Book Review: "The Next Decade" by George Friedman

What is the best time to review a book of geopolitical forecasts? Probably before the time frame covering those forecasts is nearly expired, which means I am posting this review several years too late. Nonetheless, there is no question that this book from Geopolitical forecaster George Friedman, written in 2010 in regard to the events people could expect between 2011 and 2021, is still a relevant read in 2018.

The Doctor's Credentials

As the founder of Stratfor and the current chairman of Geopolitical Futures (a source that I cite quite frequently in my articles here), the best way to put it is that Hungarian-born George Friedman is to geopolitical analysis what Irvin Baxter is to Endtime Prophecy studies. He is often mocked for his first book, a 1991 release entitled The Coming War with Japan, for reasons that are probably apparent, but my explanation of why that book's titular prediction was not nearly as outlandish as it seems (and how accurate most of the book was) will have to come later. His more recent The Next 100 Years, the precursor to The Next Decade, is a bit less sensational, and if The Next Decade's accuracy so far is any indication, then the author has refined his analytical techniques considerably since 1991.

The Diagnosis

in retrospect, this is another one that I am absolutely shocked to have found in China, especially in Beijing, because it puts the mainstream media's China-cheerleading to the sword without much sympathy. However, while the author does not hide his bearish views on the future of China's "rise," he avoids some of the more tubthumping prophecies of the imminent collapse of the CPC that have made other forecasters such as Gordon Chang eat their words on more than one occasion, and simply predicts that the nation will face a deep crisis.

China's economic performance will slow to that of a more mature economy - and, we might add, a more mature economy with over a billion people living in abject poverty. The focus of U.S. efforts will shift to the real power in northeast Asia: Japan...
(P. 8)

He also muses over which of China's two traditional Faustian bargains in the face of coast-interior wealth inequality China would choose this time, a question that was answered by the rise of "Xi dada."

The long-term question, which will be answered in the decade to come, is whether the Chinese will attempt to solve their problem as Mao did -by closing off the country and destroying the coastal businessmen and expelling foreign interests- or by following the pattern of regional instability of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. The only certainities are that the Chinese government will be absorbed with internal problems, working carefully to balance competing forces and increasingly paranoid about the intentions of the Japanese and the Americans.
(p. 178)

I would like to emphasize again that this edition I am quoting from was printed in 2011, a time when "everyone knew" China was poised to dominate the world, and that their time to do so was close at hand; a time when Japan was viewed as a mostly helpless pawn of the U.S., abandoned by her apparently collapsing protector and now at the mercy of the seemingly invincible China. The book also accurately predicted a US/Iran accommodation (p. 112), the rise of Turkey as an important player in the Middle East (p. 117-119), the Kurds becoming a source of contention between Iran and Turkey despite those two nations having been on mostly cordial terms until the collapse of Iraq (p. 117), a renewed focus on Russia (p. 120-141) which he predicted would be short-lived (p. 141), the rebalancing of the US's European position from Western-Europe to Poland (p. 134-136), the further dissolution of the EU (p. 154), Brexit (p. 156), Germany and the US moving apart (p. 157) -no small feat given that this book was written during Barack Obama's first term, when Europeans believed the White House was acting more in the interests of Brussells than of Washington- and that Germany and Russia would begin to move closer together (p. 158). His prediction immediately afterward, that Germany would be "allied this time with its historic enemies, France and Russia (p. 159)" is eerily accurate, given the Merkel-Macron axis in the face of Trump's "America-First" strategy, Merkel's increasing moves toward energy dependency on Russia, and France's diplomatic enabling of Russia viz-a-viz the Ukraine crisis.
It's reasonably safe to say the author has cemented his position as a reasonably reliable geopolitical forecaster. Yet, with the decade he speaks of in the title having already almost drawn to a close, what use is there in reading this book now?

And the Prescription

The most important thing about this book, indeed its one redeeming value that outlasts the decade in question, is its willingness to address the type of foreign policy America must adopt (or rather, return to)...

There is an idea, both on the Left and the Right, that the United States has the option of withdrawing from the complexities of managing global power... There was indeed a time when Thomas Jefferson could warn against entangling alliances, but this was not a time when the United States annually produced 25 percent of the wealth of the world.
(p. 9)

The overriding necessity for American policy in the decade to come is a return to the balanced, global strategy that the United States learned from the example of ancient Rome and from the Britain of a hundred years ago. [They] didn't rule by main force. Instead, they maintained their dominance by setting regional players against each other and keeping these players in opposition to others who might also instigate resistance.
(p. 3)

...and its subsequent, unsentimental analysis of what kind of president the US needed at the time the book was written (and needs at the moment).

