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

I love coming across well-articulated viewpoints that challenge my own. It's almost always a win-win situation when this happens.

If I am convinced of the new point of view on its merits, then my worldview has been enhanced. My stance has moved from a position that is less correct to one that is more correct. If I remain unconvinced, on the other hand, then my original viewpoint has been strengthened... stress-tested and found worthy, as it were. And either way, new layers of nuance and subtlety are always a plus.

My views were certainly challenged - and yours will be too - by the stance in George Friedman's new book, "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century."

The book pulls no punches. There are predictions in here that will surprise your socks off. Just consider some of the timeline bullets from the front cover:

• 2020: China Fragments.
• 2050: Global War Between U.S., Turkey, Poland, and Japan - The New Great Powers.
• 2080: Space-Based Energy Powers Earth.
• 2100: Mexico Challenges U.S.
  
  If your initial reaction is anything similar to mine, it runs along the lines of "What?!? Is this guy smoking banana peels?"
  
  Most assuredly he is not. Friedman is the founder and CEO of Stratfor, an outfit billed as "the world's leading private intelligence and forecasting company." Geopolitics is Friedman's game... and it's a game he takes very seriously.
  
  Expect the Unexpected
  
  Conventional thinkers dismiss wildly unexpected views out of hand. For Friedman, that's the whole point. "Expect the unexpected" is a geopolitical forecaster's mantra. This point is hammered home in the introduction of the book, in which the reader is taken on a series of 20-year jumps through the 20th century. With each jump, the landscape looks radically different.
  
  Friedman's point in highlighting these radical landscape shifts is not that some mystical cycle kicks in like clockwork every two decades. It's merely that, when it comes to geopolitics and major world events, conventional wisdom is almost always wrong. The present order of things is no guide as to how things will look two decades out.
  
  China as Backwater?
  
  Friedman's views on China are particularly eye-opening.
  
  "I don't share the view that China is going to be a major world power," he writes. "I don't even believe it will hold together as a unified country... China is important, however, because it appears to be the most likely global challenger in the near term - at least in the minds of others."
  
  You need extremely powerful arguments to back statements like this one, and Friedman has them. He looks at China from a number of angles many others have not considered - and his arguments make sense. China has a number of geographical and cultural hurdles that will prove very tough to overcome.
  
  Many point to China's 30 years of breakneck growth. If Friedman is right in his view that "30 years is not a very long time" and that China will revert back to isolationist trend, the world will look very different ten years on than many of us expected.
  
  Friedman may well be wrong, of course... but he isn't just stirring the pot for the sake of being controversial. His logic is coherent.
  
  Oceans Trump All
  
  Take the emphasis on naval power, for example. One of the reasons Friedman expects the U.S. to dominate is because of America's absolute dominance of the world's oceans.
  
  "The United States Navy controls all of the oceans in the world," Friedman opines. "Whether it's a junk in the south China Sea, a dhow off the African coast, a tanker in the Persian Gulf, or a cabin cruiser in the Caribbean, every ship in the world moves under the eyes of American satellites in space and its movement is guaranteed - or denied - at will by the U.S. Navy."
  
  In the European Age, transatlantic trade was the key to wealth and prosperity. But then, closer to the end of the 20th century, something momentous happened. Transpacific trade - that is to say, trade across the Pacific Ocean, as opposed to the Atlantic - began to rise up.
  
  This shift heavily favors the United States as the only great power with coastal access to both oceans - Atlantic and Pacific. This factors huge in the geopolitical calculus that sits at the heart of Friedman's work.
  
  What's more, Friedman argues, the United States does not have to win wars. Because America has already established global geopolitical dominance, the goal is to disrupt any and all attempts of other regional powers to form. If this means fomenting an expensive conflict that America appears to "lose," then that's fine - because the strategic goal is not to win, but merely to keep competitive alliances from forming.
  
  America as Adolescent
  
  Friedman further compares the United States to an "adolescent" - still young and belligerent, not yet confident in its own ability to project and wield power.
  
  This moody teenager mindset explains a lot when it comes to thinking about U.S. foreign policy: the undercurrents of extreme insecurity interwoven with brash outbursts of confidence... the clumsy willingness to stomp around like a bull in a China shop (no pun intended)... and so on.
  
