Reviewed by Bill Marmon

George Friedman’s “The Next 100 Years; A Forecast for the 21st Century”

“Europe is extinct.” “China cannot survive a bil l ion pissed off peasants.” “Turkey is a power.”

“The U.S. will dominate the 21st Century.”

These are a few of the audacious and often controversial predictions of George Friedman, author of The Next 100 Years,

A Forecast for the 21st Century, which has recently been issued in paperback with a new preface.

Friedman, founder and editor of Stratfor, a respected subscription global intell igence service, was recently in Washington

DC, and sat down with Joëlle Attinger and Bill Marmon of the European Institute to talk about his book.

Although Friedman concedes that details of his predictions are l ikely to be off, he thinks he will succeed if he identifies

“what will really matter” when looking back at the 21st Century.

And what will matter?

First, the U.S. will dominate the century because of its military and economic power and its favorable geography with

Atlantic and Pacific coasts. No power will rise to challenge successful U.S. dominance.

Second, the population explosion of the past century will end and populations will begin to shrink, creating profound

changes, including the positive importance of attracting immigrants.

Third, advanced countries will develop technologies to deal with shrinking populations, including harnessing solar power

and new computer and robotic technologies.

What will NOT matter?

Neither Europe nor China will be major players in the 21st Century. Wow. That is a mouthful.

Friedman takes pleasure in building a powerful case against what passes for conventional wisdom.

“Europe has been in decline since 1917 and the destruction of Germany,” says Friedman. “It emerged from World War II

as an occupied continent that had lost its empire.” But since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, “Europe has

re-entered history, and started building structures (such as the European Union).” But problems are not solved and “Europe

is in reality just staggering into the 21st Century.”

”Europe is too busy congratulating itself, “says Friedman. He adds, “It is l ike the U.S. announcing victory in 1810. There is

a way to go. Big problems remain.”

And Friedman does not think Europe will solve its problems or bridge its internal differences. He discounts the creation of

the European Union and the euro zone as no more than a “customs union or trade bloc.”

“As long as Europe cannot speak with one voice on foreign policy it is hard to see how it can influence geopolitics,” says

Friedman. And because European countries have not given up sovereignty and because individual countries have

different interests, it seems unlikely to Friedman that integration will coalesce enough to give Europe a meaningful role

on the world stage.

And what about the recently adopted Treaty of Lisbon and the appointment of a president and high commissioner for

foreign affairs.

“What do they do. What are their powers?” asks Friedman. “These officials could have been given powers, but Europe

chose not to do that. The president has no army, no police force. The bureaucracy in Brussels does not have to be

obeyed. Europe will say this is a work in process. But I see no process under way.”

“As long as the decision to go to war is not in Brussels but rests with nation states, there is no integration,” says Friedman.

He sees no easy or speedy end to the tension between France and Germany on one hand and other parts of Europe, l ike

the UK, Eastern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula on the other hand.

What he does see is the increasing rise of Eastern Europe in an evolution not unlike the power shift that moved from

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Spain in the 16th Century, to France and England and later to Germany.

“Every couple of centuries there is a changing of the guard in Europe,” says Friedman. He sees Poland as the “heart of

dynamism” in Europe today.

Another problem with Europe, says Friedman is the “profound divergence” between the elite perception of Europe and

the popular (man-on-the-street) perception. A good example of this disconnect, says Friedman, was the strong vote in

Switzerland to prohibit the construction of Islamic mosque minarets. The importance of the event, says Friedman, was not

that 57 percent of the population voted against minarets, but that the elite was so surprised at the result. “That showed

how far out of touch the elite has become.” The broad masses in Europe, says Friedman, “are very uneasy about what is

happening to Europe.”

The recent economic crisis demonstrated many of the weaknesses of Europe, thinks Friedman. The crisis was not tackled

in Brussels but in the individual capitals, and Germany and France declined to assist Eastern Europe, which had to

depend on the International Monetary Fund (IMF). And problems continue in the weaker economies l ike Greece,

Portugal, Italy and Spain.

“Greece will probably be ok in the end,” says Friedman. “But Spain is too big to save.”

“Europe is tired, worldly, decadent,” says Friedman. “They are exhausted, and they call it a virtue.”

Turkey on the other hand is growing and dynamic. But Europe is missing the point and almost surely will not allow Turkey

in the EU, says Friedman. “The European image of Turkey is fixed at around 1960 as a vision of impoverished,

semi-literates coming to do construction work.”

In reality, says Friedman, Turkey has the largest and most competent army in Europe. It has influence in the Baltics, in

the Caucasus and in Central Asia. “I know of no European country that is acting as confidently and as unilaterally as

Turkey,” says Friedman.

“Turkey is not a future power,” says Friedman. “Turkey is a power.” Accession to the EU – which is unlikely to happen – is

important to the secularists in Turkey who want “to nail down secularism.” But much of the country, including Prime

Minister Tayyip Erdogen, can “take it [the EU] or leave it.” Friedman says Turkey was lucky NOT to be in the EU during

the financial crisis, since it has recovered much more quickly and robustly than Europe.

