Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

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The State Of Play In Late 2025

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On November 3, 2025

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Let’s run thru the important points:

Domestically in the US the only issue that really matters is affordability. Food, housing and medicine. This will dominate the next few years, maybe even the next decade. Mamdani will win, he will be blocked from doing much of he wants by courts and the the State and federal government, and his future will depend on him making those who stop him the villains. The mid-terms and the next election will be fought in bread and butter issues.

China is going to win the AI race, as predicted. 

This is, again, because Chinese models are at least 90% cheaper to run, and mostly open source. Only a complete and utter moron would run their business using proprietary models where OpenAI or Anthropic can jack up the price any time they want or depreciate the model you actually needed. Even US startups agree, 70 to 80% of them are using Chinese open models.

American AI either bursts or causes a great depression. Or perhaps bursts and causes a depression. There isn’t any other possibility. They’re spending trillions so American business can mass replace their workers. If it works, it causes a demand depression, a great depression like the Great Depression of the 30s. Who the hell do they think will buy their products? People can barely afford food and rent, let alone fancy AI crap. When they’re homeless they aren’t going to be customers. Meanwhile the rest of the world won’t be buying US AI crap either, they’ll be buying Chinese open source AI crap.

The War of attrition is nearly won by Russia. Ukraine just doesn’t have enough men and drones, it’s that simple. Next year, absent a peace deal, the big arrow moves everyone was wondering about will happen and Ukraine will be forced into unconditional surrender.

Europe is done. They’re losing their industrial base and their tech base. The people are unhappy and turning to populist opposition, either left or right. The Eurocrats are using lawfare to make outsider parties illegal if they look likely to win. This will take some time to play out. There will be changes in government away from neoliberalism, and if they can’t be achieved peacefully there will be a lot of violence. The EUs only play here is to try and gin up a war against Russia, but if they succeed, they’ll lose the war.

China and the US are now co-equal powers but that won’t last. China is on the rise, America is gutting its own science, arts and intellectual base while immiserating its own people and keeping smart foreigners out. (Or throwing them out.) All the big spend isn’t on re-industrializing, it’s on an AI moonshot which probably won’t succeed and will burst, or which if it does succeed will cause a Great Depression.

I will remind you that rich people have limited real power. They can buy a lot of influence, but if government turns on them they are done, because they do not have private armies capable of standing up to the State’s military and paramilitary forces. If the political zeitgeist turns against them, the government can make any changes it wants. Ask various Chinese billionaires how things worked out for them when the CPC decided they were too big for their britches.

One way they lose their influence is simply by having a real, undeniable depression. They’re doing everything they can to create one. If the Fed can’t bail them out, they’re done. The Fed’s ability to print dollars is going away, they have at most one large bailout left in them. After that, they can’t, because if the dollar isn’t the unit of trade for the world, over-printing will be catastrophic. Dozens of countries have found this out, again and again. Money can’t buy what your country can’t actually do, and the US can do less and less—the rich people sold America’s ability to do things to China to get three generations of fake wealth.

We are moving towards the end-game. It will take ten to fifteen years to play out. The West will be immiserated, neo-liberalism will end, US power and Empire will collapse. There will be wars and revolutions around the globe, because the force holding the world in its post-war, post-Soviet collapse state, including such things as borders, is going away. China is not likely to engage in massive military operations thousands of miles from its border and has shown itself uninterested in what happens in other countries domestically, unless they’re countries very close to it geographically.

Covid remains a thing, more specifically long Covid. We don’t measure it much any more, since governments don’t want to know, but there are multiple data points indicating its still disabling people. (I’ll do a proper article on this at some point.)

Likewise climate change and environmental collapse are real and so are resource issues. Farmland continues to lose fertility, the food-web is collapsing, the insects and fish and bird and everything else are dying and species are going extinct. This is going to cause huge problem. 1.4 billion Chinese cannot have a Western lifestyle without catastrophic environmental issues. If this is not dealt with (and it takes more than some orbital spraying to do so), the era of Chinese supremacy is not likely to last.

