Comments by "Jim Luebke" (@jimluebke3869) on "A Chinese Listening Post in Cuba: What It Means for the US || Peter Zeihan" video.

  1. What kind of trouble would the Cubans have to be in, to accept a deal with us where they dramatically revise their government and economic structure in return for economic integration? Sounds like we could double their standard of living in less than a decade, cementing whatever government system they had in power for two or three generations at least, if we could close that kind of deal.
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  2. If the Mississippi system is the core of American power, why isn't the Midwest the dominant political force in the country? I suspect that once the Midwest starts to see the Rockies and the Appalachians as bulwarks against the Coasts, the US is in trouble, and Canada too. The fact that we aren't still (east to west) English - French - Spanish countries, seems to be an accident of history that pure American geography would not have predicted. Seriously, if you rotate the US 90 degrees counterclockwise, you get a very similar profile to China. Starting at the bottom and again going counterclockwise: First you get a large mountain range separating coastal cities (with Hong Kong roughly equivalent to San Francisco). Then a major river or two (New Orleans sort of like Shanghai). Finally a highly internationalized connection to the outside world (land-based Silk Road vs. Maritime-based New England). The fact that historically speaking a huge chunk of the American population immigrated here through New York, explains why our nation's financial system is at the mouth of the modest Hudson watershed rather than the gargantuan Missouri. Our capital being smack dab in the middle of the Eastern Seaboard rather than somewhere on the Ozark plateau, is a similar accident of the time. Also, if you think that the transmontagne cities of the American West coast are less independent-minded than those of the Chinese south coast, you haven't been paying attention to Seattle, or Portland, or San Francisco. If the political power of California wanes (as it will, with its economy and population falling dramatically) we may see a case similar to Scotland, which only seems to be in the UK because a Scot gets to be king or PM most of the time.
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  3. It's probably worth mentioning that Djibouti is strategically relevant because the Europeans base their anti-piracy squadron there, to cover the Horn of Africa.
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