Lately, owing to the Russians' special military operation in Ukraine, geopolitics has come on my radar.
With the sanctions, of course, comes a greater likelihood that dollar hegemony and hence the USA's unipolar world could be coming to an end. If so, this would have significant effects upon investment and speculation. In a multipolar world, many of the so-called Global South countries likely would pivot to serving a China-Russia pole rather than a USA one.
That aside, some of the voices in geopolitics have come to me, men like Peter Zeihan and George Friedman, among others. In this video, Friedman pushes his dogmatic view on the topic. His thinking seems to be stuck in a bygone era.
Weaponry is Military Capital
Power comes from finances. It has always. In the days of money, i.e., coined metal (gold) by weight and fineness, a monarch who could spend more on military capital for his troops and thus his troops had a better shot at winning a war.
The higher the per capita capital spend on soldiers, the more productivity one gains each soldier on average, i.e., the more of the enemy each soldier can kill. To be a great geopolitical power, i.e., a country with a superior military as Friedman means, one needs high per capital military capital spending that leads to the greatest military profit, i.e., the highest kill ratio per soldier.
One also needs cheaper-to-them energy relative to rivals. It does no good to have soldiers and weaponry if one can not get that weaponry to where it needs to go, the theatre of operation.
Countries that have the lower cost per unit of energy have advantages. Jet fuel, hypersonic rocket fuel and the like also are military capital in the same way bullets are, missiles are, rifles are and so on.
Friedman Earned a PhD Once Upon a Time
Friedman's knowledge is outdated. The knowledge for Friedman's Ph. D. came from 50 years ago, likely taught to him by 50 year olds whose dogma, in turn, they accepted 30 years before teaching Friedman. Thus, Friedman's mental frame / world view is 80 years old. Perhaps Friedman has supplemented it with a tinge of contemporary artifacts masquerading as new knowledge.
This is not even my field and I see it clearly in thirty seconds. The most efficient military capital structure allows the highest military productivity. New military tech renders obsolete extant military capital structures overnight.
So for example, a battery of hypersonic missiles guided to targets by real-time satellite intel renders obsolete an aircraft carrier sailing in the ocean off one's coast far enough away from the shore from conventional cannon batteries by close enough that airplanes on its flight deck could bomb coastal cities.
Great Geopolitical Power Countries
Countries with great geopolitical power have the closest thing to a "free market" in their military economy. By that I mean, their politicians do not try to keep alive through subsidy, obsolete weapons systems as they would non-military industries and firms.
The military planners and schemers of such countries are quick to invest in new military capital structures that make their soldiers more efficient while quickly writing-off extant military capital that has become equalized by the military capital structures of rivals.
The USA and Dollar Hegemony
Since the world trades in U.S. dollars and thus must earn U.S. dollars, the military and government men behind the USA have enjoyed a clear advantage. In effect, foreigners have paid for much of the military capital structure of the USA as the need to earn US dollars to buy oil and trade in imports and exports has allowed the U.S. Congress to run significant deficits yearly.
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