By Rich Kozlovich
George Friedman is the owner of Geopolitical Futures, a subscription site, and well worth it, I just upped my subscription for three more years, who has stated on more than one occasion the cold war didn't really end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The cold war was predicated on preventing Russia from conquering Europe, hence the creation of NATO. But the collapse of the Soviet Union didn't alter Russian goals. The still had the same goal of taking over Europe just as it was the Soviet Union's. As a result the cold war continued as a practical reality. George states that concern ended with the Russo/Ukrainian War, which ended the cold war reality.
Previous to this, everyone, including me, believed NATO was a wet paper bag without the United States, and it was! As a result without American support it was reasonably beleived Russia could drive down the North European plain right into France, and Europe wouldn't be able to stop them. While I believed Russia could cut right through Europe, but I didn't believe they could hold it. Even before this it was clear Russia didn't have the economic wherewithal, nor did they have the manpower to do so as Russia's demographic pyramid was a mess. Well, everyone, including me, was wrong! Even without American support we now realize Europe still had the technological and military capability and wherewithal to have stopped them in Poland.
Russia has what they consider seven defensive gaps that must be maintained. Ten years ago they only had manpower to fully man three of them, and it's gotten much worse since then as Putin is destroying his young population. The Russian demographic pyramid was already all out of whack with the 15 to 50 demographic filled with alcoholics, drug users, victims of AIDS and drug resistant TB. The critical 15 to 50 age group which creates the economy and the next generation, both of which he's destroying. Socialism always turns into a form of monarchy. It doesn't matter whether you call an autocrat Emperor, Chairman, President or King. An autocrat is an autocrat and invariably they cannibalize the societies they control.
We now we know Russia isn't the mighty bear we thought it was. Russia had what was considered the number two military in the world, yet it has been unable to defeat the number twenty two rated military in almost four years, and has now had to resort to threatening to use nukes.
Russia's now lost hundreds of thousands of young men, and is now running out of young bodies to fight the war and being forced to using "volunteers" from N. Korea and China. They can't manufacture all of their own military hardware, and is now being attacked with drones deeper inside Russia destroying their oil and gas depots, which they had already used to destroy the Russian Black Sea fleet. Drones are the new military strategic horizon, giving small nations a fighting chance, and that technology is going to expand massively now, right along with laser weaponry, which I've written about.
The reality of Russia's demographics is coming home to roost as now they're inviting immigrants from Africa and Asia to work in their factories, and that's a poison pill since it was estimated over ten years ago the ethnic population of Russia would be a minority in their own land by 2040, fifteen years away. I've not seen any recent estimates but I wouldn't be shocked to see that's closer to eight years away now. It's interesting to see how many are coming from the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia, since they're following their own economic visions with international trade and moving closer to China. And... Russia's economic minister is predicting a recession. The hits just keep right on coming.
So, back to George Friedman. He notes this real end of the cold war has put the world's leaders in a quandary seeking an anchor to their thinking and planning, and that's moving away from Europe to the Middle East and Asia.
What the world is facing is a much higher level of geopolitical risks than has existed for decades, none of which will go away any time soon, and those are tied in with very serious domestic political issues which are going go haunt us for decades, much of them due to the unbridled immigration the Obama/Biden cabal forced on America in order to destroy America. And please stop foolishly believing otherwise because if you can't accept that, you can't understand anything going on. The evidence of that was obvious to the most casual observer while Obama was President, and now it's overwhelming since Trump was reelected and everything they did is being exposed for the treason it was.
Economically the world is in trouble with the world's nations being in debt to almost 310 trillion dollars, much of which can't be repaid, and most political "leaders" are averse to fixing that as they're embracing the welfare state mentality to keep their jobs, including America, which I believe the Big Beautiful Bill will demonstrate when it passes. The result is we're looking at inflation and a worldwide recession on the horizon.
Investors are becoming more and more risk averse, and rightly so, especially the new generation coming up. Fixed income is in jeopardy, and trade policies are shifting the world's focus on investments with no idea what to do about it.
Do I believe there will there be less violence, enhanced with a better, safer, and more stable economic climate in the near future? No!
And that's the only thing I'm certain about.
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Once all that is agreed to then they can have a sit down and negotiate, in Tel Aviv.