Friedman thinks that Russia will present a near term issue as it attempts to regain the sphere of influence of the old Soviet

Union. Russia is making progress already in reasserting its sphere of influence in the “Stans,” in the Ukraine, in Belarus

and even in Georgia.

But, Friedman says, the same forces that destroyed the Soviet Union, including demographic diversity, wil l rise again and

around 2020 the Russian resurgence will fail. “It is hard to see how Russia, which has abandoned its industrial base in

favor of exporting commodities, wil l be able to sustain itself against a dynamic Poland backed up by the U.S.”

Perhaps Friedman’s most audacious prediction concerns China, which he feels will not become an important player in the

21st Century.

“China is an incredibly poor country with a small segment that is essentially an extension of the United States,” he says.

Friedman notes that one of seven export containers out of China go to Wal-Mart. “This shows the vulnerabil ity of the

country,” says Friedman. “All of the prosperity of China is built on the will ingness of the U.S. and Europe to buy its

products.”

Friedman does not think that the Chinese “miracle” can be extended to the almost one bil l ion persons sti l l l iving in

poverty. Even moving its manufacturing plants to the interior to address unemployment will be a problem, says Friedman,

because that will drive up Chinese costs and the margin on Chinese products is too thin to sustain the increase.

“China is in crisis,” he says. “It wil l take three years before the crisis becomes apparent.” He thinks the signs will be an

increasingly nationalistic and oppressive society. “If you are a Chinese leader you don’t have an economic solution to

your problems,” says Friedman, “but you do have a political

solution.”

And what should the U.S. do to ensure the dominance that Friedman predicts for it?

“America is in the position of Great Britain in the 19th century. Its national interests are served by maintaining a policy

that balances powers off against each other. U.S. interest is not to have a global peer power. As long as that does not

happen, the U.S. can make as many mistakes as it wants. If a global peer power does emerge, the world gets much more

dangerous.”

Bill Marmon is Assistant Managing Editor of European Affairs Magazine.

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Return to: Home | Politics | International Politics

The next 100 yearsGeorge FriedmanPublished 27 August 2009

Japan and Turkey form an alliance to attack the US.Poland becomes America’s closest ally . Mexicomakes a bid for global supremacy , and a third worldwar takes place in space. Sounds strange? It could allhappen. . .

In 1492, Columbus sailed west. In 1991, the Sov iet Union collapsed. These

two ev ents bracketed the European age. Once, May ans liv ed unaware that

there were Mongols, who were unaware there were Zulus. From the 15th

century onwards, European powers collectiv ely ov erwhelmed the world,

creating the f irst truly global geopolitical sy stem in human history , to the point

where the f ate of Australian Aborigines was determined by British policy in

Ireland and the price of bread in France turned on the weather in Minnesota.

Europe simultaneously waged a 500-y ear-long civ il war of increasing

sav agery , until the continent tore itself apart in the 20th century and lost its

hold on the world. Af ter the collapse of the Sov iet Union, there was no longer a

single European nation that could be considered a global power of the f irst

rank.

Another unprecedented ev ent took place a decade or so earlier. For 500 y ears,

whoev er controlled the North Atlantic controlled Europe's access to the world

and, with it, global trade. By 1980, the geography of trade had shif ted, so that

the Atlantic and Pacif ic were equally important, and any power that had direct

access to both oceans had prof ound adv antages. North America became the

piv ot of the global sy stem, and whatev er power dominated North America

became its centre of grav ity . That power is, of course, the United States.

It is geography combined with the ability to exploit it that matters. The US is

secure f rom attack on land or sea. It is v ulnerable to terrorist attack but,

outside of a nuclear exchange, f aces no existential threat in the sense that

Britain and France did in 1940-41, or Germany and Japan did in 1944-45. Part

of its adv antage is that, alone among the combatants, the US actually

prof ited f rom the Second World War, emerging with a thoroughly modernised

industrial base. But this itself can be traced to the country 's core geography .

The f ertility of the land between the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains,

and the conf iguration of the country 's riv er sy stem, drov e an economic

sy stem in the 19th century that helped f und an economy which today

constitutes between 25 and 30 per cent of global economic activ ity , depending

on how y ou v alue the dollar.

Just as important, perhaps, is that while the population density of Japan is

about 365 people per square kilometre and that of most European states

between 100 and 300 per square kilometre, the US population density ,

excluding Alaska, is about 34 people per square kilometre. The US has room to

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grow and it manages immigration well. Its population is not expected to decline.

It is the pre-eminent power not because of the morality of the regime, the

v irtue of its people or the esteem in which it is held, but because of Europe's

f ailures and changes in global trade patterns.