China will take the complete tech lead in essentially everything and they will also become the premier space-going nation. They have actually reduced carbon emissions, a good sign, and are massively planting forests. It’s not enough, but they are the only major nation taking these issues at all seriously. They look likely to start moving industry and power generation to space over the next 20 years and if they can get space mining and refining going, that offers some hope. (This is not space colonization, and the idea is to make it self-sustaining off world minus biologicals. Dropping resources from space is easy, getting resources into space is hard.)

The major geopolitical and economic issues I have been writing about for over 20 years are coming to fruition now and will play out over the next ten years. End of Empire. End of Neoliberalism. End of dollar hegemony. End of Europe. Western economic collapse. It’s all happening, exactly on schedule.

The glimmer of hope for Westerners is that political change is also coming. Put crudely, there are three possibility: authoritarian corporatism wins thru a nasty surveillance and police state; right wing populists take charge and go nasty and mean, or left wing populists take charge and actually try to help people.

The third world will find a great deal more freedom than they’ve had for a long time. China will be the superpower, but at least for the first while seems likely to be fairly laid back about it. These countries, if they cooperate with China intelligently, will have a chance to really develop, in most cases an opportunity to make it to middle income status, since they will no longer be forbidden from the policies required to actually develop, as was the case under the IMF/World Bank “development” duopoly.

This is where we are, and where we’re going. Tighten those seatbelts and make what preparations you can. Remember that things like power and water and food will become more and more unreliable. It’s been a long time since the West and westerners had to deal with such issues, but they will be on the plate for at least thirty to fourty percent of Westerners within fifteen years in nations which do not make the turn correctly, which seems likely to be the majority.

Fundraising Note: We’re about $900 from reaching our goal. Yadda yadda. If you value this site and can donate or subscribe please do. I’ll stop bothering you with these notes soon. My most profound thanks to everyone who has given and to all subscribers.

Open Thread

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On November 1, 2025

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

The New Cold War Is Taking Form

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On October 31, 2025

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We’re near the end of our fundraiser, and now about $1,100 out from our fundraising target. If you read regularly and value the site and have the money to spare, please consider subscribing or donating. Over 10k people read this site every day, and it’s free, but it and Ian do take money to run. Huge thanks to all who have given so far, a number which is now slightly over 100 people.

This speech by Russian Secretary of State Glazyev is important, and underlines how the days of dollar hegemony are close to an end:

“The easiest way to stop the arms race is by ceasing the use of NATO countries’ currencies,” he stated unequivocally. “Because to the extent that we use the dollar, euro, and pound, we finance their defense expenses.”

He provided a staggering figure: “The total volume of [Western] monetary issuance last year was five trillion dollars. Of this, two and a half trillion dollars is what the Eurasian states, among others, have taken on. If we stop using these currencies… we will practically halve the financial potential of the global hybrid war.”

“In the US, their satellites have completely destroyed international law… The World Trade Organization is not functioning, the norms of the global financial system are violated, and the generally accepted norms of business ethics are ignored,” he said, endorsing the Belarusian-led “Charter of Multipolarity and Diversity” as the ethical alternative.

He announced concrete steps to build this new system, revealing that work is “already underway to create a large social network that would unite hundreds of millions, maybe billions of citizens, who are ready to adhere to traditional norms, ethics, and follow their commitments.”

But it’s not just about money. For example the Power of Siberia pipeline means more than a hundred billion cubic meters of natural gas, which once went to Europe, will now go to China. Europe gets to buy much more expensive American natural gas. African countries are kicking France and the US out, ending their base leases, at an increasing rate, and from Japan I read:

Japan must stop importing liquefied natural gas from Russia. It means developing alternative energy sources, including the restarting of nuclear power plants.

Even as the G7 countries are stepping up sanctions against Russia, Japan finds itself in the position where it is now procuring just under 10% of its LNG from Russia.

However, there is a chance that Japan will not be treated as an exception. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent has said that he is “expecting” Japan to cease energy imports from Russia.

