 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(May 2014) |
 | |
| Author | George Friedman |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Publication date | 2009 |
| ISBN | 0-385-51705-X |
The Next 100 Years is a 2009 speculative nonfiction book by George Friedman. In the book, Friedman attempts to predict the major geopolitical events and trends of the 21st century. Friedman also speculates in the book on changes in technology and culture that may take place during this period.
Friedman predicts that the United States will remain the dominant global superpower throughout the 21st century and that the history of the 21st century will consist mainly of attempts by other world powers to challenge US dominance. Although mainly about the geopolitics and wars of the century, the book also makes some economic, social, and technological predictions for the 21st century.
In the 2010s, the conflict between the US and Islamic fundamentalists will die down, and a second Cold War, less extensive and shorter than the first, will take place between the United States and Russia. It will be characterized by Russian attempts to expand its sphere of influence into Central and Eastern Europe, coupled with a buildup of Russian military capabilities. During this period, Russia's military will pose a regional challenge to the United States. The United States will become a close ally to some Central and Eastern European countries, all of whom will be dedicated to resisting Russian geopolitical threats during this period. Friedman speculates in the book that the United States will probably become a close ally of some Central and Eastern European countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Around 2015, a Polish-led military alliance of countries in Central and Eastern Europe will begin to form, which is referred to in the book as the "Polish Bloc."
In the early 2020s, the New Cold War will end when the economic strain and political pressure on Russia, coupled with Russia's declining population, and poor infrastructure, cause the federal government of Russia to completely collapse, much like the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Other former Soviet countries will fragment as well.
Around this time, China will politically and culturally fragment as well. The book asserts that the rapid economic development of China since 1980 will cause internal pressures and inequalities in Chinese society. Regional tension in mainland China will grow between the prosperous coastal regions and the impoverished interior regions. Friedman gives two possible scenarios: that the Chinese central government will expel outside interests and rule with an iron fist to keep the country together, or that China will fragment, with the central government gradually losing much of its real power and the provinces becoming increasingly autonomous. He works on the assumption that fragmentation is the most likely scenario.
In the 2020s, the collapse of the Russian government and the fragmentation of mainland China will leave Eurasia in general chaos. Other powers will then move in to annex or establish spheres of influence in the area, and in many cases, regional leaders will secede. In Russia, North Caucasus and other Muslim regions, as well as the Pacific Far East will become independent, Finland will annex Karelia, Romania will annex Moldova, Tibet will gain independence with help from India, Taiwan will extend its influence into mainland China, while the United States, European powers, and Japan will re-create regional spheres of influence in mainland China.
In the 2020s and 2030s, three main powers will emerge in Eurasia: Turkey, Poland, and Japan. Initially supported by the United States, Turkey will expand its sphere of influence and become a regional power, much as it was during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish sphere of influence will extend into the Arab world, which will have increasingly fragmented by then, and north into Russia and other former Soviet countries. Israel will continue to be a powerful nation and will be the only country in the immediate region to remain outside the Turkish sphere of influence. However, Israel will be forced to come to an accommodation with Turkey due to Turkey's military and political power.
Meanwhile, Japan will expand its economic influence to regions of coastal China, the Russian Far East, and many Pacific Islands. Friedman predicts that Japan will change its foreign policy during this time period, becoming more geopolitically aggressive, beginning a major military buildup. Friedman predicts that Japan will build military strength capable of regionally projecting power across East Asia during this time.
Finally, Poland will continue to lead its military alliance, the "Polish Bloc." Poland and its allies will be a major power, much like the time of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Now possessing substantial military strength, Poland will expand its economic influence into what was formerly European Russia, and will begin to compete with Turkey for influence in the important economic region of the Volga River Valley. Around this time, space programs for military use will begin to emerge, and Japan and Turkey will increasingly begin to develop military capabilities in space.
At the beginning of this period, the United States will be allied with all three powers. By 2020, the United States will have been allied with Turkey and Japan for over 75 years. However, in the years after the end of the Second Cold War and collapse of Russia, the United States will gradually become uneasy as Turkey and Japan expand their military power and economic influence. Establishing regional spheres of influence, Turkey and Japan will begin to threaten US interests. The growth of Turkish and Japanese naval power, and their military activities in space will be particularly disturbing to the United States.