This is a geopolitical reading of history . Geopolitics argues that it is geography

which def ines power, and that military , economic and political power are

dif f erent parts of a single sy stem. Geopolitics tends not to take policies or

politicians v ery seriously , seeing them as trapped in reality . The f inest

statesman ruling Iceland will not dominate the world; the stupidest ruling

ancient Rome could not undermine its power.

Economists talk about an inv isible hand - a concept, if not a term, they hav e

borrowed f rom Machiav elli. Geopolitics applies the concept of the inv isible

hand to the behav iour of nations and other international actors. Geopolitics and

economics both hold that the play ers are rational and will pursue their

self -interest, if not f lawlessly , then at least not randomly .

Think of a chess game. On the surf ace, it appears that each play er has 20

potential opening mov es. In f act, there are many f ewer, because most of

these mov es are so bad that they would quickly lead to def eat. The better y ou

are at chess, the more clearly y ou see y our options, and the f ewer mov es

y ou regard as being av ailable: the better the play er, the more predictable the

mov e. The grandmaster play s with absolute predictable precision - until that

one brilliant, unexpected stroke.

Geopolitics assumes two things: f irst, that human beings organise themselv es

into units larger than f amilies and that they hav e a natural loy alty to the things

they were born into, the people and the places; second, that the character of a

nation is determined to a great extent by geography , as is the relationship

between nations. We use the term "geography " broadly . It includes the

phy sical characteristics of a location, but it goes bey ond that to look at the

ef f ects of a place on indiv iduals and communities. These are the f oundation

of geopolitical f orecasting.

Opinion and reputation hav e little to do with national power. Whether the US

president is loathed or admired is of some minor immediate import, but the

f undamentals of power are ov erarching. Nor do passing ev ents hav e much to

do with national power, no matter how signif icant they appear at that moment.

The recent f inancial crisis mattered, but it did not change the basic geometry

of international power. The concept of American decline is casually tossed

about, but f or America to decline, some other power must surpass it. There are

no candidates.

Consider China, most of ten mentioned as the challenger to the US. Han China

is surrounded by f our buf f er states, Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and

Tibet. Without these buf f ers, the borders of China mov e inward and China

becomes v ulnerable. With these f our buf f ers in place, China is secure - but as

a landlocked island, bounded by mountainous jungle, the Himalay as, the

steppes of central Asia and the Siberian wasteland. China is blocked in all

directions but the sea.

The v ast majority of China's population liv es within a thousand miles of the

Pacif ic coast. Bey ond this line, water supply will not support large populations.

Most industrial dev elopment has taken place within a hundred miles of the

coast. Consider the f ollowing numbers, culled f rom of f icial Chinese statistics.

About 65 million Chinese people liv e in households with more than $20,000 a

y ear in income. Around 165 million make between $2,000 and $20,000 a y ear.

Most of these liv e within 100 miles of the coast. About 400 million Chinese

hav e household incomes between $1,000 and $2,000 a y ear, while about 670

million hav e household incomes of less than $1,000 a y ear. China is a land of

extraordinary pov erty . Mao made the Long March to raise an army of

desperate peasants to rectif y this sort of extreme imbalance. The imbalance

is there again, a v olcano beneath the current regime.

China would hav e to triple the size of its economy - and the US would hav e to

stand still - if China were to pull ev en with the US in GDP. Militarily , China is

impotent. Its army is a domestic security f orce, its ability to project power

blocked by natural barriers. Its nav y exists mostly on paper and could not

possibly pose a serious threat to the US. Casual assertions of China

surpassing the US geopolitically ignore f undamental, ov erwhelming realities.

China could conceiv ably ov ercome its problems, but it would require most of

the century to ov ercome problems of this magnitude.

Europe, if it ev er coalesced into a unif ied economic and military power, could

certainly challenge the US. Howev er, as we hav e seen during the recent

f inancial crisis, nationalism continues to div ide the continent, ev en if

exhaustion has made that nationalism less v irulent. The idea of Europe

becoming a multinational state with a truly integrated economic decision-

making sy stem - and with a global military f orce under joint command - is as

distant a dream as that of China becoming a global power.

This is not an Americentric v iew of the world. The world is Americentric. The

US marshals the economic resources of North America, controls the world's

oceans and space, projects f orce where it wishes - wisely or not. The US is to

the world what Britain once was to Europe. Both nations depended on control of

the sea to secure their interests. Both nations understood that the best way to

retain control of the sea was to prev ent other nations f rom building nav ies.

Both understood that the best way to do that was to maintain a balance of

power in which potential challengers spent their resources f ighting each other

on land, rather than building f leets that could challenge their control of the sea.

