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

by Peter Zeihan

The sheer fluidity of the future security environment won’t help. The industrial plant required to support multi-step supply chains exists in multiple locations by definition, and takes years to build. Every time there’s a tweak to a demand profile—either for intermediate or finished goods—it typically takes a year of retooling efforts to work its way forward and back through the system. We have learned that little lesson the hard way with COVID. Every ship diverted, every shot fired disrupts some part of the supply and forces that same year-long reset. In such an environment, multi-step supply chains in any region without rock-solid local security and rock-solid local consumption just don’t make much sense. Those supply chains must be concentrated into tighter and tighter geographies, with most needing to become fully internal to specific countries. Anything else spells persistent mismatches, and no end products.