I started listening to audio books over the last summer while I walk my dogs around noon every day. And somehow, I came upon a book titled The End of The World Is Just The Beginning. It's fascinating!! The author (Peter Zeihan) seems to be one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever encountered. He's a geo-political consultant. The book starts off by describing how we got to where we are now, starting with nomadic "cave-people", slowly settling down in one place, mostly farming and with a lot of kids (free labor around the farm). Then the industrial revolution changed everything, with most people (in developed countries) moving near cities where the new industrial jobs were, and having far fewer children (because a lot of people in an apartment can be uncomfortable, and they're no longer free labor, and in fact, they're very expensive to raise)! Then came World War 2, which was largely started by hitler, but also joined by Japan and others. By the end of the war, the US and its allies had defeated both hitler and Japan, but at the cost of millions of lives. At that time, most of the world's navies had been destroyed, as well as many of the great cities (and countryside's). Most of the world was left in tatters. Except for the US, which was surrounded by 2 large oceans and wasn't directly attacked (other than Pearl Harbor in Hawaii). Most of the US naval fleet was also left intact.  (This is all as described by Peter Zeihan, and has not been rigorously fact-checked, but I believe it to be mostly true).

 

So the United States called for a meeting between all of the WWII allies in the small skiing village of Bretton Woods in New Hampshire. At the time, most knew little about what was going to be proposed. Many assumed that the US would colonize most of the world's countries, just as similar world powers had done in the past. But the US and the UK proposed something that few saw coming. They proposed a global trading program, where each of the (largely devastated) allies could sell their goods to the US market (the biggest centralized market in the world at the time), and at the same time, the US agreed to patrol the world's oceans, not allowing allies' ships/shipments to be pirated, and thus facilitating the global trade that was being proposed. The treaty also ensured that no ally would attack or invade another. (Before this agreement, invasions, piracy and war were quite normal in the world). If another country was sailing a ship past your coast filled with valuable cargo, why not attack that ship and claim it as your own.) This was the way it worked for thousands of years.

 

Shattered nations (mostly western European) were able to sell their goods to the US or other partners and slowly build back their societies from the ruin of WWII. This led to the global supply chain that we now live under, where components are made wherever it makes the most sense to make them and then traded on the global stage. The Bretton Woods agreement brought the most of the world peace and prosperity for the past 70 years.

 

But in Peter's mind, that's all about to end. He thinks that the US has grown tired of paying to protect the oceans of the world with its navy (and other armed forces stationed around the world).  And isolationism (driven by political figures who don't support a global supply-chain) dictates that we should focus our money and energy here at home rather than propping up the global economy.

 

In a world without free-trade, some countries will do far better than others. The US has the largest navigable waterway system in the world (good for moving stuff around inexpensively), and it's situated in a geographical area that mostly freezes in the winters (killing many pests) and warm enough in the summer to grow crops. he thinks the US will fare relatively well in this new era, but many other countries won't do as well. In fact many he predicts will see mass political upheaval, with millions dying.

 

There are many other factors that go into this prediction. One, for example, is that China's birth rate is among the lowest in the world, meaning that there are a lot more old people than young people. And that upside-down pyramid gets worse every year. A workforce that consists of many younger workers than retirees can afford to help people in their late stages of life exist comfortably. For a society with very few younger people, that becomes difficult-to-impossible. The US has a similar problem (but not as low a birth rate), so not as critical as China's. The US also has immigration, which replenishes the workforce when older workers have aged-out. China doesn't have a Mexico and Central/South America to provide a steady stream of immigrants. His prediction is that China will cease to exist as a country within 10-15 years.

 

This process, as described above, is what An Aberration In Time is about.