already it’s so huge and that’s before you bring in millions of shells from North Korea before you bring in thousands of drones from Iran before you bring in all the technical assistance from China uh the Europeans believed seriously that history was over and that military conflicts were a thing of the past especially in places like Germany and while as an American the idea that the Germans have become passiv is actually makes me feel kind of secure because I remember how it was when they felt otherwise uh they’re rearming from a very very low level and that means that the United States and to a lesser degree uh the United Kingdom and France are really the only ones that matter for the moment until everybody else can retool and spin up uh luckily as part of the war on terror the United States turned over a new Leaf technologically throughout its entire milit Ary structure especially in the Army so we also have these significant reserves of weapons like the atoms that are a generation or two ahead of what the Soviet systems were and that we’re not using anymore so basically what we’ve been doing in the first two years to date has been throwing each other’s spares at one another in Ukraine with some Dusen of some more recent things uh that is not going to be how this war is going to look a year from now because we’re starting to get to the bottom of those reserves now it’s going to be about production that’s a different fight what do you think both sides have learned from each other in regards to the military capabilities Russia in regards to NATO’s capabilities and the US and its allies in regards to what Russia is able to do now if you’re a Westerner this is a a bit of a surprise in a positive way we found out that the Russians aren’t nearly as good as they thought they were they were not nearly as good as we thought they were we know that their defense minister has basically stole a third of the budget and his assistant well the old defense minister he got kicked out last month uh and the new uh I’m sorry and his cronies sold another third we know that most of their military exercises were just parades and we know that most of their new troops that they’re bringing in have had less than two weeks of training so it really is just grabbing a handful of people and throwing them against a wall even if they can break through that’s the sort of war that has allowed Ukraine to survive on the other side the Russians have been shocked and understandably so that the Europeans and the Americans have actually stood up the Germans have actively sided with the Russians on every energy and security question for the last 25 years until the Ukraine war and I don’t think anyone expected them to be as robust in their support for the ukrainians as they have what if any major miscalculations have the West made in regards to this War uh from the American point of view I’d say it’s actually on a relatively low side it’s most mostly about the the ins and outs of those red lines that the Russians keep setting and then abandoning we’re being very cautious about it and for good reason but if you look back we probably could have accelerated everything that we’ve done by six months because they were all Bluffs um that is not me saying that we should ignore the red lines in the future because eventually we will hit a real one and you don’t want to just skip across that and see what happens that that would be really dumb uh for the Europeans it’s a little different okay spinning up from scratch is hard I mean Europe is on the border I mean they don’t want to be the sacrificial lamb in this conflict this proxy war between Russia and the US it’s not a proxy war this is a Flatout war of conquest by the Russians against the ukrainians I’m just it won’t stop there right okay what um ultimately then what is the risk of us seeing nuclear weapons used on the battlefield either tactical nukes sure or strategic nukes tactical nukes are a no uh the Russians we gain nothing from using tactical noes because ultimately they want to occupy Ukraine and if it’s if they’ve radiated the transport codes or the transport routes or the resource nodes or the population centers that actually makes their job harder so that’s not even under consideration in any meaningful way strategic nukes that’s a possibility uh there’s two scenarios scenario number one Ukraine does really really really well and kicks the Russians out of The Da Boss and then crosses the border to take belgrad and Rost ofon Don permanent ly out of the equation so the Russians can’t try again if you have a conventional military invasion of Russia proper then you’re talking about a defensive use of nukes that could be considered uh and would be considered very strongly the second option is that the ukrainians do badly the Russians overwhelm Ukraine and as soon as they feel they’ve pacified Ukraine to a satisfactory level they then come to try to reach the Vista the Baltic Sea and the danu and that brings them into direct direct conflict with NATO but we now know that in a direct fight the Russians would be lucky to suffer only 1001 casualty ratios and if we get to a point where the Russians feel that they can’t win conventionally against the West it doesn’t change their strategic prerogative doesn’t change where they feel they need to get to and then using nukes as a way to split the Europeans off from one another and the Americans off from the Europeans is definitely within the realm of possibility and I would say even a likelihood so we’re in this weird situation where iron Al this softly softly approach that the West has been following of like heating every red line tiptoeing up to it tip toing across it and then moving on is probably the wisest position because it keeps the battle out of the two areas that might trigger a general nuclear exchange and I guess the third option is negotiating some sort of truce no because we did that the first eight times and the Russians just kept coming uh no one in the west is serious about that