Where Globalization Dies

The northeast Baltic is about to get REALLY interesting ...

I read Peter’s Zeihan The End of the World Is Just the Beginning about this time last year. This book covers what the Earth will look like after everyone realizes the U.S. is truly done maintaining globalization. As a mindful move I question the wisdom of this, and the world has shifted from responding to reacting, $DEITY help us.

I did not foresee what this video has to say, not even halfway through it. Basically the the Baltic states, starting with Poland and going counter clockwise to Norway, are planning to start boarding and inspecting Russia ships leaving St. Peterburg. The focus is on tankers, after three small ones sank in the Baltic in quick succession. They’re poorly maintained and any notional insurance they might have does not have Lloyds of London backing it, so all Russia could offer for a sinking in the Baltic is to say “whoops”, and continue rolling the dice with their shadow fleet.

Surprisingly, there is no legal framework for this, and once it’s OK in the Baltic, it’ll be OK everywhere else.

There are only a few countries with navies that could protect their regional transportation and the U.S. is the last global naval power standing. China is trying but they’re doing it China style, with their count of long endurance blue water ships not even matching the hull count of the U.S. Arleigh Burke class destroyers. They can not build the navy they need in the time they have remaining.

And here’s the wildcard: the U.S. plan to abandon policing sea lanes was always dependent on Mexico taking over China’s role as the workshop of the western hemisphere. The Trump administration is going to fuck that up royally, at the same time we bowl over China with a trade war. One does not defend an oil tanker with a flame thrower, but that’s an apt characterization of the geopolitical foolishness we’re about to endure.