Back to the Glory Days of the Spice Trade || Sept 4, 2026

Britain has abandoned its centuries-old naval power traditions. They're forked unless they can turn it back around. Time to retire some admirals and buy some boats.

DISTRIBUTED ENERGY: A MILITARY AND NATIONAL SECURITY ADVANTAGE In a conflict, dependence on fossil fuels and centralized energy infrastructure creates multiple points of vulnerability, whether those fuels are imported or domestically produced. Refineries, ports, fuel depots, power plants, pipelines, transmission lines and major distribution facilities can be attacked or disrupted. A relatively small number of successful attacks can therefore have consequences far beyond the individual targets—and potentially affect a country's ability to continue fighting. Russia provides a current example of how vulnerable a country can become when its fuel and energy systems depend on centralized infrastructure. Attacks and disruptions affecting energy infrastructure and fuel distribution have contributed to significant problems in parts of the country, demonstrating how damage to relatively concentrated systems can create consequences throughout the economy and society. The broader lesson is not about Russia alone. Any country whose energy system depends heavily on a relatively small number of centralized facilities and distribution networks faces a similar strategic vulnerability in a major conflict. But there is another way to build an energy system. The rapid expansion of distributed solar generation, wind generation and energy storage fundamentally changes the strategic equation. Instead of depending primarily on hundreds of major energy nodes, a country could have millions of distributed energy systems on homes, businesses, farms, hospitals, schools and other properties. Each becomes a small source of locally generated—and, with storage, locally available—energy. An adversary could destroy individual installations, but destroying a few would not necessarily cripple the country's energy supply. The objective changes from protecting a relatively small number of critical targets to maintaining a system with enormous redundancy. The more distributed the system becomes, the harder it is to disable as a whole. The more distributed the system becomes, the harder it is to disable as a whole. A centralized system might depend on hundreds of vulnerable nodes; a distributed system could depend on millions of individual systems, making any attempt to disable the country's energy supply far more difficult, costly and uncertain. THE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE There is another compelling reason to make this transition: the economics have changed dramatically. The cost of solar energy has fallen by more than 90% over the past decade, while the cost of energy storage has also fallen substantially over the longer term. Solar and wind are now among the lowest-cost sources of new electricity generation, and energy storage is becoming increasingly economical for many applications. There is also a major difference in the way these systems can be financed. Large centralized energy infrastructure can require investments of billions of dollars and decades of financing and cost recovery. Those costs ultimately have to be recovered through the price paid by consumers. Distributed renewable energy changes that equation. A home, business, farm or community can invest in its own solar generation and storage. Many smaller distributed systems can recover their initial investment in less than ten years under favorable conditions, while continuing technological improvements and declining costs can further improve the economics. There will inevitably be installations with longer payback periods because of location, financing, system design, electricity prices, technology choices and other circumstances. The important point is the overall trend toward increasingly competitive distributed energy. Once an installation has recovered its initial cost, it can continue producing energy for years without requiring a continual purchase of fuel. Instead of placing enormous long-term financial obligations on governments, utilities and consumers, investment can be distributed along with the energy generation itself. THE ECONOMIC EFFECT Energy is an input into almost every part of an economy. When homes and businesses generate much of their own electricity from renewable sources, money that would otherwise be spent continually purchasing fuel can remain available for spending, investment and business activity within the economy. Lower energy costs can also reduce the cost of producing and transporting goods and services, helping to relieve one of the major underlying pressures on the cost of living. Electrification of transportation can reinforce this effect by reducing dependence on a continuous supply of liquid transportation fuels and allowing transportation energy to increasingly come from the same distributed electricity system. The result is a country that is not only more energy independent and economically resilient, but potentially less vulnerable and less costly to defend. AND PERHAPS THE GREATEST BENEFIT Throughout history, access to and control of energy resources have been important factors in many conflicts and wars. Energy supplies have influenced military strategy, national security, economic power and the fate of nations. What happens when energy is no longer concentrated in a relatively small number of valuable resources and vulnerable infrastructure, but instead is widely distributed among millions of people and businesses? The strategic equation changes. When people can generate and store much of their own energy, energy becomes harder to monopolize, harder to weaponize and harder to use as a means of coercion. Countries become less dependent on vulnerable supply routes and less compelled to compete for control of distant energy resources. And, as a practical matter, it is far easier to disrupt access to a finite stock of fossil fuel than to shut off the sun. That does not eliminate the causes of war. But reducing the strategic importance and vulnerability of energy could remove one important source of tension and conflict. A world in which energy is abundant, affordable, renewable and distributed could therefore be not only more prosperous and secure, but potentially more peaceful. This is therefore more than an energy transition. It is a military strategy, an economic strategy, a cost-of-living strategy, a national-security strategy—and potentially a peace strategy. Scientia non domus habet?(Knowledge has no home) antigua john