  It is truly a unique point of view. America in the very early stages of influence on the world stage, rather than the days of twilight? Who would have thought? It's a hallmark of U.S. culture, Friedman points out, to be deeply insecure about certain things - while at the same time harboring that deep streak of brashness.
  
  To his credit, Friedman is the only analyst I've come across who has made a serious effort to consider military power, alongside economic power, in his forecasts.
  
  And Friedman has thought about the economics too. In "The Next 100 Years" he makes the further argument that America is vastly underpopulated yet growing (whereas other competitors are shrinking) and that certain aspects of agricultural production and economic resilience will also make a real long-run difference.
  
  Guaranteed To Make You Think
  
  There are plenty of other crazy-yet-plausible assertions in this book that are guaranteed to make you think. (Poland and Turkey as two of the next "great powers?" Wow! And there are even wilder ideas than that...)
  
  I don't embrace Friedman's ideas without reservation. But "The Next 100 Years" has certainly made me think, and think hard, on some of the more popular forecast notions I've long entertained.

Comments

[investor88:]

The US is stronger than we think, China is more vulnerable than we think. Something to ponder over.

Feb 17 07:27 AM

[Firat Ünlü:]

If it's thinking you're after why no come up with an even more abstruse prediction, after all you'll gain from the practice.
Whilst progress has been incremental there are far too many 'black swan' effects that can change the landscape. Geopolitics is determined by geoeconomics. Follow the money.

'2050: Global War Between U.S., Turkey, Poland, and Japan - The New Great Powers.'

Come on, seriously. I watched a move called 'The whole world sinks expect Japan' recently and that movie has more substance to it than this 'prediction'.

Feb 17 08:21 AM

[predict_what:]

One who cannot predict the current crisis can predict the next 100 years.
Are you kidding me?

Feb 17 08:45 AM

[John Polomny:]

I would say the US is more likely to fragment. Peak Oil, $60 trillion in unfunded Social Security and Meidicare liabilities, unsustainable third world migration to the US are all things that may throw a wrench into Mr. Freidman's prognostication.

Feb 17 09:09 AM

[Aquater:]

The comments to this article above exactly prove the point of the article: brash teenage short-sighted but overconfident knee-jerk reactions.

Feb 17 09:23 AM

[Roly:]

America will come out of this depressen much stronger.
It needs about 10 years to change the old economy into a green sustainable new economy.
Reason: Americas population is still growing, China (one child per family policy) and Europe are shrinking and the old and older getting people cost more and more money. That means the young working people have to finance the costs of the retireees (2 young pay for one old) plus the care and education of the children. Most of the European states will go bankrupt!
The americans only have to save energy and become independant from the Arab oil. Insulate the houses, construct cars tha make 50 miles per gallon or change to electric engines, etc. Trade Arab oil against US food, or let them drink their oil. America has plenty of fertile land and can produce enough food to feed the country. Food and water are the weapons of the future. China has not enough land to feed the population, they do not have enough clean water.
Roly

Feb 17 10:36 AM

[whidbey:]

This is fun, but not productive. The things that determine the future are already in place and nothing much changes very fast. I think changes will come from:

1. Disease mutations
2. Weather modification mistakes
3. Food stuffs scarcity
4. value shifts that feat group action.

But we can not know how they fit together to form the new reality. I will not be here, but I suspect it will be a muddle through world.

Feb 17 10:56 AM

[HaavBline:]

Anything can happne in 100 years. It is fun to entertain any shocking forcast. Is it possible to sell such forcast books if there is not enough shock value?

I do have some observations about the way the forcasts had to be made though.

1. Author mentioned previous forcasters do not consider America's military dominence when making the case of forcasting continued American century. I think this is probably out of necissity. Previous forcasters can make their case based on America's financial dominance alone, but not any more. So Friedman can make his American century forcast credible only when it is also based on America's military dominance. This trend is not good. You might say that now (certain people in) America find it necessary to take its glove off.

2. I always agree that America is much stronger than most people realize because of our under-populated georgraphy and over-reserved resources. America still have plenty of room to grow.

