Latest / The Fourcast / How Trump’s Greenland threats are just the beginning of new world order - Peter Zeihan

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How Trump’s Greenland threats are just the beginning of new world order - Peter Zeihan · The Fourcast

0:00
This isn't just about Europe, this is about the United States
0:04
finding a new way, but doing it through the thoughts of one
0:08
person as a side project to everything else he's doing.
0:12
Remember, what goes on in his head is the only strategic
0:16
thinking that is happening in the United States right now.
0:18
He has already ordered on multiple occasions for the Joint
0:21
Chiefs to draw up military plans to seize it directly, which the
0:25
US obviously could do very easily if it wanted to.
0:28
How does Europe confront this situation now?
0:32
But. You're really going to hate this
0:34
answer. Hello and welcome to the
0:41
forecast. He's been back in office for a
0:43
year, though his critics say it feels like a decade.
0:46
Certainly, Donald Trump is pushing his allies to the brink,
0:49
with threats to take over European territory and hardline
0:53
trade policies if he doesn't get his way.
0:56
Meanwhile, China and Russia, once considered America's
0:59
enemies, watch on with apparent Glee.
1:01
And if the UK once thought flattery was the best form of
1:04
defence, the president has put paid to that with potentially
1:08
crushing tariffs and a swipe at Keir Starmer's Chagos Islands
1:12
deal, an agreement he had supposedly signed off.
1:15
So whether you're in an igloo in the Arctic, a boardroom in
1:18
Berlin or a car plant in Coventry, Donald Trump looms
1:22
over everything. So how do we make sense of a
1:25
global future in flux? Well, I'm joined by geopolitical
1:28
strategist Peter Zihan, who has, appropriately enough, forecast
1:31
some of the world's biggest convulsions and crises.
1:34
Thanks very much for joining us, Peter.
1:36
I want to ask you, sorry. About that by the way.
1:40
Yes, I look forward, you know, to your optimistic take on the
1:43
world. What gives?
1:44
First, NATO, global trade. It is certainly not looking like
1:49
it'll be Donald Trump. It's it's a bit of a toss up, a
1:53
couple things to keep in mind between the demographic aging
1:55
going around the world and a reorientation of American
1:59
strategic policy that long predates Donald Trump.
2:03
We were always going to get to some version of where we are.
2:08
And when you look at the European Union, which was
2:10
optimized to in essence, export to a globalized world, that
2:14
model was always going to either break or change.
2:17
And we just happen to now be at the moment the.
2:20
The hard part in my job is figuring out when things happen,
2:23
not so much what. But so it is about geography, it
2:27
is about demographics, but it is also about personality here,
2:32
though, isn't it? It is all about the
2:33
peculiarities of Donald Trump's personality.
2:37
I mean, American politics, it used to be, you know, it's the
2:39
economy, stupid. For Donald Trump, it appears to
2:41
be the land stupid. Is that right?
2:44
I wouldn't even say it's that's or that that complicated. the
2:48
United States has had a bipartisan foreign and strategic
2:50
policy since 1945 specifically because we knew we could not
2:54
stand up to the Soviets by ourselves.
2:57
We needed the alliance. And in creating that alliance,
3:00
we basically paid everyone to be our on our side.
3:03
We used our Navy to allow global trade, to enforce global trade,
3:06
and we opened our markets. That was our side of the deal.
3:09
In exchange, we get to write Europe's security policies that
3:13
was always gonna be abandoned at some point.
3:15
I would have liked to have seen it renegotiated for a new age,
3:20
but the last several presidents couldn't be bothered.
3:22
And so now Donald Trump has dropped, kicking the entire
3:25
thing to the side. So it's not about anyone
3:28
specific thing. It's about Trump has now cleaned
3:31
house and two generations of strategic thinkers in the United
3:35
States are for the first time not part of the process.
3:38
And he has made sure he has surrounded himself with people
3:41
who will never upstage him. So it's not the economy, it's
3:45
not land, it's him and only him. And does that mean you talk
3:52
about, you know, abandoning the international order that was
3:55
forged after the Second World War predominantly?
3:58
Is that completely abandoned now?
4:00
Is this the end of NATO for example?
4:03
NATO is still up in the air. NATO has a number of reasons why
4:06
it would still be relevant to American interests.
4:08
The question is whether Donald Trump sees them that way.
4:11
When you remove all of the institutions that have built
4:14
this system and remove the people who have kept it alive,
4:18
and you don't put in a replacement, that is when you
4:21
can get truly radical change that is damaging to any number
4:24
of things. And one of those number of
4:25
things is American security, which is the path that we are on
4:28
right now. This isn't just about Europe.
