2022-03-03_Strategic_Background_on_Russia_and

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00:00:29.800 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,

00:00:35.840 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while

00:00:40.000 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

00:00:43.440 | My name is Joshua.

00:00:44.440 | I'm your host.

00:00:45.440 | Today I want to share with you what I expect to be the final commentary on the current

00:00:52.000 | violence happening in Russia and Ukraine.

00:00:54.600 | Of course, if things change, I'll open up more, but I've done a couple of shows recently

00:00:58.460 | on it because of course it's in the news.

00:01:00.920 | You like me have almost certainly been watching the developments, trying to understand what's

00:01:05.360 | been happening, where do we go from here, and I think that this is one of those particular

00:01:09.940 | situations that deserves our attention.

00:01:13.180 | As I shared with you last week with my show on sobering potential, I think this has the

00:01:18.600 | potential to touch all of us in many, many ways.

00:01:24.720 | It's a fluid situation and we don't know exactly where things will wind up.

00:01:32.320 | What I gave was kind of as best I see as the worst case scenario of things that could happen

00:01:36.480 | with increasing levels of violence, but I think it's not particularly likely, at least

00:01:41.400 | for most of my audience.

00:01:43.680 | Most of my audience is not located near Russia or Ukraine.

00:01:48.280 | Most of my audience is in the West.

00:01:51.560 | I think it's unlikely that there will be direct involvement for most of us.

00:01:57.480 | I continue to watch very closely the topic of sanctions, some of the workings in the

00:02:03.080 | financial space.

00:02:04.080 | I watch what Russia is doing in response to the sanctions because I think they're important

00:02:08.440 | lessons for the rest of us in terms of currency controls, bank collapses, central bank currencies,

00:02:15.160 | central banks being frozen off, et cetera.

00:02:18.200 | It's valuable to learn those lessons and study those particular scenarios.

00:02:23.520 | What I thought over the last few days, I have been doing quite a lot of reading, trying

00:02:27.880 | to understand a little bit more of the situation.

00:02:32.240 | I want to bring to you some things that I think will be helpful for you to also understand

00:02:37.120 | the situation, not written by me, but I was trying to figure out where do you go right

00:02:41.200 | now to understand?

00:02:44.320 | Where do you go if you're trying to understand what is happening?

00:02:47.440 | You're in an intensely charged moment, very, very politically charged, which makes it difficult

00:02:54.160 | to do public conversation on these topics.

00:02:58.800 | It makes it difficult to try to figure out what source is right because in the current

00:03:04.680 | swing of things, it's hard to know what's propaganda, what's truth, which analysts to

00:03:08.400 | look to, which analysts to trust, et cetera.

00:03:11.480 | This week, I went back to a book that I first read about a decade ago.

00:03:17.040 | The book is called The Next 100 Years by author George Friedman.

00:03:23.080 | This book came out in 2010, January of 2010.

00:03:29.840 | The author wanted to share what he thought would be a forecast literally for the 21st

00:03:36.080 | century.

00:03:37.080 | I read the book soon after it came out.

00:03:38.960 | I don't remember specifically, 2011 perhaps, but I remember reading it soon after it came

00:03:43.960 | out and I was very impressed with the book at the time.

00:03:47.640 | I've since gone on and over the last couple of years, I've read a couple more of his books.

00:03:53.520 | Last year, I read his book called The Storm Before the Calm, in which author George Friedman

00:03:59.480 | predicted why the decade of the 2020s was destined to be a decade of intense conflict

00:04:07.800 | in the United States and yet why it's not any kind of permanent conflict or any kind

00:04:13.040 | of permanent decline in his forecast.

00:04:15.800 | It's the storm before the calm.

00:04:18.120 | I found that book very useful and interesting to me personally in my seeking to understand

00:04:23.400 | what's coming in the next decade.

00:04:24.920 | I additionally read his book called Flashpoints.

00:04:27.200 | I think the subtitle is something like the emerging crisis in Europe or the fault lines

00:04:31.040 | in Europe.

00:04:32.040 | I found that book extremely interesting as well to help to understand more of the European

00:04:37.000 | context of some of the rifts that exist across Europe.

00:04:42.400 | But I hadn't read or thought of this book much since I read it first soon after it came

00:04:47.600 | out.

00:04:48.800 | What I do know that I gained from this book more than 10 years ago is insight into some

00:04:53.960 | topics that you've heard me talk about on the show.

00:04:56.480 | The most important thing I gained at the time was an awareness of the demographic collapse

00:05:02.560 | happening in many parts of the world and how that change of demographics was going to be

00:05:09.200 | a major shaping force on the 21st century.

00:05:12.920 | But I wondered to myself, what did he say about the conflict in Russia?

00:05:17.200 | What did he say about what Russia would do?

00:05:19.400 | So I went back to this book and I reread it in the last few days and I found it just really,

00:05:25.200 | really powerful because in it he sketches out what his predictions would be.

00:05:31.520 | And as part of his predictions, he gives a bit of history.

00:05:35.400 | First he predicts a conflict involving Russia in the year 2020 and he specifically shows

00:05:41.800 | why he thinks Russia 2020 will be engaged in active armed conflict.

00:05:47.080 | Now he was clearly a couple years wrong.

00:05:49.280 | It's rather interesting to think of why he might have been wrong.

00:05:54.480 | But he was a couple years off, it's 2022, but I would say not so bad for a guy writing

00:06:00.360 | a book in 2010 and before to be able to forecast the events in Russia.

00:06:08.840 | But the most important thing I want to give you is the historical and geographical context

00:06:14.360 | and some insight into the Russian mine.

00:06:17.640 | And perhaps that will help you to filter a little bit more accurately what you hear happening

00:06:25.200 | as the conflict unholds.

00:06:28.160 | I want to share with you some extensive excerpts from the book, but I want to begin by reading

00:06:32.780 | to you some excerpts from the introduction because I think these excerpts from the introduction

00:06:39.320 | will pull you in and will help you to understand even the concept of what geopolitical forecasting

00:06:45.700 | is.

00:06:46.840 | And then we'll go specifically to a couple of excerpts discussing Russia.

00:06:51.920 | And I feel my hope is that this will help you, especially when you know that somebody

00:06:55.960 | is writing this in 2010, 12 years before the violent war that we see in front of us right

00:07:03.640 | now.

00:07:04.640 | And hopefully that will help to assuage some of the current political hotness of it, just

00:07:15.400 | to understand the context.

00:07:17.200 | So we begin with some excerpts from the introduction.

00:07:21.400 | An Introduction to the American Age.

00:07:24.760 | Imagine that you were alive in the summer of 1900, living in London, then the capital

00:07:30.260 | of the world.

00:07:32.040 | Europe ruled the Eastern Hemisphere.

00:07:34.720 | There was hardly a place that, if not ruled directly, was not indirectly controlled from

00:07:40.020 | a European capital.

00:07:42.240 | Europe was at peace and enjoying unprecedented prosperity.

00:07:45.480 | Indeed, European interdependence due to trade and investment was so great that serious people

00:07:51.400 | were claiming that war had become impossible.

00:07:54.380 | And if not impossible, would end within weeks of beginning, because global financial markets

00:07:59.640 | couldn't withstand the strain.

00:08:02.200 | The future seemed fixed.

00:08:04.280 | A peaceful, prosperous Europe would rule the world.

00:08:09.560 | Imagine yourself now in the summer of 1920.

00:08:13.080 | Europe had been torn apart by an agonizing war.

00:08:16.080 | The continent was in tatters.

00:08:18.600 | The Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German, and Ottoman empires were gone, and millions had

00:08:25.680 | died in a war that lasted for years.

00:08:28.880 | The war ended when an American army of a million men intervened, an army that came and then

00:08:34.720 | just as quickly left.

00:08:37.280 | Communism dominated Russia, but it was not clear that it could survive.

00:08:41.640 | Countries that had been on the periphery of European power, like the United States and

00:08:46.760 | Japan, suddenly emerged as great powers.

00:08:50.480 | But one thing was certain.

00:08:52.600 | The peace treaty that had been imposed on Germany guaranteed that it would not soon

00:08:57.920 | re-emerge.

00:09:00.440 | Imagine the summer of 1940.

00:09:02.560 | Germany had not only re-emerged, but conquered France and dominated Europe.

00:09:07.680 | Communism had survived, and the Soviet Union now was allied with Nazi Germany.

00:09:13.560 | Great Britain alone stood against Germany, and from the point of view of most reasonable

00:09:18.480 | people the war was over.

00:09:20.360 | If there was not to be a thousand-year Reich, then certainly Europe's fate had been decided

00:09:25.260 | for a century.

00:09:27.320 | Germany would dominate Europe and inherit its empire.

00:09:31.380 | Imagine now the summer of 1960.

00:09:34.400 | Germany had been crushed in the war.

00:09:36.640 | Defeated less than five years later, Europe was occupied, split down the middle by the

00:09:41.240 | United States and the Soviet Union.

00:09:43.700 | The European empires were collapsing, and the United States and Soviet Union were competing

00:09:47.700 | over who would be their heir.

00:09:49.960 | The United States had the Soviet Union surrounded, and, with an overwhelming arsenal of nuclear

00:09:54.840 | weapons, could annihilate it in hours.

00:09:58.760 | The United States had emerged as the global superpower.

00:10:02.020 | It dominated all of the world's oceans, and, with its nuclear force, could dictate

00:10:06.360 | terms to anyone in the world.

00:10:09.120 | Sailmate was the best the Soviets could hope for.

00:10:12.800 | Unless the Soviets invaded Germany and conquered Europe.

00:10:17.000 | That was the war everyone was preparing for.

00:10:20.000 | And in the back of everyone's mind, the Maoist Chinese, seen as fanatical, were the

00:10:26.560 | other danger.

00:10:28.300 | Now imagine the summer of 1980.

00:10:31.040 | The United States had been defeated in a seven-year war, not by the Soviet Union, but by communist

00:10:37.720 | North Vietnam.

00:10:39.640 | The nation was seen, and saw itself, as being in retreat.

00:10:46.760 | Expelled from Vietnam, it was then expelled from Iran as well, where the oil fields, which

00:10:52.480 | it no longer controlled, seemed about to fall into the hands of the Soviet Union.

00:10:57.840 | To contain the Soviet Union, the United States had formed an alliance with Maoist China,

00:11:03.240 | the American president and the Chinese chairman holding an amiable meeting in Beijing.

00:11:09.400 | Only this alliance seemed able to contain the powerful Soviet Union, which appeared

00:11:15.240 | to be surging.

00:11:17.800 | Imagine now the summer of 2000.

00:11:19.840 | The Soviet Union had completely collapsed.

00:11:23.080 | China was still communist in name, but had become capitalist in practice.

00:11:27.840 | NATO had advanced into Eastern Europe and even into the former Soviet Union.

00:11:32.640 | The world was prosperous and peaceful.

