Peter Zeihan

And we have failed to update those strategies for the new reality.

And so lo and behold, whether you're on the left or the right in American politics, the rest of the world just seems less relevant to you.

And we've been edging away from that system ever since.

And now it's breaking.

A-Shape is more recent.

Let's put that to the side for now.

The whole concept was that we pay you to be on our side.

And when everyone agreed that nuclear annihilation was a problem, it was pretty easy to make that deal.

But after 1992, no one until relatively recently, in 2022, the Ukraine war, thought of the Russians as a problem.

They thought of them as just something that could be managed off to the side while they stew in their own juices and degrade.

And they are still degrading.

Go back to that if you want to.

But the idea that we were under this nuclear Paul had faded.

And so various countries, based on their politics, based on their internal demands, became less willing to sublimate their security policies to the United States, became less willing to follow Washington's lead on things like economic sanctions.

And as the United States' attention moved from the Russians to other things like, say, Iran, a lot of countries were like, this isn't what we signed up for.

And so there became a lot more friction in the system.

that really accelerated in the George W. Bush administration with the Iraq War.

Because the Americans said, you know what, we hold up the ceiling here.

Why are you not helping us with this conflict?

And for the French and the Germans, it was like, because this isn't what the conflict is that we agreed that we were all on the same side for.