4:32
This is about the United it's finding a new way, but doing it
4:37
through the thoughts of one person as a side project to
4:40
everything else he's doing. I mean, you talk about the
4:42
thoughts of one person. Let's look specifically at the
4:44
whole Greenland issue, which is the the top of the headlines at
4:48
the moment. Why is he so obsessed with it
4:51
exactly? Maybe not by the end of today,
4:53
but at the moment it's right up there at the top.
4:56
He gave the security argument that you talked about.
4:58
He, you know, people have talked about the argument that he wants
5:01
the rare earth minerals in the last couple of weeks.
5:05
He seems to be just saying I want it, I need it
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psychologically, he said. I mean, surely with Donald
5:11
Trump, that's got to be the hardest argument to engage with
5:14
something that he wants psychologically.
5:17
What's happened around the White House is everyone who's involved
5:20
in the Defense Department realizes that there's nothing to
5:23
be gained from a presence or ownership of Greenland.
5:26
It's 80% ice cap. So even with the most aggressive
5:29
form of climate change, it's not going to be usable before the
5:32
end of this century of the land that is not ice cap.
5:36
There are no good port structures from a geographic
5:39
point of view, and the one place where there could be a deep
5:41
water port, it has icebergs 12 months of the year.
5:45
So the cost to do anything here would be immense.
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And if there was rare earths, and keep in mind rare earths are
5:51
trace materials that are produced as a byproduct of other
5:54
mining. They never produce or they're
5:57
never present in more than 1100 billionth concentration.
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So now you would have to what? Do a mine in a place with no
6:03
people, with hostile weather? And you can't ship the rock out
6:07
because you can't build a good port.
6:08
So you have to build a refining place in there without a power.
6:12
You're talking about a trillion dollar investment to make
6:13
anything happen. It's not worth it.
6:15
And from a strategic point of view, the north and the
6:18
northeastern sides that face a Russian waters, the ice, the ice
6:22
comes right down to the sea there.
6:24
There's nothing strategic here at all.
6:28
So the strategic thinkers around the Trump administration, people
6:32
who are within the bureaucracy, the Defense Department, have
6:34
tried to lay out that it doesn't work for this, it doesn't work
6:36
for this, it doesn't work for this, it doesn't work for this.
6:39
All you get out of it is in a Penguin free Antarctica.
6:43
And so we have now seen it boiled down to just him saying I
6:47
want it because I said I want it.
6:50
And that, unfortunately, at this moment in time, is formal
6:54
American security policy. So who do we take, as a lot of
6:58
commentators are saying that this is bluff and bluster that
7:01
is actually going nowhere? Or is there a route by which
7:07
that desperate desire to own it keeps driving him forward?
7:12
Remember, what goes on in his head is the only strategic
7:16
thinking that is happening in the United States right now.
7:19
He has already ordered on multiple occasions for the Joint
7:22
Chiefs to draw up military plants to seize it directly,
7:25
which the US obviously could do very easily if it wanted to.
7:28
The consequences of that, of course, are so horrific for
7:32
American economics and security that the same people will have
7:36
tried to distract him with every possible other thing.
7:39
It just hasn't worked. And there is so much now relying
7:42
on Europe, you know, to in the last 24 hours, he's been taking
7:46
potshots at the UK over that Chagos Island deal, which I
7:49
think the administration once said was a really good deal.
7:52
Today, Donald Trump has reported as saying it is a an act of
7:56
great stupidity. And he says it's the reason why
7:59
the US must now have Greenland. What's your take on that?
8:03
I don't want to sign too much logic here, but the Chicos deal
8:06
is a little questionable. You take one of the most
8:08
valuable pieces of territory in the Eastern hemisphere and you
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put the military use of that in question.
8:14
I can understand why that might upset some strategic thinkers in
8:17
multiple countries. Whether or not that is the logic
8:21
for this is an open question. Keep in mind that was just two
8:24
days ago that Donald Trump sent a letter to the leaders of
8:28
Norway saying that since he didn't get the Nobel Peace
8:30
Prize, he was going to invade Greenland.
8:32
So drawing connections logically are are not the Forte of this
8:38
administration. Well, on that point, I mean, the
8:41
rest of the world has to and continually reacts to what he
8:45
says and to to what he does. Is Trump now a bigger threat to
8:51
NATO than Vladimir Putin? No.
8:55
Keep in mind that because of the change in American strategic
8:57
posture pre Trump, and because of the demographic shift, Europe
9:01
was already going to have to do everything differently.
9:02
Europe was always going to have to spend five times as much on
9:05
defense as they had been because the United States was going to
9:08
be interested in other things closer to home.
9:10
Trump is just doing that with more layer.
9:13
Europe was always going to have to reshuffle the way its economy
9:15
works away from export LED industries into domestic
9:19
consumption, which I realize is very low because of the age
9:22
nature of the population. But we were always going to get
9:26
here and Europe was always going to have to deal with the
9:31
Russians, maybe not on their own, but with a slow, a slimmer
9:36
slice of allies than they had before.