The book asserts that Japan and Turkey, having similar interests, probably will form an alliance near the end of this period, in an effort to counter the overwhelming global power of the United States. The book also speculates that Germany and Mexico may possibly join this anti-United States coalition, although it is generally unlikely. In this coming confrontation, the United States will be allied with the "Polish Bloc," probably with the UK, a restabilized China, India, and a reunified Korea. By the 2040s, there will be global tension and competition between these two alliances.
The book also predicts that decades of low birthrates in developed countries, especially in Europe, will result in dramatic cultural, social, and political shifts through the first half of the 21st century. These countries will experience economic and social strain, caused by a diminishing working age demographic and a rapidly aging population. As a result, in the 2020s and 2030s, Western nations will begin to compete for immigrants. In particular, the United States will greatly ease immigration controls, and will begin trying to entice foreigners - especially Mexicans - to immigrate to the United States.
However, later in the century, as robots begin to make human work obsolete, mass unemployment will result, and the United States, suffering from a labor surplus, will move to limit immigration again.
In the mid-21st century, around the year 2050, a Third World War will take place, between the United States, the "Polish Bloc", the UK, India, and China on one side, and Turkey and Japan on the other, with Germany and France entering the war in its late stages on the side of Turkey and Japan. According to Friedman, "I can’t possibly know the details of this war, or even its timing. But I can lay out some of the principles and imagine some of the details." The book then describes one detailed scenario, to illustrate how this war might occur.
According to the book, the war will probably be started by a coordinated Turkish-Japanese sneak attack against the United States and its allies, in order to contest American power over Eurasia. In the scenario Friedman gives, the attack will take place at a time in which the US will be taken completely off guard, and hypothesizes 5:00 p.m. on November 24, 2050 (Thanksgiving Day) as a potential time. [1] According to Friedman, "it doesn’t have to be Thanksgiving, but it has to be an unexpected time when U.S. leadership is not at its full strength," comparing the attack to Pearl Harbor or the Korean War, which both commenced on a Sunday.
The Turkish-Japanese alliance's initial strike will cripple the military capabilities of the United States and its allies. The Turkish-Japanese alliance will then attempt to enter negotiations, demanding the United States accept the Turkish-Japanese's alliance's status as a fellow superpower. However, the United States will reject the terms and go to war, refusing to accept Turkish and Japanese hegemony over Eurasia. The Turkish-Japanese alliance will initially possess a military advantage after crippling the United States' military during its first strike. However, as the war progresses, the balance of power will begin to shift as the United States rebuilds and increases its military capabilities, and pioneers the use of new military technologies. The war will ultimately end with a victory by the United States and its allies.
The primary weapons of the war will be long-range hypersonic aircraft and infantrymen with highly sophisticated, powered body-armor. Control of space will be crucial over the course of the conflict, with space-based weapons systems and military bases on the Moon playing a significant role. The war will last about two or three years. According to Friedman, the war will be a limited war, and precision-guided munitions will minimize collateral damage. Friedman estimates that the war will cost somewhere around 50,000 lives.
Following the war, the United States will enjoy a new post-war boom (similar to the post–World War II economic expansion). This boom will begin in the 2050s after the war and last throughout the 2060s. The economic boom will come as a result of increased defense expenditures that lead to the development of new technologies, which will foster dramatic economic growth and increase US influence worldwide. In addition, the economic problems imposed by mass retirement of the Baby Boomers will fade away as the last of the Boomers die.
The United States will continue to be militarily and politically dominant over the world, and will also cement its hegemony over space. In particular, it will work to keep other powers from developing military capabilities in space. Meanwhile, Turkey will retain the bulk of its sphere of influence, although its de facto empire will become increasingly restive as a result of defeat, while Japan will lose its own sphere of influence. Under the US-dictated treaty that will end World War III, military restrictions will be imposed on both Japan and Turkey, although in practice they will be unenforceable and "merely a gratuitous humiliation victors enjoy imposing on the vanquished".