3. A look up Wikipedia about Friedman show that he co-authored a book (with his wife) in 1991 "The Coming War with Japan", this after the Japanese bubble burst in late 1980s and during a time when Japan has a fad about "Say No to America". Well, Japan never really risk saying NO to US, so maybe Friedman reschedule that war to 2050 and throw in Turkey and Poland to boot.

4. The whole career of George Friedman is about wars, so let's not blame him for failing to forcast the current global crisis. But I am not sure he, a conservative republican, successfully forcasted the mess we are in due to the two wars started by GWBush.

Feb 17 03:21 PM

[HaavBline:]

Young people who does not understand my 3rd point above can look up Wikipedia under "The Japan That Can Say No", almost a movement at the time which I think led to Friedman's 'forcast' (or was it really a threat?) in his book "The Coming War with Japan",

Feb 17 03:33 PM

[ecliptix543:]

I would agree that this is the more likely of some of these exotic theories floating around these days. I'd imagine the US would do quite a bit better as a half-dozen or so regional trade zones than as the federal monstrosity it is today. I wouldn't expect the Feds to go quietly into the night, though..


On Feb 17 09:09 AM John Polomny wrote:

> I would say the US is more likely to fragment. Peak Oil, $60 trillion
> in unfunded Social Security and Meidicare liabilities, unsustainable
> third world migration to the US are all things that may throw a wrench
> into Mr. Freidman's prognostication.

Feb 17 03:53 PM

[hcm:]

Friedmen's article is several months old. What took you so long in taking a cheap shot?

You did a big disservice to your readers by not including the, quite reasonable, foreword to Friedmen's essay. It answered many of the comments that these uninformed readers have made.

By neglecting to include Friedmen's introductory remarks, you created a massive distortion of his views.

Since you did not include a link to the original article, your readers, from the comments posted, are even more misinformed and confused.

Your so-called intellectual honesty is bogus.

Feb 17 08:58 PM

[victorjet:]

Has he figured Russia or India into the equation? One has an abundance of labour, the other is rich in minerals.

Feb 18 05:32 AM

[LostJedi:]

Predicting something so far in the future that none of us will still be alive is hogwash. On the other hand, people like Celente are probably more credible by predicting nearer-term events, even if not all of them materialize.

Feb 18 07:22 AM

[Baddoggie:]

A disassembled China will be stronger and invigorated not weaker. Think of what poor shape mainland China would be in if Taiwan or Hong Kong had not existed separate from the mainland.

Predictions that extend out more than ten years are bunk.

Feb 18 10:38 AM

[wolf9051:]

It is at least as likely as not that China will not be able to sustain both it's peace and it's economic expansion, India also seems at least as likely as not to collapse under the strain of the conflict between sustaining the existance of the have nots with the desires of the haves. Europe seems to be sinking into demographic oblivion. While I am obviously proAmerican, it seems probable that the US with clear military dominance and the political and social training to adapt to the challenges over the next century is more likely than not to continue to dominate the global landscape. Those traditional allies or those that have lately aligned with us also seem more likely to be the relative winners in the global "game". I am speaking of Japan and Korea (the post WWII allies) and Poland, Georgia and the Baltic states (the post cold war allies). Since we have a clear prediliction for supporting and favoring allies that both express a fondness for us and try to emulate our democratic systems it seems to me that the eventual alliance of those states with the US is more than capable of coping with the disruptions and crisises that will arise in the coming century. While I agree with the author and disagree with some of the commentors on the issue of the future ( the future never looks like what we in the past expected--ie it is never a straight line extrapolation of current trends) I still think it is possible to weigh the relative strengths of our culture and democracy to repond to disruptions with resiliance against the difficulties that other cultures have demonstrated in adapting and arrive at an attitude that is positive and upbeat, if not always cheerful.

Mar 29 12:02 AM

[Graham and ...:]

Here's my version of Friedman's thesis:

2020 China fragments, after losing a war with the west.
2030-2040 Mexico (and the other Latin American countries) take over the United States in a "reverse merger" of North and South America.
2050-2060 The new, adolescent, "America" flexes its muscles.
2070-2080 Other major countries, such as Germany-Poland, the "new Roman Republic" (including Turkey), and Japan, et. al come together in that feared "competitive alliance" as a counterweight to the new American world power.

Jun 02 07:28 PM