The US is doing this globally . Its primary goal is alway s to prev ent the

emergence of a single power that can dominate Eurasia and the European

peninsula. With the Sov iet Union's collapse, China's limits and the EU's

div isions, there is currently no threat of this. So the US has mov ed to a

secondary goal, which is to block the emergence of any regional hegemon that

could, in the long term, grow into something more dangerous. The US does

what it can to disrupt the re-emergence of Russian national power while

building relations with bordering countries such as Poland and Turkey . It

encourages unrest in China's border regions, using the ideology of human

rights as justif ication. It conducts direct or surrogate wars on a seemingly

random basis, f rom Somalia to Serbia, f rom Iraq to Af ghanistan.

Many of these wars appear to go badly . Howev er, success is measured not

by the pacif ication of a country , but by its disruption. To the extent that the

Eurasian land mass is disrupted, to the extent that there is perpetual unrest

and disunion f rom the Atlantic to the Pacif ic, the US has carried out its

mission. Iraq is paradigmatic. The US interv ention resulted in a civ il war. What

appeared to be a f ailure was, in f act, a satisf actory outcome. Subjectiv ely , we

would think George W Bush and his critics were unaware of this. But that is the

point of geopolitics. The imperativ es generate ideologies (a democratic Iraq)

and misconceptions (weapons of mass destruction). These, howev er, are

shadows on the wall. It is the geopolitical imperativ es, not the rhetoric, that

must be understood in order to make sense of what is going on.

Thus, the question is how these geopolitical and strategic realities shape the

rest of the century . Eurasia, broadly understood, is being hollowed out. China

is f ar weaker than it appears and is threatened with internal instability . The

Europeans are div ided by old national patterns that prev ent them f rom mov ing

in a unif orm direction. Russia is using the window of opportunity presented by

the US absorption in disrupting the Islamic world to reclaim its sphere of

inf luence in the f ormer Sov iet Union, but its underly ing weakness will reassert

itself ov er the next generation.

New powers will emerge. In the 19th century , Germany , Italy and Japan began

to emerge as great powers, while in the 20th century global powers such as

Britain and France declined to secondary status. Each century , a new

constellation of powers f orms that might strike observ ers at the beginning of

the century as unthinkable. Let us theref ore think about the unthinkable.

The United States conducts an incautious f oreign policy . The relativ e power of

the US is such that it has a margin of error f ar bey ond that of the countries it

conf ronts. It also has a strategic disruptiv e imperativ e, based on geopolitical

interests. This will make the planet an uncomf ortable place, particular f or rising

powers.

There is another dimension built into US f oreign policy - using subordinate

regional powers as surrogates, exchanging their willingness to incur risks f rom

a major power opposed to the US f or substantial benef its. These range f rom

strategic guarantees and support against smaller neighbours to trade

adv antages and technology transf ers. The recov ery of West Germany and

Japan during the cold war are classic examples of this. There are three nations

that are already major or emerging regional powers that will be important to the

US in dealing with Russia in the next decade or so: Japan, Turkey and Poland.

Japan is already a great power. It is the world's second-largest economy , with

a f ar more stable distribution of income and social structure than China. It has

east Asia's largest nav y - one that China would like to hav e - and an army

larger than Britain's (since the Second World War, both Japan's "army " and

"nav y " hav e of f icially been non-aggressiv e "self -def ence f orces"). It has not

been a dy namic country , militarily or economically , but dy namism comes and

goes. It is the f undamentals of national power, relativ e to other countries, that

matter in the long run.

Turkey is now the world's 17th-largest economy and the largest Islamic

economy . Its military is the most capable in the region and is also probably

the strongest in Europe, apart f rom the British armed f orces. Its inf luence is

already f elt in the Caucasus, the Balkans, central Asia and the Arab world.

Most important, it is historically the leader in the Muslim world, and its bridge to

the rest of the world. Ov er the centuries, when the Muslim world has been

united, this has happened under Turkish power; the past century has been the

aberration. If Russia weakens, Turkey emerges as the dominant power in the

region, including the eastern Mediterranean; Turkey is an established nav al

power. It has also been historically pragmatic in its f oreign policies.

Poland has the 18th-largest economy in the world, the largest among the

f ormer Sov iet satellites and the eighth-largest in Europe. It is a v ital strategic

asset f or the US. In the emerging competition between the US and Russia,

Poland represents the geographical f rontier between Europe and Russia and

the geographical f oundation of any attempt to def end the Baltics. Giv en the

US strategic imperativ e to block Eurasian hegemons and Europe's unease with

the US, the US-Polish relationship becomes critical. In 2008 the US signed a

deal with Poland to instal missiles in the Baltic Sea as part of Washington's

European missile def ence shield, ostensibly to protect against "rogue states".

The shield is not about Iran, but about Poland as a US ally - f rom the

American and the Russian points of v iew.

To gauge what it means f or a country to be a strategic asset of a global

power, consider the case of South Korea. Any suggestion in 1950 that it would

become a major industrial power by the end of the century would hav e been

greeted with disbelief . Yet that is what Korea became. Like Israel, South Korea

f ormed a strategic relationship with the US that was transf ormativ e. And both

South Korea and Israel started with a much weaker base in 1950 than Poland

has today .

