The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization―Irreverent Predictions from a Geopolitical Strategist

Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical strategist, argues that 2019 marked the last great year for the world economy. For generations, goods became faster, better, and cheaper to obtain, with items deliverable to homes within days or hours. The United States enabled this system through naval protection of global supply chains, dollar-backed international markets, consumer-driven industrial innovation, and security policies that reduced conflict between nations. Billions of people were fed and educated under this American-led trade system. Zeihan contends this entire structure was artificial and temporary, and is now ending. He maps out an emerging world where countries and regions must independently manufacture goods, grow food, secure energy, and manage their own defense. Populations will be both shrinking and aging. Few countries possess the capacity to sustain these functions independently. Consequently, interconnected systems governing manufacturing, food production, energy, logistics, and finance will fundamentally change. Rather than issuing warnings, Zeihan describes the accumulation of destabilizing factors facing an unprepared world, presenting an analysis described as illuminating, somewhat terrifying, and marked by foresight and irreverence.