AT THE EDGE OF DISORDER
The concept of countries being able to buy and sell their wares openly on the international marketplace is inviolable. The freedom to sail one’s products around the world is a given. Everything from the transfer of money to the accessibility of energy is sacrosanct. Yet all this and more is artificial: an unintended — if happy — side effect of the American-led global order. With that Order in its final days, all countries and all industries must learn to operate in a world as unstructured as it is dangerous. Join us as Peter Zeihan lays out how we got to where we are, and what the future holds for sectors as diverse as energy, agriculture, finance, manufacturing, and transport.
AMERICA ON THE EDGE
The world as we know it is ending. Global trade and everything that comes from it — cheap Asian goods, international energy markets, global agriculture, stable finance — is about to unravel. Out of all this the Americans — cast in both the role of disruptor and survivor — are making decisions that will shape both themselves and the rest of the world for decades. Get a sneak peek at the future of energy, agriculture, finance, and the role America will play in the world to come.
THE AMERICAN AGE
Americans think of themselves as set apart from the rest of the world, and to a certain degree, they are correct. But it is not that Americans are ‘better’ or ‘more free’ that makes them different, instead that they enjoy supreme geographic positioning and favorable demography — something that is not currently enjoyed by any other major power. Played as little as twenty years forward, this will result in an American-dominated international system with all of the economic and strategic benefits that such implies. But it is a very different world from the one we now know.
POWERS OF YESTERDAY, POWERS OF TOMORROW
Americans believe that their greatest days are behind them and that a series of new powers is rising up to displace them. On the contrary, America’s best days — militarily, economically, financially, and culturally — are still ahead of them. In fact, many of the states that the Americans feel are up-and-comers — most notably China, Russia, and India — are merely experiencing a historical moment in the sun courtesy of factors utterly beyond their control. Most of the powers of tomorrow are countries that the Americans either have very little knowledge of. The major powers of 2030 will not be based in Beijing or Moscow, but in Jakarta, Buenos Aires, Warsaw, Istanbul, and Mexico City.
WHAT EVERY FINANCIAL PROFESSIONAL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GEOPOLITICS
Geopolitics is the study of how place impacts people — whether that impact is cultural, military, economic, political…or financial. Everything from how banks lend to how stocks are traded is heavily colored by where one lives, and understanding the unspoken — and often unacknowledged — rules of the game can prove critical to financial success. Zeihan explains how geography impacts the various regions differently, how this elevates some sectors while enervating others, and what sort of surprises-both good and bad — are about to burst onto the stage.
SUPERSIZE ME: THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL ENERGY
The global energy sector is as complicated and opaque as it is omnipresent and essential, and it has adapted to not simply the changes in the global economic system, but the global political system. Countries that were weak to nonexistent in ages past now are major players in global energy markets, both as producers and consumers. The system that has allowed this evolution now is under fire, and soon the stability that has enabled the energy sector to create its global webwork will end. What will follow will be a world both more chaotic and poorer, one in which the process of finding, producing, transporting, and refining energy will simply be beyond the military and financial capacity of most players. Only the largest, smartest, and richest entities will be able to maintain – much less expand – their networks. Far from its final days, the era of the supermajor has not yet begun.
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