Russia cannot surv iv e its economic and demographic problems indef initely .

China must f ace its endemic social problems. So, imagine an unstable,

f ragmented Eurasia. On its rim are three powers - Japan to the east, Turkey to

the south and Poland to the west. Each will hav e been a US protégé during the

Russian interregnum, but by mid-century the US tendency to turn on allies

and make allies of f ormer enemies will be in play , not out of caprice but out of

geopolitical necessity .

Two of the three major powers will be maritime powers. By f ar the most

important will be Japan, whose dependence on the importation of v irtually all

raw materials f orces it to secure its sea lanes. Turkey will hav e a lesser but

v ery real interest in being a nav al power in the eastern Mediterranean, and as

its power in the Muslim world rises it will dev elop a relationship with Egy pt that

will jeopardise the Suez Canal and, bey ond it, the Arabian Sea. Poland, locked

between Russia and Germany , and f ar more under US control than the other

two, will be a land power.

US strategy considers any great power with signif icant maritime capabilities a

threat; it will hav e solv ed one problem - the Russian problem - by generating

another. Imagining a Japanese-Turkish alliance is strange but no stranger than

a Japanese-German alliance in 1939. Both countries will be under tremendous

pressure f rom the established power. Both will hav e an interest in ov erthrowing

the global regime the US has imposed. The risk of not acting will be greater

than the risk of acting. That is the basis of war.

Imagining the war requires that we extrapolate technology . For the US, space

is already the enabler of its military machine. Communications, nav igation and

intelligence are already space-based. Any great power challenging the US

must destroy US space-based assets. That means that, by the middle of the

century , the US will hav e created substantial def ences f or those assets. But

Digg del.icio.us newsv ine Reddit

By Helena Smith 27 March

By Andrew Stephen

if the US can be rendered deaf , dumb and blind, a coalition of Turkey and

Japan could f orce the US to make strategic concessions.

War depends on surprise, and this surprise will hav e to f ocus on the

destruction of US space f orces. If this sounds preposterous, then imagine

how the thought of a thousand bomber raids in the Second World War would

hav e sounded in 1900. The distance trav elled technologically between 1900

and 1945 was much greater than the one I am suggesting by 2050. There are

no breakthroughs required here, only dev elopments of what already exists.

It is dif f icult to imagine an American def eat in this war, although not major

setbacks. The sheer weight of power that the US and its Polish ally can throw

against the Japanese and Turks will be ov erwhelming. The enemy will be try ing

to deny the US what it already has, space power, without being able to replace

it. The US will win in a war where the stakes will be the world, but the cost will

be much less than the bloody slaughters of Europe's world wars. Space does

not contain millions of soldiers in trenches. War becomes more humane.

The ultimate prize is North America. Until the middle of the 19th century , there

were two contenders f or domination - Washington and Mexico City . Af ter the

American conquest of northern Mexico in the 1840s, Washington dominated

North America and Mexico City ruled a weak and div ided country . It remained

this way f or 150 y ears. It will not remain this way f or another hundred. Today ,

Mexico is the world's 13th-largest economy . It is unstable due to its drug wars,

but it is dif f icult to imagine those wars continuing f or the rest of the century .

The heirs of today 's gangsters will be on the board of art museums soon

enough.

Mexico has become a nation of more than 100 million people with a trillion-

dollar economy . When y ou look at a map of the borderland between the United

States and Mexico, y ou see a huge f low of drug money to the south and the

f low of population northward. Many areas of northern Mexico that the US

seized are now being repopulated by Mexicans mov ing northward - US citizens,

or legal aliens, or illegal aliens. The political border and the cultural border are

div erging.

Until af ter the middle of the century , the US will not respond. It will hav e

concerns elsewhere and demographic shif ts in the US will place a premium on

encouraging Mexican migration northward. It will be af ter the mid-century

sy stemic war that the new reality will emerge. Mexico will be a prosperous,

powerf ul nation with a substantial part of its population liv ing in the American

south-west, in territory that Mexicans regard as their own.

The 500 y ears of European domination of the international sy stem did not

guarantee who would be the dominant European power. Nor is there any

guarantee who will be the dominant power in North America. One can imagine

scenarios in which the US f ragments, in which Mexico becomes an equal

power, or in which the US retains primacy f or centuries, or an outside power

makes a play . North America is the prize.

In due course, the geopolitical order will shif t again, and the American epoch

will end. Perhaps ev en sooner, the power of the US will wane. But not y et, and

not in this century .

George Friedman is the founder of the private intelligence corporation Stratfor.His book The Next 100 Years is published by Allison & Busby (£14.99)

http://www.stratf or.com/

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24Mar

“The Next 100 Years” by GeorgeFriedman, Book Reviewby arrabi Book Review

(1)The Next 100 Years: A forecast for the 21st century by George Friedman is a veryinteresting book that made some noise, and even was on Farid Zakaria’s book of the weeksection. I read the book recently, and following are my notes. I first present a summaryof his bold predictions, and then discuss each.

