The Next 100 Years

Last Book Read: The Next 100 Years - George Friedman

In The Next 100 Years, Friedman attempts to map out geo-politically what may happen over the next century.  Unlike most other geo-political analyzers, Friedman thinks America is headed for a Golden Age.  He argues that nations go through three stages - barbarism, civilization and decadence.  The final stage of decadence is a period of nihilism when nothing particular is valued and society becomes complacent and self-distracted and thus unproductive. As America is still young (and undisciplined) it still has yet to evolve in Friedman's view.  Given effective decisions made during World War I and World War II which minimized American casualties and cost of war, the US quickly achieved superpower status.  Wining the Cold War allowed the US to become the first sole superpower and by having complete global dominance of the oceans, it is able to easily project its power anywhere it chooses. And this power projection is unrestrained as the US is the first nation in history to achieve this global dominance.  Future wars will only increase American determination and technological advancements and, allowing the US to further gain from every conflict it fights.

Friedman has an interesting theory about American history occurring in 50 year cycles, and what works in solving one crisis will not work in the next, rather something of its opposite is required instead, For instance Roosevelt's New Deal had to be later followed by Reagan's pro-business/ lower taxes economics in the next cycle.  What worked once won't work again.  And by that logic it would seem that it's time to move away from the sacred Reaganomics.

While discussing American technological capability, Freidman makes interesting points about pragmatism and American philosophy. American culture, he states, "is an uneasy melding of the Bible and the computer." "The significance of an idea is in its practical consequences."  An idea without practical consequences, it follows, lacks meaning.  The entire notion of contemplative reason as an end in itself is excluded, as is seen in the Anglo- American philosophy that rejects European and Continental metaphysics.  Computers reduce everything to data, they embody pragmatism.  But that data, it could be argued, is information that does not include meaning.  The computer "represents the unique manifestation of the American concept of reason and reality. . . [it] represents a powerful, reductionist force."  This is why America is so focused and effective.  It also explains the differences in American thought from Old World European ideas.

I won't go into detail about Friedman's predictions, but I certainly disagree with him on some matters of military strategy.  For instance, he ignores Russia's nuclear force - one that is maintained as a matter of utmost importance precisely to counter a foreign invasion of the kind that Freidman thinks might be conventionally possible.  Furthermore, he claims Japan already has a world class Navy and Air Force.  They don't, and I don't know why he would say this. Also, he claims that the US "Battlestars" will be vulnerable to a multiple missile attack.  But, if we look at the layers of defense systems a Carrier Battle Group has, it would seem just as unlikely that a Battlestar could be destroyed with certainty as a US carrier.  With the introduction of beam weapons, defensive systems would likely be more capable.  Finally, he thinks the US force of 2050 will be only hypersonic planes, of which only a few hundred survive.  But its already clear that we will have weapon systems such as the F-35 still in use and we will just be replacing our B-2 and B-52 forces.  I imagine we will still have a vastly numerous amount of  legacy-class systems and that it is unlikely that most of them could be destroyed in one attack.

What's important here is not the details but why Freidman makes these claims.  History repeats itself, and Friedman uses this to extrapolate future data, and given that he is an advisor to the US government, what he thinks may hold considerable weight.  Most interesting is how this study shows why the US does what it does, and how this thinking extends back centuries and every historical step we take builds upon some basic thinking.  For instance, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not important for us to win by achieving specific goals.  We are fighting them simply to disrupt the Middle East so that the Muslim world (or anyone else) cannot unite to become a dominate Asian power.

Even given Freidman's optimism, it seems that the end of the twenty-first century will bring us right back to where we are, experiencing a culture conflict with the rest of the world and struggling with issues of debt and immigration.  While he may not be accurate, his thinking does illuminate the development of America and where we are in the course of that progress.