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Showing reviews 126-129 of 129
 Possibly the Worst Book of 2009 - Already! January 30, 2009
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
48 out of 110 found this review helpful
It's only January, but Friedman has likely already has locked up the award for worst book of 2009. Ridiculous predictions abound throughout, burdened by only the sheerest supporting logic.
The first clue that Friedman is a nutcase is his Introduction where he tells us "The world does pivot around the U.S." Why - because we're located on both oceans!
Well, so is Mexico - sort of. "Mexico will emerge as an important world power."
Reading on - Russia's fall in 1991 was the dawn of the American Age. (Never mind WWII, our enormous current trade, federal, and corporate deficits, and the fact that we are being held above water by Japan, Saudi Arabia, and China.)
Forget China - it will undergo major extended internal crisis. It will become a "paper tiger." Why - because the surrounding lands (Siberia in the north, the Himalayas and jungles in the south, most its population is in the east, and it hasn't been a naval power for centuries (though they're working on it).
What does Friedman see as America's goals? Complete domination of North America by the U.S. Army. Elimination of any threat by any power in the Western Hemisphere. Complete domination of the world's oceans. Never mind that our economy is cratering, Venezuela and Columbia detest us and are friends with Russia and China.
What about the War on Terror? That's so passe - Russia will collapse in the early 2020s, but somehow will then end up in confrontation with the rest of the world.
Having failed to win in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (so far), we'll turn to space warfare.
Prior predictions elsewhere include North Korea not having the bomb, America's feud with France will deepen, there's little chance the U.S. would capture Saddam, and the U.S. and (1991) Japan will soon engage in a "hot" war over trade.
The "good news" is that policy on immigration will change around 2030, and Mexicans will be welcomed. Then they can worry about Friedman's foolishness.
 Is This How It Will Go? January 28, 2009
Eric Mayforth (Houston, Texas)
88 out of 111 found this review helpful
When one takes into account the staggering advances that took place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it is a brave forecaster who would even attempt to predict the course of our (still relatively) new century. George Friedman undertakes this task in "The Next 100 Years".
Friedman opens by taking the reader through the twentieth century at twenty-year intervals, showing how the concerns in any given time period are quickly forgotten and replaced by new concerns. This prepares the reader to see that the twenty-first century will also be anything but static, either, as America will not be facing the same set of challenges by 2020 as we did on September 11, 2001, and will be dealing with many different issues as the century progresses.
The author is a very incisive thinker, relaying stunning insight after stunning insight in demonstrating how we arrived at where we are now, with Europe having been supplanted by America as the world's focal point.
Friedman contends that, far from declining (as many fear), America is just beginning its rise. The century will be characterized, he predicts, by regional powers attempting to form coalitions to limit American power, and America attempting to prevent the formation of such coalitions. This will ultimately result at mid-century in a war that will have many similarities with World War II--the war will begin with a surprise attack on a key American military target, will be fought against a familiar foe, will result in the development of stunning new technologies, and will be followed by a new golden age redolent of the one following World War II.
This book also takes a look at the worldwide population bust--policy debates in American politics will be driven in part by debates about the number of immigrants needed as a result of the bust. The author asserts that our politics operates in fifty-year cycles, and that both transition points of American politics in the twenty-first century will be driven by immigration. One of the predictions in the book is almost made as an aside--the author is really hanging his neck out on the line, since we will be able to see in not 20 or 50 years, but within the next two years whether the author is correct in his prediction about how much President Obama will be able to roll back the basic policies that President Reagan put in place in the early 1980s.
The book closes by examining some of the technological breakthroughs such as robots and space-based energy that will transform life later in the century, and asserts that the end of the century will be characterized by increasing disharmony with Mexico over the American Southwest.
Anyone interested in what the future might hold (that is, just about everyone) would enjoy reading "The Next 100 Years". The only regret you will have when you have finished reading it is the realization that you will not be around in 2100 to see if all of the predictions in this supremely fascinating book come to pass.
 A FASCINATING, DISTURBING LOOK FORWARD AT WHAT COULD BE January 27, 2009
RBSProds (Deep in the heart of Texas)
29 out of 36 found this review helpful
Four and a half FASCINATING Stars! Highly Engrossing!! Futurist author George Friedman looks back at the last 100 years in a great geo-political analysis of where we have been as England, Germany, Russia, and the USA engage in strategic political swordmanship over the benchmarks of 1900, 1920, 1940, 1960, 1980, 2000, and the fateful date of Sept 11, 2001: presented in a way and with an overview that may have escaped some of us. In many ways this is an expansion of The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century written by George and Meredith Friedman, but this book is much wider in scope and depth.
The author then looks out into the future over the period of 100 years from now, surveying everything from Atlantic Europe, the USA, "the Soviet Empire", the Islamic world, earthquakes, Soviet successor states, the coming "Texas Rebellion", Mexico, the Eurasian "Poacher Paradise", socio-policital trends, population shifts, and far beyond. Reading almost like science fiction, the author paints a disturbing picture of the future of the world and the USA in particular. But make no mistake, this is not your 'run of the mill' conspiracy book but a deep study of past trends and future projections. One may not like what he projects on a macro-level, but one look at where we are today in 2009 should dispel any doubts that things may change radically into a world that none of us believed possible and far from our benefit as a nation and world leader. Buckle up for a Wild Ride into our possible future. Definitely recommended!! Four and a half POSSIBLE Stars. (This review is based on an eBook digital download, 394 pages with 28 geo-political illustrations)
Challenging, eye opening January 27, 2009
americangadfly (Arlington, VA USA)
104 out of 134 found this review helpful
George Friedman's THE NEXT 100 YEARS has a serious "wow" factor. It's going to get people talking.