9:38
And that meant European decision making had to become much more
9:43
robust. This was always where we were
9:46
going to get. I just didn't think we were
9:47
going to get here until like 20302035.
9:50
Do you think Europeans also thought we wouldn't get here
9:52
that that soon either? I would argue with a couple of
9:58
exceptions in places like Warsaw or Riga, most Europeans thought
10:02
that they would never get here. And you know, if you look at
10:04
back in the world since 1945, it's been pretty good to be in
10:07
Europe. The the Americans do the heavy
10:09
lifting strategically. They were able to build out
10:12
their social support networks in a way that avoided some of the
10:16
social stresses that had ripped their countries apart over and
10:19
over and over in the previous half Millennium.
10:21
And they never had to fight themselves.
10:24
It has been a good globalization under American.
10:27
The American Aegis has been a great time to be European.
10:30
And that's been a big part of Trump's argument, hasn't it?
10:33
That's been a big part of Trump's argument, and and not
10:36
just Trump, also Biden, also Obama, also W, also Clinton.
10:40
You could argue that the writing has been on the wall for a
10:43
while. It's just that having it all
10:47
happened and an idle weekend is a bit of a shock.
10:50
So to the next prediction, if you would, how does Europe
10:55
confront this situation now? Well.
10:59
You're really going to hate this answer.
11:02
We're going through a revolution in military affairs at the
11:04
moment. We're seeing Russia and Ukraine
11:08
reinvent from the ground up what warfare looks like.
11:11
And even if the Europeans had been spending 3 to 5% of GDP on
11:16
defense these past 25 years, they would probably discover
11:19
that most of the hardware they had, most of the the training
11:21
they had done, most of the planning they had done wouldn't
11:24
be applicable to the way that war is evolving.
11:27
That applies to the United States to There isn't time for
11:32
Europe to devise a conventional solution to the challenge that
11:37
is now on its eastern periphery. However, as we know, nuclear
11:42
weapons or 1940s technology, and there are any number of
11:46
countries that are include but are not limited to Lithuania,
11:50
Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden and Romania who could develop a
11:54
crude nuclear device in a matter of weeks if they wanted to.
11:57
We're now at the point where there's active political
12:00
discussions going on all those countries and more about how to
12:03
prepare for what's next, and nukes are absolutely part of the
12:06
conversation. So that means European leaders
12:11
have to keep Donald Trump on board and in NATO, don't they?
12:15
And not. That would absolutely be the
12:18
preference. Yes, America.
12:20
There's no choice. Obviously stronger together.
12:23
Well, there is a choice. It's just the choice isn't
12:25
theirs. the United States, for better or for worse, has other
12:29
options. I'm not saying that these are
12:31
ones I would even remotely endorse.
12:33
If the United States does decide to move on Greenland, you know,
12:36
attack a NATO ally, that is effectively the end of NATO.
12:39
And it's certainly the end of the partnership with the
12:42
Scandinavian and Nordic countries, which is likely to be
12:45
the backbone of future American European engagement, assuming
12:49
that the relationship is allowed to mature.
12:51
That's where the demographics are healthier.
12:53
That's where the militaries are more capable.
12:55
That's where geostrategic alignments have always been
12:57
strongest. And now with Finland and Sweden
13:00
as part of the alliance, it could be a very, very, very
13:03
robust partnership. But not if you attack one of
13:06
their own. the United States doesn't have an
13:10
internationalized economy. And that was even before we
13:13
started reassuring some of our manufacturing a few years ago.
13:18
The US doesn't need the world. It's better with the world,
13:23
stronger economy, It's a better system, it's cheaper, but it
13:26
does have other options. The Europeans can't choose
13:33
anything else. And that means Europe has to
13:36
transform not just politically and economically and
13:39
institutionally, but also strategically.
13:42
And that requires going back to a time that the Europeans in the
13:45
past have shown they're not very good at long term, over the
13:50
horizon strategic thinking. Every time that the Europeans
13:53
have tried that, it's led to a European civil war.
13:56
I'm not saying that it's destined to do that this time,
13:58
but there's a lot more stress this time than there was in the
14:02
last round. So how critical is it now in
14:05
terms of how Europe responds to the threat against Greenland and
14:11
what they do next? Donald Trump is not getting good
14:16
advice because he doesn't have good advisors, with maybe one or
14:18
two exceptions. And so, as the Europeans
14:21
discovered in the last NATO summit, if you slather on the
14:26
praise thick, get him thinking about something else, eventually
14:30
the summit ends and he goes away.
14:32
That is still the best hope for Europe.
