This Is The Way The World Ends (w/ Zeihan & Gertken)
Four geopolitical analysts discuss how the world could end within 10 years through interconnected crises: de-globalization and demographic collapse (Zeihan), Russian political instability and potential nuclear conflict (Gertken), Chinese aggression driven by insecurity amid technological change (Gerken), and the erosion of the nation-state model alongside systemic complexity (Gerken). They argue that declining demand, aging populations, fragile supply chains, and emerging autonomous military technologies create cascading vulnerabilities with no single solution.
Summary
Peter Zeihan opens with a systemic analysis of global collapse driven by two primary factors: de-globalization and demographics. He argues the post-Cold War global trade system was built on American security guarantees that no longer hold. Simultaneously, industrialization moved populations from farms to cities, reducing birth rates; the world is now running out of 50-year-olds rather than children. This demographic cliff combined with interconnected, fragile supply chains creates a cascade risk. Zeihan highlights current vulnerabilities: the U.S. has depleted half its global interceptor supply responding to Iranian drone threats, while memory drones (autonomous systems with onboard decision trees) are democratizing military capability. He projects potential collapse of global oil processing capacity within months, leading to de-industrialization, population reduction of 50-75%, and reversion to regional systems. His worst case involves autonomous military platforms making conventional conflict impossible to control.
Marco Gertken frames the crisis through Russian collapse and nuclear escalation. He argues that every time Russia launches an offensive war (Crimean War, 1905 Russo-Japanese War, 1917 Great War, Afghanistan), it experiences domestic political upheaval—emancipation movements, revolution, communism's rise, Soviet collapse, or Putin's weakening. He predicts Ukraine will push beyond Bogotá and Rostov-on-Don into Russia proper, triggering a political crisis. Russia's aging, closed elite (youngest in mid-50s, total of ~100 people) cannot manage a contested succession. This creates conditions for non-rational actors to seize power—potentially ideologically driven leaders who, like Hitler, might view nuclear weapons as politically necessary. He stresses that the power vacuum created by Russian weakness is the greatest geopolitical risk: Europe may expand militarily, China may exploit the chaos, and internal Russian conflicts could involve nuclear weapons used domestically.
Matt Gerken presents a multipolar-to-conflict scenario centered on China's methodical expansion and Taiwan's irreducibility. He argues China is absorbing buffer states (Tibet 2008, Xinjiang 2011, Hong Kong 2019) and attempting to subsume Russia as a resource satellite. When China attempts Taiwan, Japan and South Korea will go nuclear, reviving ancient animosities. Simultaneously, new drone technology (South Korea's Zayden, with 10,000-step decision trees) and eroding nuclear deterrence change the strategic calculus. Gerken projects Taiwan negotiations around 2028-2032, followed by Chinese aggression around 2033-2036 when they realize Taiwan won't surrender critical tech and service sectors. The combination of powder-keg conditions in Asia, loss of strategic stability, and China's demographic implosion creates World War III risk. However, he acknowledges that Taiwan's conventional military capacity with new drones may make invasion impossible without nuclear escalation.
All speakers agree on core vulnerabilities: energy transition brittleness, semiconductor supply chain concentration (ASML's EUV lithography is single-sourced across 60 countries and 4,500 specialized suppliers), and the tension between depopulation and maintained consumption. They debate whether demographic decline necessarily causes economic collapse. Zeihan argues demand collapse is inevitable; Gertken counters that affluent populations might maintain consumption even as total population shrinks. They discuss whether AI and robotics could replace lost workers or whether their dependence on advanced chips makes them vulnerable to supply chain collapse.
On secondary topics: Zeihan emphasizes that high-end semiconductors (7nm and below) require EUV and will vanish if global supply chains break, but older 20-40nm chips (used in memory drones) are survivable in deglobalized scenarios and sufficient for military applications. Gertken notes that China's demographic crisis (possibly 100-500 million missing working-age people) creates both aggressive and passive response scenarios. Gerken raises the possibility of internal Russian nuclear weapon use during civil conflict and notes that the EU may need to absorb buffer territories militarily.
On nation-state futures: Gerken argues the traditional 19th-century nation-state is dying but state capacity will transform into new governance models—possibly medieval/feudal, possibly tech-dominated, possibly hybrid. He predicts the showdown between tech companies and states will resemble historical corporate-vs.-state conflicts (East India Company, Hudson Bay Company), with states ultimately prevailing but not before significant disruption. Zeihan stresses that knowledge of complex systems is fragile; when Rome collapsed from 1 million to 50,000 people, everyone forgot how to do everything, suggesting that technological persistence of knowledge cannot be assumed.
They close by identifying core views at risk: Zeihan's assumption of deflationary energy by 2030s could be wrong if AI demand surges or renewables/nuclear fail. Gertken's multipolarity thesis could be wrong if the U.S. reasserts dominance through technological superiority. Gerken's belief in generational depolarization and renewed state capacity by the 2030s could be wrong if extreme ideologies triumph. All acknowledge the 10-year timeframe forces some linearity but emphasizes non-linearity as built into geopolitics—citing examples like al-Qaeda members later leading Middle Eastern states.