00:11:36.260 | Everyone knew that geopolitical considerations had become secondary to economic considerations,

00:11:42.080 | and the only problems were regional ones, in basket cases like Haiti or Kosovo.

00:11:48.680 | Then came September 11, 2001, and the world turned on its head again.

00:11:54.120 | At a certain level, when it comes to the future, the only thing one can be sure of is that

00:11:59.360 | common sense will be wrong.

00:12:01.900 | There is no magic 20-year cycle, there is no simplistic force governing this pattern.

00:12:07.560 | It is simply that the things that appear to be so permanent and dominant at any given

00:12:12.680 | moment in history can change with stunning rapidity.

00:12:17.800 | Eras come and go.

00:12:20.080 | In international relations, the way the world looks right now is not at all how it will

00:12:24.160 | look in 20 years, or even less.

00:12:27.160 | The fall of the Soviet Union was hard to imagine, and that is exactly the point.

00:12:33.440 | Conventional political analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination.

00:12:38.440 | It imagines passing clouds to be permanent, and is blind to powerful long-term shifts

00:12:45.520 | taking place in full view of the world.

00:12:49.640 | If we were at the beginning of the 20th century, it would be impossible to forecast the particular

00:12:55.220 | events I've just listed.

00:12:57.400 | But there are some things that could have been, and in fact were, forecast.

00:13:02.680 | For example, it was obvious that Germany, having united in 1871, was a major power in

00:13:09.440 | an insecure position, trapped between Russia and France, and wanted to redefine the European

00:13:15.760 | and global systems.

00:13:17.920 | Most of the conflicts in the first half of the 20th century were about Germany's status

00:13:22.720 | in Europe.

00:13:23.720 | While the times and places of wars couldn't be forecast, the probability that there would

00:13:29.760 | be a war could be and was forecast by many Europeans.

00:13:35.640 | The harder part of this equation would be forecasting that the wars would be so devastating,

00:13:41.200 | and that after the First and Second World Wars were over, Europe would lose its empire.

00:13:46.160 | But there were those, particularly after the invention of dynamite, who predicted that

00:13:51.000 | war would now be catastrophic.

00:13:53.820 | If the forecasting on technology had been combined with the forecasting on geopolitics,

00:13:59.600 | the shattering of Europe might well have been predicted.

00:14:03.320 | Certainly the rise of the United States and Russia was predicted in the 19th century.

00:14:07.600 | Both Alexis de Tocqueville and Friedrich Nietzsche forecast the preeminence of these

00:14:11.520 | two countries.

00:14:13.140 | So standing at the beginning of the 20th century, it would have been possible to forecast its

00:14:17.300 | general outlines with discipline and some luck.

00:14:22.280 | Standing at the beginning of the 21st century, we need to identify the single pivotal event

00:14:26.200 | for this century, the equivalent of German unification for the 20th century.

00:14:33.200 | After the debris of the European empire has cleared away, as well as what's left of

00:14:37.240 | the Soviet Union, one power remains standing and overwhelmingly powerful.

00:14:44.200 | That power is the United States.

00:14:46.480 | Certainly, as is usually the case, the United States currently appears to be making a mess

00:14:50.360 | of things around the world, but it's important not to be confused by the passing chaos.

00:14:56.040 | The United States is economically, militarily, and politically the most powerful country

00:15:00.680 | in the world, and there is no real challenger to that power.

00:15:05.500 | Like the Spanish-American war, a hundred years from now, the war between the United States

00:15:10.280 | and the radical Islamists will be little remembered, regardless of the prevailing sentiment of

00:15:15.720 | this time.

00:15:17.440 | Ever since the civil war, the United States has been on an extraordinary economic surge.

00:15:23.040 | It has turned from a marginal developing nation into an economy bigger than the next four

00:15:27.800 | countries combined.

00:15:29.360 | Militarily, it has gone from being an insignificant force to dominating the globe.

00:15:35.800 | Politically, the United States touches virtually everything, sometimes intentionally and sometimes

00:15:42.120 | simply because of its presence.

00:15:44.420 | As you read this book, it will seem that it is American-centric, written from an American

00:15:49.040 | point of view.

00:15:50.040 | That may be true, but the argument I'm making is that the world does, in fact, pivot around

00:15:55.720 | the United States.

00:15:57.440 | This is not only due to American power.

00:16:00.320 | It also has to do with a fundamental shift in the way the world works.

00:16:03.960 | For the past 500 years, Europe was the center of the international system, its empires creating

00:16:09.980 | a single global system for the first time in human history.

00:16:13.960 | The main highway to Europe was the North Atlantic.

00:16:17.200 | Whoever controlled the North Atlantic controlled access to Europe, and Europe's access to

00:16:21.600 | the world.

00:16:22.760 | The basic geography of global politics was locked into place.

00:16:27.080 | Then, in the early 1980s, something remarkable happened.

00:16:31.240 | For the first time in history, Trans-Pacific trade equaled Trans-Atlantic trade.

00:16:37.800 | With Europe reduced to a collection of secondary powers after World War II, and the shift in

00:16:42.500 | trade patterns, the North Atlantic was no longer the single key to anything.

00:16:46.680 | Now whatever country controlled both the North Atlantic and the Pacific could control, if

00:16:50.880 | it wished, the world's trading system, and therefore the global economy.

00:16:56.480 | In the 21st century, any nation located on both oceans has a tremendous advantage.

00:17:02.840 | Given the cost of building naval power, and the huge cost of deploying it around the world,

00:17:08.160 | the power native to both oceans became the preeminent actor in the international system,

00:17:14.800 | for the same reason that Britain dominated the 19th century.

00:17:19.020 | It lived on the sea it had to control.

00:17:21.960 | In this way, North America has replaced Europe as the center of gravity in the world, and

00:17:26.280 | whoever dominates North America is virtually assured of being the dominant global power.

00:17:31.640 | For the 21st century at least, that will be the United States.

00:17:36.080 | The inherent power of the United States coupled with its geographic position makes the United

00:17:40.880 | States the pivotal actor of the 21st century.

00:17:44.080 | That certainly doesn't make it loved.

00:17:46.280 | On the contrary, its power makes it feared.

00:17:49.160 | The history of the 21st century, therefore, particularly the first half, will revolve

00:17:53.720 | around two opposing struggles.

00:17:56.980 | One will be secondary powers forming coalitions to try to contain and control the United States.

00:18:03.420 | The second will be the United States acting preemptively to prevent an effective coalition

00:18:07.300 | from forming.

00:18:08.940 | If we view the beginning of the 21st century as the dawn of the American age, superseding

00:18:13.640 | the European age, we see that it began with a group of Muslims seeking to recreate the

00:18:18.080 | Caliphate, the great Islamic empire that once ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

00:18:23.760 | Inevitably they had to strike at the United States in an attempt to draw the world's

00:18:27.120 | primary power into war, trying to demonstrate its weakness in order to trigger an Islamic

00:18:32.360 | uprising.

00:18:33.760 | The United States responded by invading the Islamic world.

00:18:37.100 | But its goal wasn't victory.

00:18:38.680 | It wasn't even clear what victory would mean.

00:18:42.220 | Its goal was simply to disrupt the Islamic world and set it against itself, so that an

00:18:47.280 | Islamic empire could not emerge.

00:18:50.160 | The United States doesn't need to win wars.

00:18:53.120 | It needs to simply disrupt things, so the other side can't build up sufficient strength

00:18:57.640 | to challenge it.

00:18:59.300 | On one level, the 21st century will see a series of confrontations involving lesser

00:19:03.820 | powers trying to build coalitions to control American behavior and the United States mounting

00:19:08.820 | military operations to disrupt them.

00:19:11.700 | The 21st century will see even more war than the 20th century, but the wars will be much

00:19:16.620 | less catastrophic because of both technological changes and the nature of the geopolitical

00:19:22.020 | challenge.

00:19:23.020 | By the way, I want to pause there for a moment.

00:19:25.000 | One thing that I have said many times is that, as I observe some of the decline in the United

00:19:32.500 | States, and it's interesting, all of chapter one, which I will not be reading for you or

00:19:36.600 | even talking about, talks about the United States.

00:19:41.320 | And it's very interesting how consistent that sense of declinism is across the American

00:19:47.080 | public from all walks of political life, etc.

00:19:50.900 | But one of the things that I have observed, as I've said frequently to military personnel

00:19:55.740 | and others, that the United States hasn't won a war since World War II.

00:20:00.020 | I've decided to stop saying that because after rereading this book this last week,

00:20:04.260 | I was impressed with how the author makes the point again and again that the United

00:20:08.960 | States doesn't really need or even want to win wars.

00:20:13.300 | That disruption is the primary objection.

00:20:17.520 | Disruption in the least costly sense.

00:20:20.780 | And so if you go back and you look at the last, certainly the last decade, but you look

00:20:24.940 | at the last couple decades in that light, that's what you see.

00:20:28.600 | And I think that's what you see right now, what you're likely to see in the coming

00:20:32.220 | years when thinking about even the response to, sorry, I meant coming weeks and months,

00:20:37.820 | thinking about the response to Russia, at least from the US-American perspective.

00:20:42.260 | That the United States doesn't really need or want to win wars.

00:20:45.580 | But what is in its goal, its primary objective is simply to cause disruption, to keep a major

00:20:52.600 | power from coming against it, and then to protect its homeland.

00:20:56.480 | So if you're interested in that, definitely get the book.

00:20:58.380 | My hope is that with this preview, this taste of the book, you will be motivated to get

00:21:03.180 | it and read it if you're interested in these kinds of issues.

00:21:08.900 | If we view the beginning of the 21st century as the dawn of the American, oops, excuse

00:21:14.860 | me.

00:21:15.860 | The United States doesn't need to win wars.

00:21:17.860 | It simply needs to, it needs to simply disrupt things so the other side can't build up

00:21:21.660 | sufficient strength to challenge it.

00:21:23.860 | On one level, the 21st century will see a series of confrontations involving lesser

00:21:27.780 | powers trying to build coalitions to control American behavior, and the United States mounting

00:21:32.800 | military operations to disrupt them.

00:21:35.540 | The 21st century will see even more war than the 20th century, but the wars will be much

00:21:39.660 | less catastrophic because of both technical changes and the nature of the geopolitical

00:21:44.380 | challenge.

00:21:45.380 | As we've seen, the changes that lead to the next era are always shockingly unexpected,

00:21:50.500 | and the first 20 years of this new century will be no exception.

00:21:53.980 | The US-Islamist war is already ending, and the next conflict is in sight.

00:21:59.740 | Russia is recreating its old sphere of influence, and that sphere of influence will inevitably

00:22:06.340 | challenge the United States.

00:22:08.500 | The Russians will be moving westward on the great northern European plain.

00:22:14.020 | As Russia reconstructs its power, it will encounter the US-dominated NATO in the three

00:22:18.820 | Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – as well as in Poland.

