The End of the World is Just the Beginning

Our First Book Club Pick of 2023

Happy New Year! Greetings from Panamá, where I brought in the new year in my girlfriend’s family’s pueblo. I’ve been here a week and have already explored the San Blas Islands, the ruins of Panama Viejo, and the gorgeous Casco Antiguo.

Today I’m off to see the Panama Canal, but first I wanted to share our first book club pick of the year - which is about the end of the world.

Hear me out.

One of my favorite reading subjects is futurism. No, not science fiction. I’m talking about the big picture thinkers who pull together the latest research on technology, demographics, and politics to predict what will happen in the near future.

In 2010, I came across my first book on futurism: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, by George Friedman, the president of the private intelligence firm Stratfor (often described as the “civilian CIA.”).

That book laid out the major geopolitical themes of the coming century, predicting a number of developments that seemed far fetched at the time: that jihadist terrorism would cease to be a problem; that a “new cold war” would start up between Russia and the US, and that China’s rich coastal cities would break apart from the poor interior and end the CCP’s rule - plus the following prediction for WWIII.

While not all of predictions have come true, many of them have stood the test of time. More importantly, I learned the value of considering predictions that went against what I hoped would happen in those early hopeful days of Obama’s presidency.

Last year’s war in Ukraine shook up many of our assumptions about the world. In particular, the collective belief that war no longer happened in Europe. I found myself returning to books on geopolitics and futurism to make sense of what was happening - and what do expect.

So when it comes to picking our first book of 2023, I wanted to start with a look at the future - even if the book argues for a future I don’t want to come true.

That’s why this month, I’m picking The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization.

Here’s a brief summary of what the book’s about:

2019 was the last great year for the world economy.

For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days — even hours — of when you decided you wanted it.

America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going.

Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe.

All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending.

In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging.

The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world — from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all — is about to change.

A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence. 

Pretty crazy, right? That’s why I want to read it.

Three years into COVID (!!!), those years of hyper-mobile travel and deep global interconnectedness feel like another era. And that’s because they are. The supply-chain disruptions and price spikes that we’ve experienced during COVID are not so much caused by the virus so much as underlying systemic breakdowns revealed by it.

According to Zeihan:

At the end of World War II, the Americans created history’s greatest military alliance to arrest, contain, and beat back the Soviet Union… What is often forgotten, however, is that this alliance was only half the plan. In order to cement their new coalition, the Americans also fostered an environment of global security so that any partner could go anywhere, anytime, interface with anyone, in any economic manner, participate in any supply chain and access any material input—all without needing a military escort. This butter side of the Americans’ guns-and-butter deal created what we today recognize as free trade. Globalization.

The global system that we’ve all come to take for granted is in decline - or at least that’s what geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan argues. He’s actually also an alumnus of Stratfor, the same firm founded by the author of The Next 100 Years. But his predictions for the future are much more dire:

Since 1945 the world has been the best it has ever been. The best it will ever be. Which is a poetic way of saying this era, this world—our world—is doomed. The 2020s will see a collapse of consumption and production and investment and trade almost everywhere. Globalization will shatter into pieces. Some regional. Some national. Some smaller. It will be costly.

All nations will face new challenges to provide the goods, food, energy, and security once secured by the US-led system of globalization. But the US will still remain better poised than most in this new era - especially Russia and China, whose resource limitations put them in a tight spot.

So what does this all mean for you? For me? For our futures? That’s what this book is about. Zeihan starts by tracing the tens of thousands of year process of globalization that got us to this present moment - then tells us where we’re going from here.

I’m just getting started, but so far I’m fascinated by what I’ve read. I hope that Zeihan is just being hyperbolic, but I worry that he’s just showing us what many people would rather deny.

Either way, it seems like essential reading for any global citizen. And that’s why I’ve picked it for my book club read of the month.

Get your copy of The End of the World is Just the Beginning and get ready for a conversation about the future of the world in 2023 and beyond.

Mark your calendars for Thursday, February 2nd for the live book club discussion, available to all premium subscribers. And if reading more is one of our New Year’s Resolutions for 2023, consider upgrading your subscription to join our monthly book club chats!

And don’t forget - our discussion for December’s pick, The White Tiger, is happening this Thursday. Upgrade your account to see the zoom details below and watch the film on Netflix if you don’t have time to finish the book!

I look forward to growing our community here on The Missive and having even more enlightening discussions in 2023 and beyond.

Best,

Marko

The White Tiger Live Book Club

Date: Thursday, Jan 5th

Time: Time: 3PM LAX // 5PM CDMX // 6PM NYC // Midnight London