A collapse map – Week 12 – March 24, 2023 at 11:09AM

Hi fellow collapsniks,

Week 12 of my collapse maps.

As a reminder, I’m making this map every week, it is color coding countries regarding their collapse status. It ranges from green (the country is functioning & far from a collapse) to black (the country has totally collapsed). Details of the color ranges at the bottom of the post. The collapse status is different from the standards of living, wealth, happiness, or political regime (even if it is related).

– That map is not a forecast nor its intent is to forecast collapse. It is a glimpse on the immediate, current state of things.

– This is also not meant to be “the ultimate truth” about collapse for every country. It’s only my personal point of view on the collapse situations in the world. In the end, you may agree or disagree with the colors and I’m always happy to discuss and debate, still the point is not to get to an unanimous agreement, but more to trigger the discussion.

– Please note that having a far right or even dictatorial government has nothing to do with collapse directly. It may even be the opposite: authoritarian measures, on the short term, are ensuring the stability of a society, thus preventing immediate collapse. To be clear: I’m not advocating for those measures or this type of government. But still, it is a temporary shield against collapse.

Updates since last week:

– New Zealand: turning green again. I had them yellow following the massive floods (and earthquake) 1 month ago, but being a wealthy Western country, they’re recovering quickly, and I don’t consider the country to be “in a crisis” anymore.

– France: It’s staying yellow. The government didn’t get impeached, but the protestsare being more and more violent. Every night there are unrests in all major cities, with intense fights against police, fires… In the last days some parts of major cities (Toulouse, Paris) got their electricity shutdown. Highways, ports, refineries, industrial areas… Are getting blocked since days. Fuel is starting to lack in a few thousands gas stations. Honestly it looks now at least as big as the yellow jackets crisis years ago. Today’s protests gathered between 1M & 3.5M people (government numbers vs protesters numbers), making them the biggest ones in the last 50 years.

– Venezuela is staying black. I got a comment last week highlighting the situation there, arguing that it’s starting to recover. I disagree; there are some hopes and first signs of recovery, that’s true, but so far nothing has changed in terms of daily life for the population. The famous new oil reserves are unfortunately a false hope, as those are physically extremely complex to extract.

– Ukraine: I’m hesitating to put them in yellow again. They’re still at war but Russia’s assault is less and less harsh, despite the additional mobilization. What do you think?

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As usual please give me your comments, critics, and please challenge my classifications!

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Reminder of the colors meaning:

– Green is a functioning country. That does not mean the country is a good country to live in. North Korea is green, in the sense that it is functioning and it does not look like it will collapse anytime soon. Still, I know, it’s one of the worst dictatorships in the world, with concentration camps, nuclear threats on their neighbors, and population being more or less enslaved, malnourished and brainwashed. But unfortunately the regime there is pretty strong and stable since a while, so it is green under a collapse perspective. Same kind of reasoning applies for oil-blessed Middle East countries: Human, women and LGBT rights are not a thing there, still those countries are (ultra) rich and functioning correctly, as of today. Green examples: Germany, Qatar, Israel, Japan.

– Yellow means the country is in a serious crisis. There are large-scale troubles ongoing that are altering the normalcy of the daily life for most of the population. Still not a catastrophic state for the population. Nationwide protests in the streets are not a crisis; but if it leads to civil unrest at a significant scale (like overthrowing the parliament – as in Suriname or Brazil), then it could be a crisis.

Fuel or food shortages for a significant part of the population are a crisis, if that is a new thing. Having a poor/malnourished population since years or decade is not a crisis per se, because it’s the normal (read stable) state of things there. A unexpected and sudden full government change may or may not be a crisis, depending on how it’s happening. Canada is yellow, as it suffers multiple “small” crises at the same time: housing, healthcare, inflation, homelessness, climatic…

The crisis in yellow countries is not that major that it may trigger a full collapse in the short term. Examples: US, UK, Russia, Brazil, Suriname.

Adding a note for a country to go from green to yellow: the “crisis” has to be recent. If a country is in an ongoing economic crisis with some fuel shortages, or suffering gang wars, but steadily since 2009, then it’s not a crisis, it’s the new normalcy for that country. In that case it is green as it is still a functioning country, despite the bad (but stable) conditions there. Most of Latin American countries are in that case. Take Colombia: it is suffering from gang wars since decades. And it hasn’t collapsed since then. Those gang wars are a shame, but it’s part of their normalcy.

– Red means the country is close to collapse. It has major structural issues and ongoing crises and could collapse quickly, under a few months or weeks. Examples: Libya, Myanmar, Pakistan.

– Black means the country has collapsed already and completely. Whether it’s economically (Venezuela), societally/structurally (Haiti), or suffering a full scale civil war (Yemen), or all at once… Examples: Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria. So far 9 countries in the world are considered collapsed on this map.