00:22:24.540 | There will be other points of friction in the early 21st century, but this new Cold

00:22:28.420 | War will supply the flashpoints after the US-Islamist war dies down.

00:22:34.180 | The Russians can't avoid trying to reassert power, and the United States can't avoid

00:22:39.740 | trying to resist.

00:22:41.700 | But in the end, Russia can't win.

00:22:44.260 | Its deep internal problems, massively declining population, and poor infrastructure ultimately

00:22:50.380 | make Russia's long-term survival prospects bleak, and the second Cold War – less frightening

00:22:56.340 | and much less global than the first – will end, as the first did, with the collapse of

00:23:01.700 | Russia.

00:23:02.900 | There are many who predict that China is the next challenger to the United States, not

00:23:06.300 | Russia.

00:23:07.300 | I don't agree with that view for three reasons.

00:23:09.460 | First, when you look at a map of China closely, you see that it is really a very isolated

00:23:14.460 | country physically.

00:23:15.960 | With Siberia in the north, the Himalayas and jungles to the south, and most of China's

00:23:20.100 | population in the eastern part of the country, the Chinese aren't going to easily expand.

00:23:25.620 | Second, China has not been a major naval power for centuries, and building a navy requires

00:23:30.940 | a long time not only to build ships, but to create well-trained and experienced sailors.

00:23:36.660 | Third, there is a deeper reason for not worrying about China.

00:23:41.340 | China is inherently unstable.

00:23:44.460 | Whenever it opens its borders to the outside world, the coastal region becomes prosperous,

00:23:49.080 | but the vast majority of Chinese in the interior remain impoverished.

00:23:53.220 | This leads to tension, conflict, and instability.

00:23:56.500 | It also leads to economic decisions made for political reasons, resulting in inefficiency

00:24:01.700 | and corruption.

00:24:03.700 | This is not the first time that China has opened itself to foreign trade, and it will

00:24:07.380 | not be the last time that it becomes unstable as a result.

00:24:11.760 | Nor will it be the last time that a figure like Mao emerges to close the country off

00:24:16.060 | from the outside, equalize the wealth or poverty, and begin the cycle anew.

00:24:22.120 | There are some who believe that the trends of the last 30 years will continue indefinitely.

00:24:26.820 | I believe the Chinese cycle will move to its next and inevitable phase in the coming decade.

00:24:32.540 | Far from being a challenger, China as a country, the United States will be trying to bolster

00:24:37.220 | and hold together as a counterweight to the Russians.

00:24:40.820 | Current Chinese economic dynamism does not translate into long-term success.

00:24:45.620 | I want to interrupt my reading here and give some commentary.

00:24:49.460 | One of the articles that was so interesting over the last week was how the United States

00:24:53.500 | was feeding classified intelligence to the Chinese regarding Russian movements, and basically

00:25:01.780 | doing exactly what this author predicted, what Friedman predicted, that the United States

00:25:06.220 | has been trying to use China against Russia.

00:25:09.420 | Now Russia is trying to create an alliance with China, and trying to use China and strengthen

00:25:15.660 | its relationship there as a counterweight to the United States.

00:25:19.340 | So we see this playing out, but I think it's very interesting to see that prediction from

00:25:23.020 | a decade ago coming true even with the news articles from the last few days.

00:25:28.940 | In the middle of the century, other powers will emerge, countries that aren't thought

00:25:32.100 | of as great powers today, but that I expect will become more powerful and assertive over

00:25:36.620 | the next few decades.

00:25:38.500 | Three stand out in particular.

00:25:40.420 | The first is Japan.

00:25:42.140 | It's the second largest economy in the world and the most vulnerable, being highly dependent

00:25:46.340 | on the importation of raw materials, since it has almost none of its own.

00:25:51.060 | With a history of militarism, Japan will not remain the marginal, pacifistic power it has

00:25:56.220 | been.

00:25:57.220 | It cannot.

00:25:58.540 | Its own deep population problems and abhorrence of large-scale immigration will force it to

00:26:04.060 | look for new workers in other countries.

00:26:06.820 | Japan's vulnerabilities, which I've written about in the past and which the Japanese have

00:26:09.740 | managed better than I've expected up until this point, in the end will force a shift

00:26:14.420 | in policy.

00:26:16.260 | Then there is Turkey, currently the 17th largest economy in the world.

00:26:20.540 | Historically, when a major Islamic empire has emerged, it has been dominated by the

00:26:24.540 | Turks.

00:26:25.700 | The Ottomans collapsed at the end of World War I, leaving modern Turkey in its wake.

00:26:30.260 | But Turkey is a stable platform in the midst of chaos.

00:26:33.380 | The Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Arab world to the south are all unstable.

00:26:38.140 | As Turkey's power grows, and its economy and military are already the most powerful

00:26:42.420 | in the region, so will Turkish influence.

00:26:46.500 | Finally there is Poland.

00:26:48.020 | Poland hasn't been a great power since the 16th century, but it once was, and I think

00:26:53.020 | will be again.

00:26:54.460 | Two factors make this possible.

00:26:56.500 | First will be the decline of Germany.

00:26:58.300 | Its economy is large and still growing, but it has lost the dynamism it has had for two

00:27:03.820 | centuries.

00:27:05.020 | In addition, its population is going to fall dramatically in the next 50 years, further

00:27:09.240 | undermining its economic power.

00:27:11.500 | Second, as the Russians press on the Poles from the east, the Germans won't have an

00:27:16.380 | appetite for a third war with Russia.

00:27:19.220 | The United States, however, will back Poland, providing it with massive economic and technical

00:27:23.740 | support.

00:27:24.980 | Wars, when your country isn't destroyed, stimulate economic growth, and Poland will

00:27:30.620 | become the leading power in a coalition of states facing the Russians.

00:27:34.820 | Japan, Turkey, and Poland will each be facing a United States even more confident than it

00:27:40.580 | was after the second fall of the Soviet Union.

00:27:43.820 | That will be an explosive situation.

00:27:46.820 | As we will see during the course of this book, the relationships among these four countries

00:27:50.540 | will greatly affect the 21st century, leading ultimately to the next global war.

00:27:56.780 | This war will be fought differently from any in history, with weapons that are today in

00:28:00.020 | the realm of science fiction.

00:28:01.940 | But as I will try to outline, this mid-21st century conflict will grow out of the dynamic

00:28:06.080 | forces born in the early part of the new century.

00:28:09.740 | Gozan talks significantly about technical advances, some predictions about some of the

00:28:14.740 | technical advances.

00:28:16.660 | Some of the most interesting comments that he leads goes on to talk about immigration,

00:28:22.340 | demographics, the impact of a shrinking world population.

00:28:26.900 | He talks about future conflict between Mexico and the United States, which I find very,

00:28:32.780 | very interesting and important with the history of Mexico and the United States.

00:28:39.740 | I wanted to take a moment though and read a section on geopolitics, because this will

00:28:44.380 | explain the conversations coming regarding Russia.

00:28:50.420 | One point I've already made is that reasonable people are incapable of anticipating the future.

00:28:55.580 | The old New Left slogan, "Be practical, demand the impossible," needs to be changed.

00:29:00.420 | Be practical, expect the impossible.

00:29:03.320 | This idea is at the heart of my method.

00:29:06.140 | From another more substantial perspective, this is called geopolitics.

00:29:11.780 | Geopolitics is not simply a pretentious way of saying international relations.

00:29:15.820 | It is a method for thinking about the world and forecasting what will happen down the

00:29:19.540 | road.

00:29:21.260 | Economists talk about an invisible hand in which the self-interested short-term activities

00:29:26.220 | of people lead to what Adam Smith called the wealth of nations.

00:29:30.580 | Geopolitics applies the concept of the invisible hand to the behavior of nations and other

00:29:35.500 | international actors.

00:29:37.580 | The pursuit of short-term self-interest by nations and by their leaders leads, if not

00:29:42.620 | to the wealth of nations, then at least to predictable behavior and therefore the ability

00:29:47.940 | to forecast the shape of the future international system.

00:29:52.100 | Geopolitics and economics both assume that the players are rational, at least in the

00:29:55.740 | sense of knowing their own short-term self-interest.

00:29:59.420 | As rational actors, reality provides them with limited choices.

00:30:04.140 | It is assumed that, on the whole, people and nations will pursue their self-interest, if

00:30:09.540 | not flawlessly, then at least not randomly.

00:30:14.160 | Think of a chess game.

00:30:15.780 | On the surface, it appears that each player has 20 potential opening moves.

00:30:20.500 | In fact, there are many fewer, because most of these moves are so bad that they quickly

00:30:24.980 | lead to a defeat.

00:30:26.840 | The better you are at chess, the more clearly you see your options and the fewer moves there

00:30:31.260 | actually are available.

00:30:33.700 | The better the player, the more predictable the moves.

00:30:37.080 | The grandmaster plays with absolute, predictable precision until that one brilliant, unexpected

00:30:44.700 | stroke.

00:30:46.540 | Nations behave the same way.

00:30:48.540 | The millions or hundreds of millions of people who make up a nation are constrained by reality.

00:30:54.100 | They generate leaders who would not become leaders if they were irrational.

00:30:58.820 | Climbing to the top of millions of people is not something fools often do.

00:31:04.020 | Leaders understand their menu of next moves and execute them, if not flawlessly, then

00:31:09.780 | at least pretty well.

00:31:11.620 | An occasional master will come along with a stunningly unexpected and successful move,

00:31:17.020 | but for the most part, the act of governance is simply executing the necessary and logical

00:31:22.580 | next step.

00:31:24.460 | When politicians run a country's foreign policy, they operate the same way.

00:31:29.840 | If a leader dies and is replaced, another emerges, and more likely than not continues

00:31:34.780 | what the first one was doing.

00:31:37.060 | I am not arguing that political leaders are geniuses, scholars, or even gentlemen and

00:31:41.780 | ladies.

00:31:42.780 | Simply, political leaders know how to be leaders, or they wouldn't have emerged as such.

00:31:48.340 | It is the delight of all societies to belittle their political leaders, and leaders surely

00:31:53.060 | do make mistakes.

00:31:54.780 | But the mistakes they make, when carefully examined, are rarely stupid.

00:32:00.280 | More likely, mistakes are forced on them by circumstance.

00:32:04.060 | We would all like to believe that we, or our favorite candidate, would never have acted

00:32:09.620 | so stupidly.

00:32:11.500 | It is rarely true.

00:32:13.980 | Geopolitics, therefore, does not take the individual leader very seriously, any more

00:32:18.380 | than economics takes the individual businessman too seriously.

00:32:22.540 | Both are players who know how to manage a process, but are not free to break the very

00:32:26.580 | rigid rules of their professions.

00:32:29.700 | Politicians are therefore rarely free actors.

00:32:32.900 | Their actions are determined by circumstances and public policy as a response to reality.

