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

Description

“Conventional analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination. It imagines passing clouds to be permanent and is blind to powerful, long-term shifts taking place in full view of the world.” —George FriedmanIn his long-awaited and provocative new book, George Friedman turns his eye on the future—offering a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the twenty-first century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century.The Next 100 Years draws on a fascinating exploration of history and geopolitical patterns dating back hundreds of years. Friedman shows that we are now, for the first time in half a millennium, at the dawn of a new era—with changes in store, including:• The U.S.-Jihadist war will conclude—replaced by a second full-blown cold war with Russia.• China will undergo a major extended internal crisis, and Mexico will emerge as an important world power.• A new global war will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and an unexpected coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Far East; but armies will be much smaller and wars will be less deadly.• Technology will focus on space—both for major military uses and for a dramatic new energy resource that will have radical environmental implications.• The United States will experience a Golden Age in the second half of the century.Written with the keen insight and thoughtful analysis that has made George Friedman a renowned expert in geopolitics and forecasting, The Next 100 Years presents a fascinating picture of what lies ahead.For continual, updated analysis and supplemental material, go to www.geopoliticalfutures.com.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Futurist and CEO of Stratfor, a private intelligence firm, George Friedman looks out over the new century to discern the long term trends which will shape events for years to come. While it’s unlikely most of us will be around to judge the accuracy of Friedman’s predictions they make for interesting reading and sometimes surprising twists on current expectations. Noting that history in the U.S. seems to proceed in 20 year and 50 year cycles, Friedman tells us that, far from being in decline, the U.S. is really just coming into its own and will likely grow in power and global dominance over the next 100 years. In fact, he suggests the constant American concern about its own decline is really symptomatic of a still uncertain adolescent rather than a more mature nation. Because America is still in its awkward but maturing stage, we cannot help but blunder about, notes Friedman, but we are big enough and robust enough to make lots of mistakes without hurting our interests in any serious way.Still, he suggests, other nations and peoples will not be able to help but dislike, and align themselves against, us anymore than we can help acting in our own interests.Beginning with the trend of globalization he argues that, as the world modernizes, the incentive to procreate will continue to diminish resulting in a significant downturn in world populations. In urban societies, larger numbers of children, he reminds us, are a burden on their parents, not a boon. Given this he suggests that:1) Global Warming, though in his view real and manmade (as claimed by its proponents), will start to ease because demand will drop of its own accord; and2) The energy crisis will diminish because of the demand drop as well.As populations trend downward, population replenishment will become the major problem for nation states in this century. Western European nations (England, France, Germany, etc.) are already in advanced decline, he argues, their culture one of cynicism and relativism. The population of these nations will continue to be disproportionately older, as well, as they experience a more rapid population drop-off than in many other parts of the world, including North America. Their economies will be correspondingly less robust, he argues, too.Regarding current events, he suggests that the American war with the Jihadists already looks to be over. America, he says, has won because America is in a position of global dominance and so doesn’t need to defeat its enemies. It must only keep them off balance. Russia, he adds, though now in the throes of a revanchist resurgence under Putin will not be able to sustain this because of its radical population decline and lack of new inflows of people. He believes a revived Russian Empire will reclaim its “near abroad” in the short term but will self-destruct some time in the 2020’s because of demographic problems, leaving a vacuum that, he predicts, will be filled by an eastern bloc in Europe led by Poland (the largest and most energetic of the eastern European states), and by Turkey, a nation well-positioned to dominate southern Russia and its environs, along with the eastern Mediterranean and much of the Near East.In the far east he thinks China will self-destruct shortly after Russia because the Chinese system is sitting on a population that is much poorer than it looks with greater wealth disparities. He believes that the inherent weaknesses this represents will lead to a break down in the current Communist regime’s ability to exert central control over the bulk of Chinese territory and that the regions on the coast will follow their own economic interest, leading them to work with other nations, like Japan, to the detriment of the central Chinese authority. The relative isolation of China (landlocked on