Managing the unintended empire while retaining the virtues of the Republic will be an important priority of the United States for a long time... The paradox is that the best chance of retaining the republic is not institutional but personal, and it will depend on a definition of virtue that violates our common notions of what virtue is. I don't look to the balance of power to save the republic, but to the cunning and wisdom of the president.
(p.32)

The United States cannot make its way in the world by shunning nations with different values and regimes that are brutal, all the while carrying out exclusively noble actions. The pursuit of moral ends requires a willingness to sup with the devil.
(p. 39)

Everything must be done to lead the Germans and perhaps the French to sense that the United States is unfocussed in its actions.
(p. 161)

This is the challenge for the American president as we enter the next decade... These things can be done, but success will require the studied lack of sophistication of a Ronald Reagan and the casual dishonesty of an FDR. The president must appear not very bright yet be able to lie convincingly.

Again, let me emphasize, this book was written in 2010 and this edition was published in 2011, before when the biggest question about the presidency was still whether or not Mitt Romney could beat Barack Obama out of a second term. Yet, put it together. The author asserts that the US cannot completely withdraw from world leadership but cannot continue to do so through our own military force's constant presence, and that we must pick local rivals and match them against each other. He asserts that the post WW2 international organizations have outlived their usefulness and that the US must pursue new alliance structures, with a repeated emphasis on dumping Western Europe and embracing the Intermarium, as well as Southeast Asia (not only to keep China down now, but to prevent Japan from becoming too powerful later). He asserts that the US will have to make some shockingly distasteful and publicly unpalatable moves to do that. And he asserts that the best way to accomplish all this without the world becoming suspicious of our intentions is for the president to make it all look like incompetence rather than strategy.

Reject Western Europe: check
Pull back from outdated alliance structures: check
Strengthen Poland as a monkey-wrench in a potential Russo-German alliance: check
Be willing to cozy up with dictators in order to get the job done: check
Pursue new bilateral agreements in place of toxic broad multilateral agreements: check
Admit none of this: check
Do it all while the world thinks you're a complete idiot: check

Donald Trump, you are a genius!

Side Effects

The book is a page-turner, written in an approachable style that does not require a pre-existing expertise in really any field. Yet it is almost mind-bendingly information-dense, with much to absorb (most of which defies conventional wisdom) on every page. Admittedly, the author missed a few points. For instance, he underestimated the length of time China would remain a major focus of US attention (probably because not many people predicted Xi Jinping's aggression or ambition, as well as China's willingness to return to the autocracy that has enabled him to carry out some of his plans, until he was already on the throne), and seemed to be under the impression we would already be finished with China and worrying about Japan by now. Japan has returned to the radar screen, but right now, far from trying to contain them, the US is doing everything possible to get them to step up as a local foil for China. Still, the US-Japan tensions Friedman predicted after the China crisis has abated have already peeked around the corner in the form of Japan's irritation over catching peripheral flack from the trade war on China.
If nothing else, the book's willingness to point out some of the elephants in the room about American politics (no, we didn't set out to be an empire; yes, we have become one; no, it's not safe for us to undo that; yes, we can maintain our anti-Imperial ethics as a de-facto empire but it's going to take a lot of maneuvering; no, Americans can't afford to pretend we do not know this any longer; yes, we've screwed up since 2001; no, we are not in terminal decline as a result) make it worthy of a read. Nothing I have read in the past five years has enabled me to look past the fake news triple-threat of media nonsense (which is designed to sell ad-space), government talking-head-ism (which is designed to get people elected), and conspiracy theories (which are designed to make people who don't grasp the mundanity of the motivations of the previous two feel that they have been "red-pilled") and look at what is really going on quite like this book. I recommend this highly to any of my countrymen, be they Left, Right, Centrist or anti-establishment fringers (though I tremble to think what would happen if Xi or Merkel ever flipped through its pages and thought "is it possible that Trump read this book at some point and I'm getting played?") The author's virtually fathomless understanding of the intricacies of why nations do what they do and where those nations will be forced to go, values or no values, as a direct result of geopolitical imperatives makes it worth keeping around and reading again, even after the decade in question is over and gone.