ACT 6 - Life After Globalization Part 1

Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan is one of the thought leaders I watch carefully.  His books tell the story (in real time) of the U.S.A.’s withdrawal from the world, and what that means for Americans and their closest allies (Canada being on this short list). Peter’s regular updates are free, but serve as teasers for his $1000/seat webinars where the really good stuff is, so I really enjoy it when conferences he is hired to a speak at put out a video of a recent speech. The 2021 Land Investment Expo published his speech from Jan 25th, and I was glad the YouTube algorithm knew I'd be interested.  In summary his presentation covered an update on American politics, a Covid update and predictions for 2021.  


U.S.A. Politics:

- Democratic Party is participating in year 5 of a 12 year cycle, the end of globalization will continue despite the change of governing parties.



- Transitions are painful, loud and messy, but this is the U.S.A.’s 7th political transition so “we will get through this”, and now is the time to act if Republicans want to take their party back from the Jan 6th rioters and Trump crowd. 
   
COVID Update: - India numbers are down because they stopped testing (but their hospitals are a disaster)

 - Vaccines are rolling out, and Peter's favourite is the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It should be out to everyone in the U.S.A. by June 1 (only needs 1 shot can be stored in a fridge and thus distribution much easier), so there may be a recovery this summer if lockdowns are lifted.    


 

U.S.A. Geopolitical Situation:



- Peter does a great job summarizing the past century in his many talks and books, so I won't go into detail here.  Suffice to say that at the end of WW2 the U.S.A. bribed up an alliance to win the Cold War, but that war ended 30 years ago.  To maintain a global system you need:

 

1. First, You need a political culture that agrees a global trade is important.  Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Trump all engaged in policies that alienated all but 2 allies (Mexico and Canada).  



 

2. Second You need global interests.   The U.S.A. has never had that, and remains the least involved economy in the world with the lowest imports and exports in the word as a percentage of GDP. 

 There is a chart depicting this in the show notes at www.accredited.website were you can look at for yourself.

3. Third You need a global military presence. U.S.A.  troop deployments are currently at their lowest point since the 1920s.  (Americans still have a larger navy than the rest of the world combined by a wide margin. It will take 200 years for the rest of the world to equal the US Navy's capabilities at the current rate of buildout. Also of note, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd largest airforces in the word are all US flagged. They are the The Air Force, the Navy and the Army.)
 
  - The conclusion Peter makes is that Americans are abandoning the world as international policeman, and he cites a recent theft of a Korean oil tanker by Iran being ignored by Americans as indication of what is to come. 

 - Americans will pay for abandoning the rest of the world and losing so many allies, but not for a very long time.