[conspire] (OT) Peter Zeihan, geopolitics writer

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2022 14:26:51 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: [someone I know]
Subject: Peter Zeihan, geopolitics writer

(You could skip down to "HERE FIRST".)

Mr. Peter Zeihan is a guy who looks to be about in his 40s (just
checked; he's 49), who was born in Iowa and has lived various places in
the Midwest (currently Colorado), but earns a comfortable living telling
people about his understanding of where the world's going over the next
30-ish years.  And he's written four fascinating books so far, issued
from 2014 to 2022, on that subject.  He has deep background in the
energy industry (chiefly oil/gas) and was in the 2000s a chief analyst
at Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), a consulting/publishing firm
in Austin that studies security issues and geopolitical risk for
individual and enterprise customers -- which experience and his
cherished arguments, there, with a now-deceased colleague he credits for
honing his understanding of world affairs.

Unlike any number of kooks who sell predictiona, Zeihan is cheerfully
willing to admit when he was wrong, e.g., even though he impressively 
predicted Russia's war on Ukraine and when/how/why it would happen, 
he along with just about everyone else was taken by surprise by how much
of a paper tiger Russia's armed forces turned out to be, and how Ukraine
has utterly failed to roll over.

I first noticed him in a YouTube interview, which got my attention
because he seems sane, utterly non-ideological (or rather, skilled at
distinguishing between what he wants and what _is_), and insightful.
That, in turn, lead me to read his first book, the 2014 one -- which was
impressive, among other reasons, for his having predicted the Ukraine
war and the takeover of Crimea a year before it happened.  And saying
when it would happen and why.

Books:

1. The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American
Preeminance and the Coming Global Disorder (2014).  Review in 
brief:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/peter-zeihan/the-accidental-superpower/


2.  The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without
America (2017).  Review in brief:
https://blog.commonwealth.com/independent-market-observer/book-review-the-absent-superpower-by-peter-zeihan


3. Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World
(2020).  Review in brief: 
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/peter-zeihan/disunited-nations/


4. The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of
Globalization (2022).  Review in brief:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/peter-zeihan/the-end-of-the-world-is-just-the-beginning/



I follow _new_ things Zeihan says via 

o  His Twitter feed.  https://nitter.hostux.net/PeterZeihan/with_replies  [1]
o  His newsletter.  https://zeihan.com/newsletter/
o  His YouTube channel.  https://www.youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics

New entries on his newsletter and YouTube video series get mentioned on
his Twitter feed, so you need only the first of those three links.


HERE FIRST:  But where I recommend you give him a try _first_ is an
online interview Zeihan did a week ago for the Commonwealth Club of San
Francisco (1 hour):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSpT0yEtFBY

I _do_ feel that, in reading and watching Zeihan, I understand the world
better, much better than I do in merely reading the daily news.  (I'm 
aware that makes me sound like a conspiracy loon.  FWIW, Zeihan is
about the opposite of a conspiracy thinker.  He talks about verifiable
long-term trends and consequences.)


[1] That's reading Zeihan's Twitter feed via an open-source proxy
service called "Nitter", which delivers Twitter content without
advertising and without surrendering your privacy to crazy
billionaieres.


----- End forwarded message -----