00:32:38.420 | Within narrow margins, political decisions can matter, but the most brilliant leader

00:32:42.520 | of Iceland will never turn it into a world power, while the stupidest leader of Rome

00:32:48.420 | at its height could not undermine Rome's fundamental power.

00:32:53.580 | Geopolitics is not about the right and wrong of things, it is not about the virtues or

00:32:56.860 | vices of politicians, and it is not about foreign policy debates.

00:33:01.780 | Geopolitics is about broad impersonal forces that constrain nations and human beings and

00:33:07.660 | compel them to act in certain ways.

00:33:11.420 | The key to understanding economics is accepting that there are always unintended consequences.

00:33:17.560 | Actions people take for their own good reasons have results they don't envision or intend.

00:33:24.080 | The same is true with geopolitics.

00:33:26.100 | It is doubtful that the village of Rome, when it started its expansion in the 7th century

00:33:31.540 | BC, had a master plan for conquering the Mediterranean world 500 years later.

00:33:38.020 | But the first action its inhabitants took against neighboring villages set in motion

00:33:43.580 | a process that was both constrained by reality and filled with unintended consequences.

00:33:50.460 | Rome wasn't planned, and neither did it just happen.

00:33:55.440 | Geopolitical forecasting, therefore, doesn't assume that everything is predetermined.

00:33:59.400 | It does mean that what people think they are doing, what they hope to achieve, and what

00:34:04.100 | the final outcome is are not the same things.

00:34:07.480 | Nations and politicians pursue their immediate ends, as constrained by reality as a grandmaster

00:34:14.180 | is constrained by the chessboard, the pieces, and the rules.

00:34:18.720 | Sometimes they increase the power of the nation.

00:34:21.560 | Sometimes they lead the nation to catastrophe.

00:34:23.840 | It is rare that the final outcome will be what they initially intended to achieve.

00:34:29.660 | Geopolitics assumes two things.

00:34:32.300 | First it assumes that humans organize themselves into units larger than families, and the

00:34:37.420 | by doing this they must engage in politics.

00:34:40.400 | It also assumes that humans have a natural loyalty to the things they were born into,

00:34:44.940 | the people and the places.

00:34:47.380 | Loyalty to a tribe, a city, or a nation is natural to people.

00:34:50.660 | In our time, national identity matters a great deal.

00:34:54.740 | Geopolitics teaches that the relationship between these nations is a vital dimension

00:34:58.540 | of human life, and that means that war is ubiquitous.

00:35:03.540 | Second, geopolitics assumes that the character of a nation is determined to a great extent

00:35:08.980 | by geography, as is the relationship between nations.

00:35:13.900 | We use the term "geography" broadly.

00:35:16.940 | It includes the physical characteristics of a location, but it goes beyond that to look

00:35:22.180 | at the effects of a place on individuals and communities.

00:35:26.580 | In antiquity, the difference between Sparta and Athens was the difference between a landlocked

00:35:31.980 | city and a maritime empire.

00:35:34.900 | Athens was wealthy and cosmopolitan, while Sparta was poor, provincial, and very tough.

00:35:40.180 | A Spartan was very different from an Athenian in both culture and politics.

00:35:45.540 | If you understand those assumptions, then it is possible to think about large numbers

00:35:50.260 | of human beings, linked together through natural human bonds, constrained by geography acting

00:35:56.780 | in certain ways.

00:35:58.660 | The United States is the United States, and therefore must behave in a certain way.

00:36:03.580 | The same goes for Japan or Turkey or Mexico.

00:36:06.420 | When you drill down and see the forces that are shaping nations, you can see that the

00:36:10.260 | menu from which they choose is limited.

00:36:14.620 | The 21st century will be like all other centuries.

00:36:18.820 | There will be wars, there will be poverty, there will be triumphs and defeats, there

00:36:24.700 | will be tragedy and good luck.

00:36:26.600 | People will go to work, make money, have children, fall in love, and come to hate.

00:36:31.160 | That is the one thing that is not cyclical.

00:36:33.580 | It is the permanent human condition.

00:36:35.860 | The 21st century will be extraordinary in two senses.

00:36:39.220 | It will be the beginning of a new age, and it will see a new global power astride the

00:36:44.020 | world.

00:36:45.020 | That doesn't happen very often.

00:36:47.520 | The author goes on and talks about his reason for saying that the 21st century will be an

00:36:52.520 | America-centric age, in chapter 1, entitled "The Dawn of the American Age," he gives

00:36:58.480 | detailed conversations on the American empire, how it came to be, why it is so powerful,

00:37:05.920 | and why it will continue to be powerful.

00:37:08.000 | I think it's quite excellent and important to recognize that.

00:37:13.280 | Sometimes it's easy to be hyperbolic about decline, but on every numerical dimension,

00:37:20.440 | the United States is extraordinarily powerful and will continue to be extraordinarily powerful.

00:37:27.880 | Chapter 2 is entitled "Earthquake," where he talks about the US Jihadist war, and 2010

00:37:33.240 | gives several predictions that, in my estimation, by 2022, they have come true, almost fully.

00:37:42.460 | Chapter 3 is entitled "Population, Computers, and Culture Wars," wherein the author digs

00:37:47.500 | deeply into demographics and some of the culture wars in a really excellent way.

00:37:53.240 | Chapter 4 is called "The New Fault Lines," and here's where I want to read a couple

00:37:56.800 | of excerpts that set the stage for what's happening in Eurasia, and then we'll go

00:38:03.240 | specifically to the content related to the predicted war in Russia in 2020.

00:38:08.920 | Chapter 4, "The New Fault Lines."

00:38:11.040 | Where will the next earthquake strike, and what will it look like?

00:38:13.940 | To answer that question, we need to examine the geopolitical fault lines of the 21st century.

00:38:19.020 | As with geology, there are many such fault lines.

00:38:22.140 | Without pushing this analogy too far, we have to identify the active fault lines in order

00:38:26.240 | to identify areas where friction might build up into conflict.

00:38:29.940 | As the focus on the Islamic world subsides, what will be the most unstable point in the

00:38:33.840 | world in the next era?

00:38:36.580 | There are five areas of the world right now that are viable candidates.

00:38:40.780 | First, there is the all-important Pacific Basin.

00:38:44.420 | The United States Navy dominates the Pacific.

00:38:46.780 | The Asian rim of the Pacific consists entirely of trading countries dependent on access to

00:38:51.620 | the high seas, which are therefore dependent on the United States.

00:38:55.780 | Two of them, China and Japan, are major powers that could potentially challenge U.S. hegemony.

00:39:01.140 | From 1941 to 1945, the United States and Japan fought over the Pacific Basin, and control

00:39:06.100 | of it remains a potential issue today.

00:39:08.460 | Second, we must consider the future of Eurasia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

00:39:14.700 | Since 1991, the region has fragmented and decayed.

00:39:18.420 | The successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia, is emerging from this period with renewed

00:39:23.960 | self-confidence.

00:39:24.960 | Yet, Russia is also in an untenable geopolitical position.

00:39:30.540 | Unless Russia exerts itself to create a sphere of influence, the Russian Federation could

00:39:36.040 | itself fragment.

00:39:37.900 | On the other hand, creating that sphere of influence could generate conflict with the

00:39:42.260 | United States and Europe.

00:39:45.980 | That's the key.

00:39:46.980 | It goes on.

00:39:47.980 | The third is that there's continuing doubt about the ultimate framework of Europe.

00:39:50.180 | It talks about what Europe faces.

00:39:52.820 | Fourth is the Islamic world.

00:39:54.060 | Fifth is the question of Mexican-American relations.

00:39:57.540 | But let's talk about Eurasia.

00:39:59.540 | Eurasia.

00:40:00.580 | For most of the second half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union controlled Eurasia, from

00:40:05.260 | central Germany to the Pacific, as far south as the Caucasus and the Hindu Kush.

00:40:11.440 | When the Soviet Union collapsed, its western frontier moved east nearly a thousand miles

00:40:20.940 | from the West German border to the Russian border with Belarus.

00:40:25.440 | From the Hindu Kush, its border moved northward a thousand miles to the Russian border with

00:40:29.460 | Kazakhstan.

00:40:31.300 | Eurasia was pushed from the border of Turkey northward to the northern Caucasus, where

00:40:42.460 | it is still struggling to keep its foothold in the region.

00:40:45.900 | Russian power has now retreated farther east than it has been in centuries.

00:40:50.480 | During the Cold War, it had moved farther west than ever before.

00:40:53.620 | In the coming decades, Russian power will settle somewhere between those two lines.

00:40:59.300 | After the Soviet Union dissolved at the end of the 20th century, foreign powers moved

00:41:03.820 | in to take advantage of Russia's economy, creating an era of chaos and poverty.

00:41:10.140 | They also moved rapidly to integrate as much as they could of the Russian Empire into their

00:41:15.580 | own spheres of influence.

00:41:18.300 | Eastern Europe was absorbed into NATO and the EU, and the Baltic states were also absorbed

00:41:24.000 | into NATO.

00:41:25.500 | The United States entered into a close relationship with both Georgia in the Caucasus and with

00:41:30.740 | many of the Central Asian "Stans," particularly after September 11, when the Russians allowed

00:41:36.940 | U.S. forces into the area to wage the war in Afghanistan.

00:41:41.580 | Most significantly, Ukraine moved into an alignment with the United States and away

00:41:50.980 | from Russia.

00:41:52.900 | This was a breaking point in Russian history.

00:41:56.300 | The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, from December 2004 to January 2005, was the moment when

00:42:03.100 | the post-Cold War genuinely ended for Russia.

00:42:07.220 | The Russians saw the events in Ukraine as an attempt by the United States to draw Ukraine

00:42:13.420 | into NATO, and thereby set the stage for Russian disintegration.

00:42:18.820 | Quite frankly, there was some truth to the Russian perception.

00:42:22.380 | If the West had succeeded in dominating Ukraine, Russia would have become indefensible.

00:42:29.900 | The southern border with Belarus, as well as the southwestern frontier of Russia, would

00:42:34.740 | have been wide open.

00:42:36.740 | In addition, the distance between Ukraine and western Kazakhstan is only about 400 miles,

00:42:43.700 | and that is the gap through which Russia has been able to project power toward the Caucasus.

00:42:50.140 | We should assume, then, that under these circumstances, Russia would have lost its ability to control

00:42:55.820 | the Caucasus, and would have had to retreat farther north from Chechnya.

00:43:01.620 | The Russians would have been abandoning parts of the Russian Federation itself, and Russia's

00:43:05.420 | own southern flank would become highly vulnerable.

00:43:08.820 | Russia would have continued to fragment until it returned to its medieval frontiers.

00:43:15.100 | Had Russia fragmented to this extent, it would have created chaos in Eurasia, to which the

00:43:21.020 | United States would not have objected, since the US grand strategy has always aimed for

00:43:26.500 | the fragmentation of Eurasia as the first line of defense for US control of the seas,

00:43:32.140 | as we have seen.

