So I read a little about Zeihan's views and watched some of his YouTube videos now. I can see why people might compare my argument to his -- he definitely makes a few of the same arguments.

But Zeihan strikes me as falling into a analytical approach to understanding the world that I simply don't subscribe to. Other examples of this are Noam Chomsky and John Mearsheimer.

Now, all three of these men have clearly different political views and come to different conclusions on various things. Zeihan certainly doesn't seem to share Chomsky's analysis of Ukraine war. But I think they both make the same mistakes.

They tend to view the world like a chessboard, and their theories of state action are derived from what I believe are cartoonishly simple reducios on how states make decisions. They tend to view everything through the lens of institutionally-entrenched motives of action, that treats the leaders of states and states as the same thing, and that the interests of people (like Putin, George W. Bush, or Xi Jinping) are intrinsically inseparable. In fact, they're treated like hapless puppets against the backdrop of often pernicious intractable interests. Explanations like bravado, miscalculation, ignorance, etc. are not really treated as serious candidates for a theory of state action in any case.

I happen to think these are very good theories for explaining state action in many cases.