The Absent Superpower Quotes

“Geopolitics is ultimately the study of the balance between options and lim­itations. A country's geography determines in large part what vulnerabilities it faces and what tools it holds.

"Countries with flat tracks of land -- think Poland or Russia -- find building infrastructure easier and so become rich faster, but also find them­selves on the receiving end of invasions. This necessitates substantial stand­ing armies, but the very act of attempting to gain a bit of security automat­ically triggers angst and paranoia in the neighbors.

"Countries with navigable rivers -- France and Argentina being premier examples -- start the game with some 'infrastructure' already baked in. Such ease of internal transport not only makes these countries socially uni­fied, wealthy, and cosmopolitan, but also more than a touch self-important. They show a distressing habit of becoming overimpressed with themselves -- and so tend to overreach.

"Island nations enjoy security -- think the United Kingdom and Japan -- in part because of the physical separation from rivals, but also because they have no choice but to develop navies that help them keep others away from their shores. Armed with such tools, they find themselves actively meddling in the affairs of countries not just within arm's reach, but half a world away.

"In contrast, mountain countries -- Kyrgyzstan and Bolivia, to pick a pair -- are so capital-poor they find even securing the basics difficult, mak­ing them largely subject to the whims of their less-mountainous neighbors.
"It's the balance of these restrictions and empowerments that determine both possibilities and constraints, which from my point of view makes it straightforward to predict what most countries will do:

· The Philippines' archipelagic nature gives it the physical stand-off of is­lands without the navy, so in the face of a threat from a superior country it will prostrate itself before any naval power that might come to its aid.

· Chile's population center is in a single valley surrounded by mountains. Breaching those mountains is so difficult that the Chileans often find it easier to turn their back on the South American continent and interact economically with nations much further afield.

· The Netherlands benefits from a huge portion of European trade because it controls the mouth of the Rhine, so it will seek to unite the Continent economically to maximize its economic gain while bringing in an exter­nal security guarantor to minimize threats to its independence.

· Uzbekistan sits in the middle of a flat, arid pancake and so will try to expand like syrup until it reaches a barrier it cannot pass. The lack of local competition combined with regional water shortages adds a sharp, brutal aspect to its foreign policy.

· New Zealand is a temperate zone country with a huge maritime frontage beyond the edge of the world, making it both wealthy and secure -- how could the Kiwis not be in a good mood every day?

"But then there is the United States. It has the fiat lands of Australia with the climate and land quality of France, the riverine characteristics of Germany with the strategic exposure of New Zealand, and the island fea­tures of Japan but with oceanic moats -- and all on a scale that is quite lit­erally continental. Such landscapes not only make it rich and secure beyond peer, but also enable its navy to be so powerful that America dominates the global oceans.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“The successful manufacturing power of the future will need to not simply secure inputs and production and consumption, but ideally co-locate them.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“George W. Bush signed off on 50 drone strikes that killed some 300 enemy combatants. Barack Obama personally approved over 10 times that figure that killed more than 3,000.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“India is home to nearly as many people in poverty than the rest of Asia combined. And that isn’t going to change.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“An independent IS isn’t perceived in Riyadh as being all that problematic. As a radical militant group, IS has committed itself to the eradication of any who do not espouse its somewhat wackadoo version of Sunni Islam. While that undoubtedly includes some 99 percent of the human population, the strict Salafist strain of Islam the Saudis follow is fairly similar to IS’ own religious ideology, putting the House of Saud at the bottom of IS’ to-massacre list.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“If Russia is to survive its demographic Twilight, it must do nothing less than absorb in whole or in part some 11 countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. This Twilight War will be a desperate, sprawling military conflict that will define European/Russian borderland for decades.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“Russian security only comes from conquering everyone nearby in order to establish buffers around the Russian core. If you can Russify these conquered peoples so that they identify with Moscow’s goals (and fears), excellent! But this is not required.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“In short, the United States is the only power on the planet with global power and global reach — but it is transitioning into a power without global interests.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“It is no wonder that Iran remains a burr in the mind of Americans four decades later: Iran is the only country aside from the Soviet Union that has ever constituted an existential threat to American-maintained global order.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America

“Unfortunately for the Russians (and their neighbors), there is no internal fastness to which they can retreat. The more securable borders that Russia desires can only be achieved by expanding.”
― Peter Zeihan, The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America