PeterZeihan

Greece imports 80% of its food and 100% of its energy. The only reason was even created as a nationstate is back in the 1800s the Brits invented modern Greek nationalism as a means of destabilizing the Ottoman Empire. Since that time, someone has always found Greece useful and so has paid Greece to exist. The first time that did NOT happen was the 2000s, and so Greece faced a financial collapse. W/o the EU keeping Greece on financial dripfeed, it dies. Again.

Highly likely – three thoughts: 1) Mexico is the US’ largest trading partner and will remain so for at least the rest of this century. Texas is the state that has benefited from this the most, but as big and populous as Texas is, Texas is insufficient to the task and so has de facto drafted Oklahoma into a sort of Greater Texas manufacturing hub. I expect that zone to creep north along the I35 corridor and absorb parts of the Midwest 2) If the US can get rid of the Jones Act (a 1920s law that criminalizes the shipping of any cargo between any two US ports on any vessel that is not American owned, crewed, captained and registered) then the waterways can be used for manufacturing supply chains. That would massively/disproportionally benefit the Midwest. 3) A mindset shift is required. The Midwest has a very if-we-build-it-they-will-come mentality. The idea being that we are honest and hardworking so who wouldn’t want to invest here? That’s not how the world works. You need to advertise and engaged in outreach. Texans do it by making friends with Mexicans. Southerners do it by brining bourbon to potential investors. New Yorkers and Californians by writing checks. The Midwest needs a bit of a cultural reinvention to take advantage of a very advantageous confluence of factors that should benefit the US hugely.

you cannot beat Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (he's got a new one out too, but I've not read it yet) for understanding how civilization took its current shape

I'm also a big fan of World War Z. Yes, its about zombies, but it is far and away the best geopolitical book I have EVER read.

Climate change is problematic for folks in geopolitics. We study how place shapes everything and climate is part of “place”. The issue is that never have any version of climate change – natural or mancaused – impacted all places identically. Nor is there a such thing as an “average” climate change. Two examples: First, Australia. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve noticed the place is on fire. Daytime temperate increases in Oz this past decade are well beyond a standard deviation above the global norm, and that has contributed to runaway wildfires that are literally continental in scope. Oz is NOT the future of the world, but instead an example of what can happen in already-dry, already-marginal lands. How would the locals see that as anything but a bad thing, and how could this be anything but bad for Oz’s geopolitical standing? Second, Illinois. Illinois is right about at the global average in terms of temp increases, but none of it has occurred during the day. Only at night. In spring and fall having warmer nights means no freezes in the shoulder seasons. That means a longer growing season. Add in more moisture from higher temperatures and Illinois is on the verge of being about to have two crops per year. That would nearly double the average farmer’s income. How would the locals see that as anything but a good thing, and how could this be anything but good for the US’ geopolitical standing? This is the problem. The locality of climate change is what impact the geopolitical, and we just aren’t good enough at math to breakdown what that will be on a locality-by-locality basis. I’m hoping to address this – indepth – at a later time once the data is better but for now we just don’t have the info we need to do this on a continental scope, much less a global one.

Until the US has a national conversation about what it wants out of the world, it cannot have a goal. Until it has a goal, it cannot have a policy. And until it has a policy it certainly isn’t going to expend the resources required to counter another major power as part of an alliance. So no, I don’t see a new bribe/network arising. That said, the US doesn’t need that if the goal is to smash China. China’s finances are a mess because of its Enron-style banking model, its population is nearly terminal because of OneChild, its regions hate one another (and I’m not talking Hong Kong). But most importantly it is bolted to the global Order. China’s economy cannot survive without imported inputs and exported processed/finished goods. That’s only possible with a safe, globalized economy. The world has only had a safe, globalized economy under the global Order. Remove the US and there’s no global Order because no country – no coalition of countries – can patrol the sealanes. All the US has to do to destroy China is go home.