14:35
They can't give him Greenland because that would shatter the
14:39
relationship on all sides. Any government that's signed up
14:43
up to that would be overthrown by their own people very
14:46
quickly. The European countries are not
14:48
the United States. You have a say in who your
14:50
leaders are more than once every four years.
14:52
You can do votes of no confidence.
14:54
We can't do that here. And you can shift out the party
14:58
alliance that makes the the government possible.
15:00
In the United States, we don't even have two parties anymore.
15:02
They've basically broken down past the point of no return.
15:06
You are at a moment where you are more flexible than we are.
15:09
And even though there are now Republican senators in Congress
15:13
openly discussing impeachment of the president, the chances of
15:17
getting at the 2/3 majority that would be required are very, very
15:20
low without something a lot more egregious than Greenland.
15:23
Now the Trump administration is working on a few of those items.
15:26
Watch Minnesota. That's that could break ugly
15:29
very, very quickly based on how things are going.
15:32
But even if Trump were to magically be voted out tomorrow,
15:36
the US has changed US strategic priorities are different, and we
15:42
are unlikely to be coming back. But in terms of the discussions
15:46
that are going on right now about how Europe and how
15:52
European leaders, how the UK should respond in terms even of
15:55
reciprocal terrorists, what's noticeable is how polite many of
16:00
those European leaders, particularly perhaps the British
16:03
Prime Minister, is continuing to be.
16:06
Meanwhile, we've got Governor Newsom saying Europe needs to
16:09
grow a spine. Interesting how the Americans
16:12
don't feel as obliged to be quite so polite in their
16:14
language. But.
16:17
But Europe has to show a sign of strength somehow, doesn't it
16:21
here? Well, you have to decide what
16:24
you want. Do you want to attempt to
16:26
salvage the relationship with the United States that is
16:28
becoming more erratic, independent of Trump?
16:32
Or do you want to get on with it and build an independent
16:34
capacity and find a way to share power with the French and the
16:37
Germans and the others? Neither of these are
16:40
particularly palatable options. I'm I'm not suggesting there's
16:44
anything about this. It's an easier choice.
16:46
But as long as you're pandering to Trump, you hold out the hope
16:48
that today is not the day that that breaks for the United
16:52
Kingdom specifically. This is going to sound really
16:55
harsh. Sorry we've.
16:57
Been at least you always apologize before your heart.
17:02
I went to university in New Zealand.
17:03
There's a little bit of politeness in me.
17:08
It's been almost a decade since Brexit, and every time the UK
17:13
trade authorities have come to the United States to seek a
17:16
deal, whether it's been under Biden or under Trump, the deal's
17:19
been the same. You have to adopt US regulatory
17:22
policies. You have to adopt US
17:23
agricultural norms. You have to adopt US
17:26
manufacturing norms and fold into North American systems.
17:29
Airbus goes away, the city closes down.
17:31
You're no longer a financial hub.
17:33
These aren't mild points, but they're also not negotiable from
17:37
an American point of view. the United Kingdom left Europe.
17:42
It is on its own. It brings very little to the
17:45
table in terms of trade talks. And so you either accept what
17:48
Brussels says or you accept what Washington says.
17:51
And we've been in this netherworld in between ever
17:53
since. And with every day that Britain
17:55
doesn't get a deal, it's leverage gets weaker and no one
18:01
is going to make a concession. So the OR the Prime Minister
18:05
right now is trying to struggle between these two impossible
18:08
choices. Do we go back to Europe and fold
18:12
in British defence decision making into French norms or do
18:21
we functionally become the 51st state?
18:23
There is not a middle Rd. here. As as you predicted, it was a
18:28
harsh answer. Meanwhile, the UK, the Prime
18:31
Minister, continues to rely a great deal on a special
18:35
relationship. That looks less and less
18:37
special, doesn't it? It's not going to be special in
18:40
the way that you want. It's not that Americans don't
18:43
like and trust the Brits and respect the Brits.
18:46
Think the Brits have capacity, but that capacity really only
18:50
functions now as an adjunctive American power.
18:53
So either you need to build it up independently, which I don't
18:55
think you can afford anymore, or you need to do it as part of a
18:59
broader system and your choice is American or European.
19:02
And and and more broadly, at this precise moment, the
19:04
balancing act not just for the UK but for the rest of Europe is
19:08
trying also to keep President Trump on board for Ukraine.
19:14
In the hope that he will now be distracted by something else,
19:17
say Cuba. And as long as we have the
19:20
American strategic decision making apparatus so hamstrung
19:24
and gutted, the US really can only focus on one international
19:28
issue at at a time. Unfortunately, right now the
19:32
person who decides what that topic is, is in Europe.
19:37
From Europe, looking precisely on on your doorstep to America.
19:42
Now you've got the midterms coming up.
19:44
What, if any, difference will they make?
