Peter Zion

Putin will be the last capable, competent president of the Russian Federation. He's already 70. The Russians know that if they don't do this now, that no matter what the power balances are in the future, they will always be on the losing side. We haven't seen anything like this in the world since World War II.

You should expect Putin moving many, many, many more forces to the border, and we'll probably have a million Russian soldiers in Ukraine before the end of the year. Russia has been invaded 50 odd times in its history, and all of the invasions have come through one of nine of what I call gateway territories that link the former Soviet space to the rest of the world.

And when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russians went from controlling all nine to just one. And if they get Ukraine in its totality, they will have merely plugged another two. Ukraine is not the end of the story. There's another war after this one. Russia is going to win this.

And we now know that if American forces and Russian forces meet on the field of battle, the Russian forces will be obliterated. And if that happens, the only choice the Russians have is between a humiliating strategic withdrawal to do whatever the Americans say or up the ante with nukes. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that Putin was going to be the last leader of Russia anyway.

This has gotten a lot scarier than we ever thought it would be. If we can't keep Russia locked down in Ukraine, if we can't leave them there till they die, then there will be a direct American-Russian confrontation. We have to prevent that from happening.

There's a point we're going to get to in a few months, probably later this year, where the Russians will have digested Ukraine and Moldova to their satisfaction, their plan, and then they'll have that clash with NATO. And that's when the nukes become a very real question.

Yeah.

We're kind of in this soft moment in history where everyone's holding their breath and wondering if the next time there's an incident, the U.S. is going to intervene or not. And I would argue we are not. Safety on the waves is what allows us to have the East Asian manufacturing model. Less than 1% of that shipping happens on land.

And that is a recipe for 1910s and 1930s style conflict and competition. Countries are increasingly finding it in their best interest to kind of hoard what consumption they do have and not allow trade access to it and then producing more locally. We were moving this way before the Ukraine war, before the Chinese started to break down and before the German industrial model started to implode.

This has just sped everything up. So we'll probably see significant drops in agricultural output. next year, especially in the second half of next year, which should suggest that we're going to have significant problems with food supply on a global scale in the months that follow. I mean, the food issue is the issue that gives me nightmares because I don't see a way to fix it.

The biggest loser by far is China. Everything about China's functionality is dependent on a globalization and a demographic moment that has passed. I think we're in the final decade of the European Union because without that Russian energy, there is no German manufacturing model. And without the German manufacturing model, you don't have the money that is used to keep the EU in existence.

The pace of the disintegration here is really difficult to wrap your mind around. We've had a really good run the last 75 years. It was never going to last. It's going to be a rough ride. So anyone who thinks this is going to be easy is wrong in every possible way.

We're kind of in this soft moment in history where everyone's holding their breath and wondering if the next time there's an incident, the U.S. is going to intervene or not. And I would argue we are not. Safety on the waves is what allows us to have the East Asian manufacturing model. Less than 1% of that shipping happens on land.

And that is a recipe for 1910s and 1930s style conflict and competition. Countries are increasingly finding it in their best interest to kind of hoard what consumption they do have and not allow trade access to it and then producing more locally. We were moving this way before the Ukraine war, before the Chinese started to break down and before the German industrial model started to implode.

This has just sped everything up. So we'll probably see significant drops in agricultural output. next year, especially in the second half of next year, which should suggest that we're going to have significant problems with food supply on a global scale in the months that follow. I mean, the food issue is the issue that gives me nightmares because I don't see a way to fix it.

The biggest loser by far is China. Everything about China's functionality is dependent on a globalization and a demographic moment that has passed. I think we're in the final decade of the European Union because without that Russian energy, there is no German manufacturing model. And without the German manufacturing model, you don't have the money that is used to keep the EU in existence.

The pace of the disintegration here is really difficult to wrap your mind around. We've had a really good run the last 75 years. It was never going to last. It's going to be a rough ride. So anyone who thinks this is going to be easy is wrong in every possible way.