Author and geopolitics expert Tim Marshall discusses the mass movement of people, the technologies behind the race for raw materials, and the new power players around the world as we ask: Who owns the future?
First it was coal, then oil and gas. Now the race for minerals such as titanium, graphite, nickel, zinc and lithium has become another major factor driving the metaphorical repositioning of countries on the global map. It’s why, as president-elect, Donald Trump stated that he wanted control of Greenland which was found, in a 2023 survey by the European Commission, to harbour 25 of the world’s 34 ‘critical raw materials.’ “His reasons are twofold – it’s the quickest route under the ice pack for Russian submarines and the quickest route over for ballistic missiles – but also, the island is chock full of the metals we need for 21st century technology. Of course he wants a slice in that,” explains British journalist and geopolitics expert Tim Marshall, who reported from 40 countries as foreign affairs editor for Sky News before writing seven books on the subject.
In his latest, an updated edition of the Sunday Times bestseller Prisoners of Geography which was released last month, he writes: “to be a player in AI, quantum computing, biotechnology, the space industry and telecommunications requires a secure supply of critical raw materials.” This also explains why other regions that were not strategically important in the past, such as the copper belt in the DRC and the Lithium Triangle, are becoming more so. “The most advanced producer in the Lithium Triangle is Argentina, so whereas in the last few decades it was just an afterthought in the minds of the leading powers, now there’s a scramble for lithium because it’s a limited commodity,” he says. “Geography always remains important but which bits of it is important changes and different countries rise and fall.”
One nation determined to ensure it remains in the former camp is China, whose ever-expanding influence ranges from natural resource trade deals with Mongolia to building gas and oil pipelines through Myanmar (a “way of reducing its nervous reliance on the Strait of Malacca, through which almost 80 percent of its oil supplies pass,” writes Tim) and migration. “Han Chinese make up about 90 percent of the population and they have very successfully colonised places like Manchuria and Tibet. The Tibetan capital, Lhasa, is thought to be about 50 percent Han now,” he confirms. With this comes the Chinese insistence that Tibetans in the public sphere must learn to speak Mandarin. “It’s a way to homogenize everybody; conquerors often try to impose their own culture.” Another example of this is the 15 million or so Turkish Kurds who live in the mountains facing Iran, Iraq and Syria, where it is illegal to conduct political campaigns or broadcast in the Kurdish language.
Borderless travel has also long encouraged the movement of people. Tim cites Romania as a prime example of outward migration being responsible for the country’s significant population exodus, from around 22.4 million in 2000 down to 19.5 million two decades later according to a BBC report. “Romania has a declining birth rate and simultaneously young people are leaving for better economic opportunities in western Europe which is really problematic for the country in the long-term,” he says.
Then there’s the rise of remote working, especially since the pandemic. "Ten years ago, you could read predictions of there being one billion digital nomads by 2035 but at the moment, there's a maximum of around 50 million out of the global population of eight billion people,” says Tim. “For every negative stat about them, there's a positive one. For instance, lost tax revenue versus increased tourist revenue. Some countries and communities’ benefit; some don't.” He thinks that discussions are overblown. “Japan, for example, has announced plans to attract digital nomads who have health insurance and a certain level of income by doubling the duration of the 90-day tourist visa. I call that a new form of work visa.”
.avif)
Putting war and climate change aside, migration is also increasingly being harnessed as a political weapon. Thanks to an obscure treaty from over a century-ago, for instance, Russians have the right to mine on Svalbard. “It has no real economic benefit to Russia but they will keep workers living there so they have a foothold in that part of the world. It’s a quirk of history and a long-term bet that gives them rights,” says Tim, naming the movement of Bangladeshis into Assam and Nigerian workers shifting to South Africa as other push-points for current rising ethnic tensions.
He also reveals a more pressing way Russia is manipulating world affairs. “There is strong evidence that the Wagner group, now known as the Africa Corps, is involved in the migrant routes in the Sahel region, where they are quite happy to work with traffickers to push people up into north Africa and onto Europe. Both Belarus and Russia are also inviting developing country economic migrants in, visa free, then putting them on buses to the Polish border. It’s clearly a deliberate policy because Russia knows that the more people it pushes in, the more the liberal democracies of Europe are destabilised.”
In recent years, a more peripheral goal of Putin’s has been to undermine the US dollar as a global currency through BRICS+, a loose grouping that comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, the UAE, Ethiopia, Egypt and Iran. “It won’t work and in fact, China is very reluctant to get involved because nearly all its transactions are done in dollars,” reasons Tim. “There are around 20 times more dollars floating around the world than there is renminbi. What Putin has successfully created though, is a small alternative trading bloc that can try to operate outside the American dominated system.”
Another way Russians are doing this is through cryptocurrency. “Crypto is still light years away from being as powerful as the dollar but it is a tool they use to get around sanctions,” he continues. Similarly, when it comes to oil restrictions, tactics include deploying shadow fleets (transferring from one tanker to another in a friendly port) and blending oil with that from another country. “Russians are brilliant at this and it’s why, although their economy has taken massive hits, they have stayed afloat.”
Elsewhere, Tim points to the Arctic, where the melting ice cap means that the Northern Sea is open for longer each year (making it a trade route of growing importance for Russia and China), and the potential trillion-dollar growth of the space industry (from operating satellites to mining on the moon) as both key players in the future. Right now, though, he believes that 2025 marks a radical geopolitical shift. “Every generation makes the mistake of thinking the time it’s in is normal but no systems last. In recent history, we had the Cold War, then the post-Cold War period,” he concludes.
“This year, it’s over; I don’t know what it will look like but I’m confident we’re in a new era.”
Tim Marshall
Journalist and Author