00:43:33.140 | By the way, in chapter one of the story of the book, the author talks extensively about

00:43:39.580 | how US naval power is fundamental to understanding global geopolitics and the strength of the

00:43:44.980 | United States' faces.

00:43:48.540 | So the United States had every reason to encourage this process.

00:43:52.820 | Russia had every reason to block it.

00:43:55.660 | After what Russia regarded as an American attempt to further damage it, Moscow reverted

00:44:01.060 | to a strategy of reasserting its sphere of influence in the areas of the former Soviet

00:44:05.740 | Union.

00:44:07.060 | The great retreat of Russian power ended in Ukraine.

00:44:11.900 | Russian influence is now increasing in three directions, toward Central Asia, toward the

00:44:17.140 | Caucasus, and inevitably toward the West, the Baltics and Eastern Europe.

00:44:22.860 | For the next generation, until roughly 2020, Russia's primary concern will be reconstructing

00:44:30.340 | the Russian state and reasserting Russian power in the region.

00:44:37.020 | Interestingly, the geopolitical shift is aligning with an economic shift.

00:44:42.620 | Vladimir Putin sees Russia less as an industrial power than as an exporter of raw materials,

00:44:50.180 | the most important of which is energy, particularly natural gas.

00:44:54.860 | Moving to bring the energy industry under state supervision, if not direct control,

00:45:00.020 | he is forcing out foreign interests and reorienting the industry toward exports, particularly

00:45:07.080 | to Europe.

00:45:08.500 | High energy prices have helped stabilize Russia's economy internally, but he will not confine

00:45:13.940 | his efforts to energy alone.

00:45:16.020 | He also is seeking to capitalize on Russian agriculture, timber, gold, diamonds, and other

00:45:20.660 | commodities.

00:45:21.820 | He is transforming Russia from an impoverished disaster into a poor but more productive country.

00:45:29.980 | Putin also is giving Russia the tool with which to intimidate Europe, the valve on a

00:45:35.580 | natural gas pipeline.

00:45:38.220 | Russia is pressing back along its frontiers.

00:45:40.300 | It is deeply focused on Central Asia and will, over time, find success there, but Russia

00:45:45.500 | will have a more difficult time in the even more crucial Caucasus.

00:45:50.020 | The Russians do not intend to allow any part of the Russian Federation to break away.

00:45:55.780 | As a result, there will be friction, particularly in the next decade, with the United States

00:45:59.860 | and other countries in the region, as Russia reasserts itself.

00:46:04.820 | But the real flashpoint, in all likelihood, will be on Russia's western frontier.

00:46:09.860 | Belarus will align itself with Russia.

00:46:11.860 | Of all the countries in the former Soviet Union, Belarus has had the fewest economic

00:46:15.620 | and political reforms and has been the most interested in recreating some successor to

00:46:20.020 | the Soviet Union.

00:46:21.900 | Linked in some way to Russia, Belarus will bring Russian power back to the borders of

00:46:26.220 | the former Soviet Union.

00:46:28.380 | From the Baltic's south to the Romanian border, there is a region where borders have

00:46:32.100 | historically been uncertain and conflict frequent.

00:46:36.300 | In the north, there is a long, narrow plain stretching from the Pyrenees to St. Petersburg.

00:46:41.400 | This is where Europe's greatest wars were fought.

00:46:44.140 | This is the path that Napoleon and Hitler took to invade Russia.

00:46:47.860 | There are few natural barriers.

00:46:49.660 | Therefore, the Russians must push their border west as far as possible to create a buffer.

00:46:55.640 | After World War II, they drove into the center of Germany on this plain.

00:46:59.460 | Today, they have retreated to the east.

00:47:02.260 | They have to return and move as far west as possible.

00:47:05.720 | That means the Baltic states and Poland are, as before, problems Russia has to solve.

00:47:11.620 | Defining the limits of Russian influence will be controversial.

00:47:14.420 | The United States and the countries within the old Soviet sphere will not want Russia

00:47:18.780 | to go too far.

00:47:20.580 | The last thing the Baltic states want is to fall under Russian domination again.

00:47:25.420 | Consider the states south of the northern European plain in the Carpathians.

00:47:29.540 | The former Soviet satellites, particularly Poland, Hungary, and Romania, understand that

00:47:34.780 | the return of Russian forces to their frontiers would represent a threat to their security.

00:47:39.860 | Since these countries are now part of NATO, their interests necessarily affect the interests

00:47:44.580 | of Europe and the United States.

00:47:46.760 | The open question is where the line will be drawn in the west.

00:47:51.020 | This has been a historical question and it was a key challenge in Europe over the past

00:47:55.540 | hundred years.

00:47:57.460 | Russia will not become a global power in the next decade, but it has no choice but to become

00:48:02.940 | a major regional power.

00:48:05.500 | That means it will clash with Europe.

00:48:07.980 | The Russian-European frontier remains a fault line.

00:48:12.980 | The author goes on and talks about some of the other fault lines.

00:48:15.540 | Chapter 5 is called China 2020, Paper Tiger, wherein he discusses extensively China.

00:48:22.460 | And then chapter 6 is called Russia 2020, Rematch.

00:48:27.460 | And here is where we get the most important understanding of what's happening right now.

00:48:32.660 | Again, this is predicted back in 2010.

00:48:37.540 | In geopolitics, major conflicts repeat themselves.

00:48:41.540 | France and Germany, for example, fought multiple wars, as did Poland and Russia.

00:48:46.900 | When a single war does not resolve an underlying geopolitical issue, it is re-fought until

00:48:51.860 | the issue is finally settled.

00:48:53.540 | At the very least, even without another war, tension and confrontation are ongoing.

00:49:00.300 | Significant conflicts are rooted in underlying realities, and they do not go away easily.

00:49:05.780 | Keep in mind how quickly Balkan geopolitics led to a recurrence of wars that had been

00:49:10.580 | fought a century earlier.

00:49:13.220 | Russia is the eastern portion of Europe and has clashed with the rest of Europe on multiple

00:49:18.140 | occasions.

00:49:19.660 | The Napoleonic Wars, the two World Wars, and the Cold War all dealt, at least in part,

00:49:26.020 | with the status of Russia and its relationship to the rest of Europe.

00:49:30.260 | None of these wars ultimately settled this question, because in the end a united and

00:49:34.980 | independent Russia survived or triumphed.

00:49:38.500 | The problem is that the very existence of a united Russia poses a significant potential

00:49:44.060 | challenge to Europe.

00:49:46.580 | Russia is a vast region with a huge population.

00:49:50.220 | It is much poorer than the rest of Europe, but it has two assets – land and natural

00:49:55.620 | resources.

00:49:57.260 | As such, it is a constant temptation for European powers, which see an opportunity to increase

00:50:03.540 | their size and wealth to the east.

00:50:06.380 | Historically, though, Europeans who have invaded Russia have come to a disastrous end.

00:50:12.300 | If they are not beaten by the Russians, they are so exhausted from fighting them that someone

00:50:16.880 | else defeats them.

00:50:19.020 | Russia occasionally pushes its power westward, threatening Europe with the Russian masses.

00:50:24.720 | At other times, passive and ignored, Russia is often taken advantage of, but in due course

00:50:30.380 | others pay for underestimating it.

00:50:33.160 | The Cold War only appeared to have settled the Russian question.

00:50:36.780 | Had the Russian Federation collapsed in the 1990s and the region fragmented into multiple

00:50:41.340 | smaller states, Russian power would have disappeared, and with it the challenge Russian power poses

00:50:47.060 | to Europe.

00:50:48.260 | Had the Americans, Europeans, and Chinese moved in for the kill, the Russian question

00:50:52.820 | would have been finally settled.

00:50:55.220 | But the Europeans were too weak and divided at the end of the 20th century, the Chinese

00:51:00.140 | too isolated and preoccupied with internal issues, and, after September 11, 2001, the

00:51:07.260 | Americans were too distracted by the Islamist war to act decisively.

00:51:11.820 | What actions were taken by the United States were insufficient and unfocused.

00:51:16.060 | In fact, these actions only served to alert the Russians to the great potential danger

00:51:20.760 | from the United States and ensured they would respond to it.

00:51:25.680 | Given the simple fact that Russia did not disintegrate, the Russian geopolitical question

00:51:31.420 | will re-emerge.

00:51:33.560 | Given the fact that Russia is now re-energizing itself, that question will come sooner rather

00:51:39.260 | than later.

00:51:40.640 | The conflict will not be a repeat of the Cold War any more than World War I was a repeat

00:51:45.700 | of the Napoleonic Wars, but it will be a restatement of the fundamental Russian question.

00:51:52.560 | If Russia is a United Nations state, where will its frontiers lie and what will be the

00:51:58.180 | relationship between Russia and its neighbors?

00:52:01.460 | That question will represent the next major phase in world history, in 2020 and in the

00:52:07.220 | years leading up to it.

00:52:10.300 | Russian Dynamics If we are going to understand Russia's behavior

00:52:13.660 | and intentions, we have to begin with Russia's fundamental weakness, its borders, particularly

00:52:19.320 | in the Northwest.

00:52:21.260 | Even when Ukraine is controlled by Russia, as it has been for centuries, and Belarus

00:52:26.600 | and Moldovia are part of the Russian Empire as well, there are still no natural borders

00:52:32.840 | in the North.

00:52:34.660 | The center and south are anchored on the Carpathian Mountains, as far north as the Slovakian-Polish

00:52:40.260 | border, and to the east of them are the Pripet Marshes, boggy and impassable.

00:52:46.040 | But in the north and south, east of the Carpathians, there are no strong barriers to protect Russia,

00:52:52.940 | or to protect Russia's neighbors.

00:52:55.500 | On the northern European plain, no matter where Russia's borders are drawn, it is

00:53:00.560 | open to attack.

00:53:02.500 | There are few significant natural barriers anywhere on this plain.

00:53:07.580 | Pushing its western border all the way into Germany, as it did in 1945, still leaves Russia's

00:53:13.980 | borders without a physical anchor.

00:53:16.300 | The only physical advantage Russia can have is depth.

00:53:21.580 | The farther west into Europe its borders extend, the farther conquerors have to travel to reach

00:53:26.380 | Moscow.

00:53:27.380 | Therefore, Russia is always pressing westward on the northern European plain, and Europe

00:53:33.180 | is always pressing eastward.

00:53:36.080 | That is not the case with other borders of Russia, by which we mean to include the former

00:53:40.260 | Soviet Union, which has been the rough shape of Russia since the end of the 19th century.

00:53:45.380 | In the south, there was a natural secure boundary.

00:53:48.580 | The Black Sea leads to the Caucasus, separating Russia from Turkey and Iran.

00:53:53.620 | Iran is further buffered by the Caspian Sea, and by the Karakum Desert in southern Turkmenistan,

00:53:59.220 | which runs along the Afghan border, terminating in the Himalayas.

