Peter Zeihan predicted Putin’s invasion of Ukraine when most analysts thought the little dictator was bluffing. Now he is predicting the aftermath. Read his books, and you can see why Zeihan and his readers may be the only ones who will not be surprised by what is coming.
Turkey and the Arab countries are preparing for significant food shortages, as the Russian invasion and destruction of Ukraine continues to ramp up — and Russians threaten to detonate “the mother of dirty nuclear bombs” over Europe. On top of global food shortages, the world is almost certain to see catastrophic fertilizer shortages. Several nations of the Arab world are likely to see food insurgencies, and many nations of Africa may well simply disappear.
“We don’t see the global fertilizer shortage situation abating anytime soon,” states a note from New York-based CFRA.
It cites three key reasons.
- Natural gas, which is used in the production of nitrogen-based plant food is expensive. Prices for natural gas in Europe, which were already high compared to those in the U.S., have gone crazy this past year, according to data from financial website TradingEconomics.com.
- Russia and China have imposed export restrictions on fertilizer. Both are, or were, big exporters of plant food. The decline in exports makes getting the vital nutrients harder across the globe. China and Russia account for 29% of world exports for nitrogen-based plant food. The two countries also have significant, albeit, smaller shares of the phosphate and potash markets, respectively, the report states.
- Sanctions are also biting into the market as well. “We expect these restrictions to tighten global fertilizer availability and push prices higher as demand ramps up amid the growing season,” the CFRA report states.. __ Source
Africa, the middle east, poor Asian nations, and parts of Latin America are expected to be the hardest hit by these war-related food and fertilizer shortages.
Oil and natural gas prices will continue to go up as Russian supplies are taken off the market by a wide range of political and economic liability concerns. If Russian oil production is shut-in — which is growing increasingly likely as Putin’s war drags on — it will take years for it to be re-started.
Russia cannot maintain modern energy production — it needs the international oil companies such as BP, Shell, and Exxon. Now that those companies have pulled out, Russia’s ability to maintain production will fall away rapidly.
The Russian people themselves anticipate hard times, and are rushing to stock up on supplies. Soon, average Russians will be reduced to eating mostly wheat and potatoes — things that Russia produces in abundance. But due to badly degraded distribution networks in Russia, people are likely to starve.
Starvation in Russia will not help the demographic crisis. Neither will Russian war deaths in Ukraine — and in any other nation Putin chooses to invade while he is still breathing.
Putin and his useful idiots believed regime change in Ukraine would be easy
More Russian generals are being picked off
The global financial system is in for a huge shakeup
China is certain to bite off a huge part of Siberia, sooner or later. How soon that happens depends upon how soon Putin is knocked off, and Russia is thrown into years turmoil and disarray. Putin’s own actions are accelerating the global instability which will lead to his own downfall.
History will remember Putin posthumously as the man who brought the vicious reality of history back to a previously complacent western world.
More:
Ukraine’s clever and sneaky drone (home-made)
Lessons from the Russian air campaign
Loss tally from the last 26 hours
Russian opposition grows: Claims 96% death rate.
Peter Zeihan’s Latest Prediction:
For several days I have been wondering if the attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv are mostly head fakes to distract from the main thrust in the south, to create a solid land bridge from Russia to Moldova. The troops emerging from Crimea have been better trained and better led, to this point. Zeihan suggests that Putin intends to destroy Ukraine’s ability to ship its goods, while marching his army across the Black Sea coast in order to crush Moldova and threaten Romania — a member of NATO.
That may be what Putin wants to do. Wishes are often different from what is possible in reality. The battle has not gone according to plan so far, at least not according to schedule. Casualties are far higher than Putin expected, and global economic blowback has been harsher and swifter. Russian army logistics have been abysmally poor, and not likely to improve. Why? Ukrainian civilian resistance has just begun, and is likely to harden up significantly over time.
Europe is starting to wake up as well. Putin has turned Russia into a rabid dog that will eventually have to be put down, one way or another. Probably it is Putin himself who will be put down.
al fin next level 
I’m not a real fan of either side, but do feel sorry for the people suffering. I don’t think Vlad was being unreasonable about not having missiles next door to Russia. NATO should have been abandoned by the end of the 1990s. It’s notable that the current Ukraine government is linked to Biden/Obama/Clinton and the sons of Kerry and Romney and others. If Vlad keeps the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine filled with Russians, so what?
Oh well, stolen elections have consequences. I’m more worried about America descending to third world status.
Putin seems to believe that Ukraine is the property of Russia, and that the people of Ukraine are subservient serfs, even lower than the serfs who make up the greater part of the population of Russia. Read below to see the discrepancy between what Putin predicted as the outcome of an invasion, and the reality as it played out through the actions of Ukrainians.
There were no offensive missiles in Ukraine. The only danger to Russia of invasion or attack from Ukraine was in Putin’s deteriorating mind.
Other insane attacks in history include Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and Hitler’s decision to attack western Europe and to bomb the UK, before first securing the oil of the Caspian. Nobody liked the USSR, and Hitler could have made a deal with the rest of Europe to sit out his war against Moscow over resources. Hitler’s big hangup was the holocaust — his ideology was more important to him than reality.
Putin seems to be on the same level of strategic stupidity as Hitler.
I’m certain you have read Zeihan’s books. You cite him a lot. So I assume that is the case.
Two things that make the core of his thesis in all of them is that first, the fracking revolution would make us energy independent and that the coming global disorder is inevitable. What is also very clear from Zeihan’s books is that the best course of action for the U.S. to ride out all of the coming disorder were Trump’s “America first” policies. Indeed, Trump’s America first policies dovetail so perfectly with Zeihan’s ideas that I have cited Zeihan’s books and website as support for such.
What I cannot understand for the life of me is how Zeihan could be so opposed to the guy that promoted such policies and proclaim the election of the guy who has ended us being an energy exporter as “now that the adults are back in charge”. Such a cognitive dissidence can only be chalked up as TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).
I think Zeihan is still spot on with his discussion of demographics. But I now longer consider him credible on other matters due to his TDS.
Much of what Zeihan said about covid-19 (both the virus and the shots) was mostly bogus as well.
I suspect that Zeihan was on the receiving end of Trump’s famous bad temper, at one time or another. It sounds like it is a personal grievance.
As for being wrong on Covid, not many people were right about everything with regard to the escaped Chinese virus from Wuhan. We still don’t have all the facts, because once Covid became a political issue used to alter the results of the US 2020 presidential election, some facts were purposely held back, and other lines of research were not pursued out of fear of what might be learned. Politics corrupts everything these days.
I didn’t think Zeihan would be right about Putin feeling compelled to invade Ukraine, but he was spot on. I overestimated Putin by a long distance.