Friedman, as the chairman of Stratfor, the global intelligence firm, believes that geography, population, and the surprising way history has of confounding our expectations are all important. He also believes that conventional political analysis and forecasting "suffers from a profound failure of imagination." The convergence of these axioms leads Friedman to write a book that should flabbergast more than a few of the talking heads who populate the airwaves and cable frequencies. I would venture to guess that none of them have the intellectual wherewithal to engage his predictions knowledgeably. I guess we'll see, because no doubt Friedman will be making a splash in the press with this surprising book.
His predictions--they will raise your eyebrows. But two things will keep you from dismissing them for their outlandishness. One, Friedman, though ambitious and writing with a strong sense of self-confidence, keeps his ego in check. (He says he'll be pleased not if he's proven right on all points, but merely if his grandkids tell him some day, "Not bad.") And two, he makes a convincing case that throughout history, almost nothing in world affairs has turned out the way common sense or the prevailing notions of smart people (or journalists) thought that it would.
There's no arguing with any of that, though it's very easy to lose sight of.
At the start of the book, Friedman sets the table for his forecast by reviewing the changes in the world's geopolitics during the 20th century. He shows that every 20 years or so the world turned completely on its head. Though these events in hindsight seem to us today to be ordinary and unexceptional, if not completely predictable, if forecast in their day they would have seemed astonishingly unlikely. Please bear with me here...
In 1920, with Europe in tatters after World War I, the one thing that was sure was that peace had been forced on Germany and it would not soon lift itself up off the mat.
By 1940, of course, Germany not only roared back, but conquered most of Europe, with Russia as an unlikely ally. Britain stood alone. There was no way Hitler could lose.
Now to 1960. Germany is a ruin and the U.S., no world power at all in 1940, was contending only with the Soviets for world domination. The U.S. dominated the world's oceans and could dictate terms to its rivals, or, if it wished, just nuke them. Stalemate was the best the Soviets could hope for.
Come 1980, the U.S. had been beaten in a war--not by the Soviet Union, but by little North Vietnam--and was widely seen as in a slow, permanent retreat, expelled from Iran and watching helplessly as the oil fields fell into Soviet hands.
Now one more leap, to 2000. The Soviet Union had collapsed. China was communist in name only. NATO had advanced into Eastern Europe and even into the former USSR. (It was always supposed to happen the other way around!) The world was prosperous and peaceful. Everyone knew that the "end of history" was here, as considerations of war and power and realpolitik became secondary to spreading benign prosperity globally. Then came September 11, 2001, and the world turned on its head again.
Got all that? Good. After that unsettling review of recent world history, Friedman has set the stage to unleash his considerable imaginative and rhetorical gifts in predicting the following:
* That the U.S., which is now an adolescent power -- immature and impulsive -- will grow into the full glory of its power in the 21st century. By 2040, however, expect the unexpected. Two strong rivals will emerge to challenge us, and I probably shouldn't blow the freshness of the surprise by revealing here who Friedman believes it will be. (Just be sure, for one, not to buy real estate too close to the Rio Grande.)
* The industrialized world is facing a dramatic population drop, which will bottom out in 2050. As a result, we're in for a severe global labor shortage. The result? Today's immigration debate will flip 180 degrees as countries actually compete for immigrant laborers.
* Al Qaeda and the jihadist threat? They're history mostly, just a nuisance. (John Kerry was basically right in 2004.)
* Ditto environmental problems and energy crises: a single technological breakthrough, space-based solar power, will change everything.
* In the 21st century, minerals will become scarce on earth. Mining operations on the moon will be significant.
* The art of war is moving into orbit, and a robust space industry will develop around massive new expenditures by the U.S. and other countries.
* The U.S. will be challenged by some surprising new powers. Hint: you might want to start following news from Warsaw, Mexico City, and Istanbul a little more closely.
And so on. The book reads very accessibly and the argument at each turn is not hard to follow. The book is not at all academic or full of the jargon you might expect. There's a startling insight on every other page. By the end of it, you realize that you're a complete fool if you take any course of global events for granted.
Remember when it looked like the Berlin Wall was a permanent fixture in East Berlin? The only constant in the world is a lack of constancy. (Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?) We are, all of us, in for a lifetime of surprises. Friedman humbly takes a shot at forecasting the likeliest of them in a challenging and easy-to-read book.
You won't lack for conversation at your next lunch date if you spend an hour or so with this book. But read it quickly, because you don't want to be the fourth person in your circle of acquaintances to go around saying that war with Turkey lies in America's future. (Okay, I blew a surprise there, but that's what happens when you're lucky enough to get hold of a review copy, and the book has more than a few of them.)
Showing reviews 126-129 of 129
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