Peter Zeihan

It has the issue of uniting Eurasia under a single power so the Americans get interested.

And then, of course, the Chinese are providing the industrial base that's necessary for the Russians to carry out the war in the first place.

So everyone's involved in some way.

It is by far the most critical one out there.

We'll probably have a few new ones in the next few years.

Whenever you break the economic model, politics gets all wonky and security issues naturally bubble up from that.

And that's before you consider technological change.

So, you know, maybe we figure out what the next energy technology is.

We have something fresh to fight over in a world where all of a sudden oil is not as reliable.

It's one of many ways this could go.

I have never found that sexy.

Never.

It's ringed by hostile countries, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia.

Um, it's not that deep.

So subs don't play a big role.

The energy in it, the reserves are not all that interesting.

And the sand islands that the Chinese have built are, as the name suggests, built of sand.

And so the Chinese have already stopped stationing aircraft on them because the runways aren't functional.

And if you see this as a naval projection issue, projecting through an area ringed by a half a dozen countries who hate you, you put a few of the new tomahawks that the United States is developing that are truck-mounted, and you can't do anything with that except for loose ships.

And even if you could secure it, you have now made it one-seventh of the way to the Persian Gulf.