Peter Zeihan

This is a country that is completely dependent on freedom of the seas to exist and on the American market to facilitate the flows of oil and raw materials into their system.

That is very easy to disrupt without getting within shooting distance of the Chinese in any way.

And if that is the goal...

Easily done.

And if there is a hot war, it will be over.

The United States could lose every single carrier it has in a straight-up fight with China.

It would be dumb, but it could happen.

But again, two or three destroyers to stop the energy flows and the food flows, and it's all over.

They would be facing civilizational collapse.

Half the population would be dead within two years.

Whoa.

Seven years ago, Chairman Xi knew that.

It's also when he got rid of his last advisor, and he's been eating nothing but propaganda since then.

So I don't know if he still believes it, but he used to.

When I look at things like Venezuela and Iran, I see something different.

I see something much more mercurial.

It's not that the United States has ever gotten along with these places under their current governments, but the volume that goes to China, it really isn't all that high.

Total exports from all of Venezuela and all of Iran are now under two million barrels a day.

That's less than 2% of global production.

I don't mean to suggest that's nothing, but that's not enough to move the needle in any meaningful way.