Japan’s public and private sectors need to prepare to ensure that LNG availability is not disrupted.

Japan does roughly equal trade with the West, and with BRICS, with about a 2% edge to BRICS. This is a terrible position to be in, though I’d suggest that going with the rising powers rather than the falling ones is the way to go.

The problem is that America is forcing nations to choose. Playing both sides: trading with both, may not be possible going forward. There will be two payment systems, so simple financial sanctions won’t work, but other types of market controls like tariffs and import/export controls have come roaring back into use.

Trade that can be cut off or curtailed at any point, apparently arbitrarily, can’t be counted on. When one looks at America and China’s strategy, China’s is mostly “punch back”. They rarely initiate sanctions except in cases where a country chooses to side with Taiwan. America, on the other hand, is… erratic. One can’t make plans, because one never knows when the rules of trade may change.

This is another reason why I think joining BRICS and that trade bloc is the sensible move. The old “rules based order” as Glazyev has pointed out, no longer exists in practice: the rules change at a whim and aren’t fairly enforced. While this was always true to some extent (Canadians remember how the US just ignored rulings against it on softwood lumber) it has become so common that the rule is now “whatever the US wants, and who knows what that will be tomorrow?”

America is trying to force a clean split into two blocs. But the other bloc is richer, more trustworthy and arguably stronger. And if it isn’t stronger yet, it will be in a decade, guaranteed.

This also relates to America’s actions in South America, an attempt to try and keep the America’s “American”, which is bound to fail. But as the declining power America wants to use its military force while it still has local superiority and before China and Russia can sell or give local nations enough weapons to become effectively immune to US force.

This process is the culmination of one of the major themes of my writing for almost a quarter century. The US era of sole supremacy has now ended. It can no longer force China to do what it wants, and it can’t even keep the sea lanes open, as Yemen has proved.

The old era is dead. There will be a brief period of co-equality, then America and Europe will fade into has-beens. I thought at one point we might have a new real cold war. We will, but not for very long. America isn’t going to be as strong as the old USSR, it won’t be able to hold up its end, and its current policy is to bleed its vassals, especially Europe, white. That will make them virtually worthless as vassals and will most likely lead to a revolt sometime between ten and fifteen years from now, as the European standard of living collapses under de-industrialization and without its sub-vassals selling it under-priced resources.

Centuries of Western rule of the world are coming to an end, and the Middle Kingdom is resuming its accustomed role as the most important country in the world. It’s a fascinating change-over to live thru, if not much fun if one lives among the Golden billion, who are being demoted  to the Bronze or perhaps Copper billion.

Yes, Canadians Did—Did Think America Was A Friend & Yes, Trump Is Good For Canada

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On October 30, 2025

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These numbers are astounding:

36 per cent of Canadians currently view the United States as a friend, compared to 60 per cent at the end of 2020 and 89 per cent in 2013, and that 27 per cent of Canadians presently view the U.S. as an enemy, a number that stood at 11 per cent in 2020 and as low as one per cent in 2013.

Notice that 1% figure regarding the US as an enemy in 2013, and 60% viewing it as a friend as late as 2020. When I say I was a lone voice screaming that we couldn’t trust America, I’m not exaggerating by much.

My position was half “America has never been trustworthy to anyone, and it ignores NAFTA rulings and destroyed our aviation industry” and half “countries have interests not friends.”

The moment it wasn’t in America’s perceived interest to be friends, it wouldn’t be, and empires are always implicitly enemies of their vassals, seeing them as useful tools, not friends.

But I want to emphasize how grateful I am to to Trump. If he had played along, given the appearance of friendship while slowly screwing Canada over, the way most recent administrations have, Canada would have gone along with it. If the past 45 years have taught us anything, it should be that people will tolerate a slowly eroding situation for ages, the metaphorical frogs in the slowly heating pot. (Frogs aren’t actually that stupid, not being humans.)

Canada spent the 90s and 00’s making nice with China, then reversed on a dime under US pressure, arresting the daughter of Huawei’s CEO for America and slapping 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs.