Meanwhile, Poland's power will grow due to the expanded size of the Polish Bloc as a result of the war. Although its infrastructure and economy will have been shattered, and despite having suffered particularly heavy casualties, Poland will exploit the Polish Bloc's increased sphere of influence to rebuild its economy. The United States will begin to look at the Polish Bloc's growing strength as a potential future threat. To prevent Polish hegemony in Europe, the United States will ally with its former enemies Japan (oldest closet ally) and Turkey, as well as the UK, to prevent Poland from dominating Eurasia, and will prevent Poland from making use of space for military purposes.
According to the book, North America will remain the center of gravity for the global economic and political system for at least a few more centuries following the 21st century. However, this does not guarantee that the United States will always dominate North America. In the decades following the war, starting in the 2070s, tensions between Mexico and the United States will rise. By this time, after decades of massive immigration, many parts of the United States, especially the South West, will become predominantly ethnically, culturally, and socially Mexican.
During this period, many ethnic Mexicans living in the Southwestern United States, especially those living in the Mexican Cession, will increasingly shun assimilation into US culture, due to the fact that they will live in a predominantly Mexican region, as well as the close proximity of Mexico. These demographic changes will be irreversible. Most Mexicans in the US Southwest will identify as Mexicans rather than Americans, and their national loyalty will be to Mexico and not the United States. During this period, Mexico will experience substantial economic and population growth. By the end of the 21st century, Mexico's military and economic power will have grown tremendously, and it will be in a position to challenge the United States for dominance of North America. In addition to an insurgency by Mexican separatists, political, cultural, and military tensions between the United States and Mexico will rise, and generate into a full-blown confrontation.
An extended crisis between the United States and Mexico will ensue, one that the United States will be unable to resolve through the use of military force. Most of the world, wary of US dominance, will secretly hope for a Mexican victory, especially Poland and Brazil, but no other nation will directly interfere. Friedman's final prediction is that the conflict will continue into the 22nd century.
Among the technological predictions made in the book are the development of hypersonic aircraft and missiles, new space-based technology that will foster the development of military bases on the Moon and crewed military orbiting platforms (referred to in the book as "Battle Stars"), and armored robotic battle suits for soldiers that run on solar power. In addition, the Earth will come to be powered by solar energy collected from satellites beaming the energy down in the form of radiation to receiving stations on Earth, which will end dependence on hydrocarbons, and dramatic advances in robotics and genetic science will lead to a great increase in labor productivity, and significant increases in human longevity. It also hints at more widespread nuclear proliferation, claiming that Japan, Turkey, and Poland will have nuclear weapons by mid-century, as the technology will be a century old by that time, and "there won't be any mystery to how to build and deliver them."
In 2015, Stratfor published a decade forecast for 2015 to 2025, which revised the predictions on China and Russia made in the book. Rather than the Russian government completely collapsing, it envisioned that the Russian government would lose much of its power, and the country would gradually fragment into a series of semi-autonomous regions. In addition, while the book had postulated that Chinese fragmentation was more likely than the re-imposition of authoritarian rule, the analysis predicted that regional fragmentation was now a less-likely scenario for China, with the most probable result being the re-imposition of strict authoritarian rule. [2] It is unknown at present what implications this has for the book's further predictions, such as the Third World War and the US conflict with Mexico.
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is de jure independent but de facto completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders. Puppet states have nominal sovereignty, but a foreign power effectively exercises control through means such as financial interests, economic, or military support. By leaving a local government in existence the outside Powers evade all responsibility, while at the same time successfully paralyzing the Government they tolerate.
Soviet Empire is a political term which is used in Sovietology to describe the actions and power of the Soviet Union, with an emphasis on its dominant role in other countries.
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity.
A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause middle or small powers to consider the great powers' opinions before taking actions of their own. International relations theorists have posited that great power status can be characterized into power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status dimensions.
The Cold War originated in the breakdown of relations between the two main victors in World War II: United States and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, in the years 1945–1949.
In international relations, since the late 20th century, the term "regional power" has been used for a sovereign state that exercises significant power within a given geographical region. States that wield unrivaled power and influence within a region of the world possess regional hegemony.