About this episode
<p>Sixteen years after last sharing a table together, four Stratfor alumni reunite for a wide-ranging conversation on the decade ahead. Jacob and Marko are joined by Peter Zeihan, and Matt Gertken to tackle three questions: How does the world end in the next 10 years? What core belief could each of us get wrong? And what's the least expected, most likely thing to happen next?</p><p>The conversation ranges from deglobalization and collapsing oil supply chains to the demographic cliff facing the developed world, the odds of deflation versus inflation in the 2030s, and whether the global order ends up multipolar, bipolar, or unipolar. They also debate the odds of a US-China clash over Taiwan, and whether the nation-state can survive a coming showdown with the tech companies and billionaires who increasingly control critical infrastructure - including orbit.</p><p>--</p><p><strong><u>Timestamps:</u></strong></p><p>(00:00) - Welcome and Setup</p><p>(02:05) - Reunion at the Table</p><p>(03:11) - Episode Premise and Format</p><p>(04:22) - Zeihan on Deglobalization</p><p>(06:42) - Energy Shock Fallout</p><p>(08:52) - Demographics and Demand Crash</p><p>(11:03) - Deflation vs Inflation Debate</p><p>(16:25) - Drone Warfare Dark Turn</p><p>(18:21) - Semiconductors Reality Check</p><p>(27:27) - Marco Goes Nuclear</p><p>(30:10) - Russia Collapse Scenarios</p><p>(33:18) - Nukes Spread and Ukraine Endgame</p><p>(35:31) - Supply Chain Shockwaves</p><p>(36:34) - Putin Hell Bar Joke</p><p>(37:18) - Europe Expansion Debate</p><p>(39:26) - EU Becomes Military Union</p><p>(40:37) - Post Putin Chaos Risks</p><p>(43:08) - Russian Elite Succession</p><p>(44:27) - Civil War Nuclear Fear</p><p>(47:34) - China Fills The Vacuum</p><p>(52:26) - Taiwan Timeline Scenario</p><p>(53:59) - Drones Nukes And Invasion</p><p>(56:43) - Deterrence And Flashpoints</p><p>(01:03:34) - China Demographics Clash</p><p>(01:05:15) - Depopulation Not Disaster</p><p>(01:06:14) - Black Plague Lessons</p><p>(01:07:11) - Automation Versus Depopulation</p><p>(01:07:22) - Japan China Depopulation Debate</p><p>(01:09:31) - End of Nation State</p><p>(01:11:18) - Shocks and State Capacity</p><p>(01:12:04) - Broken World of More</p><p>(01:13:07) - Knowledge Networks Collapse</p><p>(01:14:31) - Affluence Feudalism Demand</p><p>(01:16:51) - Brittle AI Chip Supply</p><p>(01:21:39) - Ingenuity Gap Reversal</p><p>(01:23:34) - Rapid Fire Predictions</p><p>(01:35:47) - State Versus Tech Showdown</p><p>(01:40:24) - Wrap and Break</p><p>--</p><p><strong><u>Referenced in the Show:</u></strong></p><p><a href="https://zeihan.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://zeihan.com/</a></p><p>--</p><p><strong>Jacob Shapiro Site:</strong> <a href="https://jacobshapiro.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">jacobshapiro.com</a></p><p><strong>Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416</a></p><p><strong>Jacob Twitter:</strong> <a href="https://x.com/JacobShap" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">x.com/JacobShap</a></p><p><strong>Jacob Shapiro Substack: </strong><a href="https://jashap.substack.com/subscribe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">jashap.substack.com/subscribe </a></p><p>--</p><p><strong>The Jacob Shapiro Show</strong> is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com</p><p>--</p><p><strong>Jacob Shapiro</strong> is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.</p><p>--</p>
Key Insights
- Zeihan argues the global trade system was built as a Cold War security bribe, not an economic necessity, and cannot survive without American military guarantee
- Demographic transition to fewer 50-year-olds (rather than fewer children) breaks consumption-based economic models because there's no one to purchase goods
- Memory drones—autonomous systems with onboard decision trees requiring no satellite control—have democratized military capability to the point that Ukraine built them in months from a van
- The U.S. has consumed half its global interceptor supply in recent conflicts and cannot sustain another Iran-scale military engagement
- EUV semiconductor manufacturing is single-sourced through ASML (Netherlands) and involves 4,500 specialized companies across 60 countries, making it irreplaceable in deglobalized scenarios
- Russia's political elite (approximately 100 people) is aged out and incapable of managing succession without internal conflict, creating conditions for ideologically driven outsiders to seize power
- Every major Russian military offensive in the last 150 years (Crimean War, 1905, 1917, Afghanistan) has been followed by domestic political crisis and institutional collapse
- Taiwan cannot be invaded via sea if drone technology matures because naval transport is defenseless against autonomous aircraft with onboard target recognition
- China's probable missing working-age population (100-500 million people by conservative estimates) creates dual-pathway insecurity: both passive retreat and aggressive resource-seeking
- The complexity of modern supply chains means that when systems break, knowledge of how to rebuild them is lost, as demonstrated by Rome's collapse from 1 million to 50,000 people resulting in civilizational amnesia
- Deflation caused by simultaneous demand destruction and supply chain segmentation will be politically unsustainable and likely trigger institutional breakdown before market-clearing mechanisms function
- The emerging competition between tech companies (particularly those controlling satellites, AI, and autonomous systems) and nation-states will resemble historical corporate-vs.-state conflicts and states will prevail through control of organized violence
Topics
Transcript
Hello, listeners, and welcome to a very special episode of Geopolitical Cousins. Joining me on this episode of the podcast, besides Cousin Marco and myself, is Peter Zaihan and Matt Gerken. These conversations were filmed over the course of the entire day of June 15th at Matt's house in Taos, New Mexico. I apologize that it took us a little while to produce it. It's a long story that has to deal with a video editor in Nepal and lots of other things that are not interesting. It's also rare for us. This was really the first time as the cousins that we decided to do something in person. So we wanted to line up the video editing with the…
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