Then came Trump with his talk of annexation and his lies about Fentanyl (the same lies being used against Venezuela, you’ll note. Trump is not very imaginative. One lie for all seasons.) The truth is that Canada is exactly the sort of trade partner that America should want: yes we have a surplus, but it’s because we sell oil and minerals to the US. In the far more important manufactured goods area, we’re net importers.

If we were to cut the US off from Canadian crude, multiple refineries would be shuttered and there wouldn’t be enough gasoline. (Ironically, Venezuela is the other big supplier of the sort of heavy crude these refineries are set up to use.) You don’t want it? You don’t have to buy it, it isn’t competing with US crude.

But lately Trump may have gone too far for even Canadian politicians, though to be fair, Canada has been far more resistant to tariff blackmail than almost any other country except China. Japan and the EU buckled far more easily.

Two important events: first Stellantis said it was going to move a factory to the US from Canada. Reshoring industry and all that. Canada and America’s auto industries have been integrated since World War II under the Auto Pact. This is why Canadian politicians were ready to hit China with that 100% EV tariff, they were protecting Canadian jobs since Chinese cars are half the price of American made ones.

Then, in response to Ontario Premier Rob Ford’s ad quoting Reagan as against tariffs, Trump slapped on another 10% tariff on Canadian goods, and stopped all trade talks.

Thank God for Trump. Canadian politicians want to capitulate, if they can get surrender terms that don’t amount to “you won’t be re-elected” and he keeps not letting them.

So word is that the Feds are considering ending the 100% tariff. Presumably the idea is to try for the same sort of deal Mexico got: assembly plants in Canada for Chinese EVs.

If we can’t have American car manufacturing jobs, why not Chinese? Bonus, happy consumers/voters when they can get better cars for half the price.

Trump just keeps giving, just not to anyone who voted for him who isn’t worth 7 figures. Canada should have been pivoting to China hard years ago, and now, thanks to Trump it may well happen.

I just hope that after Trump gets on his knees and begs Xi to let him off the China trade war hook, that he doesn’t let us off the hook and give Canadian pols a way to avoid the pivot.

All praise Trump. He’s a genocidal monster, has the attention span of a dementia patient and betrays anyone stupid enough to trust him who can’t afford to bribe him, but he may just save Canada yet.

We’re near the end of our fundraiser, and now about $1,500 out from our fundraising target. If you read regularly and value the site and have the money to spare, please consider subscribing or donating. Over 10k people read this site every day, and it’s free, but it and Ian do take money to run. Huge thanks to all who have given so far, a number which is now slightly over 100 people.

Near The End of Our Fundraiser, About $2,200 to go

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On October 28, 2025

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Every year we do a fundraiser. This pays to keep the site and me running, and the site wouldn’t be viable without it.

If you read the blog readily, I probably don’t have to sing its praises but I’ll do so anyway, as a nod to tradition.. Generally we’re ahead of most of the media by years, often by decades. Everyone’s talking about the dollar losing sovereignty now, I’ve been noting its inevitability for a couple decades, likewise the rise of China. For years I noted that climate change would come in faster than expected, and so it has, with massive wildfires and way before the consensus. I said that Russia would win the Ukraine war militarily, and that’s on track. I wrote that semiconductor sanctions would not work, and so it has been. I warned about Rare Earths years ago, and noted that tariffs, as Trump does them, would boomerang.

Of course I’m not perfect, I get things wrong. I didn’t expect the fall of Syria for example, and thought that the Axis of Resistance would be more aggressive, nor did I realize the extent to which Mossad had infiltrated Hezbollah. Sadly, it appears I was probably right about how many Palestinians were killed, though I hope not.

This year readership at the site is way up. I’ve moved to more expensive servers (and we still have some issues with loading due to bot swarms scouring for material to train on.) Ever since Covid especially, more and more of us have been harmed by the terribly run economies of most Western nations: increased rent, lousy jobs, Trump’s moronic trade war and so on.

