I mean hopefully it can be delayed by a year or two until I can get SRS and move to Seattle and integrate into some leftist networks. But we're all just stuck in this limbo of waiting for the evil empire to implode and it's still tottering along, smashing thousands of lives daily. I'm not romanticizing the Cool Zone, I'm just tired of being kept on the edge - waiting, waiting. Let's just get it the fuck over with
I haven't actually read anything from Peter Zeihan. In fact, my immediate circles tend to meme on him a lot for being wrong all the time and I can't even join in on the fun.
In any case from my reckoning those are not really 'Peter Zeihan arguments'. The territory in which the United States was formed is geographically excellent for a great power. Abundant resources for all periods of the industrial era, more natural ports than anybody else, more river navigability than the rest of the world combined, a river network that connects the extremes of the country, and an abundance of plain terrain with temperate climates for food production.
I'm sure Zeihan used those arguments for his own purposes, and I don't know which. But these points are also actually made in contrast with Latin American history. We are rich in iron but we were poor in coal during the era of steelmaking, we had difficult terrain which broke our countries apart, we have few natural ports and many highland rivers (good for power dams, bad for transport), isolated pockets of fertile soil surrounded by mountains and in a tropical climate. The big stark contrast was always with Argentina, which in many ways felt like a mini version of US conditions, explaining their productivity at the beginning of the last century.
Now the demographics is harder. I believe the US is below replacement rate, it's only growing because of immigration. Now I don't see that situation changing so soon, but it would seem that in a world of population decrease the US should decline less than many. They have the language, the cultural cachet and the financial means to keep it going. And they'll suffer less due to climate change than some places in Europe, most definitely less than anyone in south asia, africa or south america. Ie, places that would supply cheap migrant work to the US.
Stratfor used to go on and on and on about these "points" and people used to dunk on them over and over and over (on blogs, social media wasn't here yet.) All about these rivers and other shit that absolutely nobody writes about or cares about. Then Zeihan struck out on his own and lo and behold, he didn't change his tune one wink. He also trots out that demographic chart all the time.
Well, I don't know if bloggers don't care about these things but we definitely wish we had the profile of the Argentina or the US. Even our portion of the platine region couldn't compete with Argentina for the longest time because mountains cut them off the river. I am somewhat proud of what we've achieved with the cards we were dealt with (and utterly ashamed that we have done so little in terms of rail transport and so on), but we definitely could have used a break.
I suppose the problem with someone that writes for Empire is that they are basically arguing that the US's position is natural and eternal. They don't really build on geography or demographics and hardly talk about society beyond mottos like freedom and innovation and rule of law. It's like the reverse of the argument that the PRC government doesn't really matter for development since China is just returning to it's 'natural place' in the world, with the implication that everything prior to opening to western capital was just holding China back. I'm a historian so I think that's wrong on its face. The US was dealt a good hand, and it's government was ruthlessly efficient in exploiting it. It didn't have to be this way necessarily, and it doesn't have to stay that way forever.
OK Zeihan
what the fuck
No one here knows who Zeihan is. No cares if he's been dunked on. If the rivers and demographics points Catboy is making are so laughable, why aren't you pointing the flaws yourself?
Because the fact that Zeihan is a joke has been extensively covered elsewhere and I assumed everyone was familiar with it? He worked for Stratfor! Remember them? The people that think wars start because of rivers?