How To Win The Next 15 Years: The Empire Retracting
In the fist article I gave you the blueprint now I’m going to explain to you the "why"
This post is part two of an ongoing series called ‘How To Win The Next 15 Years’. In the fist article I gave you the blueprint in this one I’m going to explain to you why the world is going to be very very different then the one you’re used to. This series was inspired by Peter Zeihan since me and him think so much alike, He does lots of research and me I put things together more intuitively so It’s only right I steal one of his charts lol, and of course this was also inspired by the big dog BowTiedBull.
Security
Physical security is the mother of all things, only with security are you allowed to really thrive. Without a state providing security for everyone you would have to take security into your own hands. That slows everything down because of the extra capital diverted to that and the endless politics that has to be played with violent cartels, your competitors and more. Since the cold war America has been the main force securing the world’s oceans.
According to Wikipedia “Freedom of navigation is a principle of customary international law that ships flying the flag of any sovereign state shall not suffer interference from other states”. The main enforcer of this principle around the world is mainly the United States and some of it’s allies. Patrolling the world’s oceans is kind of expensive, the yearly operating cost of an Arleigh Bruke class Destroyer is $140M. Not every country can take something like this on, you need a massive fleet and loads of cash. Since the cold war ended the US Navy’s ship numbers have been in decline.
You could see this chart and make the argument that maybe now they have more advanced technology now and don’t need as much quantity. partly true but the newer ships aren’t supersonic. patrolling is patrolling. You need presence and the ability to respond in a timely manner, if you’re not present you can’t respond.
The American people no longer willing or have the guts to keep doing this job. They constantly complain about their military’s huge budget and foreign deployments. People are upset about “wokeism” entering the military. Losing Afghanistan to the Taliban didn’t help either, military recruitment numbers are dropping. Americans are also suffering financially, mismanagement of their financial system caused high inflation.
What am I saying? Is this good or bad? I don’t know, but it’s reality. The Empire is retracting, NATO members barely want to pay for NATO, unlikely anyone else can take on global security.
China
Well you could argue that China can take on global security and surpass the US like it always wanted to but… There’s a huge problem with that argument.
A Blue Water Navy loosely means having the capacity to deploy ships across the open ocean, and to support them at great distance from their bases. China does not have much of a blue water navy.
“Forming the logistical base necessary for a blue water navy requires technical and diplomatic elements. On the technical side, navies require sufficient replenishment ships, aircraft, and on-ship maintenance facilities to keep warships in operation, in addition to replenishment-at-sea capabilities. On the diplomatic side, every long-distance navy requires good relationships with local ports, even if these relationships don’t extend to the definition of an overseas naval base.” (LINK)
The Chinese Navy lacks the logistics and sustainment capabilities for long blue water operations. Yeah logistics… It always comes back to bite you.
Russia
They need more ships and logistics.. Logistics.
Japan
Not enough ships.
France
Not enough ships.
Yeah whatever.. So what?
The US navy escorts oil tankers sailing from the Persian Gulf through the straight of Hormuz. Some say that the US stayed in the middle east for so long to secure oil transports to Europe so that they weren’t as reliant on Russian fuel. Even with the US Navy not too far away, Iran still seized two oil tankers not too long ago (link). Imagine a world where commercial ships have to move with military escorts or be in fear of pirates or getting seized by some state because no one is willing to or able to take on the job of securing the seas. Maritime shipping is going to slow down, which means shortages will be more common, that’s the world we’re moving towards. But don’t worry, according to the EU there will be plenty of bugs for you to eat.
System Shock
The Ukraine Russia war caused a shock to the system, decades of peace in Europe now broken. We have have global powers that are at each other’s throats, goodbye “Globalism”. Everyone observed how the US used their financial system as a weapon against Russia. So many countries are reliant on Russian gas, food and fertilizer exports. It will either cause division because of countries calling to get rid the sanctions or Europeans suffering because of the gas dependence and mass starvations globally. Russia is too deep into this war, they’re not willing to go home with a loss. Funny dilemma here, either Europe actually wants Ukraine to win and suffer with them or let Russia win and keep their luxuries.
In this article I wanted to show you the global shipping and European war side of things. To be able to fill the gaps you have to understand the problems. There’s so much more to talk about, part 3 coming soon.
loving this series. I'd never considered the naval security angle before
Q: quick google search says China, Russia, North Korea all have bigger navies (at least quantity of ships) than the US (Colombia close 5th, wtf). You pointed out 1) ability to deploy ships across the ocean and 2) capacity to support at great distance. How do we judge a countries ability to do these?