Quick list of predictions:

US will remain a super power for 100 years.1.China will collapse by 20202.Russia will have a second collapse (the first being the soviet one) around 2020s3.The next 4 powers until 2060: Japan, Turkey, Poland, & (quietly) Mexico4.A World War 3 (space war) between US-Poland vs Japan-Turkey5.The great US-Mexico confrontation of 2100 (since a war might not be possible tohappen)

6.

US super power for 100 yearsFriedman claims that US is just in its beginning of its ascension to power. And he insists,despite all the economic problems now, US will become even a grandeur super power inthe next century. One scan through the first few chapters doesn’t fully explain why.However, the lines of the argument become clearer throughout the book.

Friedman provides a brief explanation of Geo-Political analysis. The idea is that there arecertain geographic and political properties of each region and country in the world thatcontrol its future. Friendman states several times that no matter who is the president ofthe US, given that US is a global power, it will act in certain ways that are inherent in itsposition.

In a way, Geo-Political analysis is similar to Value Investing – in that it assumes thatthere are fundamental properties for successful companies/countries. Countries who havethem succeed. otherwise, they fail. eventually.

What are these fundamentals? and why US has them? Friedman lists the following:

US is a large country, huge market, rich resources, and faces 2 oceans1.US controls the oceans of the sea – thus controls the the global lines of commerce.2.US has a low population density. This will play a huge role in US dominancestarting 2030, when the populations of the advanced world will be decreasing andthey will be competing for immigrants. Immigrants will prefer US.

3.

Notice that "current economic state" is not listed. Friedman doesn’t say this explicitly,but he seems to think that if the fundamentals of the US are correct, it’ll be able to get outof any situation it is in – even if that involves a show or power or even war.

This way of thinking is foreign for us – generation dot-com. We tend to believe that thesmartest country economically gains dominance. We do not think consciously about thepossibility of war to gain wealth. In a way, Friedman says that if Japan poses economicdanger to US, the US may prevent Japanese fleets from exporting good or importing rawmaterials. China buys a lot of the US bonds. If US doesn’t want to pay back, or wantsChina to buy more, "persuading" China might not be a totally economic formula.

Friendman further presents his own interpretation of few US history incidents:

the great depression (I have to look at the book again to summarize this correctly,TBD)

1.

the 50-year cycle. He claims that the dominant socio-political landscape changesevery 50 years. Each cycle starts with a president who truly represents the needsand hopes of the new dominant group, and ends with a president tryingdesparetely to apply old solutions to new problems and fails to satisfy the newdominant group. The groups are:* 1775-1825: aristocrats, english?* 1825-1875: fronteirsmen, Irish?* 1875-1925: ? can’t remember* 1925-1975: city dwellers, wasp?* 1975-2025: suburbs (because of highways)

2.

finally, the credit crisis: I have to review the book to say what exactly3.

China’s Collapse by 2020Friedman claims that China’s economy is just like Japan in 1980:

The debt-to-GDP is very high, and the cost of money is artificially low(government controls the savings rate of the citizens and what companies get theloans). Japan’s debt-to-GDP was ~%20 when the banking system failed there.China’s is estimated at %25-40. He doesn’t explain where the numbers come from.

1.

Thus, he says that just like Japan in the 80s, Chinese companies’ success dependson volume of exports, not profit margins. They need high revenue to pay off their

2.

debt and get more. This is why their prices are very low.Thus, on the site of first US recession (since US is china’s biggest market), Chinesecompanies & banking system will fail. He expects that to happen by 2020

3.

He explains that even though China is communist, it had good relations with theUS because of Cold War. my enemy’s enemy is my friend.

4.

He also claims that China’s political unity depends on economic success andpayoffs. Thus, the country might go through a civil war (similar to that of Mao)between the poor center and the rich coast. The coastal cities are rich because offoreign relations.

5.

Russia’s Collapse in 2020sHe predicts that Russia will go through a second rise, and then a second fall.1.The fall will be due to stretching their economy and I think has to do with theresistence countries around it. (will update section after reviewing the book again)

2.

the most interesting outcome will be the rise of Poland & Turkey – backed by US –to stand for the russian giant. And Japan to a point.

3.

The next 4 super powers: JapanHe predicts Japan will start building a navy power, and once china falls, it’ll try toexpand its influence in the region. US will back it to stand for Russia. It’ll seem veryfriendly power until ~2050.

more details tbd

The next 4 super powers: Turkey (The IslamicKhilafa)Friedman asserts that Turkey is already an economic power. He says that islamic worldhas many divisions and internal fights to keep islamists busy. but turkey will take moreof a cultural "role" and lead/control the islamic countries of the middle east. much like theottoman empire before. turkey will get a lot of help from US to stand for russianinfluence, especially in the baltics and the black sea.

