Geopolitics Review - 17th March 2025

The Donald Diaries: Supply-Chain Building and Balancing Acts

Contents

1. Introduction

2. What Is Supply Chain Building?

3. Balancing Power, Connectivity, And Self-Interest In A Hypothetical World

4. Concluding Remarks

5. Other News In Geopolitics This Week

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Bitesize Edition

• Today, I intended to dive into the deal Trump made on Gaza before he even entered office. In this last week, I revisited a book I read a few years ago. It formed a portion of my opinions about the potential geopolitical world of the future, and what principles this hypothetical world would be founded upon. As more countries in the world have to fight less to survive today, connectivity between nations will ensure even more people can improve their quality of life. If connective relations between geopolitical actors aim to maintain a balance of power and trust, while still pursuing self-interest, this is such a world that I could see as a noble aim to pursue. Of course, there are nuances, but helping those less fortunate to develop can benefit the provider and the receiver of such support.

• Consider a few simple examples. In space, the United States and China could form bonds of interconnectedness in exploring the solar system or mining on the Moon, while still tussling in the realms of trade and technology here on Earth. Any resources could benefit infrastructure buildout in the developing world. In quantum computing, the United States and the EU could work together to innovate at a faster pace, while still disagreeing on the size or funding provided to militaries as a form of deterrent. These cyber efforts could improve global encryption and our understanding of science. This world would still be a competitive geopolitical environment, but it wouldn’t be founded on conflict. With multiple branches connecting every single geopolitical player, turning competition into conflict would ensure interconnected players could hurt one another. Thus, nations would be incentivised to pursue less conflict in our geopolitical world.

• This idea got me thinking about what such a world could look like. This will be part 1 of a two-part series, and in the second part, I’ll bring reality into the picture and discuss why we’re not heading towards a world like this. Finally, I’ll detail what world Trump is pushing us towards instead. Keep an eye out for part 2 on Thursday, but for today, let’s dive in.

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Introduction

Last week, I had the intention of diving into Trump’s first few months in office, and what he has spent the time doing. However, over this past weekend, I went back and reread sections of Connectography by Parag Khanna. The basic premise is that through connectivity, the entire world will develop into a better place through city building, infrastructure buildout, innovation, and institutional development. This would improve the quality of life for countless people around the world through supply-chain building, and it’s a strategy that today seems to mostly align with China’s approach to industrial diplomacy abroad via its Belt and Road Initiative.

This led me to further question what a world with a focus on supply-chain building could look like. Let’s dive into some scenarios.

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What Is Supply-Chain Building?

A supply chain is an interconnected network of processes that leads to the delivery of resources necessary for a specific purpose. Hence, supply-chain building involves establishing these interconnected networks and improving them through increased efficiency, productivity, and innovation.

Today, one example of supply-chain building is seen in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It has also been seen multiple times throughout history. China’s original Silk Road ensured that multiple Chinese dynasties were the most powerful geopolitical power in the world at their time. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the Dutch Empire all sought to build supply chains, but these were unfortunately for their own benefit and aimed to increase their individual power and control over the territory they controlled.

In the 1950s, the container ship revolution reduced supply chain costs and increased efficiency. This differed from previous examples because it was truly a horizontal interconnected supply chain because it benefitted all. As many of the examples above demonstrate, this isn’t always the case with vertical, hierarchical chains that many of the Empires of old represented.

In supply-chain building today, we should prioritise some prerequisites to ensure these networks benefit all actors. This involves a balancing of power, and connectivity without coercion, all while each nation is still aligned with its individual motivations, incentives, and self-interest. But how can we do this in our complicated world where nations interact with one another in countless different ways?

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

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Balancing Power, Connectivity, and Self-Interest In A Hypothetical World