The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization

by Peter Zeihan

Next up are those exporting countries that have most of the pieces in place regionally. They will still require access to a sort of friends-and-family network in order to meet all their input needs, but even in a Disorderly world this should be manageable. Ranked from those facing the least to greatest challenges: New Zealand, Sweden, Argentina, Australia, Turkey, Nigeria, India, Uruguay, Paraguay, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Italy, and Spain. All have shortcomings—most notably in accessing equipment, fertilizers, and energy—but none are likely to face the sort of extreme supply or security challenges that will wreck production in more vulnerable locations. Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine are in this category as well. In addition to input shortages, there’s an open question whether any excess food output can be exported anywhere useful as Russia reasserts greater control over them. Keep in mind that Russia grows a lot of wheat on its marginal territories. In poor harvest years at the height of the Order, Russia already interfered with exports out of the other three wheat-belt states in order to ensure its own people sufficient food supplies. The third category are those exporters that simply cannot maintain the input flows required to keep things going without a perfect constellation of unlikely geopolitical factors that are largely beyond their capacity to shape. They won’t face catastrophic production declines, but they’ll have to get used to agriculture becoming interm...