19:47
I, I find it unlikely that we're going to have, let's put
19:50
impeachment to the side for the moment, because if we do have a
19:52
break among the Republican senators, there is a possible
19:55
path there, not a likely one, but a possible one.
19:58
But for impeachment, I'm sorry, but for the midterms, I really
20:01
I'm not paying much attention to those at all because while.
20:05
Donald Trump has gutted the Republican Party and turned it
20:08
into a cult of personality and actively campaigns against
20:11
anyone who is not slavishly loyal.
20:14
The Democrats are in worse shape.
20:15
They're completely detonated as an institution.
20:18
They have no leadership. They have no common cause aside
20:20
from we're not Trump and that is not enough.
20:23
Because of the way American elections work, only 1/3 of the
20:26
Senate is up for election in any given election are up for
20:30
decision in every any given election.
20:32
So even if you have the Democrats sweep the House, which
20:36
is very unlikely, they still wouldn't get enough votes in the
20:40
Senate to force their way on any meaningful policy.
20:43
So if you're if you've been betting on the Democrats, you've
20:47
been wrong for several years. This year is not unique.
20:51
I mean, you may you make a lot of bold predictions.
20:53
It's your business. You predicted Donald Trump would
20:55
lose that last election. Now that didn't happen.
20:58
Would you say that was a misreading of him or a
21:02
misreading of the American people?
21:05
Of the electorate, my forecast for that round was that
21:09
independence, true independence, the one that make up only 10% of
21:12
the population and decided the last 11 elections in the United
21:17
States that they had soured on Trump so holistically that it
21:20
wasn't going to be enough for Trump to have a reengaged base.
21:25
And that group that 110% did vote for Kamala Harris by a
21:29
factor of more than three to one.
21:31
However, Democrats voted for Trump, just not something I
21:37
anticipated. With the exception of
21:39
independence and the state of Washington, every demographic in
21:43
the United States shifted towards Trump by significant
21:47
volumes, some by huge volumes, and that was more than enough to
21:50
to overcome what I had identified.
21:53
But I mean, would you say America's turning against Trump
21:56
now or or is that again a point in time that may change once
22:00
more? Every president has a bit of a
22:03
honeymoon in his first year. The second year and 3rd year
22:07
always sour. The question is whether that
22:09
affects their power. Unique among American
22:13
presidents, Trump came into this term with a majority in the
22:18
House and the Senate and the Super majority in the courts.
22:22
And yet he hasn't relied on them at all.
22:26
He's just worked with presidential power.
22:28
He doesn't seem to care about the institution of Congress or
22:31
the authority or durability that it might give his give his
22:34
policies. We've really only had one
22:36
functional bill passed in the entire year.
22:39
It's difficult to see anything shy of a congressional
22:44
resurgence putting any meaningful limits on his power.
22:48
Looking more broadly, you know, across the globe, one of your
22:51
other big predictions is that China will collapse in the next
22:55
decade. That's certainly not an outlook
22:56
I would say lots of people would share.
22:59
What's your analysis on that? The short version is that the
23:03
Chinese population started imploding back in the 90s.
23:07
We now know that, according to official Chinese statistics, the
23:10
American birth rate has been higher than the Chinese birth
23:12
rate since 1991. And they're now shrinking,
23:16
according to their formal statistics, by more than 6
23:18
million people a year. Informally, within the Shanghai
23:23
Academy of Sciences, they're having an open debate about how
23:25
many people they have overcounted.
23:27
The low ball number is about 100 million.
23:30
The higher ball number is closer to 350 million.
23:33
And if you go somewhere in the middle of that, it suggests that
23:36
the average age in China is already 54, which is older than
23:38
any country in Europe. So demographically speaking,
23:42
they're not going to be able to maintain the production levels.
23:44
They already have seen consumption levels fall off.
23:47
They're having problems with their tax base.
23:49
And they are completely dependent on exports to maintain
23:53
their economic and political systems that has no more than 10
23:56
years to run. I mean, the Chinese obviously
23:58
had that one child policy, which presumably is partly what's left
24:02
them to the sort of demographic, demographic time bomb they're
24:05
facing now. But I mean, they could.
24:08
Could they introduce A234 child policy to reverse the change?
24:14
A couple of problems there. One, child policy was absolutely
24:17
part of the problem, but the real issue was that they just
24:19
industrialized too fast. In a single generation, they
24:22
went from 90% of the population living in rice farms to 60% of
24:26
the population living in high rise condos.
24:28
There's simply no room to have children anymore.
24:32
Part of what we're seeing across the Chinese space now is even
24:35
when they liberalize one child, and what's a two child, three
24:38
child, and now as many as you want, the birth rate actually
24:41
went down. There no longer is enough
24:44
people, no longer are enough people underage 40 to even
24:47
pretend to regenerate the demographic structure.
24:50
The question is just how gutted is it?