this brings us to the last part of our interview which is the broader discussion of global geopolitics now you wrote um in uh one of your uh books that since 1945 the world has been uh the best it has ever been the best it will ever be which is a poetic way of saying our world is doomed can you you know elaborate on this statement here sure at the strong words yeah know at the end of the World War II the United States realized that it needed people to stand between us in the Red Army and since the Europeans had just been through the worst war in human history that meant bribing the Europeans to be on the same side and so we used our Navy which was the only one to survive the war to create a Global Security apparatus that would allow anyone to trade with anyone else at any time in any place without needed military escort and so all of a sudden all of the Europeans plus the Japanese and eventually a handful of other countries gained Global access to global trade for the first time and had could do it without a war we call that globalization today and so globalization was the economic outcome a side effect of an American Security plan to contain the Soviets and it worked but even with the Russians back on the war path they’re not the Soviet Union they’re not a global presence and we’ve seen the United States in election after election after election vote for ever more economically populous candidates and that includes includes the transition from Trump to Biden Biden is much more economically populous than Trump he’s just better at working with the geography or excuse me better working it with the bureaucracy to make it into policy so it it’s are we talking about a loss of American hedg manyy altogether are we talking about a multi-polar world that’s going to emerge multi-polar World assumes that the other polls polls multi-polar World assumes that the other polls have an economic assistance that is independent of globalization and they don’t I mean I could easily argue that the three countries most dependent on global exchange are Iran Russia and China but the Americans ability and willingness to patrol the global oceans is is gone and we’re kind of in this period where we’re kind of holding our breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop because the Chinese have gone full Cult of Personality the Russians are on the war path the Iranians have never really calmed down and if something goes after civilian shipping in a meaningful way if a nation state goes after shipping in a meaningful way it doesn’t matter who you know this all falls apart in a matter of weeks uh and since the Ukraine war started I’ve just kind of been holding my breath breath and waiting for that shoe to drop so far so good I think I know what you’re GNA say to my next question but you don’t think China is going to rise as a worthy competitor Eastern block uh to the US no no I mean well let me give you the two big reasons Number One China is the country most dependent on globalization so if it wasn’t for the US Navy we wouldn’t have a Chinese economy today and sooner or later that’s going to be reflected in policy in Washington we’re not there yet we’ll get there probably the Chinese Navy could defend its own shipping bouts no no Chinese Navy may have a lot of ships but only about 10% of them can sail more than about 1,500 kilometers from Shore so they can’t even protect their Asian Sea linges much less what they need to reach the End Market in the United States in Europe or the raw material supply in the Persian Gulf and I think the other reason you’re probably would talk about is the declining population of China right which you’ve alluded to as a population collapse not really a shrinkage but a collapse over the next decade or so can you explain this process yeah so we probably all heard the number 2.1 is the number of children each woman has to have in order to have a steady state population structure yeah China’s now been below that since the 80s in fact they’ve had a birth rate lower than the United States since the early 90s so this is the decade where they lose sufficient working age population to even have an economic structure uh 10 years years from now the Chinese will be so aged that we won’t even have an economic theory as a species that suggests there’s something that might work over there so what we’ve been seeing for the last 20 to 30 years roughly is this moment where the Chinese all stopped having kids but they hadn’t yet hit Mass retirement and so all of their energy was fed focused on employment and production and consumption uh but there’s no replacement generation now we’re getting to the point where that big block of people is all moving and dying out moving in retirement and dying out and there’s just nothing below it all so this is the decade where the story just ends you you don’t think that the reversal of the one child policy is going to help it actually had the opposite effect unfortunately for the Chinese uh they went to a two and then a three and then an open and what they discovered was the country had already urbanized so much that people were not in a position to even physically have kids if you’re in an efficiency apartment raising three kids is just not going to happen and so the birth rate in the major cities is now one quarter of replacement level uh an argument could or could not be made and I’d like you to evaluate this as to whether or not Chinese technology or the emergence of Chinese Technologies could could you know uh save it from this workplace Workforce shortage so just you know check out these stats right China leads in the following sector semi semicom computers uh supercomputers rather semiconductors mobile broadband high-speed rails scientific patents number of patents worldwide China is now taking the lead on that China dominates us total Innovation output which is say Venture Capital patents it invation output is 138% that of the US now I’m I’m these are just numbers right why and most of those are very very