The causes of World War II, a global war from 1939 to 1945 that was the deadliest conflict in human history, have been given considerable attention by historians from many countries who studied and understood them. The immediate precipitating event was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany made by Britain and France, but many other prior events have been suggested as ultimate causes. Primary themes in historical analysis of the war's origins include the political takeover of Germany in 1933 by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party; Japanese militarism against China, which led to the Second Sino-Japanese War; Italian aggression against Ethiopia, which led to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and Germany's initial success in negotiating the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviet Union to divide the territorial control of Eastern Europe between them.
The Franco-Polish Alliance was the military alliance between Poland and France that was active between the early 1920s and the outbreak of the Second World War. The initial agreements were signed in February 1921 and formally took effect in 1923. During the interwar period the alliance with Poland was one of the cornerstones of French foreign policy.
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. Its principal members by 1941 were the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China.
Official relations between Poland and the United States on a diplomatic level were initiated in 1919 after Poland had established itself as a republic after 123 years of being under foreign rule from the Partitions of Poland. However, ties with the United States date back to the 17th century, when the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of Europe's largest powers, and many Poles immigrated to the Thirteen Colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, the Polish military commanders Tadeusz Kościuszko and Casimir Pułaski contributed greatly to the Patriot cause, with Kościuszko becoming a national hero in America. Since 1989, Polish–American relations have been strong and Poland is one of the chief European allies of the United States, being part of both NATO and the European Union. There is a strong cultural appreciation between the two nations (Polonophilia). According to the US Department of State, Poland remains a "stalwart ally" and "one of strongest Continental partners in fostering security and prosperity, throughout Europe and the world." Poland was also one of four participating countries in the American-led Iraq War coalition in 2003.
Władysław Gizbert-Studnicki, a Polish politician and publicist, was born on 15 November 1867 in Dünaburg, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire, into a Polish szlachta family of the Kresy region. Both his parents fought in the January Uprising. Throughout his life, Studnicki was famous for his strongly pro-German stance, and in the Polish People's Republic all his books were banned from publication. He was the older brother of historian Wacław Studnicki. He died on 10 January 1953 in London.
A potential superpower is a state or a political and economic entity that is speculated to be—or to have the potential to soon become—a superpower.
In many periodizations of human history, the late modern period followed the early modern period. It began approximately around the year 1800 and depending on the author either ended with the beginning of contemporary history after World War II, or includes that period up to the present day. Notable historical events in the late 18th century that marked the transition from the early modern period to the late modern period include the American Revolution (1765–1791), the French Revolution (1789–1799), and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1760. It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; the next billion came just over a century later, in 1927.
The Next Decade is a 2010 speculative nonfiction book by George Friedman, who addresses the United States' relationships with other countries and the state of the world in general throughout the 2010s.
This article covers worldwide diplomacy and, more generally, the international relations of the great powers from 1814 to 1919. This era covers the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), to the end of the First World War and the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920).
The foreign policy of the Russian Empire covers Russian foreign relations from their origins in the policies of the Tsardom of Russia down to the end of the Russian Empire in 1917. Under the system tsarist autocracy, the Emperors/Empresses made all the main decisions in the Russian Empire, so a uniformity of policy and a forcefulness resulted during the long regimes of powerful leaders such as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. However, several weak tsars also reigned—such as children with a regent in control—and numerous plots and assassinations occurred. With weak rulers or rapid turnovers on the throne, unpredictability and even chaos could result.
The history of Japanese foreign relations deals with the international relations in terms of diplomacy, economics and political affairs from about 1850 to 2000. The kingdom was virtually isolated before the 1850s, with limited contacts through Dutch traders. The Meiji Restoration was a political revolution that installed a new leadership that was eager to borrow Western technology and organization. The government in Tokyo carefully monitored and controlled outside interactions. Japanese delegations to Europe brought back European standards which were widely imposed across the government and the economy. Trade flourished, as Japan rapidly industrialized.
The Coming War with Japan is a book by geopolitical analyst George Friedman and Meredith LeBard, published in 1991, in which they argue that another conflict between the United States and Japan was inevitable as the latter was becoming an economic threat to the former. The Japanese title of the book translates as The Coming War with Japan: A 'Second Pacific War' is inevitable.