00:54:02.920 | The Russians are concerned with the Iranian-Afghan segment, and might push south, as they have

00:54:08.180 | done several times.

00:54:10.100 | But they are not going to be invaded on that border.

00:54:12.960 | Their frontier with China is long and vulnerable, but only on a map.

00:54:18.260 | Invading Siberia is not a practical possibility.

00:54:20.460 | It is a vast wilderness.

00:54:22.900 | There is a potential weakness along China's western border, but not a significant one.

00:54:27.220 | Therefore, the Russian Empire, in any of its incarnations, is fairly secure, except in

00:54:33.140 | northern Europe, where it faces its worst dangers, geography, and powerful European

00:54:38.900 | nations.

00:54:40.620 | Russia had its guts carved out after the collapse of communism.

00:54:44.420 | St. Petersburg, its jewel, was about a thousand miles away from NATO troops in 1989.

00:54:51.020 | Now it is less than 100 miles away.

00:54:54.620 | In 1989, Moscow was 1,200 miles from the limits of Russian power.

00:54:59.860 | Now it is about 200 miles.

00:55:02.960 | In the south, with Ukraine independent, the Russian hold on the Black Sea is tenuous,

00:55:08.620 | and it has been forced to the northern extreme of the Caucasus.

00:55:12.780 | Afghanistan is occupied, however tentatively, by the Americans, and Russia's anchor on

00:55:17.700 | the Himalayas is gone.

00:55:19.820 | If there were an army interested in invading, the Russian Federation is virtually indefensible.

00:55:27.300 | Russia's strategic problem is that it is a vast country with relatively poor transportation.

00:55:33.660 | If Russia were simultaneously attacked along its entire periphery, in spite of the size

00:55:38.780 | of its forces, it would be unable to easily protect itself.

00:55:42.540 | It would have difficulty mobilizing forces and deploying them to multiple fronts, so

00:55:46.780 | it would have to maintain an extremely large standing army that could be pre-deployed.

00:55:51.900 | This pressure imposes a huge economic burden on Russia, undermines the economy, and causes

00:55:57.380 | it to buckle from within.

00:55:59.380 | That is what happened to the Soviet state.

00:56:01.420 | Of course, this is not the first time Russia has been in peril.

00:56:05.720 | Protecting its frontiers is not Russia's only problem today.

00:56:09.340 | The Russians are extremely well aware that they are facing a massive demographic crisis.

00:56:14.940 | Russia's current population is about 145 million people, and projections for 2050 are

00:56:20.560 | for between 90 million and 125 million.

00:56:25.420 | Time is working against it.

00:56:27.020 | Russia's problem will soon be its ability to field an army sufficient for its strategic

00:56:31.380 | needs.

00:56:32.380 | Internally, the number of Russians compared to other ethnic groups is declining, placing

00:56:36.740 | intense pressure on Russia to make a move sooner rather than later.

00:56:40.960 | In its current geographical position, it is an accident waiting to happen.

00:56:45.340 | Given Russia's demographic trajectory, in 20 years it may be too late to act, and its

00:56:50.680 | leaders know this.

00:56:52.240 | It does not have to conquer the world, but Russia must regain and hold its buffers, essentially

00:56:58.000 | the boundaries of the old Soviet Union.

00:57:01.140 | Between their geopolitical, economic, and demographic problems, the Russians have to

00:57:05.120 | make a fundamental shift.

00:57:07.240 | For a hundred years, the Russians sought to modernize their country through industrialization,

00:57:12.280 | trying to catch up to the rest of Europe.

00:57:14.560 | They never managed to pull it off.

00:57:16.840 | Around 2000, Russia shifted its strategy.

00:57:20.480 | Instead of focusing on industrial development as they had in the past century, the Russians

00:57:25.680 | reinvented themselves as exporters of natural resources, particularly energy, but also minerals,

00:57:32.800 | agricultural products, lumber, and precious metals.

00:57:35.880 | By deemphasizing industrial development and emphasizing raw materials, the Russians took

00:57:40.440 | a very different path, one more common to countries in the developing world.

00:57:45.360 | But given the unexpected rise of energy and commodity prices, this move not only saved

00:57:51.000 | the Russian economy but also strengthened it to the point where Russia could afford

00:57:55.240 | to drive its own selective re-industrialization.

00:57:59.240 | Most important, since natural resource production is less manpower intensive than industrial

00:58:04.120 | production, it gave Russia an economic base that could be sustained with a declining population.

00:58:10.400 | It also gave Russia leverage in the international system.

00:58:14.040 | Europe is hungry for energy.

00:58:16.200 | Russia, constructing pipelines to feed natural gas to Europe, takes care of Europe's energy

00:58:20.880 | needs and its own economic problems, and puts Europe in a position of dependency on Russia.

00:58:27.680 | In an energy-hungry world, Russia's energy exports are like heroin.

00:58:33.280 | It addicts countries once they start using it.

00:58:36.400 | Russia has already used its natural gas resources to force neighboring countries to bend to

00:58:40.520 | its will.

00:58:41.920 | That power reaches into the heart of Europe, where the Germans and the former Soviet satellites

00:58:46.160 | of Eastern Europe all depend on Russian natural gas.

00:58:50.080 | Add to this its other resources and Russia can apply significant pressure on Europe.

00:58:56.360 | Dependency can be a double-edged sword.

00:58:58.640 | A militarily weak Russia cannot pressure its neighbors because its neighbors might decide

00:59:02.780 | to make a grab for its wealth.

00:59:04.880 | So Russia must recover its military strength.

00:59:08.320 | Rich and weak is a bad position for nations to be in.

00:59:12.360 | If Russia is to be rich in natural resources and export them to Europe, it must be in a

00:59:16.200 | position to protect what it has and to shape the international environment in which it

00:59:20.600 | lives.

00:59:22.000 | In the next decade, Russia will become increasingly wealthy, relative to its past at least, but

00:59:27.440 | geographically insecure.

00:59:30.600 | It will therefore use some of its wealth to create a military force appropriate to protect

00:59:35.480 | its interests, buffer zones to protect it from the rest of the world, and then buffer

00:59:40.360 | zones for the buffer zones.

00:59:43.280 | Russia's grand strategy involves the creation of deep buffers along the northern European

00:59:48.560 | plain while it divides and manipulates its neighbors, creating a new regional balance

00:59:53.080 | of power in Europe.

00:59:54.800 | What Russia cannot tolerate are tight borders without buffer zones, and its neighbors united

01:00:00.760 | against it.

01:00:02.360 | This is why Russia's future actions will appear to be aggressive, but will actually

01:00:08.760 | be defensive.

01:00:10.680 | Russia's actions will unfold in three phases.

01:00:13.720 | In the first phase, Russia will be concerned with recovering influence and effective control

01:00:18.120 | in the former Soviet Union, recreating the system of buffers that the Soviet Union provided

01:00:23.720 | it.

01:00:24.720 | In the second phase, Russia will seek to create a second tier of buffers beyond the boundaries

01:00:30.120 | of the former Soviet Union.

01:00:32.080 | It will try to do this without creating a solid wall of opposition, or of the kind that

01:00:36.920 | choked it during the Cold War.

01:00:39.220 | In the third phase, Russia will try to prevent anti-Russian coalitions from forming.

01:00:49.840 | In referring to the, from here, the author goes on, talks about the history of the Soviet

01:00:56.160 | Union and why the Soviet Union was built that way, then talks about the frontiers of Russia,

01:01:02.600 | the first one being the Caucasus, the second one being the Central Asia, and then turns

01:01:10.280 | attention to, turns attention to Europe.

01:01:14.120 | I want to read an excerpt from the Central Asia section, though, because I think this

01:01:20.480 | helps to understand some of the Russian tension with the United States.

01:01:25.760 | And then we'll talk about Europe, which is where we come to Ukraine.

01:01:29.240 | Central Asia.

01:01:30.240 | Central Asia is a vast region running between the Caspian Sea and the Chinese border.

01:01:34.100 | It is primarily Muslim, and therefore, as we have seen, was part of the massive destabilization

01:01:38.520 | that took place in the Muslim world after the fall of the Soviet Union.

01:01:42.160 | By itself, it has some economic value as a region with energy reserves, but it has little

01:01:46.740 | strategic importance to the Russians, unless another great power was to dominate it and

01:01:51.720 | use it as a base against them.

01:01:53.800 | If that were to happen, it would become enormously important.

01:01:57.000 | Whoever controls Kazakhstan would be a hundred miles from the Volga, a river highway for

01:02:01.460 | Russian agriculture.

01:02:03.360 | During the 1990s, Western energy companies flocked to the region.

01:02:07.640 | Russia had no problem with that.

01:02:08.960 | It wasn't in a position to compete, and it wasn't in a position to control the

01:02:12.000 | region militarily.

01:02:13.980 | Central Asia was a neutral zone of relative indifference to the Russians.

01:02:18.580 | All of that changed on September 11, 2001, which redefined the geopolitics of the region.

01:02:24.640 | September 11 made it urgent for the United States to invade Afghanistan.

01:02:28.800 | Unable to mount an invasion by itself quickly, the United States asked the Russians for help.

01:02:34.400 | One thing they asked for was Russian help in getting the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban

01:02:39.280 | group in Afghanistan to play the major role on the ground.

01:02:43.220 | The Russians had sponsored the Northern Alliance and effectively controlled it.

01:02:47.400 | Another thing the Americans asked for was Russian support in securing bases for the

01:02:51.360 | United States in several Central Asian countries.

01:02:54.840 | Technically, these were independent countries, but the United States was asking for help

01:02:59.640 | with the Northern Alliance and couldn't afford to anger the Russians.

01:03:03.200 | The Central Asian countries did not want to anger the Russians either, and US planes had

01:03:08.360 | to fly over the former Soviet Union to get to them.

01:03:12.000 | The Russians agreed to an American military presence in the region, thinking they had

01:03:16.360 | an understanding with the United States that this was a temporary situation.

01:03:21.760 | But as the war in Afghanistan dragged on, the United States stayed on.

01:03:27.440 | And as it stayed on, it became more and more influential with the various republics in

01:03:31.960 | the region.

01:03:33.720 | Russia realized that what had been a benign buffer zone was becoming dominated by the

01:03:40.000 | main global power, a power that was pressing Russia in Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Baltics.

01:03:47.720 | In addition, as the price of energy rose and Russia adopted its new economic strategy,

01:03:52.560 | Central Asia's energy became even more significant.

01:03:56.360 | Russia did not want American forces a hundred miles from the Volga.

01:04:00.640 | Russia simply had to react.

01:04:02.680 | It didn't act directly, but it began manipulating the political situation in the region, reducing

01:04:07.120 | American power.

01:04:08.680 | It was a move designed to return Central Asia to the Russian sphere of influence, and the

01:04:13.360 | Americans, on the other side of the world, isolated by chaotic Afghanistan, Iran, and

01:04:17.680 | Pakistan, were in no position to resist.