cherry-picked um right the only one I mean for for most of those if you’re talking assembly the Chinese are the king no doubt so if you take technology build it into intermediate Parts you take those parts into China you assemble them into a finished product it looks like China really really matters really all they did have fingers and eyes to put it together that’s not nothing and finding other fingers and eyes to replace that in the manufacturing supply chain is the challenge of the decade but for the rest of that the manufacturing side not really the best chips they can make are 28 nanometers and that requires a majority foreign Workforce especially for the quality checks the only chips the Chinese can make on their own are 90 nanometers and worse and that’s basically what you put into a smart light bulb the world will not pivot on that uh and the patents thing they went from leading the world in patents to zero because they stopped collecting data because they thought the way the numbers were going to go were going to embarrass them so it’s the tech story for China it’s not that it’s not real it’s that it’s siloed and none of these things are industry leaders from an innovation point of view that doesn’t mean China is a non- entity I often get criticized for not giving Chinese enough credit now whatever um you can’t be the world’s leading manufacturing power if you’re stupid the Chinese are not stupid but they haven’t been able to move to a second tier Tech development position much less a top tier now from an American point of view this is actually more of a problem than an opportunity because the stuff that we’re really good at is not the stuff that the Chinese do at all and the stuff that they’re really good at is not the stuff that we do at all so if we still want product in The Wider World in a post China environment we either need to find a fundamentally new model for manufacturing or bringing a lot of people in other countries into the system that haven’t been metabolized in the past that’s a massive challenge well even if going back to demographics issue even if China reduces its population by half that’s still roughly about the same if not more people than in the US so as long as they’re able to raise the standards of living of all 500 million people whatever the case may be in the future that could still produce a sizable economy could it not it could uh the problem is which 500 million are they going to have and 500 million is the right number by the way because their their numbers the 1.3 billion for their population is grossly overe exaggerated um if they if we fast forward 20 years and we’re approaching that 500 million you know the majority of them are going to be over 55 so you’re talking about a very different age structure very different economic structure if if if China can find a way to Triple their birth rate overnight and somehow get rid of everyone when they turn 65 you know then you’re talking about maybe having something uh like a Germany um but the scale of human Carnage required to make that happen I don’t think the Chinese are capable of it doesn’t well ultimately then it doesn’t seem like the West just doomed now it does because back 30 years ago uh during the Cold War the Soviet Union was a primary adversary for the us there was a there was a scare that China would take its place you’re arguing that that’s not going to happen so who would be the Americans are not happy unless we’re stressed out about something so in the 80s we were all terrified about the Soviets in the 90s we were all terrified about the Japanese now we’re all terrified about the Chinese we’ll find a new bogy man okay I mean who is going to rise to be a near-peer competitor to the US if not the Chinese right now I’d say that the single country that is on the fastest rise is going to be India but India is such a radically different place demographically and economically that I don’t see the United States in the Indian’s butting heads our interests don’t Clash if anything they Dov taale um also India is kind of Trapped in South Asia so it can’t be an expansionary power in the way that say the Russians could be uh in terms of relative gain I’d say southeast Asia probably looks the most promising but none of those countries are going to be in a position individually or as a group to be an imperial power so I don’t mean to suggest that the next 20 years is just going to be a walk in the park but there are sufficient nodes in the world that actually look really positive even with globalization breaking down that uh there there is a future for for most of us and for the ones who make it it’s going to be a pretty bright one Perfect Peter I really uh enjoyed talking to you I can talk to you for hours but I I I know you got to go uh where can we follow your work learn more from you you can find out everything on zion.com that’s zih an.com if you go zion.com newsletter that’s the best way to keep up with whatever I’m doing okay and I I I mentioned you also have a YouTube channel so for those uh interested in learning about uh his geop political takes on YouTube check that out thank you very much Peter we’ll speak again soon my pleasure thank you for watching don’t forget to like And subscribe

Peter Zeihan, Founder of Zeihan on Geopolitics, comments on Russia’s likely retaliatory measures following Ukraine’s striking of Belgorod using U.S. made long-range missiles, and Putin’s endgame.

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*This video was recorded on June 10, 2024

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0:00 – Intro
1:19 – Ukraine strikes Russia with long-range missiles
3:30 – Western troops in Ukraine
8:20 – Missile strikes on Belgorod
11:25 – Putin’s next steps
16:49 – Enough ammunition?
19:50 – Another Cuban Missile Crisis
21:43 – Public support
23:38 – Demographics
25:00 – Is Ukrainian actually losing?
28:22 – Miscalculations
29:24 – Risk of nuclear war
31:46 – “Our world is doomed”
34:17 – China

#geopolitics #ukraine #economy