Modern Wisdom #1028 — Peter Zeihan: The New World Order Is Here

Date: December 4, 2025
Host: Chris Williamson
Guest: Peter Zeihan

Episode Overview

In this episode, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan joins Chris Williamson to explore the future of global power, demographics, energy, technology, and the shifting world order. With his signature apocalyptic wit, Zeihan breaks down why America's dominance is less about exceptionalism and more about everyone else's accelerating challenges, especially demographic collapse and brittle supply chains. The conversation covers the unraveling of globalization, demographic time bombs (with a deep dive on China), the harsh realities of green tech, the pitfalls of electric vehicles, and why the next technological arms race may change our global priorities overnight.

Key Topics and Insights

1. America’s Unlikely Endurance

Main Point:
America’s success in the next era is a result of other nations, especially China, facing deeper crises.

• “America doesn’t win the next era because it’s brilliant. It wins because everyone else is screwed.” — Peter Zeihan (00:00)
• The US is largely self-sufficient in food and energy.
• Geographic advantages isolate the US from security threats that challenge Eurasian countries.
• China’s dependency on international trade makes it far more fragile.

2. China’s Demographic Collapse & Structural Weaknesses

Main Points:
China’s population and geography create existential threats.

• Zeihan predicts the end of China as we know it in a decade due to an aging population and falsified demographic data.
• “The Chinese stopped having babies about 45 years ago and they’re now on the verge of running out of 50-year-olds. And there is not an economic model…that will work with where they will be demographically in less than 10 years' time.” (00:49)
• Historical lies in population statistics mean China’s woes are worse than reported: overcounting of 100–300 million people.
• Geography prevents internal cohesion and trade due to unnavigable rivers and poor topsoil.
• US-imposed global security after WW2 let China become an export superpower, now that guarantee is ending.

Memorable Quote:
“We are living in the equivalent of like 2006 subprime, where everyone’s like all ooh and ah and it’s all about to go tits up.” — Zeihan (01:32)

3. The Coming End of Globalization

Main Points:
The liberal trading order fueled by the US Navy is fraying.

• Before WW2, empires built navies to protect trade; postwar US opened their market to build the alliance against the USSR.
• As America turns inward, it no longer wants to "pay" for global order.
• Countries like China and Korea need open markets to survive as exporters, but younger consumer nations haven’t grown enough to replace western demand.

“We bribed up an alliance…It was supposed to be unfair to the United States from an economic point of view.” — Zeihan (05:04)

4. AI, Robotics & The Limits of Technological Substitutes

Main Points:
AI will not solve demographic decline.

• 80% of current AI advances attack white-collar, not blue-collar or reproductive gaps.
• “The job shortages in the advanced world…are all blue collar…They’re not coders.” (13:58)
• Robots can’t pay taxes, raise kids, or consume products—key for economic dynamism.

5. Global Birth Rate Crisis and Who Survives

Main Points:
The demographic cliff is not just China’s problem—it’s spreading to Europe and beyond.

• Even India is now aging, with declining birth rates.
• Japan made efforts to reverse decline, but is only delaying the inevitable.
• Zeihan asserts: once a country’s average age passes 40, and especially 45, traditional recovery is impossible.

“When your average age slips past 40 and especially past 45…There’s no longer a traditional biological path. It’s about smoothing the decline, stretching it out.” — Zeihan (19:36)

6. Immigration: Solution or Mirage?

Main Points:
Immigration can only help if it’s begun early and at great scale.

• For countries like Germany, to maintain population they would have to import 2 million young people per year—impractical and destabilizing (25:12).
• Settler societies (US, Canada, Australia) have handled demographic transition better, but everyone else is out of time.

7. Geopolitics in an Aging, Fragmenting World

Main Points:

• Shrinking workforces force exporters to depend acutely on access to the remaining consumption markets—the US above all.
• Populist and nationalist politics gaining ground as older cohorts get larger and younger generations become more radicalized and desperate.

8. The Messy Reality of Green Energy and EVs

Main Points:
Green tech is limited by physical constraints, not just political will.