01:04:21.160 | The Russians reasserted their natural position, and tellingly it was one of the few places

01:04:26.080 | US naval power couldn't reach.

01:04:29.160 | Central Asia is an area where the United States can't remain under Russian pressure.

01:04:33.360 | It is a place where the Chinese could potentially cause problems, but as we've seen, that

01:04:38.240 | is unlikely to happen.

01:04:39.960 | China has economic influence there, but the Russians in the end have both military and

01:04:43.540 | financial capabilities that can out-duel them.

01:04:46.960 | The Russians might offer China access to Central Asia, but the arrangements created in the

01:04:51.560 | 19th century and maintained by the Soviet Union will reassert themselves.

01:04:56.000 | For it is my view that Central Asia will be back in the Russian sphere of influence by

01:04:59.360 | the early 2010s, long before the major confrontation begins in the West, in Europe.

01:05:06.640 | The European Theater The European Theater is, of course, the area

01:05:10.520 | directly west of Russia.

01:05:12.460 | In this region, Russia's western border faces the three Baltic states.

01:05:15.680 | By the way, I couldn't comment knowledgeably on the difference between the 2010s, 2015,

01:05:25.120 | and 2020, but I do think it's interesting in light of this kind of analysis that it

01:05:32.200 | was just last year that the United States fully withdrew from Afghanistan.

01:05:36.440 | So I think this will be an interesting point of analysis for political or geopolitical

01:05:40.560 | analysts to try to understand the timing of Russia's moves with regard to the US withdrawal

01:05:47.280 | from Afghanistan.

01:05:51.280 | The European Theater The European Theater is, of course, the area

01:05:54.520 | directly west of Russia.

01:05:56.400 | In this region, Russia's western border faces the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia,

01:06:02.080 | and Lithuania, and the two independent republics of Belarus and Ukraine.

01:06:07.600 | All of these were part of the former Soviet Union and of the Russian Empire.

01:06:15.000 | Beyond these countries lies the belt of former Soviet satellites – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary,

01:06:21.680 | Romania, and Bulgaria.

01:06:23.980 | The Russians must dominate Belarus and Ukraine for their basic national security.

01:06:32.720 | The Baltics are secondary but still important.

01:06:36.320 | Eastern Europe is not critical so long as the Russians are anchored in the Carpathian

01:06:40.080 | Mountains in the south and have strong forces on the northern European plain.

01:06:44.760 | But of course all of this can get complicated.

01:06:47.760 | Ukraine and Belarus are everything to the Russians.

01:06:52.520 | If they were to fall into an enemy's hands, for example, join NATO, Russia would be in

01:06:59.440 | mortal danger.

01:07:01.600 | Moscow is only a bit over 200 miles from the Russian border with Belarus, Ukraine less

01:07:07.120 | than 200 miles from Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad.

01:07:13.120 | Russia defended against Napoleon and Hitler with depth.

01:07:17.440 | Without Belarus and Ukraine there is no depth, no land to trade for an enemy's blood.

01:07:24.180 | It is of course absurd to imagine NATO posing a threat to Russia.

01:07:28.120 | But the Russians think in terms of 20-year cycles and they know how quickly the absurd

01:07:33.200 | becomes possible.

01:07:35.240 | They also know that the United States and NATO have systematically expanded their reach

01:07:40.480 | by extending membership in NATO to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.

01:07:45.640 | As soon as the United States began trying to recruit Ukraine into NATO, the Russians

01:07:50.440 | changed their view both of American intentions and of Ukraine.

01:07:56.020 | From the Russian point of view, NATO expanding into Ukraine threatens Russian interests in

01:08:01.680 | the same way as if the Warsaw Pact had moved into Mexico.

01:08:05.720 | When a pro-Western uprising in 2004, the "Orange Revolution", seemed about to sweep Ukraine

01:08:12.560 | into NATO, the Russians accused the United States of trying to surround and destroy Russia.

01:08:18.880 | What the Americans were thinking is open to debate.

01:08:21.640 | That Ukraine in NATO would be potentially devastating to Russian national security is

01:08:26.960 | not.

01:08:28.280 | The Russians did not mobilize their army.

01:08:30.940 | Rather they mobilized their intelligence service, whose covert connections in Ukraine were superb.

01:08:36.560 | The Russians undermined the Orange Revolution, playing on a split between pro-Russian Eastern

01:08:41.280 | Ukraine and pro-European Western Ukraine.

01:08:44.500 | It proved not to be difficult at all, and fairly quickly Ukrainian politics became gridlocked.

01:08:49.620 | It is only a matter of time before Russian influence will overwhelm Kiev.

01:08:54.660 | Belarus is an easier issue.

01:08:56.060 | As noted earlier, Belarus is the least reformed member of the former Soviet Republics.

01:09:00.300 | It remains a centralized authoritarian state.

01:09:03.500 | More important, its leadership has repeatedly mourned the passing of the Soviet Union and

01:09:07.220 | has proposed union of some sort with Russia.

01:09:10.180 | Such a union will, of course, have to be on Russian terms, which has led to tension, but

01:09:14.420 | there is no possibility of Belarus joining NATO.

01:09:17.900 | The reabsorption of Belarus and Ukraine into the Russian sphere of influence is a given

01:09:23.320 | in the next five years.

01:09:25.300 | When that happens, Russia will have roughly returned to its borders with Europe between

01:09:28.940 | the two world wars.

01:09:30.620 | It will be anchored in the Caucasus in the south, with Ukraine protected, and in the

01:09:34.620 | north its borders on the northern European plain will abut Poland and the Baltic countries.

01:09:39.980 | That will pose the questions of who the most powerful country in the north is and where

01:09:44.540 | the precise frontiers will be.

01:09:46.740 | The real flashpoint will be the Baltics.

01:09:49.900 | The traditional path to invade Russia is a 300-mile gap between the northern Carpathians

01:09:54.180 | and the Baltic Sea.

01:09:56.000 | This is flat, easily traversed country with few river barriers.

01:10:00.100 | This northern European plain is a smooth ride for invaders.

01:10:03.860 | A European invader can move due east to Moscow or to St. Petersburg in the northwest.

01:10:09.440 | During the Cold War, the distance from St. Petersburg to NATO's front line was also

01:10:14.220 | more than a thousand miles.

01:10:15.940 | Today, the distance is about 70 miles.

01:10:19.180 | This explains the strategic nightmare Russia faces in the Baltics, and what it will need

01:10:23.620 | to do to fix the problem.

01:10:25.740 | The three Baltic countries were once part of the Soviet Union.

01:10:29.420 | Each became independent after it collapsed, and then in that narrow window each became

01:10:33.740 | part of NATO.

01:10:35.480 | As we have seen, the Europeans are most likely too far into their decadent cycle to have

01:10:40.460 | the energy to take advantage of the situation.

01:10:43.060 | However, the Russians are not going to risk their national security on that assumption.

01:10:47.380 | They saw Germany go from being a cripple in 1932 to being at the gates of Moscow in 1941.

01:10:55.380 | The inclusion of the Baltic countries along with Poland and NATO has moved NATO's frontier

01:11:00.780 | extraordinarily close to the Russian heartland.

01:11:03.940 | For a country that was invaded three times in the last 200 years, the comfortable assumption

01:11:08.840 | that NATO and its members are no threat is not something it can risk.

01:11:14.340 | From the Russian point of view, the major invasion route into their country is not only

01:11:18.020 | wide open but also in the hands of countries with a pronounced hostility to Russia.

01:11:22.540 | The Baltic countries have never forgiven the Russians for their occupation.

01:11:26.160 | The Poles are equally bitter and deeply distrustful of Russian intentions.

01:11:30.660 | Now that they are a part of NATO, these countries form the front line.

01:11:34.860 | Behind them is Germany, a country as distrusted by Russia as Russia is by the Poles and Balts.

01:11:41.500 | The Russians are certainly paranoid, but that doesn't mean they don't have enemies or

01:11:45.900 | that they are crazy.

01:11:47.980 | This would be the point of any confrontation.

01:11:50.180 | The Russians can live with a neutral Baltic region.

01:11:53.500 | Living with a Baltic region that is part of NATO and close to the Americans, however,

01:11:57.340 | is a much more difficult risk to take.

01:11:59.940 | On the other hand, the Americans, having backed down in Central Asia and being cautious in

01:12:03.780 | the Caucasus, can't retreat from the Baltics.

01:12:07.460 | Any compromise over the three NATO members would send Eastern Europe into a panic.

01:12:12.140 | Eastern Europe's behavior would become unpredictable, and the possibility of Russian influence spreading

01:12:17.340 | westward would increase.

01:12:19.780 | Russia has the greater interest, but the Americans could bring substantial power to bear if they

01:12:24.300 | chose.

01:12:25.300 | Russia's next move likely will be an agreement with Belarus for an integrated defense system.

01:12:30.700 | Belarus and Russia have been linked for a very long time, so this will be a natural

01:12:34.260 | reversion.

01:12:35.260 | And that will bring the Russian army to the Baltic frontier.

01:12:38.020 | It will also bring the army to the Polish frontier, and that will start the confrontation

01:12:42.020 | in its full intensity.

01:12:44.180 | The Poles fear the Russians and the Germans.

01:12:47.900 | Trapped between the two, without natural defenses, they fear whichever is stronger at any time.

01:12:54.140 | Unlike the rest of Eastern Europe, which at least has the barrier of the Carpathians between

01:12:58.020 | them and the Russians, and shares a border with Ukraine, not Russia, the Poles are on

01:13:02.500 | the dangerous northern European plane.

01:13:05.380 | When the Russians return to their border and force, in the process of confronting the Baltic

01:13:09.820 | states, the Poles will react.

01:13:11.980 | Poland has almost 40 million people.

01:13:14.620 | It is not a small country, and since it will be backed by the United States, not a trivial

01:13:19.220 | one.

01:13:20.380 | Polish support will be thrown behind the bolts.

01:13:22.740 | The Russians will pull the Ukrainians into their alliance with Belarus, and will have

01:13:26.220 | Russian forces all along the Polish border, and as far south as the Black Sea.

01:13:31.500 | At this point, the Russians will begin the process of trying to neutralize the Balts.

01:13:35.300 | This I believe will all take place by the mid-2010s.

01:13:38.980 | The Russians will have three tools at their disposal to exert their influence over the

01:13:42.420 | Baltic states.

01:13:43.740 | First, covert operations.

01:13:45.820 | In the same way the United States has financed and energized non-governmental organizations

01:13:50.620 | around the world, the Russians will finance and energize Russian minorities in these countries,

01:13:55.520 | as well as whatever pro-Russian elements exist or can be bought.

01:13:59.140 | When the Balts suppress these movements, it will give the Russians a pretext for using

01:14:02.220 | their second tool, economic sanctions, particularly by cutting the flow of natural gas.

01:14:07.340 | Finally, the Russians will bring military pressure to bear through the presence of substantial

01:14:11.160 | forces near these borders.

