Peter Zeihan studies the confluence of demographics, economics, and history, to predict geopolitical trends. This book is the best nonfiction book of 2023, and I suspect, a very important book for everyone to read. If you want to understand what is likely to come to pass over the next ten or twenty years, you should read this book. I became aware of it when I heard Peter Zeihan speak on Joe Rogan’s podcast. I did something I’ve never done, gone back and listened twice. I may listen again one more time after having completed the book. There is a great deal to unpack here.

Zeihan describes the demographic trends underway presently. We fell off a fertility cliff in 1980, when the rate of reproduction greatly diminished for all nations, but most severely for Europe, Russia, China, and Japan. China enforced the one child policy under Mao, so their rate dropped early. Russia’s rate dropped during the breakup of the Soviet Union, and never recovered. This means that a much smaller population of wage earners is supporting the much larger retiring Baby Boomers, and that generation of Millennials is having fewer children. Actually, the American Millennial generation is much larger than that of many other nations, so we are not in nearly as bad a situation as many countries. This means fewer people having babies, fewer growing food, manufacturing, providing services, and providing defense worldwide.

Under the “Order” which came out of the Bretton Woods conference at the end of World War II, the United States sacrificed her position as world leader economically, providing safety and stability on the oceans, leading globalized trade and production, lifting all developing nations who were able to participate to engage in industry, agriculture, and worldwide trade. Your cell phone is presently made in at least eleven different countries, as an example. A great deal of low-end manufacturing moved to China, while high-end manufacturing moved to South Korea, Taiwan, and various other Asian nations. Longstanding international animosities were largely suppressed, and peace maintained by the U.S. As our ability to send out a worldwide Navy diminishes (it has already begun), and our need for fuel diminishes (we should be able to meet our own hemispheric energy needs), we will pull back from patrolling the oceans. Expect old grudges to resurface, trade relationships will fracture, piracy will increase, and nations will need to learn to provide for their own needs.

The U.S. is in a fairly good position, in that we have most of what we need to return manufacturing to our country. The transition will likely be painful, however. Zeihan sees dark times for many countries over the course of the 2020s and 2030s. Widespread malnutrition and famine is likely for many regions. China and Russia will fracture as countries, into regional, smaller powers. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was expected by Zeihan for this time, as he felt it was Russia’s last time they would be able to man such as invasion. He is hopeful that by the 2040s, we begin to sunset fossil fuel use, and have found a better way to store energy than lithium batteries, a current nonstarter.

Interestingly, the U.S.-Mexico relationship will be a saving grace for our region, providing the educated labor needed to keep our economy productive, and the population fed. He sees the current situation as a “family squabble” we can and must work out. I recommend you check out the Joe Rogan interview, then dive deep into this book, and see if you agree with his conclusions. A must-read.