Will Canada Disintegrate? Peter Zeihan Weighs In

In the video above, Peter Zeihan is interviewed by a Vancouver-based investor who is especially curious about the future of Canada. Peter takes 15 minutes to lay the demographic groundwork for his free-ranging geopolitical discussion — which just happens to contain some pessimistic predictions for Canada.

Canada has been under disintegrative stress for decades, and when the central government is controlled by a left radical child man incompetent, the stresses only get worse.

Alberta wants to leave federation. Western Canadians have a desire to separate from the East. Quebec separatism is now revitalized. Under this  incompetent pseudo-dictator, Canadian society is more fragmented than at any other time in modern history.

Fruits of Justin Trudeau

Canada has a large number of Ukrainian emigrants and their descendants, up to 2 million. Canada has been supplying Ukraine with a wide range of aid to resist the Russian invasion. Over 30,000 foreign nationals are fighting for Ukraine, one of the biggest cohorts is from Canada.

Meanwhile, in Russia it is still not clear whether Putin is still alive — or whether his large cadre of body doubles is subbing for him while his body is decomposing. In fact, if you read the article linked here with the assumption that Putin is dead and others are now making the decisions he would have made, it makes a lot more sense.

Putin’s ill-conceived invasion is eating up young Russian men at a rate up to 1,000 per day at worst, and 500 a day at best. Russia needs to find about 5 million healthy young men to complete its invasion of Ukraine, while also defending the massive land borders of Russia from those — including China — who are beginning to see an opportunity to pounce while Russia is occupied in Ukraine.

Russia’s crisis soldier shortfall

Trying to expand Russia’s military, but failing

Ukraine to boost its arsenal of heavy weapons

The last time Russia called up 300,000 men for mobilization, a million young Russian men — its best and brightest — flocked out of the country like migrating geese. As Russia moves to raise the age limit for mobilization, expect another million to fly the coop.

Several months ago, Putin said the the death of 500,000 Russian military men was an acceptable loss, as long as it gained him the country of Ukraine and its 140 million people to add to the Russian population. The calculation has likely risen to allow for at least a million dead Russian fighting men. Perhaps more, depending upon how long Russia thinks it can keep it up.

For those countries that are aiding Ukraine, the awareness is dawning that the only alternative to supporting Ukraine is to let Russia steamroll over the country, then continue to mop up Finland, the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova. Belarus, of course, would cease to exist as a nation outside of Russia.

Realistically, given Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine, it is likely that the ultimate end result of western capitulation to Russia, is a global nuclear war. Because Putin — or whoever takes his place — would never be satisfied with Ukraine and Moldova. They want the whole ball of wax, and the ball of wax does not want to be absorbed into the criminal republic of Russia.

Ironic that those who want to bend over and drop their pants to Russia in the name of preventing a nuclear war, are the people who would most assuredly bring such a devastation about.

China’s Decline and Reglobalization

Things are shaking up in China now, as its population has begun the great decline, and the drop in China’s working age population really takes off. Global companies are starting to “reglobalize” out of China this time as labor costs in the middle kingdom are no longer competitive.

We now see almost daily headlines reporting on large enterprises having big shakeups in production lines. Just last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple AAPL +3.1% has directed it’s long-time contract manufacturing partner, Foxconn, to shift production out of China and to other regions of the world for certain product and component lines. This is decentralization in the world of bits, this is re-globalization.

It’s not just the world’s largest enterprises that are reeling from these waves and ripples. Direct to consumer startups like Vela Bikes – an e-bike maker – recently made news in moving production for one of it’s product lines out of China and to Detroit (the news is replete with examples like this), and home goods brand Simple Modern has proven that high grade consumer plastics can be manufactured in mass, domestically.

… The next 20 years may present the best opportunity that the United States and its allies have to re-capture production capacity. The embers of a great industrial base are still burning, the US has an opportunity to stoke the flames and revive the vim and vigor of American industriousness.

Industrialization 3.0

If China makes the fateful decision to invade Taiwan, it will sound the starting gun for an outright race of international manufacturers to get the heck out of China. Given that global markets are likely to collapse with a Taiwan invasion, it is not clear whether those companies that wait until then to exit China, will be able to get the capital to re-build elsewhere.