The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
A summary of the book written by George Friedman (2009) - Article #4
I. Why this book, and what’s it about?
The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century is a book that makes predictions (as its subtitle suggests) about the significant geopolitical events and trends of the 21st century based on historical and geopolitical patterns. The book also speculates on how technology and culture will change. The book’s central thesis is that the United States will remain the dominant global superpower throughout the century. Its main challenges will come from Russia, China, Mexico, Turkey, Japan, and Poland. The book describes how these countries will rise and fall, interact with each other and the US, and shape the world order.
The book also predicts that the US will face a series of crises, such as a second Cold War with Russia, a space war with China, a civil war with Mexico, and a world war with a coalition of Eurasian powers. The book also forecasts the US will experience a golden age in the second half of the century thanks to its technological innovation, demographic vitality, and cultural diversity.
II. Who is the author?
According to Wikipedia, George Friedman (Hungarian: Friedman György, born February 1, 1949) is a Hungarian-born U.S. geopolitical author on international affairs. He is the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. Prior to founding Geopolitical Futures, he was chairman of the publishing company Stratfor, which was acquired by RANE in 2020. The Next 100 Years is Friedman’s sixth of nine books he has authored.
III. How popular is the book?
Here are the book’s rankings on Amazon:
IV. . What is one of the top takeaways from the book?
This book was published in 2009. Reading it now, you will find that the first couple of predictions - the collapse of the Russian Federation and the fragmentation of China - technically did not come true by now as predicted. However, Friedman did expect less precisely the power struggles with Russia and China with which we are currently dealing, and these power struggles were not on most people’s radar at the time.
V. What is another top takeaway from the book?
The book predicts the US will face a space war with China in the 2020s as both countries compete to control the Earth’s orbit and the Moon. The US will win the war and establish a permanent presence on the Moon. While the specific details might not follow Friedman’s script, I believe this prediction is directionally correct. Dr. Pippa Malmgren, who I will cover at some point soon, argues that World War III has already started, and space is one of the frontiers where it is quietly being fought.
VI. What is the third top takeaway from the book?
The book has several predictions about various technologies, including hypersonic aircraft and missiles. I don’t remember hearing about hypersonic missiles 12-14 years ago, but I do hear a lot about them now, and we know they exist. Space frequently appears in the book, including military bases on the moon and “battle stars,” which are crewed military orbiting platforms. Friedman also predicts Earth will increasingly be powered by solar energy collected in space, with the concentrated solar radiation beamed down to receiving stations on Earth. In addition to space-based technologies, he predicts excellent advances in robotics and genetic science, which will significantly increase labor productivity and human longevity.
VII. What is the fourth top takeaway from the book?
Another major prediction in the book is that the US will face a world war in the 2050s. A world war, if not sooner than 2050, is believable. The part that is hard to believe from today’s perspective is the constellation of the sides fighting with the US, the Polish Bloc of Eastern European countries, the UK, India, and China on one side against Turkey and Japan and then later Germany and France on the other. In the end, the US side is predicted to win.
VIII. What is the fifth top takeaway from the book?
After the world war in the 2050s, Friedman predicts a post-war boom of peace, prosperity, and global US dominance that will last throughout the 2060s. But starting in the 2070s, the last major prediction is an unusual US-Mexican conflict. What is uncommon about the predicted conflict is that it happens from within the US due to decades of massive immigration. Many parts of the US, especially the South West, will become ethnically, culturally, socially, and politically Mexican. And given decades of economic and population growth, Mexico will be able to challenge the US for North American dominance by the end of the century.
IX. What does The X Project Guy have to say?
This is the second oldest book on my list and the first I read in the early 20-teens. I stumbled across StratFor (which George Friedman founded and was CEO) somewhere. I started subscribing to a free newsletter as I found value in keeping an eye on international developments from a macroeconomic and macro-investment thesis perspective. And it is through StratFor that I learned about the book.
I absolutely loved reading the book; it helped me fall in love with geopolitics. Discovering and understanding how geography influences politics, international relationships, and economics was an eye-opener. And because geography doesn’t change, there is a certain truth and destiny to it. And then to read how a pro like George Friedman can interpret what is happening and even predict what will happen, I was hooked! Since reading the book, I’ve invested thousands of hours into geopolitics over the past decade, and my enthusiasm and passion for geopolitics remain strong.
X. Why Should You Care?
As discussed in sections IV and V above, Friedman was generally and thematically correct with his first couple of predictions, which means there is a good likelihood that he will be likewise generally right in his subsequent predictions. The most notable of which is a world war. While Friedman did not get all of the details correct in his first couple of forecasts, he probably won’t get the details right in his prediction of the world war either, which may include the timeline, and thus, it may happen sooner than he predicted.
In my prior article summarizing Neil Howe and William Strauss’s book The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, I point out that the book also suggested a substantial likelihood of a total war with demographic and generational evidence and data suggesting it could be within the next 8-10 years.
Ok, but why should you care about war if the Iraq War, the Afghan War, the War on Terror, the Russian and Ukraine War, and now the Israel and Hamas War haven’t really affected you?
Well, those wars probably affect you in ways you don’t recognize. For one, as Zoltan Pozsar says, “War is inflationary.” Inflation is a topic I will cover soon, but we all have been and continue to be negatively impacted by inflation.
Secondly, I already mentioned Pippa Malmgren above (and again, I will cover her soon too), but she argues wars of the future will be different than the kinetic wars of the past. Wars of the future that could directly impact you will be (among other things) economic and financial wars, trade wars, space wars, and cyber wars.
What other specific consequences? When will they happen? How will we know when they start happening? Who will those consequences affect? How will they affect all of us - me, my family, my community, my employer, my country, the world? What should we do? Should we be concerned?
YES - you should be concerned. The X Project exists to answer all these questions and more. However, the X Project needs your help to continue its mission. What can you do?
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