Why Russia’s Future Hinges on Winning in Ukraine | Peter Zeihan

Why Russia’s Future Hinges on Winning in Ukraine | Peter Zeihan

In this video, we explore the complex dynamics of Russia’s geographic and demographic challenges and their impact on global geopolitics and the economy. Russia’s strategy is to expand beyond harsh weather zones until they encounter geographic barriers, and forward-position their military in strategic access points. Ukraine’s unfortunate location makes it a critical zone in this strategy. We delve into Ukraine’s demographic struggles post-independence, with significant population declines affecting its industrial capacity.

The video also covers Russia’s mineral extraction challenges due to permafrost, the high costs of maintenance, and the decline in skilled labor. The collapse of Russia’s educational system has exacerbated these issues, leading to a critical shortage of technically skilled workers. Additionally, we discuss the geopolitical implications of Russia’s declining population and the mismatch between ethnic Russian territories and areas of economic productivity.

We touch on the limitations of green technology, highlighting the significant material requirements for electric vehicles and renewable energy systems compared to traditional thermal power. The video concludes with a discussion on the feasibility of a global green transition and the geopolitical tensions surrounding resource extraction and processing.

Peter Zeihan is an American geopolitical analyst, author, and speaker. He analyzes data from geography, demographics, and global politics to understand economic trends and make predictions.

Source:
The End of the World Is Just the Beginning

For any business enquiry & copyright issue:
bithy723@gmail.com

►►Disclaimer: This channel is for educational purposes only. There is no guarantee that you will succeed. Your level of success in attaining the results claimed on this channel will require hard-work, experience & knowledge.

#peterzeihan #geopolitics

Regular vlogs are on his official YouTube Channel…
@ZeihanonGeopolitics

peter zeihan, peter zeihan joe rogan, peter zeihan interview 2024, peter zeihan youtube, peter zeihan 2024, peter zeihan twitter, peter zeihan latest, peter zeihan china, peter zeihan interview, peter zeihan podcast, peter zeihan geopolitics, peter zeihan china collapse, peter zeihan demographics, peter zeihan videos, peter zeihan latest video, peter zeihan on china, peter zeihan today, peter zeihan keynote, peter zeihan presentation, peter zeihan new, peter zeihan speech