24:54
Give you an idea of how desperate it's gotten for people
24:57
under 30. The new top app that is being
25:01
downloaded by parents for their kids in China is called Are You
25:07
Alive? Because suicide has become so
25:10
robust, job opportunities for the young have become so poor,
25:14
and so many people are living alone because they can't afford
25:17
to do otherwise. I mean, one of the things that
25:19
the, the people who who think the prediction of, you know,
25:22
China's collapse is a bit premature, one of the things
25:25
they say is that, you know, you're not necessarily factoring
25:28
in what the Chinese leader might do to improve things.
25:34
Certainly we're getting a lesson in that from Donald Trump right
25:37
now because in many ways he's modeling his decision making
25:40
process off of Xi Jinping. It's been 8 years now since you,
25:43
Jinping, last purged his cabinet of anyone who would speak to him
25:48
about the truth. And now he's just been ingesting
25:51
propaganda that kind of messes with your decision making.
25:54
So we see a lot of disconnects in policy in China where an
25:58
order is handed down from this guy who has written something
26:01
like, jeez, what is it, 300,000 pages of ideological treatises
26:08
in the last 25 years? And as somebody who's written a
26:10
few books, 300,000 pages, there's a lot.
26:14
It's a lot. He's can't keep track of the
26:19
policy even if people still provide him with the information
26:22
because he punishes people who bring him information he doesn't
26:25
like. So they just stop collecting
26:27
that statistic. So we don't have good eyes into
26:31
China anymore because the government statistics have
26:33
become meaningless, and companies that did things like
26:36
due diligence have been chased out of the country.
26:38
So we're just left with this kind of blank wall and our fear.
26:43
And Americans are very good in filling in the blanks when
26:46
they're motivated by fear. And so and so, if this collapse
26:49
does happen, say within a decade, what does the world
26:52
order look like then? Well, that's a longer
26:55
conversation than we probably have time for, but let me give
26:58
you a couple 1st and 2nd order effects.
27:00
I. Was tempted to say briefly, but
27:01
it seemed ridiculous. Yeah.
27:03
Yeah #1 China because of its economic model which is based on
27:07
over financialization. Basically, they print currency
27:11
and confiscate private savings to fund everything and that
27:15
makes them price insensitive for everything from cement to copper
27:18
to oil. The world's largest consumer of
27:20
everything for raw materials goes to zero in a very short
27:23
period of time. That for example would be very
27:26
bad for Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia.
27:29
Just to pick 3 second, China is the workshop of the world.
27:33
They have cornered the market and all the low tech
27:36
manufacturing and assembly that no one else can do.
27:39
When they do it at scale, that goes away.
27:42
So we need to find a new way to manufacture product because
27:45
nowhere else in the world is there a large cadre of behaved
27:52
folks who will do that, they're told, for a relatively modest
27:56
compensation. So maybe that's automation, but
27:59
we have to do it quickly and with less capital than we have
28:02
before. Maybe it means that we all have
28:06
to take a kit to our standard of living and get back into
28:09
manufacturing in a very big way. There's a lot of choices that
28:12
will color what happens, but the biggest issue is going to be
28:16
strategic. the United States right now has 12 super carriers.
28:21
We're in the process of updating some of our older ones with
28:24
newer models. The Ford class is now out.
28:27
The second one is going through C trials, and it's designed to
28:30
fight in multiple theaters at the same time.
28:33
You remove the Chinese threat, the United States still has the
28:36
hardware. So imagine, if you will, an
28:40
America with global reach but not even regional interests.
28:45
We got a glimpse of what that looks like in Venezuela last
28:48
month. I mean all roads.
28:51
Forward and you get a very dynamic world.
28:52
All roads lead back to to Donald Trump, and you're talking about
28:56
more conflict. It may be a world of peace if
28:59
his board of peace works the way he's promising that he's created
29:04
in the Middle East. I mean, what is going on there?
29:09
That's a great question. I don't think anybody has a good
29:12
idea. The Board of Peace, as it's
29:14
called, is supposed to administrate a territory that no
29:17
one has ever been able to administrate, and it's supposed
29:20
to do so without money and without troops.
29:23
I'm a little skeptical. And countries, for the mere
29:28
price of a billion dollars can be on it.
29:31
And it almost doesn't matter who you are.
29:33
I believe the invitation has gone out to Putin, to Belarus.
29:37
Yeah, I don't want to put word in words in any president or
29:40
prime minister's mouth, but for a billion dollars I would pay
29:43
that happily to not have to deal with Gaza.
29:48
And there is also the issue in the region of Iran.
29:51
I mean, Trump did strike Iran before in the 12 day war as it
29:55
was called, the child of 12 day strike.