The next 4 super powers: PolandPoland will be US’s first line of defense against russia. thus, it’ll become strong, and it’llbuild influence around east europe. eventually, european countries will see Poland justlike the Sovient Union before.

The next 4 super powers: MexicoMexico is friedman’s surprise. he says it has all the fundamentals to become a superpower. it’s in north africa – the strongest of the continents. its economy is already big. heasserts that the social problems we hear about are the labor pains of delivering mexicofrom its indsutrial phase to modern state.

A World War 3 (space war): US-Poland vs Japan-TurkeyThis is an interesting chapter. Friedman reiterates that US will get in a war not because itwants to, but because super powers act in predetermined way, and it’ll see it as"protecting itself".

in short, turkey and poland will have conflicts, and US will side with Poland, nudgingturkey. Japan will also feel restrained as its sphere of influence expands. Turkey andJapan feel that doing a surprise hit against US would send a message to US that it’s notthe only power in the world.

So, turkey & Japan will blowup US’s most advanced (3rd generation) space surveilancesystem. They will also conduct earth attacks at all known hyper-sonic missle locations.US will respond by using its 2nd generation & secret missle locations to get back veryquickly at Japan & Turkey.

Most interestingly, Friedman predicts that WW3 will be very peaceful. He saysadvanced weapenory will limit casualties to armies and no civilians, and even that tomaybe few thousand people. Economic destruction will be big. He also it’ll happenquickly.

After this, US will live its golden age (just like after WW2). that’s until the bigmexican-us confrontation at the end of the ccentury.

The Great US-Mexico Confrontation of 2100Friendman says that even UN predicts that population in the world will decrease by2050. He says by 2030 the need for working-age immigrants will become very clear in alladvanced nations (europe more than US). these advanced countries will compete forimmigrants. US will remain the favorite because of its incentives + population density isstill low.

This will cause many immigrants, especially Mexican, to move to US starting 2030s.

unlike all other groups, mexican immigration will cause the "cultural border" betweenus/mexico to move north.

By ~2080, development in robotics will reduce the need for more workers. Also theeconomy would get used to functioning in a decreasing population (unlike now whenpeople expect real-estate prices to keep going up – which won’t be true after 2030/2050).As a result, US will attempt to stop immigration from Mexico.

This will evolve into the big US-Mexican confrontation by the end of the century. I sayconfrontation and not war because Friedman predicts that some mexican/us citizens willbe senators in both houses across the border. The situation will become weird, wheremexicam americans will have a mexican government in the US.

The final outcome of all of this is not clear, and it remains an open question at the end ofthe book.

ConclusionThe book is very interesting. for me, the biggest takeaways are:

geo-political analysis makes sense, but I don’t think it’s enough. It analyzes eachcountry too independently from others. In this age of globalization it seems thatmost people are connected to each other economically, which makes wars andconflicts less possible. However, I think this was the theory right before WorldWar One – so one can never be sure.

1.

future is weirder than fiction2.i’m keeping my eye on china. us is in recession now, and let’s see what happensthere. this is his first prediction. this is something he’s been saying since 2007 .

3.

Population will be decreasing.4.Overall, very interesting book.

5/5 on Arrabi’s scale. (this is whether it’s worth reading, not that I agree with it)

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Posted by arrabi @ 3:20 pm

Tags: book, china, friedman, future, geopolitical, turkey, usa, WW 3

3 Responses

Hector Gonzalez Says:September 11th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

Very interesting article, hopefully we can have the spanish version of this book verysoon in Mexico. By the way Mexico is not in north of Africa as you stated, but I think itwas just a writting mistake.Regards.

Everardo Hernandez Says:September 16th, 2009 at 9:44 am

Amazing

Eduardo Micha Says:December 17th, 2009 at 9:18 am

I don’t believe this … godforbid all this mischievous nightmare ..

Pray the Lord my eyes not to witness all of this … GOd bless AMERICA & MEXICOpeace be upon us …

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BOOKS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW: GEORGE FRIEDMAN

George Friedman's 'The Next 100 Years':unpredictableBy Edward NawotkaSPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMANSunday, March 22, 2009

Thanksgiv ing Day 2050: While most of America is "watching f ootball and napping af ter digesting a massiv emeal," the Japanese launch moon-based missiles and destroy most of the United States' orbiting Battle Stars.This 21st-century Pearl Harbor will lead the world into war, pitting the U.S. — the globe's lone superpower —and its ally Poland against a coalition that includes Japan and a resurgent Turkey , which now controls most ofthe Middle East and commands an empire to riv al that of the Ottomans.

"It will be a world war in the truest sense of the word, but giv en the technological adv ances in precision andspeed, it won't be total war — societies try ing to annihilate societies," writes 60-y ear-old-Austinite GeorgeFriedman in "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast f or the 21st Century ." As such, total casualties of the f ighting— which will be f ought with hy personic aircraf t, space- based weaponry and armored, battery -powered f ootsoldiers — will cost perhaps 500,000 liv es, just a f ew thousand of them American. It is, Friedman points out, apittance compared with the 50 million who died in World War II.