three sides with border regions that are difficult to occupy or traverse — from the Himalayas to the Gobi desert and from Siberia to the jungles of Southeast Asia) works against China exerting much influence beyond its borders in these directions while the eastern coastal regions, following their own self-interest, will break away, either in fact or de jure, ulitmately weakening the Chinese polity.On the other hand, he thinks Japan will see a resurgence, thanks to Japanese education and industry and its traditional access to areas beyond its borders via the sea. But, because Japan suffers the same demographic problems as other top tier urbanized states, while having a strong disinclination to permit non-Japanese to enter its homeland and dilute the native culture, it will turn outward and aim to dominate a fragmented China in the western Pacific region, seeking both resources and population to fuel its manufacturing engine. Thus Japan will again look for empire at China’s expense as it has done in the past.Friedman thinks the U.S. is best positioned geographically for continued global dominance because it controls North America which sits astride the two major oceans and because the U.S. system continues to attract new immigrants, thereby enabling it to continue to grow (or at least shrink less), while other major modern states are feeling deeper population losses. But, because of the U.S. global role, it will continue to have a vested interest in ensuring that no other state arises to challenge its dominance. (This is not a function of explicit American planning but of national dynamics, i.e., any state in this position, he says, would act in roughly the same way out of national self-interest). Thus the U.S. need not win all its conflicts on Friedman’s view. It only has to make sure no one else manages to win theirs in certain critical theaters so that potential challengers never achieve enough stability to threaten U.S. dominance.But other nations, driven by these same kinds of concerns will not be able to keep from challenging the U.S. Thus Japan and Turkey will gradually find themselves in a position, he argues, that puts them at odds with the U.S. (about mid-century). By that point Friedman predicts the U.S. will have shifted its military focus to control of the orbital areas around Earth and to reliance on manned, fixed spy and missile launching satellites, with pinpoint targeting capabilities. There will also be occupation of the moon for research and military applications. Control of these area will become paramount to American power. He assumes other nations will also go into space and operate on the moon, too.As the U.S. moves to prevent Japan and Turkey from achieving irreversible hegemony in their regions, these two powers will see it as in their interest to act against the U.S. and initiate a pre-emptive strike some time around 2050 against the U.S., beginning with an attack on American spy and missile launching satellites. He thinks the attack will likely succeed, at least initially, but that the U.S.’s geographic and resource advantages, combined with an alliance with the Polish bloc, that will by then be at odds with the growing Turkish power, will eventually lead to a reversal of fortunes, the U.S. and Poland defeating Turkey and Japan, just as the U.S., Britain and the U.S.S.R. defeated the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) in World War II.In the course of this war, he predicts the U.S. military will make huge technological strides in space, accelerated by wartime demands. This will result in the replacement of carbon fuels, including oil, with solar power collected in space and beamed to Earth in the war’s aftermath, giving the U.S. dominance in energy supplies, too.But the opening up of U.S. immigration floodgates that will have occurred in the earlier part of the century and which will have been the source of much of America’s continued strength and growth throughout the century will also contain the seeds of America’s future problems as Mexicans emigrate into, and remain in, the American Southwest without fully giving up their cultural and national affiliations. The American Southwest, of course, was once part of Mexico and was wrested away by the U.S. via the Texas rebellion and the later Mexican War. The new substantial Hispanic population in this part of the U.S., Friedman predicts, will result in yet another war with a stronger and more economically robust Mexico by the end of the century, a war whose outcome will determine which country, the U.S. or Mexico, will control North America and thus claim global dominance for the following century.Intriguingly, he sees little likelihood of a resurgent Islam restoring the medieval Islamic caliphate that once dominated the world, citing too much factionalism and geographic fragmentation in the Muslim world. Yet he takes no account of the fact that once before, in the eighth and ninth centuries AD, Islam DID in fact achieve such unification without benefit of geographical or even demographic advantages.Aside from his overly easy dismissal of Islam’s potential to alter the global picture, this was a fascinating and perceptive analysis of current and likely future trends based on historical precedent, human and national natures and the physical facts underlying the distribution and interaction of nations and peoples. An important book, even if only some of its predictions hold up, it’s just too bad most of us are going to miss the end of the show!Stuart W. Mirskyauthor of the historical novel