29:59
Will he do it again? Never rolled out, but something
30:04
interesting happened last week when the decision was made to
30:07
not strike Iran. He was convinced by national
30:11
security personnel in the Pentagon that no matter how many
30:15
bombs you drop on Iran, you're probably not going to change the
30:17
regime. And so all of a sudden, he went
30:19
from thinking that he'd pull a second Maduro to realizing that
30:23
sometimes in some places, just going in with Delta Force isn't
30:27
going to solve the problem. See, in Venezuela, we had one
30:31
guy who was a thug and a thief surrounded by a small cluster of
30:35
other thugs and other thieves. And getting him out was easy
30:39
because the not just the military system in Venezuela,
30:42
but it was a joke. But there was no structure in
30:45
place to rule the country as you would rule another place.
30:48
Iran has many faults, but that's not one of them.
30:51
And while you definitely have people that are enriched in
30:53
themselves at the expense of the Iranian people, the mullahs are
30:57
the ruling class and there's over 10,000 of them.
31:00
So even if you were to nuke Tehran, you don't actually break
31:04
the regime. And eventually that pushed into
31:10
Trump's head and he realized that this wasn't going to be
31:13
quick and simple. It's not the first time that
31:15
that has happened in this administration.
31:17
It also happened when the United States was dealing with the the
31:20
Houthis down in the Red Sea. It was laid out, Trump's, if
31:24
this is not over in 30 days, we're done.
31:27
And there is no way that you can fix Yemen in 30 days.
31:31
People have literally been trying for centuries.
31:34
And so after 30 days, almost to the day, U.S. forces stopped
31:38
doing what they were doing. You just have to get the message
31:42
to him through a venue that he can assimilate.
31:45
And that doesn't happen anywhere but the White House so far.
31:49
But even on the board of Peace, you know, it was first being
31:51
established for Gaza, but now seems to have spread to
31:57
conflicts, as you say, Venezuela, you know, across the
32:00
world. I mean a sort of Trumpian United
32:03
Nations. Having a new United Nations that
32:09
Trump personally manages, if you wanted to actually do anything,
32:12
requires a degree of consistency out of American foreign policy
32:15
that we haven't seen in a long time.
32:16
And that's not just what Trump critique.
32:19
It also requires a lot more funding than the United States
32:22
is willing to put in and troops on the ground in a way that this
32:26
administration is simply not willing to consider.
32:28
And I would argue neither would have the last three, which puts
32:35
everybody in interesting position.
32:37
Trump has his issue over the moment.
32:39
If he talks about the peace board as opposed to Greenland
32:43
while he's in Davos, that is a big win because it doesn't have
32:47
nearly as many strategic implications because ultimately
32:49
the United States is not going to put money into that either.
32:53
You just have to keep Trump focused on something else.
32:57
You said a couple of times during the conversation, I'm
33:00
sorry. You know it's going to be a
33:01
bleak answer when you look ahead, say, to the next decade.
33:06
Is it all Blake? Globalized capitalism in its
33:12
current form requires a global consuming class, and that
33:16
requires a lot of people underage. 45-A decade from now,
33:20
there won't be enough of those people to maintain that model.
33:22
We're going to have to figure out something else new now in
33:25
the United States. We still are not in a position
33:28
where we have more deaths than births, like France just crossed
33:31
into this last year. So now everyone in Europe is in
33:34
that bucket. Everyone in Northeast Asia has
33:35
been in that bucket for years, which means that for the United
33:39
States, we don't have to figure that out.
33:40
We can continue with our economic model more or less
33:42
intact. We're going to have to change
33:44
how we do manufacturing as the Chinese go away.
33:46
But that is as many, in many ways an opportunity of growth
33:50
crisis of growth as anything else.
33:53
But changing the way you think of strategic thinking, changing
33:56
the way you think of your global strategy, changing the way that
33:59
you handle your economic model, which will refabricate every
34:04
political relationship on the planet, that is the challenge
34:07
for the next decade. I'm not suggesting that ends in
34:10
bloodshed and horror for everyone.
34:12
What I'm saying is it is change, and going through that much
34:16
change in that short of a period of time will generate stresses
34:20
internally for every country, every transnational
34:23
organization, and it will drastically alter this concept
34:26
we have called trade, which can't exist without a global
34:30
guarantor of security. All of that has to shift.
34:34
All of that has to shift in less than 10 years.
34:37
History tells us that that will be a rugged time, but that does
34:42
not mean that there won't be winners.
34:46
There are countries with good geographies, good industrial
34:49
plant energy options, agricultural options, and a
34:52
certain amount of distance from potential rivals that allows
34:57
them to actually do very, very well in a world that is
34:59
globalized. Globalization was designed to
35:02
help countries that didn't have those things unite into alliance
35:06
against the Soviets. You break that alliance, you
35:08
still have those core features that work well. the United
35:11
Kingdom's on that list. France is on that list.
