The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century

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 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 show more 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

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, 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 show more 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 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. show more 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

Friedman is all about geopolitics. He believes politicians and other "powerful" people are limited and constrained by forces beyond their control. By tracking those forces, he hopes to paint the broad strokes of the 21st century. Initially skeptical, I found his reasoning plausible and integrated a great deal of the reading I've done on modern history. He emphasizes the unintended consequences of decision makers, who take risks and make assumptions that don't hold up. Probably the shocker is that he sees America at the brink of war with Mexico (?!) by the end of the century. The creepy thing is, as one who grew up in the Southwest, he makes sense! Another fact that has yet to appear on American public consciousness is that the global show more population explosion is over. Already. And this single demographic will dramatically affect real estate, immigration (nations will be competing for 'em), and changes in the social relationships of families. An excellent read. show less

For the first few chapters I was sold - some fascinating analysis of the forces that shape culture and history.

Unfortunately these were the ones that largely dealt with the past and present. When it came to discussing the future (most of the rest of the book), it totally jumped the shark.

At one point the author writes "this may seem like science fiction". Well, yes, but *bad* science fiction - you know, the kind that is unintentionally steampunk because it doesn't recognise just how many anachronistic assumptions it projects into the future?

It is kind of pointless to delve into a point-by-point rebuttal, as there is no reason why I should be any better than the author at predicting the future. But I can probably summarise my disquiet in show more a couple of themes:

1. Technology - The author massively underestimates and seems quite blind to the impact of technology, especially computing. The internet only gets a passing reference and is not linked to any major factors in the author's thesis. Worse yet, some of the author's most important points are founded on assumptions that are already being eroded by technology in 2013. Case in point is the surveillance and command-and-control imperatives that the author believes will lead to the US establishing "battlestars" in space, which in turn will lead to "World War III" .. yet we are already seeing advances in terrestrial drones outstrip even what the author believe battlestars will be capable of in another 30 years.

2. Sovereign States - there seems to be an underlying assumption that sovereign states are really the only actors on the stage that will shape how history unfolds. It all feels very 18th century - I'm not even sure this is true now, let alone for the next 100 years. It ignores the fact that people are getting harder to control en-masse thanks to globalisation and communications (who predicted the "Arab Spring"?), and it diminishes the influence of other forces, like corporations, or even nature (climate change or not). I'd believe the author's moon settlements more if he cast them as products of private enterprise - lead by the likes of Elon Musk aka Tony Stark - rather than a phoenix-like re-emergence of massive government space programs.

Rating the book is an unexpected quandary. On the one hand, I was engaged enough to enjoy reading to the end. However it was more with comic relief than any sense that I was exploring what might really happen this century. And for a book that is purportedly to be about the future to leave me totally incredulous is kind of the ultimate sin, hence the 1-star.

So unless you are an academic who needs to research everything, I think time might be better spent re-watching something like "Terminator", or "The Day After Tomorrow" - far more enjoyable, and probably just as likely visions of the future. Or more constructively, read Black Swan, because they too seem to be missing from this story. show less

This is a quick and fun read, although I approached its promise of prophecy with trepidation. I recall how far off the mark was the prediction of H.G. Wells in The Outline of History, Vols. I and II that WWI was so terrible it would prevent later global wars. However, this 2009 work seems prescient on many points now coming to pass: drones in wars, Russia grabbing at Ukraine, and even Turkey beginning to assert itself as an Islamic imperialist hegemon. (Might the Haghia Sophia return to being a mosque?) Also an eventual return to the global stage of a muscular Mexico and Poland feel substantiated. Lunar military bases, "battle stars", and space-based solar power? Well, I dunno... But, well...

First thought. This is stupid. Why even try to predict anything how the next the 100 years will play out?

But it got me thinking .... the author thinks in terms of historical cultural interactions and demographics. The beginning was fascinating with predictions of Poland, Turkey, and Japan become major world players and how the USA is still on its ascent of being THE major world power. He also offered a plausible reason that China will fail to overtake the USA.

I also liked how he explained the strategy of the USA foreign diplomacy. It's more about keeping anyone from dominating their region than making friends. That could explain why the USA ends up fighting against their past allies all the time.

The author is smart. He knows a lot of show more his predictions will fall flat. And though that will happen, it would be helpful for people interested in global politics to follow his thought process. show less