I purchased Peter Zeihanâs The End of the World Is Just the Beginning on Christmas Eve of 2024. I read history, policy, and for views of the future the works of Dmitry Orlov have always weighed on me. Also worth noting are the effect cyberpunk authors Bruce Sterling and William Gibson have on my thinking; their books have always had that âday after tomorrowâ feeling about them.
Reinventing Collapse, on November 7th, was my pointing out that now might be a great time to read Dmitry Orlovâs Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects and The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivorâs Toolkit. My underlying thinking was that if even a fraction of the tariffs mentioned during last yearâs campaign, or a fraction of the deportations, actually come to pass, that both China and the U.S. economies were going to go sideways fairly quickly. Policy & Prejudice and Going Hungry By Choice are focused on domestic issues that will quickly follow.
Do you recall Insurance Sector Collapse Process? That article is about climate change, housing prices, and the fact that Mother Nature is not influenced by partisan news. Zeihan doesnât specifically mention Lloyds of London, but the inability to insure shipping comes right back to that insurance syndicate. Lloyds not a company, itâs a cluster of hundreds, and when they insure something I think no member can take more than 2.5% of the total liability.
Just a couple days ago, Where Globalization Dies, was about the friction in the Baltic, with Russian sabotage stirring Estonia and Finland into action. The Russian shadow fleet is insured by a notional Russian carrier that probably wonât pay a ruble in the event of a loss. The three tankers going down in the Black Sea in quick succession put that lack of coverage into peopleâs minds. The loss of the large utility ship in the Mediterranean may mean the ships of the Black Sea fleet who were lurking at the supply station in Tartus may be stranded in Benghazi for the foreseeable future.
This video is Zeihan reciting all the various shipping hazards, reminding us of what the world was like prior to the formation of the United Nations and NATO post WWII. The U.S. is abandoning its role as global traffic cop, and he doesnât specifically mention China, but if they lash out at Taiwan as tariffs turn up the heat on Chairman Xi, the supply chain disruptions we saw from COVID will seem a harmless civil defense exercise compared to whatâs next.
If youâre not hip to what things were like before Pax Americana calmed the seas, Googling combinations of âcommerceâ, âraiderâ, and âcruiserâ will take you back to a time when midrange navy ships were built for the job formerly done by privateers during the age of sail.
Zeihan could be a little bit premature in his doomsaying, but if thatâs the case heâs thinking weeks, when a rosy estimate might allow for months.