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

by Peter Zeihan

Hyper food-secure France is going to get all neocolonial. Paris will establish a suzerain relationship with Belgium, will attempt one with Switzerland, and will firm up links with a willing Morocco and Tunisia and an unwilling Algeria. The French will also establish as many dependencies as possible in the oil-rich states that are part of what was once known in imperial days as French West Africa, most notably Gabon, Congo (Brazzaville), and Chad. India will spend some food to own Bangladesh, which will find itself in the worst of all worlds. Less precipitation in the southern Himalayas means the overall productivity of Bangladeshi rice paddies will drop. But what water flows the country receives are more likely to be in the spring, when they could well overflood rice production, dealing local food production a double blow. Nigeria, the only African nation that can maintain its agricultural output without extensive outside assistance, will establish a sphere of influence that includes Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, and Benin. In a bit of turnabout-is-fair-play, oil- and natural-gas-rich Nigeria will find itself sparring, neocolonial-style, with the French throughout West Africa, and doing reasonably well in the contest. Turkey was already going to emerge as the master of the Eastern Mediterranean. It will use its superior land quality, mild climate, and command of the region’s oil and trade flows not only to keep its agricultural system...