there we go all right I showed you guys this last year population density map on this side uh economic map on this side the areas that are populated are also the areas that are economically viable it’s a pure weather thing Russia has weather people live where it’s less the Russian strategy is pretty straightforward expand out of the weather or the area that’s decent until you hit a series of geographic barriers that you can’t shove tanks through and then forward position your military in the access points between them Ukraine is in the unfortunate position of not controlling those access points but it’s on the way to one in Romania and one in Poland so whenever the Russians are done with Ukraine if they can win they will move on to the next line of countries five of which are in NATO American Western foreign policy is very simple prevent them from having that opportunity now here we have the Ukrainian demographic structure after Independence in 1992 over a third of the population either left or died some of the lowest birth rates we’ve ever seen another third of the population since the war has fled as refugees mostly women and children so this is pre-war data we’re very close to the point in Ukraine where they will not have the population density that is required to maintain in Industrial Level infrastructure so whether it is food or steel or coal or just stuff transiting Ukraine is not going to survive the next 30 Years even if they win the war there’s another problem in that space this is um hang on my hair is falling apart here this is the Russian permafrost it’s a geological phenomenon you go 10 to 30 ft down and you hit a layer where never melts but the top chunk melts in the summer and turns into a bog it is the most difficult environment in the world for mineral extraction so the Russians have the most expens most expensive upfront cost to bring stuff online you basically have to wait for it to freeze solid you run a burm out to your production site you run a rail line or a pipe or a road along that BM and then you have a a pad that you drill from when it’s frozen because you can’t drill through mud it’s a very Dynamic landscape because if an aquifer cracks open everything just kind of slides and follows the aquifer or maybe it drains down in which case you just get a a sinkhole pit that opens or maybe there’s no aquifer and you just get a warm summer and the vegetation that’s been frozen for eons starts to thaw starts to decompose decomposing vegetable matter gives off methane and the whole land buckles which means that the Russians have the highest maintenance costs for any mineral production in the world here’s the problem Russian population structure now about the time that people who were 15 were getting born 2004 2005 that’s when the Russians stopped collecting data and just started making it up so you’ve got that big gouge in the 20s somethings post Cold War birth rate collapse and then you have fabricated data there probably are only half as many children as this data would suggest the Russian educational system collapsed back in 1985 so we had a collapse in the birth rate a collapse in the educational system which means that the youngest people in Russia who actually have technical skills at scale they turned 62 this year the year before the Russians started fabricating data the life life expectancy for the average Russian male was 67 they are already have the worst skilled labor pool relative to their population and their needs in the world and they’re very close from Simply losing all of it the maintenance on the Russian systems the development on the Russian systems hasn’t been done by the Russians for the most part it’s been done by BP or X on mobile and especially the Dutch and the Germans and all that went to zero when the war started so whether it’s sanctions War damage or simple lack of Maintenance we need to prepare for a world where everything that the world has become Reliant upon from the Russians Palladium Platinum oil gas even Timber just doesn’t come anymore there’s another angle to it that’s a little uglier now this guy uh you can see where the ethnic Russian territories are and the top left you got Turk minorities off to the East and the South the problem is this is not an ethnic map it’s a population change map the green zones are where population growth is happening roughly on pair with Florida and has for four decades and the red zones are population losses roughly equivalent to Detroit and has been for four decades almost all the raw materials are produced in the green zones that are not controlled by ethnic Russians where they’re experiencing population growth but they’re shipped through and processed in the red zones where the last bits of the skilled labor pool are that is in terminal decline so you can add demographics to the reasons that we need to kiss the Russian stuff goodbye as well not to mention that this is going to be a very politically unstable region in the not too distant future because of the mismatch one of the many reasons that the Russians feel that Ukraine war is necessary is if they can get to kind of that outer crustal defense that they used to have in the Soviet period Then they can focus their forces internally to police this demographic flip they’re fighting for time if they can pull this off they probably buy themselves another 50 years if they fail they’re gone within 20 all right let me take a big dump on Green Tech we talked about this a little bit last time I saw you guys I think I even showed you this graphic I mean oversimplifying here but um thermal power internal combustion engines not all that complicated you light a match you start a fire you capture the heat in some way can’t do that with an EV system can’t do that with Green Tech the process of producing the energy transmitting the energy storing the energy requires an order of magnitude more materials and different materials we’re looking here at an EV versus an ice vehicle you can just see it a glance and then here’s the same kind of idea but for Generation with solar and wind at the top conventional thermal at the bottom we need three times as much copper by 2030 we need 20 times as much lithium we need 10 times as much nickel there isn’t enough on the planet to pull that off and the Russians are a top three producer of these things so they just it it can’t happen it’s not physically possible with today’s technology for the world there is one way it might be possible for us this is where where all the stuff comes from that is not what we would consider to be part of our friends and family network if we use our military which is done with the war on terror which is recruited and rested and rearmed and we go and conquer all of these places and we run a Belgian Imperial style extraction Empire and bring all of it home then we can do the green transition but no one else now this is not a recommendation I’m just saying that the path we’re on this is the only way that it works and even that would not be enough because you still have to turn it into processed material lithium ore is useless you have to turn it into lithium metal the red bars are the stuff that where that processing happens in either China or Russia and even that’s not enough you have to talk about Finance here you’re looking at the full cycle cost for a natural gas combined cycle plant the blue is the construction the sighting the building the gray is the fuel full life cycle this is a model you’re familiar with this is what you all do the idea is it’s a subscription model you pay as you go that doesn’t work for Green Tech for Green Tech it’s almost all up front this is wind Capital costs have tripled they will triple again I think most of the plans that were put out there four years ago assumed that there would never be a 100 basis point increase in capital costs we’ve now gone up by 500 we have another 500 to go go the market can’t support this the IRA will help maybe sand down some edges but we’re going to have to do something that in the United States we really don’t like doing we’re going to have to choose what we want to focus on hey hey hey Pap Papa baa