That said if you read regularly, you find the site useful, and giving won’t cause you distress, I’d appreciate if you subscribe or donate. We’re about $2,600 from our goal of $12,500.

Either way, be well. It’s been a long journey, but it’s been a bit easier, I think, taking it together.

Are We A Week Away From An American Invasion of Venezuela?

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On October 27, 2025

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We’re about 4 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $9,735 from 82 people out of a readership of about 10,000. 

If you read this blog, you’re usually ahead of everyone else. You know, years in advance, much of what’s going to happen. The intelligence from this blog is better than what people pay $10,000/year for. Without donations and subscriptions, this blog isn’t viable. If you want to keep it, and you can afford to, please give. If you’re considering a large donation, consider making it matching. (ianatfdl-at-gmail-dot-com).

In a week, about a quarter of the entire US Navy will be off Venezuela. Trump has made claims about Venezuela smuggling Fentanyl to America, but this is completely laughable and anyone with a room temperature IQ knows its a lie. (Though, who knows, Trump may believe it, not having a room temperature IQ.)

Anyway, Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and Trump does love other people’s resources.

But I think the geopolitics are more important. The entire world outside of America’s direct vassals are throwing off the West’s shackles. Madagascar, for example, has said it is ending ALL ties to France. Yemen successfully defied America. America isn’t toothless yet. Syria and Lebanon attest to that, and Egypt and Turkey’s groveling acquiescence shows the America whip, though dulling, is still feared by some.

Still, Brazil told America to go take a hike when Trump tried to interfere in their legal system. Colombia’s President said he is willing to end all military cooperation with the US and that the only thing Colombia would miss is the helicopters. (Russia or China or even Iran can make this up, it isn’t advanced tech.)

What made America an Empire was the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine and the ability to enforce it. Every country in the Americas had to bow to the whip, except Canada and other British possessions. They fell under the whip after World War II. In Canada’s case the carrot was the auto-pact (you can manufacture some cars) and the whip was “and you will give up your aviation industry, because it is more advanced than ours and that is unacceptable.”

Oh there were rebellions and the Cubans even managed to make it stick, at great cost, but by and large if you didn’t do what America wanted a coup would happen, or your leader would wind up eating a bullet, and the wives of the opposition would be raped by dogs, as in Peru. People learned to fear the whip, and not to rebel too far. America was the monster next door, who’d kill you, torture your family and rape your women. They’d even kill priests and nuns. (No, you don’t get to pretend America isn’t responsible for its proxies.)

But the calculus is changing. Once half of Africa lived in fear of France’s regime change and “anti-terrorism”. Like the Americans, there was no evil they would not commit. And the Americans had their bases too, and everyone with sense feared the whip, especially after the USSR fell and there was no countervailing force.

But now there is. The dual alliance: China and Russia. In the old days the whip was supplemented with a simple fact of life. If you wanted any advanced technology, including cars, anti-biotics, electricity or planes, it had to come from the West.

But China can sell you all of that now. And Russia, well, their mercenaries can keep the peace. Yeah, they’re nasty, but they don’t turn on their host governments (or not so far.) And a nice Russian base is excellent inoculation against a case of American or French base. Meanwhile the Chinese have better fighters, better missiles and better drones. China or Russia can supply your military, and China will build you ports, hospitals, railroads, schools… whatever you want. When they lend you money, the interest rate is lower than anything the West offers and they don’t require IMF readjustments which destroy your economy and impoverish your people.

So all the US and the West have left is the whip. Thing is, the whip’s getting dull. America weapons are no longer the best. America can’t make its weapons with supplies from China, some of which, the rare earths, were just cut off. The US Navy is getting smaller. The Chinese navy is getting larger. The US can’t meet recruitment quotas.

America’s in terminal decline and everyone knows it. But like Britain in the 1930s, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still powerful and couldn’t fuck you up.

The smart people in Trump’s administration, I think, see that their military force is a wasting asset. The longer they wait to use it the less they have, and the more their enemies have. Russia and China could get enough gear and advisors to Venezuela to make attacking it a complete no go, in principle, and given time, they will. Same with almost every other reasonable sized country.

