Peter Zeihan

Just keep in mind that “normal” is far from synonymous with “comfortable,” much less “favorable.

France will lead the new Europe, not Germany

Death rates for Russian males between fifteen and twenty-nine were over six times those of Iraqi men during the American occupation and subsequent civil war—which overlaps the period of “stability” Putin generated. Dead young people yesterday mean no young parents tomorrow.

The implications for Soviet continuity were intense. Politically, the Soviet Union was an often unwieldy multiethnic empire in which all the non-Russians were fully aware that they were occupied peoples. Had the Order not existed, the Soviets would have
undoubtedly found foreign agents swarming over and exacerbating the rebellions in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1980s

The only reason those exports can safely reach end consumers is the security provided by the Order. Remove the Americans, and the ability of the Russian economy to generate capital vanishes

In creating their anti-Soviet Cold War alliance, the Americans by hook, crook, carrot, and stick brought every significant power of the past five centuries together under a single banner

the most common way an empire perishes is by way of another empire waltzing over and punching it in the face

deepwater navigation and industrialization enabled all the empires to engage one another everywhere at the same time. The resulting ultimate, inevitable, catastrophic, system-ending conflict was the most deadly, destructive war in history

The United States is not an empire. There is no clear political or economic core.

The American policy of global Order was a strategic one, designed as a means of doing battle in a global conflict. With the Cold War over, it was time to rejigger that Order toward a new goal.