During my 2010 holiday in Turkey, I brought only one book to read ― George Friedman’s “The Next 100 Years.” Friedman is an American political scientist and founder of the private intelligence company Stratfor. I first came across him through browsing in the Internet and found his analysis of political events uniquely penetrating and bold. For someone to forecast the next century showed an audacity that few would dare to prognosticate, let alone pontificate. 

Friedman rightly claims that he has no crystal ball, but his grasp of the grand order of history, the dictates of geography and imperatives of demography and culture all enable him to weave a framework for us to think about the future. In an age when world watchers are wondering whether Pax Americana is going through self-doubt, Friedman sees the 21st century as the American Age. In his view, the United States is central because of its dominant geography, securely protected by the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, endowed with rich lands and small population and the most open, technologically advanced culture in existence. Militarily and economically, the U.S. has defined the second half of the 20th century and he thinks that North America will dominate the current century.

Friedman is a disciple of the Machiavellian approach to geopolitics ― to him, it “is not about the rights and wrongs of things, it is not about the virtues and vices of politicians and it is not about foreign policy debates. Geopolitics is about broad impersonal forces that constrain nations and human beings and compel them to act in certain ways.”

His boldest forecasts is that the European Age has ended, that Turkey will be the dominant Muslim power, that China is a paper tiger and that there will be a world war in the middle of the 21st century.

Most of us cannot think beyond our lifetimes, but we must thank Friedman for framing our thoughts around what can happen in the future. His new book, “The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been ... and Where We’re Going” is much closer to home and again U.S.-centric. It is in fact a lecture to the current and next U.S. president what he or she should be thinking about in this unfolding decade.

He argues quite correctly that the U.S. must address the question of its unintended empire, in the same way that the Romans and the British had to deal with their position of preeminent power. Former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously said that the British Empire was founded not by design, but by pirates. The United States was founded against British imperialism, with her War of Independence and Civil War fought on the moral basis that all men are equal.

Friedman’s clear-eyed Machiavellian approach is to state that “justice comes from power and power is only possible from a degree of ruthlessness most of us can’t abide.” In this, he draws upon three great U.S. presidents, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan, who understood that power is defined between the limit of good intentions and the necessity of power. To exercise power to ensure goodness requires greatness, but also amorality.

Friedman’s fundamental point is that the U.S. should go back to the idea that the Romans and British did not rule by dominant military power or moral high ground, but by divide and rule ― a delicate balance of strategic interests to cancel their competing power in the broader interest of Pax Americana.

Friedman reminded us that the U.S. president may appear to be the most powerful person on earth, but actually he has limited powers domestically and can only lead through his powers on foreign policy. The founding fathers designed a constitution where much of state power, civil society, religion, press, culture and arts are checks and balances on the president domestically. In this sense, his job is to prevent the U.S. from becoming more inward looking, but open it to global trade, where the U.S. derives its true economic power, both as consumer and thought leader. But trade comes from the hard fact that the U.S. is the only global military power.

Accordingly, Friedman recommends three power balances. The first is to accommodate with Iran to achieve a new balance in the Middle East, to keep oil flowing and to neutralize the terrorist threat. The second is to manage Europe in such a way that Germany does not align with Russia. After all, there is a resurgence of Germany and Russia that came out of the current crisis in Europe. The third is to manage Asian rivalries between China, India, Japan and the others to ensure that Asia is not a threat to U.S. and global interests.

Friedman’s major insight is that the current crisis was due to imbalances in American power that can be corrected, such as speculation and financial manipulation. However, it is the demographic forces and technological innovation that will shape the years to come. America has the advantage over Europe and Asia in its openness to immigration and its still low population/arable land ratio. This means that the U.S. will still enjoy a demographic endowment, rather than the European and Asian deficit of looking after an aging population with a smaller labor force.

He rightly worries that technology may be lagging behind human needs, because we are still reliant on fossil fuels and there are no game-changing technologies in sight to deal with the challenges of climate warming. Like Asians, he warns that market forces are not enough and that the state must take the lead.

To sum up, Friedman sees that the U.S. “must manage the chaos of the Islamic world, a resurgent Russia, a sullen and divided Europe and a China both huge and profoundly troubled.”

There is no other writer who is so clear-eyed and brutally realistic on the global scene. If he is right, we are turning away from the recent U.S. foreign policy of moral preach and reach, back towards no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. 

By Andrew Sheng

Andrew Sheng is the author of “From Asian to Global Financial Crisis.” ― Ed.

(Asia News Network)