Everybody, Peter Zeihan here coming to you from beautifully chilly Colorado, and I have a holiday present for you! We’re going to be taking some time off here at the company, and as a result, we have pre-loaded, over the course of the last year, a couple of dozen videos on the future the world. We’re calling it the post-American series. Now for those of you who are relatively new to my work, we’ve got two big things going on in the world.
Number one, the United States is backing away from maintaining the structures of the global order which allow for globalization and free trade to occur. And whether you’re China or Germany or Korea or somebody who has refabricated your entire system to take advantage of global access, this is obviously a problem.
Second, globalization over the last seventy years has encouraged not just industrialization, but urbanization everywhere. And when you move from the farm to the city, you have fewer kids. You play that for a few decades, and it’s not that countries are running out of kids (in many cases, that happened 30-40 years ago), they’re now running out of working-aged adults. And both of these trends combined this decade to end the old system and create something fundamentally new. And that will play out differently based on what country you are.
And that is the entire point of this series. So, in a post-American world, what are things like in Canada? What does it look like in Japan, in China, in Western Europe? What does it look like in Africa or Egypt or Turkey? We’re gonna go through a whole bunch of places one at a time, one a day, over the course of the next three weeks, and hopefully you guys enjoy your Christmas present, or your Hanukkah present, or your Kwanza present, or your Happy Monday present, whatever it happens to be. So everybody have a great holiday season. Even though I’ll be taking off for a while, there will still be content coming in, and I wish the best to you and yours. Take care!
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By Straight Arrow News
The United States of America was the chief architect of the modern world system that humans have lived in ever since the end of World War II. That system is now under threat, prompting serious questions about what the world of tomorrow might look like, a world where the United States withdraws from its role as a global hegemon.
Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan asks what the post-American world might look like, and then applies this question to different countries around the world.
In each new episode of this 12-part series, Zeihan will focus on one specific country, analyzing its roles and prospects within a complex and ever-changing global system.
The following is an excerpt from Peter Zeihan’s Dec. 18 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:
The end of 2023 is approaching, and that means I owe you all a gift. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s not an all-expenses-paid vacation to Bora Bora. Instead, I’ve thrown together a ‘Post-America’ series that breaks down what the world looks like as the U.S. steps back as global protector.
Over the last 70 years, we’ve all reaped the benefits of a globalized world — but what’s been going on in the background? Fast forward to the present, and the demographics of most countries are critical, if not already terminal.
This series will explore these trends and how they impact countries and regions across the globe. If nothing else, I hope these unique dynamics of the post-American world will keep your holiday conversations interesting…
Access Peter’s other post-American world commentaries:
Everybody, Peter Zeihan here coming to you from beautifully chilly Colorado, and I have a holiday present for you! We’re going to be taking some time off here at the company, and as a result, we have pre-loaded, over the course of the last year, a couple of dozen videos on the future the world. We’re calling it the post-American series. Now for those of you who are relatively new to my work, we’ve got two big things going on in the world.
Number one, the United States is backing away from maintaining the structures of the global order which allow for globalization and free trade to occur. And whether you’re China or Germany or Korea or somebody who has refabricated your entire system to take advantage of global access, this is obviously a problem.
Second, globalization over the last seventy years has encouraged not just industrialization, but urbanization everywhere. And when you move from the farm to the city, you have fewer kids. You play that for a few decades, and it’s not that countries are running out of kids (in many cases, that happened 30-40 years ago), they’re now running out of working-aged adults. And both of these trends combined this decade to end the old system and create something fundamentally new. And that will play out differently based on what country you are.
And that is the entire point of this series. So, in a post-American world, what are things like in Canada? What does it look like in Japan, in China, in Western Europe? What does it look like in Africa or Egypt or Turkey? We’re gonna go through a whole bunch of places one at a time, one a day, over the course of the next three weeks, and hopefully you guys enjoy your Christmas present, or your Hanukkah present, or your Kwanza present, or your Happy Monday present, whatever it happens to be. So everybody have a great holiday season. Even though I’ll be taking off for a while, there will still be content coming in, and I wish the best to you and yours. Take care!
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