George Friedman

George Friedman's company, STRATFOR, consistently releases excellent analysis of world events and global trends, and I thought his previous work, "America's Secret War," continued his trend of thought provoking inquiry. A book based on predicting the next 100 years of history is ambitious and Friedman' analysis is interesting. He challenges the reader to ignore common sense and instead view countries through their constraints and potential responses. From these tools he extrapolates a vivid show more imagining of the future's potential history. His scenario plays upon the continued dominance of the United States and its contention with regional powers such as Japan, Poland, and Turkey. Although it is speculation, Friedman bases his prediction on the geopolitical priorities of countries. I especially liked his breakdown of U.S. priorities, and his recounting of U.S. history into 50 year cycles of economic and political development. His excursion on the future of war and its technology is fantastical at times, but it serves as a reminder of how military planners think, which was new to me. Friedman grounds many of his speculations in realistic assumptions about how nation states may act, and presents a very 'big-picture' view of the world.

Friedman's analysis and focus on the 'big picture' however leaves out many potential variables. I enjoyed his discussions on geography and demographics, but India only warranted a short paragraph in the middle of the book. Africa is not mentioned to which I must assume he believes it may be inconsequential, which reflects current foreign policy biases. Furthermore, given the rise of non-state actors and transnational issues such as organised crime, disease, multi-lateralism, etc. as policy priorities, it would have been nice to see them addressed. Friedman believes they may not be in the scope of his predictions which look at long term motivations, but these, including leadership, have the potential to change the course of history in a country. Climate change was address as an afterthought in the final two pages of the book, and Friedman states that technology will be the deciding factor in solving the issue. Friedman focuses on the nation-state and realism is his under-lying philosophy.This of course discounts other constructivist and neo-liberal view points of the world which may have informed the reader on the variety of possibilities in the international arena. The book is interesting, but Friedman's narrow take on how history is being made left me feeling that he left out important ingredients that could have influenced his predictions. show less

There has been a minor trend of books predicting the end of the American Empire by 2030. The Storm Before The Calm at first appears to be yet another, but it is more nuanced and clever. It doesn’t predict the end, but a new beginning, one that happens every 50-80 years since America was founded. The idea is that there are two series of waves or cycles: the institutional one runs 80 years (or so), and the economic/sociological one runs 50 years. For the first time ever, they will almost show more overlap in the 2020s according to George Friedman, who theory this is.

These waves or cycles have no names, just descriptions. They give plenty of warning, a decade or more, and can take another decade to settle down for a calm(er) run over the following 50 years. My problem with them is they are so unscientific, so packed with cherry-picked events, that they could appear any time, or never. Just pick the trends, developments and events you want to populate them with, et voila! They fit the theory.

Meanwhile, back in the cycles, Friedman positions them after major wars and economic crises. So cycles figured in independence, the Civil War, World War II and after Jimmy Carter. The last president of every cycle is a dismal failure, largely because he does not have the perspective to know his position in the cycle. Similarly, the first president in the new cycle makes all kinds of big changes, unknowingly setting up the next calm period with them. In that definition, Donald Trump does not even place. The last president in the upcoming cycles will be 2024-28. Many might think differently about the damage Trump is doing to government agencies and institutions, international trade, treaties, relations, morals and values, but in Friedman’s theory, he’s just more, not majorly different. And not The End.

Trump does however fit Friedman’s requirement of an ever-failing attempt by a president near the end of a cycle to bring back the good old days of an era that is gone forever. So one way or another, there’s more of that to come. Previous presidents at the end of cycles were John Quincy Adams, US Grant, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.

Besides the timelines, the evidence for the upcoming changes are that institutions have twisted themselves out of scope. For example, Friedman cites mortgage assistance. That was a postwar effort to help veterans become civilians, but morphed into a feeding frenzy down to subprime civilians and led to a massive debt bubble bursting in 2008. Similarly, the country no longer has the luxury of leaving declarations of war to the deliberations of Congress, he says. Nuclear and terrorist attacks have changed the playing field, requiring instant response. In his theory, these are tension points that will need unwinding.

Cycle ends are characterized by deep social and economic dislocation. There would be little disagreement we are undergoing such change, but it can also be said of pretty much any stretch of American history. The USA is a constant struggle to adapt. Westward expansion, Southern Reconstruction, urbanization, suburbanization, ghettoization, public education, computerization, drugs, mass media of various levels over the decades, have all contributed their piece to the strain. To me these cycles, lasting as short as Friedman specifies, might as well not be accounted for at all. He does not make the case they are distinct and recognizable to anyone but him.

Friedman spends a chapter explaining how the USA is an empire in denial, a reluctant empire, an immature empire, and not a particularly competent empire, using too little or too much force, largely dependent on Russian involvement for its efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth. Countries worldwide must toe the US line or be invaded, taken over, have their governments replaced or bankrupted. The USA maintains over 840 overseas military bases in far less than the 200 countries of the world, precisely to maintain its empire. And what it doesn’t threaten with its military, it manipulates with its money.

