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

by Peter Zeihan

Expect state piracy to come back into vogue with particular verve in the Turkish bloc, with the Turks (and Israelis) gleefully (and relentlessly) raiding anyone desperate enough to attempt to ship crude oil through the Suez Canal and Eastern Mediterranean without first paying whatever level of protection money that Ankara and Jerusalem deem appropriate. India is another power to watch out for, but in a slightly different way. The Indian Navy may be, well, below awful, but within the Indian Ocean it faces no regional peer. The subcontinent is also the first stop for any shipments out of the Persian Gulf. Would-be shippers will have little choice but to pay whatever “passage” fees New Delhi insists upon. Luckily for those shippers, India is likely to be very flexible when it comes to payment. India is eminently likely to accept payment in direct crude transfers, while the country’s large and sophisticated refining operations means it could even absorb all of a shipper’s cargo while sending on refined fuels. In a world of circumscribed shipping, the inputs needed to maintain modern manufacturing systems—a long list of materials that range from high-grade silicon to cobalt to nickel to rare earths to bauxite—are going to be top-tier targets. It’s far easier to nab those slow-moving bulk ships than to occupy a country for its mining capacity. The coasts of Africa and Southeast Asia are likely to be particularly nuts not just because many of the requisite materials are sourced i...