The 21st-century world war is the centerpiece of Friedman's work of speculation and prediction. Examining aresurgent Russia under Putin, Friedman predicts that "Central Asia will be back in the Russian sphere ofinf luence by 2010" and f oresees a "rematch" of the cold war by 2020. The book ends with the U.S. on thev erge of a conf lict with Mexico as a result of mass immigration that has, ov er the long term, empowered ourneighbor to the south and destabilized the U.S. f rom within. Along the way Friedman explains how Japan,Poland and Turkey become world powers and why so many things that seem important to us now — such asIslamic extremism and Chinese economic dy namism — will ev entually f ade f rom relev ance.

"Some people hav e called me a hustler and suggested that a book like this is somehow f riv olous," admitsFriedman, f rom his cell phone while on book tour. "But this is a serious work that was written to make somecomplicated concepts accessible to a general audience. It is kind of the culmination of a lif e's work."

That work is now running Stratf or, a priv ate intelligence company Friedman f ounded in Austin in 1996. Bef orethat Friedman — who has a political science Ph.D. f rom Cornell Univ ersity — spent two decades in academia,most recently at Louisiana State Univ ersity , where he f ounded a precursor to Stratf or called the Center f orGeopolitical Studies.

Like some of his theories, Friedman's choice of Austin as home f or his business might seem counterintuitiv e."You would think an intelligence organization would best be serv ed by being in Washington, D.C.," he say s."But that is a city of gossip, It's easy to conf use the discussion about who is going to be promoted withmaking history . We wanted some distance f rom that in which to think. Austin has some adv antages: UT has asuperb library — which is essential to good intelligence — and a pool of bright, quirky people f rom which torecruit." He adds, "I hire a lot French mediev al literature majors, people who hav e knowledge we don't hav e,see the world as we don't see it and are insatiable about learning new things. People who don't say 'That'simpossible!'"

Friedman writes in "The Next 100 Years" that "Conv entional political analy sis suf f ers f rom a prof ound f ailureof imagination," adding "the changes that lead to the next era are alway s shockingly unexpected."

Of course, technically , a book such as this should be shelv ed as f iction, at least until it comes true. That said,ev en skeptics will f ind that the book's v erif iable nonf iction — such as the history cited — is no less f reshwhen run through Friedman's mind. He of f ers, f or example, an elegant disquisition on the unpredictability ofhistory by mov ing decade through decade of the 20th century , explaining what the world looked like then andwhat happened a mere 10 y ears later. "In the summer of 1900, liv ing in London, then the capital of the world,...the f uture seemed f ixed," he begins. Of course, what soon f ollowed was radically dif f erent.

Friedman's other major concern is something that is actually f ixed: geography . "Geography is important,because it changes little," he say s. "As a consequence, the same things happen ov er and ov er again. Thef requency of wars — between France and Germany , f or example — and their importance, are rooted ingeographic f orces. But that is the old civ ilization. The U.S. only emerged as the decisiv e global power af ter

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World War II and is still immature. The U.S.'s power is based on its Nav y and ability to control both oceans,the Atlantic and the Pacif ic, which no other power has been able to do."

Friedman of ten compares the U.S.'s behav ior to that of a teenager, which explains, f or example, our actionspost-9/11. "There is no question that American execution of the war in Iraq has been clumsy , graceless and inmany way s unsophisticated. The U.S. was, indeed, an adolescent in its simplif ication of issues and in its useof power." He then adds the kicker: "But on a broader, more strategic lev el, that does not matter. So long asthe Muslims are f ighting each other, the United States has won its war."

This war, it seems, aims to prev ent any one f rom f orming a coalition that of f ers a real challenge to the U.S. Itis a strategy that will play itself out in the many small wars the U.S. is likely to f ind itself inv olv ed in duringthe next century — none of which we will necessarily want to "win." Ultimately , Friedman argues that the U.S.,by v irtue of its geography , population and technology , is likely to remain the world's primary decision maker.This message has f ound a welcome reception among readers, so much so that the book has become asurprise best-seller. It debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times best-seller list in January and has remained onthe list. According to Friedman's Austin-based literary agent, Jim Hornf ischer, nearly 100,000 copies of thebook are in print.

Perhaps the book serv es as a palliativ e in this age of economic uncertainty .

On the subject of the current crisis, Friedman is sanguine. Take the current f inancial crisis, f or example. "Lookat 1972, 1984...and it goes f rom being an unprecedented disaster to cy clical. We bailed out Chry sler in the'70s, we bailed out sav ings and loans in the '80s, and we're bailing out banks today . In my lif etime the worldhas ended f rom a f inancial standpoint at least sev en times," he notes. "The one thing Americans lack and needthe most is perspectiv e."

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