OMG Peter, you have me thinking about Henri Pirenne and “Medieval Cities”. We’re not going back that far!

So .. after a number of years of following, reading subscribing to PZ, I have to ask ... Is he real or AI? If it's the former - how on earth does he get from one place to the next so quickly, so often, so diverse with without any indications of Jet Lag or time travel? Either way ... Keep up the good work.

Great topic, thank you for this! We have a lengthy discussion on this Navy and regional trade model on the Zeihan Discord server 👍🌎🚢💰

If I understand what Peter is saying correctly, he is saying there will be no new iPhones after 2030.

Globalization is basically fragmenting and Globalization 2.0 are smaller trading network blocs of countries aligned along cultural, ideological, political and geographic spheres.

The tax in Bursa got too big.

Why does the “The Spice Trade” conjures up the image of the planet of Arakcus in Herbert(?) novel DUNE.

“as long as we may think as we will, & speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.” Thomas Jefferson It's not that you're not right about the ability to bring down social structure easier that building it, it's that eons of time have passed since society has really flipped the table, I'm thinking the bronze age collapse even that was more or less regional. Even though humanity has been horrible to itself, it seems to find a way to develop, engineer, and overcome the challenges. Individuals are no more or less foolish and mean than always , and yet, somehow humanity as a whole continues a development that in a vast vacuum of space seems ever more miraculous. We fail in order to move forward, a cosmic enigma.

Geopolitics from the historical perspective just as cool as from the modern - love whenever you add info in to the story

Cool tie in topic with your current travel location. Not sure I agree on the complexity of protecting global shipping lanes - it's more about who can protect choke points. Not sure we are anywhere near having blue water privateers roaming the seas.

Welcome to Dune

Now that's the kind of history I like Peter. And today's children are unaware of what was and could be tomorrow. Mom said "life is like a pendulum, swings to both extremes but settles in the middle."

Oil is the new spice?

So, you're saying it would be useful to have Regional trade alliances with our near and slightly farther neighbors - like Canada and Mexico and Central and South America? Maybe we should develop a North American trade alliance.

Wow! Fascinating! Peter, I wish YOU could have been my history teacher.

Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum. ☠️

Someone always brings up “International Law” - the funny this is - there is no International Law.

Solid-- good model. Time to dig out Braudel too?

The middleman.

The Spice must flow!

What about shipping through air? Airplanes carry cargo all the time.

Good talk!!

Is there a reason why ships can't draw a straight line from India to the horn of Africa and avoid the contested choke points? I get where you'd want to take a shortcut, but doesn't mean you have to take a shortcut. And the same rules apply to such a route, there aren't enough competent bad actors/as with available Navy's to interfere with such a route. Apologies if this is a simple look at thinks.

PZ & Team - you speak of the increasing threats to sea lanes & shipping in the future - could you describe & expound upon what, where, who, how those will be? Thank you

Will this "back to the old normal" make the modern day Turkey a new super power like Ottomans were at the time tapping all that trade? They recently settled Caucuses, Syria and Libya after Russian strategic collapse, there is the recent Kurdish peace and security deal with Saudis to position themselves as the new hegemon of the region, there is also the organization of Turkic states, probably also benefiting from Russia's decline, it's strategic foe Iran is in serious trouble, definitely interesting times.

That was a good one. Have a nice weekend Backpacking in Yosemite Valley ...👌👍 ... So that's what The Adriatic looks like phrum The Italian coast side- hmm? ... 😺... 👁️ always 👁️👁️ it phrum the Dalmatian Coast side. Very nice. 🐈

From type 1 to type 0 civilisation

There are no choke points in the Atlantic or Pacific routes.