01:14:13.220 | Not surprisingly, the Poles and the Balt both remember the unpredictability of the Russians.

01:14:18.340 | The psychological pressure will be enormous.

01:14:20.860 | Let's skip a little bit about advanced military technologies.

01:14:29.300 | But the point of what is happening is you can see the place the Russians are caught.

01:14:39.060 | You can see that even according to this particular prediction, the Russians are behind schedule,

01:14:46.860 | meaning what the author was writing about in 2010 didn't wind up happening by 2015.

01:14:54.820 | Now there's more and I'm not going to put my mouth and stick my foot in it by trying

01:14:58.140 | to comment on it, but some of the things that happened in Ukraine in 2014, the Russians

01:15:02.940 | alleged US involvement, the previous president of Ukraine I think is in prison right now

01:15:08.220 | and was replaced by the current president and a bunch of other stuff.

01:15:11.820 | And then I think it's so interesting to think about the Ukrainian connection to the current

01:15:15.740 | administration of President Biden with his son, the Burisma affair, etc.

01:15:21.660 | It's so fascinating to think about what has been happening.

01:15:24.380 | But you can see that what Russia is doing is seeking to secure its borders in the way

01:15:32.300 | that is said here.

01:15:33.580 | So that can give a little bit of insight into what Russia is trying to do in Ukraine.

01:15:40.180 | Now I've already abused the author's copyright on the book.

01:15:44.260 | I'm going to stop there.

01:15:45.540 | I'm going to encourage you to get it and read it.

01:15:48.580 | It's a great book and I'm glad that I was able to go through it again.

01:15:51.700 | I wish I had remembered more of it.

01:15:54.140 | Again the primary thing that I took from it was a little bit of information from 10 years

01:16:00.380 | ago as I remembered the commentary on demographics on a global basis and also the commentary

01:16:06.100 | on Mexico.

01:16:07.100 | And those two things have been influential to me.

01:16:09.260 | But I had forgotten most of the stuff related to Russia and Ukraine and just simply not

01:16:14.340 | followed it closely over the years.

01:16:17.620 | But I hope you enjoy the book and I hope having a little bit more insight into what's happening

01:16:21.740 | from the Russian point of view you can see a little bit more of what's happening.

01:16:26.980 | And then in the days to come as we see an incredibly united front against Russia, watch

01:16:33.460 | carefully because it'll be fascinating to see what happens along the way.

01:16:39.660 | So I hope that you enjoy that insight from again an author writing 10 years ago, nothing

01:16:46.140 | coming back to today.

01:16:48.700 | I want to simply close with "Where Does It End?"

01:16:58.020 | And I'll just give a couple of things.

01:16:59.580 | So again this book, it hasn't come out exactly as intended.

01:17:04.340 | One of the things that's interesting is why didn't it?

01:17:09.020 | And I didn't pay much attention to the global geopolitics over the last six or eight years

01:17:13.740 | but it's really interesting to go back now and in light of what I've reread over the

01:17:18.060 | last couple of days think about what happened, right?

01:17:20.980 | Did, for example, the American president make a difference?

01:17:24.820 | There was all the arguments about Russia and President Trump and what Putin would or wouldn't

01:17:30.540 | do and all of those things.

01:17:32.620 | I don't know.

01:17:33.620 | But where does it end?

01:17:35.340 | And so again this particular prediction in 2010 didn't come true exactly in the timeline.

01:17:40.940 | It seems to be delayed from what the author originally thought would happen.

01:17:45.820 | But I thought it was interesting to focus on the end result as predicted by this author

01:17:53.580 | because he talks about it.

01:17:57.980 | He talks about how Russia will focus on increasing, developing its internal, solving its economic

01:18:05.500 | problems, which Russia has clearly worked hard on doing.

01:18:09.260 | And let's start here.

01:18:11.340 | "By 2020 this confrontation will be the dominant global issue and everyone will think of it

01:18:16.420 | as a permanent problem.

01:18:18.260 | The confrontation will not be as comprehensive as the first Cold War.

01:18:21.940 | The Russians will lack the power to seize all of Eurasia and there will not be a true

01:18:26.340 | global threat.

01:18:28.180 | They will, however, be a regional threat, and that is the context in which the United

01:18:31.900 | States will respond.

01:18:33.580 | There will be tension all along the Russian frontier, but the United States will not be

01:18:37.180 | able to or need to impose a complete cordon around Russia as it did around the Soviet

01:18:43.260 | Union.

01:18:44.700 | Given the confrontation, the European dependence on hydrocarbons, much of it derived from Russia,

01:18:50.580 | will become a strategic issue.

01:18:53.020 | The American strategy will be to de-emphasize the focus on hydrocarbon energy sources.

01:18:58.500 | This will kick into high gear the American interest in developing alternative sources

01:19:02.220 | of energy.

01:19:03.220 | Russia, as before, will focus on its existing industries rather than on the development

01:19:07.980 | of new ones.

01:19:09.420 | That will mean increased oil and natural gas production, rather than new energy sources.

01:19:14.500 | As a result, Russia is not going to be in the forefront of the technological developments

01:19:17.720 | that will dominate the later portions of the century.

01:19:20.500 | Instead, Russia will need to develop its military capabilities.

01:19:23.580 | Thus, as it has over the past two centuries, Russia will devote the bulk of its research

01:19:28.700 | and development money to applying new technologies toward military ends and expanding existing

01:19:33.900 | industries causing it to fall behind the United States and the rest of the world in non-military

01:19:39.300 | but valuable technology.

01:19:41.340 | It will be particularly hurt, paradoxically, by its hydrocarbon riches, because it will

01:19:46.260 | not be motivated to develop new technologies and will be burdened by military spending.

01:19:51.300 | During the first phase of Russia's reassertion of power until about 2010 or so, Russia will

01:19:56.260 | be grossly underestimated.

01:19:58.100 | It will be perceived as a fractured country with a stagnant economy and a weak military.

01:20:03.140 | In the 2010s, when the confrontation intensifies on its borders and its immediate neighbors

01:20:07.820 | become alarmed, the greater powers will continue to be dismissive.

01:20:12.020 | The United States, in particular, tends to first underestimate and then overestimate

01:20:17.380 | enemies.

01:20:18.600 | By the middle of the 2010s, the United States will again be obsessed with Russia.

01:20:23.140 | There is an interesting process to observe here.

01:20:25.420 | The United States swings between moods but actually, as we have seen, executes a very

01:20:29.500 | consistent and rational foreign policy.

01:20:32.360 | In this case, the United States will move to its manic state that will focus on keeping

01:20:36.780 | Russia tied in knots without going to war.

01:20:39.620 | It will matter a great deal where the fault line lies.

01:20:43.100 | If Russia's resurgence is to be a minimal crisis, the Russians will dominate Central

01:20:48.380 | Asia and the Caucasus and possibly absorb Moldova, but they will not be able to absorb

01:20:54.020 | the Baltic states or dominate any nations west of the Carpathians.

01:20:58.580 | If the Russians do manage to absorb the Baltics and gain significant allies in the Balkans

01:21:03.620 | like Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece, or Central European countries such as Slovakia, the competition

01:21:09.220 | between the United States and Russia will be more intense and frightening.

01:21:13.340 | In the end though, it won't truly matter.

01:21:15.900 | Russian military power will be severely strained, confronting the fraction of American military

01:21:27.840 | power that the United States decides to wield in responding to Russia's moves.

01:21:33.260 | Regardless of what the rest of Europe does, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania

01:21:38.340 | will be committed to resisting Russian advances, and will make any deal the United States wants

01:21:44.700 | in order to gain its support.

01:21:46.700 | The line, therefore, will be drawn in the Carpathian Mountains this time, rather than

01:21:50.980 | in Germany as it was during the Cold War.

01:21:53.540 | The Polish northern plains will be the main line of confrontation, but the Russians will

01:21:57.460 | not move militarily.

01:21:59.460 | The causes that ignited this confrontation, and the Cold War before it, will impose the

01:22:04.380 | same outcome as the Cold War, this time with less effort for the United States.

01:22:09.300 | The last confrontation occurred in Central Europe.

01:22:12.940 | This one will take place much farther to the east.

01:22:15.840 | In the last confrontation, China was an ally of Russia, at least in the beginning.

01:22:20.180 | In this case, China will be out of the game.

01:22:22.820 | Last time, Russia was in complete control of the Caucasus, but now it will not be, and

01:22:27.020 | it will be facing American and Turkish pressure northward.

01:22:30.680 | In the last confrontation, Russia had a large population, but this time around it has a

01:22:34.580 | smaller and declining population.

01:22:37.680 | Internal pressure, particularly in the south, will divert Russian attention from the west,

01:22:42.100 | and eventually, without war, it will break.

01:22:45.180 | Russia broke in 1917, and again in 1991, and the country's military will collapse once

01:22:50.500 | more shortly after 2020.

01:22:56.720 | My aim in reading that to you was that you would have the opportunity to hear from a

01:23:02.500 | somewhat distant but expert voice a little bit about the context of Russia, so that you

01:23:11.260 | would then be able to use that as a filter through watching the events today.

01:23:15.620 | Again, that author's predictions have not come true exactly as he said, of course not.

01:23:24.300 | Friedman I still find to be an extremely astute analyst.

01:23:27.220 | If you're interested, he has a great newsletter and website called geopoliticalfutures.com.

01:23:33.140 | You can subscribe at geopoliticalfutures.com for his posts and consulting work, his analysis,

01:23:40.740 | their forecasts, etc. from him and his entire team.

01:23:44.100 | I appreciate his content very much, helping me to understand the world a little bit.

01:23:51.580 | I would encourage you to read the whole book.

01:23:53.540 | Of course, and he acknowledges right up front, predicting an entire century is a challenging

01:23:59.820 | thing, but it'll give you a sense of where we are.

01:24:02.100 | I think that what's helpful to me about this kind of analysis, this kind of prediction,

01:24:05.980 | is it takes away some of the impact of the day-to-day events and helps me to focus on

01:24:10.820 | the big picture.

01:24:13.100 | My hope is that if you're still here, you've been able to take this information, enjoy

01:24:17.420 | it, gain a little bit more understanding, and then you'll have a little bit more of

01:24:20.820 | a background to follow the news of today as we watch the events happening in that region

01:24:27.460 | of the world.

01:24:28.460 | May God bless you.

01:24:30.220 | May God bring peace in the region.

01:24:33.300 | That is my hope, my prayer.

01:24:34.740 | My family and I are praying diligently that God would bring peace, would restrain the

01:24:40.020 | evildoers and bring peace and protect loss of life.

01:24:42.780 | War is hell.

01:24:43.780 | And I think we see that very clearly in front of us.

01:24:47.660 | And so may God be with you and your families, and may God bring peace to the region.

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2022-03-03_Strategic_Background_on_Russia_and_Ukraine