35:13
Japan is on that list. Argentina's on that list.
35:17
It's not bad for everybody, but it is going to be a radically
35:20
different way of thinking and operating, and the less time you
35:25
have to make the adjustments, the more likely things are to
35:28
get rough. And we look at the speed at
35:30
which things appear to happen and the flip flopping and the
35:34
change in strategy and policy that we've seen in the last year
35:37
from President Trump. We have three more years
35:40
potentially. What will his legacy be?
35:43
How much of his presidency this time round will be dictating the
35:49
shape of the modern world? Question is whether Trump gets
35:55
around to building anything right now.
35:56
He has proven he's very good at breaking things, and the global
35:59
order is one of those things. But the presidents that
36:04
ultimately reshaped the world in a way that sticks are the ones
36:08
who build new institutions to take advantage of the changes in
36:12
circumstance. There's a reason that the four
36:15
men who are in Mount Rushmore are who they are.
36:18
They were creators of a new world, not Breakers of the old.
36:23
And I have no doubt that 20 years from now we'll be be
36:26
looking back on this era and everyone in the United States is
36:29
going to be more than a little embarrassed.
36:34
And how does the, the, how do you fight that, though?
36:37
Is there any chance that that will be fought?
36:39
This idea that, you know, you may well break institutions and,
36:42
and and and RIP up the international order, but if you
36:45
don't rebuild, what's the danger there?
36:48
Well, remember, Trump is the oldest president we've ever had.
36:51
He won't be around for that. He doesn't care.
36:55
The real challenge from my point of view, has an apolitical or
36:58
tries to be a political American is we at the moment don't have a
37:02
two party system and it's probably going to take us more
37:05
than another three years to reformulate into something
37:08
fresh. So when we get around to our
37:10
next general election three years from now, we're going to
37:14
have basically a personality contest without policy.
37:22
And so I'm not so much concerned about the era between now and
37:27
2028. I'm concerned about 2028 to 2032
37:31
because once the global system is broken and the United States
37:36
isn't intellectually capable of building that new institutions,
37:42
that's when things get dangerous.
37:44
Can I just ask, when you talk about, you know, that being
37:46
driven by personality but not policy in a sense, isn't that
37:51
where the Elektra in various countries across the world end
37:55
up being left? They are drawn to personalities.
37:58
They are less interested in policy.
38:02
And if historically speaking, that is very true as well.
38:06
One of the things that I've been learning as I've been going back
38:09
looking for other areas where there's a moment like this, a
38:12
hegemon that kind of loses it at the top.
38:15
It's, unfortunately, it echoes quite a bit.
38:19
So around the world, trust in the old, for lack of a better
38:23
phrase, bipartisan system that ruled the world from 1946 to the
38:27
present, reshaped everyone's internal political policies.
38:31
And now as that system breaks down, we're seeing populism,
38:34
whether it's on the left or the right, becoming much, much, much
38:37
more robust. That is true in every democracy.
38:40
It's also true in the autocracies, and it has been
38:43
true before. My goal as a historian is to
38:48
hopefully hold enough of what worked from this old system and
38:53
carry it into whatever happens to be for the new.
38:55
Don't just let it all wash away like it has on multiple
38:58
occasions throughout world history.
39:00
We're not off to a great start. But I suppose the point is, you
39:03
know, populism brings what people want, doesn't it?
39:07
Populism brings what people want right now.
39:10
The problem is it's not very well considered typically, and
39:12
it doesn't take a very Longview. I kind of consider it.
39:16
Think of the cultural muscle tone of Iraq versus the United
39:19
Kingdom. The Brits know how to queue
39:22
because ultimately they know they have over a Millennium of
39:25
political history behind them, and they know their institutions
39:28
will eventually reset, even if they have a bad leadership.
39:31
And Iraq, they've never had good leadership.
39:34
And so if somebody's car stalls on the side of the road, they
39:37
strip it down to the studs immediately because that's the
39:40
only thing that they ever see themselves getting.
39:42
We have a degree of continuity in the West that a lot of the
39:45
rest of the world doesn't have. We'll come through this.
39:49
The question is, will we fall far enough that we start
39:53
stripping that stalled vehicle, or do we start remembering some
39:56
of the things that have gotten us to this point?
40:00
And use that to build whatever's next.
40:02
Peter, we've taken you all around the world.
40:05
I wonder, given that we've talked about everything else,
40:08
will Brook Brooklyn Beckham ever make up with his mom?
40:14
Time will tell. That will that conflict ever be
40:17
solved? It's easier than Gaza, I'll give
40:20
it that. Peter Zion, thank you so much
40:23
for talking to us. My pleasure.
40:25
Thank you so much. Well, that is it for this
40:27
episode of The Forecast. Until next time, goodbye.