So if America wants to attack Venezuela it has to be soon.

Of course, even if it works, it’ll be a complete fiasco. A proxy government gets propped up, can’t suppress the opposition effectively in a huge country with jungles and mountains made by God for guerilla warfare and a peasantry and urban poor who are hostile and well organized. Either they lose (probably experiencing a colonel’s coup) or the Americans have to go in themselves. First it’ll be mercs, of course, but they won’t be enough. The oil won’t flow, because it’s easily interdicted and damaged by a competent insurgency, Venezuela will become even more of a basket case, and so on. Eventually the Americans will leave. Perhaps they’ll get a semi-stable puppet government running, but it won’t last, for the simple reason that as time goes by, siding with the US instead of China will be stupid. China and its junior partner Russia, just offer so much more.

Venezuela, the like the Gaza genocide and land grab, are among the last gasps of America empire. Empires die bloody. If we get away without a nuclear or world war, we’ll be doing well.

May America then break up into multiple states and never again be a unified nation capable of exerting its will upon the rest of the world.

Open Thread

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On October 25, 2025

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

Massive Cuts Incoming At NASA As America Just Gives Up

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On October 24, 2025

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So…

NASA’s civil servant workforce has varied in size over the years, peaking during the Apollo program. During the 1990s, the Clinton administration reduced the workforce by 25% over five years, a process that some claim laid the groundwork for the shuttle Columbia disaster. This budget proposes to slash NASA’s workforce by nearly 1/3 in a single year via involuntary layoffs, resulting in the agency’s smallest workforce since fiscal year 1960, before NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, and Stennis Space Center even existed.

In pretty pictures:

No. SpaceX doesn’t make up for this. China does both, massive public spending and multiple space launch companies.

What else is China doing? 

Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP or SSP), the concept of gathering solar power in space using solar power satellites (SPS) to send it back to Earth, may sound like science fiction, but it is getting closer to reality.

China plans to build a 1km-wide solar array in the geostationary orbit about 36,000km above Earth.

At this distance from atmospheric interferences such as day-night cycles and changing weather, the array will constantly gather solar energy, anticipated to surpass terrestrial photovoltaic systems by more than tenfold in efficiency.

Once collected, this energy will be transformed into microwaves and transmitted to a ground-based collector station.

Colloquially known as a powersat, this was suggested by O’Neill back in the 70s. It could have been done with tech that within reach in about a decade, but, of course, America did no such thing. The space shuttle cost way too much to launch, funding had dried up to do things better and cheaper and space was no longer a priority.

China’s following O’Neill’s playbook, weirdly enough. They’re doing what the US decided not to do. To put it bluntly, if humanity has a future in space, it will be Chinese, not American. This isn’t primarily about colonization, though some people will live in space for a time, it is about putting manufacturing, refining and mining into space so we can re-wild the Earth, and avoid the resource trap.

It’s not a sure thing, by any means, but given that Earth is limited and space is much less limited, it’s the only way out of the limited resource trap. China either succeeds (and it’s them or no one, because there is a ticking clock) or we face inevitable civilization collapse. Once that occurs, having already mined all the easily accessible resources, there is unlikely to be a second chance at a future in space, or even a particularly high tech society.

Anyway, as usual, the future happens in China, and America has given up. AI is bullshit, even if it works, American capitalists want it so they can put a third of the workforce out of work. Meanwhile China builds civilian robots, automates entire factories and ports, has flying cars and drones galore and is actually working towards a real future in space.

We’re about 3 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $9,235 from 82 people out of a readership of about 10,000. 

If you read this blog, you’re usually ahead of everyone else. You know, years in advance, much of what’s going to happen. The intelligence from this blog is better than what people pay $10,000/year for. Without donations and subscriptions, this blog isn’t viable. If you want to keep it, and you can afford to, please give. If you’re considering a large donation, consider making it matching. (ianatfdl-at-gmail-dot-com).

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