He says Americans don’t care much for ideologies, but that is absurd. The whole country has devolved into ideologies, voting by party, marrying by party, moving house by party allegiance. People don’t know the names of the candidates any more, they simply vote by party. For him to base his cyclical conflicts on the lack of ideology sends the whole project off the rails, for me.

Instead of ideology, he thinks the next big conflict will be over the federal government vs the citizenry, that the technocrats want to defend their power of complexity over the people’s desire for simplicity. But the federal government has been neutered and no longer matters very much. From the EPA to the weather service, the president has been interfering, reducing, minimizing and emasculating government. The EPA has been reduced to counting toilet flushes, the FBI to investigating the FBI. It’s not that no one trusts government any more, it’s that government isn’t there any more. The Justice Department did not take down a single financier over the 2008 Financial Crisis. Antitrust is a quaint notion. Regulations are being rolled back for no reason. Parklands are shrinking. Even the IRS is incapable of carrying out its mandate. So where exactly is the front line of this future battle?

He also forces things to fit his theory. He says the George W. Bush administration was the last time there was co-operation and rationality in government (“calm”), that beginning with Obama and now Trump, rigidity and lack of progress rule. But during Bush II, the W. stood for Worst president in history. His cabinet members were not merely unqualified or incompetent but maliciously so. He accomplished nothing lasting (structurally), even with the loud influence of the Tea Party. He was embarrassing internationally, and ridiculed nationally. To be nostalgic for W. as a pillar of calm stability is ludicrous.

Finally, this theory is only valid in the USA, it seems. It is special for Americans alone. Which doesn’t help its standing as a theory.

George Friedman was the chairman of Stratfor, the geopolitical prognosticator. It should be noted that another alum, Peter Zeihan, has just published a book called Disunited Nations using the Stratfor brain trust to predict how nations all over the world will fare in the coming decades, but not coming even close to what Friedman says about the USA. It would seem the crystal ball business is not quite as reliable or replicable as its adherents would have it.

David Wineberg show less

Back in the day I liked to read Friedman's Stratfor site to get a contrarian response to the apogee of globalist/"end of history" thinking, though I never forgot that he was the gentleman who blessed us with that hundred-percent wrong futurist polemic "The Coming War With Japan." Flash forward a generation and what do you have; a book where Friedman forecasts the coming war with...wait for it...Japan! In alliance with Turkey!

To be fair, Friedman has learned some lessons since the early 90s, show more and this book is mostly about demographics, technology, and the unchanging factors of geopolitics. This is not to mention that the author hedges his bets just a little bit. What really takes me aback is that Friedman has come up with this bizarre typology as a cultural tool of analysis, where he has a spectrum running from "barbarism" through "civilization" and ending up at "decadence." The first category essentially meaning being unthinkingly willing to fight, the second meaning showing conscious restraint, the last being unwilling to fight for one's values and interests. This throwback to organicist thinking about society seems mostly to exist to reassure American readers we still have some time in the sun left to us (as our culture is only adolescent according to Friedman), while giving Friedman an easy out to justify throwing Western Europe on the trash heap of history. Right.

This is not to mention that if we are really going to have confrontations with Russia and China by 2020, I somehow doubt that the leaders of those two states are going to liquidate themselves as supinely as Friedman imagines. Call this a think piece bloated to short book size, and lacking a bibliography and an index!

I mostly read this book for amusement and so should you. show less

I treated this book as a light, speculative and not too serious read of the future of the 21st century geopolitics. In this fashion, it was highly entertaining and even gleamed plenty of insights. I found it via Kindle Unlimited, so it was an easy 'purchase'.

One thing I was pleasantly surprised was with certain factors Friedman was already thinking of a decade ago, such as declining fertility rates and its effects upon immigration and the impending population pyramid economic crisis. I show more guess analysts are supposed to think of them but being part of the general public, I've only noticed these things come to the limelight for the last few years. Anyways, it was cool to see him extend these present occurrences into the logical next step. So a declining fertility rate means a stagnating population growth which means labor gets more valued which means immigration becomes prized. Other things such as soldiers' lives get more valued too, thereby pushing investment into things like robotic or autonomous technology. These notions certainly bring food for thought.

Friedman also brings plenty of history to his approach, and utilises it as an outline of a general pattern we can see with certain nations in certain markers of theirs' such as geography or natural resources. One example that is a foundation of this book is the United States' virtually untouchable geography. It was a sizeable advantage in the WW2 and the Cold War and it will continue to be one. Another example is Japan's weakness for natural resources and its essential importing of energy. This played a dominant effect in WW2 and likewise, will continue to do so.

This may be the book to finally make me pivot from watching YouTube clips of geopolitical takes (with guilty pleasure), to reading books on geopolitical takes (again, with guilty pleasure).

Geopolitics is a fascinating way to view the world and I hope to learn more about it. I would appreciate any recommendations! show less