• “Any country where EVs are not subsidized, there are no EVs.” (35:33)
• Grid upgrades, battery minerals (copper, lithium, graphite), and processing are the main bottlenecks.
• Most green energy solutions are only viable in specific geographies (e.g., solar in sunny places; wind in windy places).
• The US must increase copper consumption massively to industrialize further—and nearly all global ore is processed in China and India.

“Spending $30 trillion to achieve net zero in the US by 2050 assumes these technologies do what they say…We already know that they don’t.” — Zeihan (59:16)

• Batteries for EVs create more pollution upfront and don’t fit the current US energy grid.
• “Tesla…is a non-viable company by any normal math.” (45:36)
• Transitioning away from gasoline vehicles at the scale required is likely not possible with current chemistry.

9. Energy Security & The Looming Crunch

Main Points:
The next energy system shock will reshape geopolitics.

• China is most vulnerable to energy cutoffs due to import dependence.
• Europe, thanks to changes since the Ukraine war, is adapting better than expected.
• Most green energy and EV supply chains are totally dependent on globalization and cross-border mineral flows.
• The next breakthrough—whether in batteries, capacitors, or another technology—will instantly reshuffle which countries matter most (60:25–62:27).

10. The Future of War: Rapid Evolution and Uncertainty

Main Points:

• Ukraine is a testing ground for rapid, unpredictable tech progress in war—especially drones and AI.
• “We’ve had more technological evolutions in the last three years, just in Ukraine, than the rest of the world combined has had since 1960.” (69:38)
• New military doctrines are being written in real time.

11. The State and Fragility of Alliances

Main Points:

• US–Japan: Alliance made stronger by Trump, but also destabilized by the unpredictability of US policy.
• Vietnam: Poised to become a top-five US trading partner due to youth, STEM capacity.
• Mexico: Quietly becoming an industrial power thanks to US proximity.

Memorable Quotes

• On America’s Advantage:
  “America doesn’t win the next era because it’s brilliant. It wins because everyone else is screwed.” — Zeihan (00:00)

• On China’s Demographics:
  “The Chinese problem is that they've run out of people under age 50…and there is no way that AI can help with consumption or child rearing.” — Zeihan (14:39)

• On Tech Limitations:
  “AI is a completely different technological suite from automation…robots don't pay taxes and can't raise kids.” (15:05)

• On Green Tech Illusions:
  “There are no EVs, there are no battery chassis, there is no solar, there is no wind, there is no nuclear. Without globalization.” (54:39)

• On EV Economics:
  “Tesla…is a non-viable company by any normal math.” (45:36)

• On Alliances:
  “If Mexico was located anywhere else in the world with the industrial plant that it is, we would already talk about it as being more powerful than Germany or France…” (78:17)

Important Timestamps

• America’s unique position: 00:00–01:30
• China’s demographic crisis: 01:42–11:09
• AI and the myth it will solve decline: 11:09–15:17
• Global aging and immigration limits: 17:33–26:15
• Green energy, EVs & minerals: 35:21–59:52
• Energy vulnerabilities: 51:30–53:27
• Global supply chain risks: 62:50–66:40
• Ukraine: new era of warfare: 66:53–70:19
• Fragile/new alliances: 78:10–81:47

Notable Moments

• Khashoggi Case & Saudi Arabia:
  Zeihan describes the barbary and duplicity of Saudi elites with dark humor (“seasoned with journalists”—34:02).
• Green tech reality checks:
  Zeihan slams EV economics and the optimistic timeframes for green transitions in places like the UK and Germany.
• Population and Politics:
  Nuanced dissection of shifts in US parties and demographic voting blocks (30:13–32:24).

Closing Thoughts

Peter Zeihan delivers his signature blend of realism and dark humor to explain why the “new world order” is less a result of anyone’s brilliance and more a function of global unraveling. He urges listeners to adjust their expectations for technology, energy, and alliances—and to understand that the next big global change may come from places or innovations nobody expects.

Find more from Peter at zeihan.com.