Author: Peter Zeihan
tl;dr: One of my new found favorite authors and my favorite geopolitical commentator lays out the state of the world in very clear terms. The appeal of Zeihan is his ability to effortlessly put massive macro societal trends into simple terms.
In a society where we have a penchant for focusing on meaningless things, Zeihan’s work ends up reminding you that you’re just a spec in the grand scheme of things. And that humanity isn’t that hard when you zoom way way out.
The book goes something like this. The keys to success for any nation lie in a few variables. Energy, food, security, terrain, neighbors, demographics, transportation, and capital. There are a few more but those are the ones I found to be most important.
American is the “Accidental” superpower because we have all of these, in abundance, naturally.
The Shale revolution means we don’t need oil from bad people anymore. The US is the best plot of land to grow food in the world. We have the most powerful Navy in the world, not only protecting the homeland but protecting the routes to the homeland (for trade & influence). We are flanked by two Oceans. Canada is a great neighbor, Mexico could be worse. We are replacing our old people with enough young people (barely). Our navigable rivers are second to none. And the USD being the reserve currency of the world allows us to flex capital muscles no one else can.
He take all of these factors and more and applies them to the rest of the world to give a clear picture of what the future may hold.
I still need to read his other two books (this is the first one) - but his newsletter is a must read as well that keeps me up to date.
First published on May 23, 2020