⭐and

⭐, the true story of one fifteen year old girl’s survival in Nazi occupied Poland during World War II

⭐George Friedman does not subscribe to the gloomy view of a “Post-American World.” In fact, Friedman believes that the United States is only now reaching the apogee of its power and influence in the world. Sure, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq showed that the country has its limits within its current military budget. But America’s days of global dominance are far from over.These are not the words of a motivational speaker or an aspiring politican. Friedman is the founder and Chief Intelligence Office of Stratford, the private intelligence company Barron’s once called the “Shadow CIA.”In The Next 100 Years, Friedman takes his lifetime’s worth of study and analysis and allows his imagination to run freely (perhaps a little too freely) in forecasting what paths geopolitics might take over the next century. At one point in the book, when discussing scenarios for the 2040s, he sees a resurgent Japan attacking American “Battle Star” space stations from secret bases on the moon.I really wish Friedman hadn’t gone there. I consider it a ridiculous distraction from what was otherwise a fascinating and insightful work.Friedman, like any good forecaster, repeatedly warns against linear thinking and naiveextrapolation of current trends into the future. History, economics, and financial markets do not move in straight lines–of which our current credit crisis provides ample evidence–but tend to move in cycles. Political movements and entire nations rise and fall and rise again. History does not repeat itself per se, but it does, to paraphrase Mark Twain, “rhyme.”A country’s current (and future) internal politics and relations with the outside world are a result of that country’s unique history (and geography too, Friedman would argue). For example, Americans’ ambivalence toward the assorted financial bailouts reflects a fundamentally unique national character, one marked by a general mistrust of the state that traces its roots to the Magna Carta in England. Other countries with their own unique histories have very different reactions to the crisis and the responses to it.With all of this said, what are some of Friedman’s predictions?For one, China could cease to exist as a unified state and could break down into warring factions as soon as the 2010s.Sound farfetched? Yes, but it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened to China after a prolonged period of contact with the outside world. There has always been a tension in China between the richer coastal areas, which tend to have an outward orientation, and the vast interior of the country, which tends to be poorer and far more insular in mentality. These tensions, according to Friedman, were at work in the Chinese civil war that ended with Mao’s communist victory and are likely to be the cause of a new civil war within a decade. Time will certainly tell.Friedman also sees a resurgence, albeit a short-lived one, of Russian imperialism that will eventually implode due to Russia’s shrinking population.Friedman is correct to identify demographics as Russia’s Achilles’ heel, yet he strangely fails to draw the same conclusion for Japan. As we mentioned above, Friedman sees Japan reemerging as a military power a full 100 years after that nation was defeated in World War II and forming an anti-American axis with Turkey, of all countries. Friedman sees Turkey more or less recreating the old Ottoman Empire and emerging as the leader of the Islamic world, filling a power vacuum creating by constant infighting between the Arab states to Turkey’s south. Friedman also sees Poland emerging as a major military and diplomatic power in Europe, taking over the role traditionally played by France and Germany-Austria.Many of Friedman’s forecasts sound too fantastical to be taken seriously. But then, it would have sounded fantastic in 1914 to say that the Austrian, Ottoman, and Russian empires would cease to exist just a few years later or that the United Kingdom would be reduced from the seat of a globe-spanning empire to a mere province of the European Union just a few decades later.Time will be the ultimate judge of Friedman’s forecasts. In the meantime, he had several quotes in The Next 100 Years that we found worth repeating here.Friedman gives a good synopsis of the world’s changing global demographics:”Underlying all of this will be the single most important fact of the twenty-first century: the end of the population explosion. By 2050, advanced industrial countries will be losing population at a dramatic rate. By 2100, even the most underdeveloped countries will have reached birthrates that will stabilize their populations.”The entire global system has been built since 1750 on the expectation of continually expanding populations. More workers, more consumers, more soldiers–this was always the expectation. In the twenty-first century, however, this will cease to be true. The entire system of production will shift. The shift will force the world into a greater dependence on technology–particularly robots that will substitute for human labor, and increased genetic research…to make people productive longer.”This could perhaps be called the “anti-Malthusian” demographic argument. Moving further into demographic territory, Friedman writes on the current housing crisis,”The decline in housing prices has many reasons, but lurking in back of it is a demographic reality. As global population growth declines, the historic assumption that land and other real estate will always rise in price due to greater demand becomes suspect. The crisis of 2008 was not yet really a demographically driven crisis. But it showed a process that will reveal itself more fully over the next twenty years….”According to Friedman, due to changing global demographics, real estate simply will not be the profitable investment that it has been for most of the past 500 years or more. In a deflationary environment, real estate is perhaps the worst asset class to own. (For an excellent analysis of the effects of population growth on inflation and deflation in general and real estate in particular, we highly recommend David Hackett Fischer’s

⭐.)All told, Friedman’s new book is an interesting mix of critical analysis of current trends and a sometimes fantastic forecast of things to come. The book is engaging and in many places insightful. Just be sure to take some of his more controversial forecasts with the appropriate grain of salt.

⭐The book was written in 2009 and already some of the predictions have already taken place! Not sure if I believe everything will go as predicted but, it’s a great analysis of the past history and what could be the future. It will be intriguing to revisit the book in the future to see if any of the predictions actually happen! A very interesting read if your into geopolitics.

⭐Surpriseingly accurate predictions in this book. The author near to the truth. I i very like the clear voice of the author.

⭐First half of the book was really useful – a thorough analysis of the key factors influencing different regions of the world and the discussion on possible conflicts. However the second half of the book was more akin to science fiction – the author imagines in detail the kind of wars the world will enter into in the 2040s, 2060s, 2080s and the corresponding effects to the world. The author is clearly qualified to make these king of predictions, however as he correctly demonstrates in the beginning of the book, no-one has been able to predict the world in that detail in the past. And this makes the first half of the book even more useful since the analysis of underlying powers and limitations enables to understand the current world much better as well as neglect those future scenarios that are close to impossible.

⭐This is a must-read for anyone who is interested in international politics. It’s dated now, but there is a more up-to-date book that accompanies this one. It’s a lesson in how to see the bigger picture. Although biased towards the US, there’s still a lot of very interesting insight here to keep you thinking long after you’ve finished reading.

⭐Was hard for me to put this book down especially the first half. I was a little disinterested as forecasts around space war were explained, even though I could make sense of the argument, but then again became very enticed for the final quarter of the book in which I couldn’t put this book down again. Most importantly, I have an increased understanding of geopolitics role in this world and will probably never watch further events unfold without constantly reflecting on what has been written in this book.

Keywords

Free Download The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century in PDF format
The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century PDF Free Download
Download The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century 2009 PDF Free
The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century 2009 PDF Free Download
Download The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century PDF
Free Download Ebook The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century