Well, this was a pleasant surprise. I go from an uber-utopian, yet interesting vision of the future courtesy of Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity Is Near to the nicely earthbound predictions of another futurist, George Friedman, the found of STRATFOR, the strategic forecasting firm. Friedman takes a long hard look at the geopolitical trends over the next 100 years as well as trends in technology that will impact the shifting sands of world geopolitics over the next century.
What does Mr. Friedman see when he gazes into his crystal ball? Well first off, Russia gets big again- not full on Soviet Union, but it seeks to return to it's original sphere of influence encompassing the former Soviet Republics- the traditional Russian desire for a buffer zone to ward off invaders holding strong. Things go well to a point, but the United States (pegged as the preeminent superpower for the vast majority of the century) draws a line when it comes to the Baltic Republics- Western Europe is fading, so Poland springs to prominence- for strategic reasons of it's own- namely, Russia being huge and well, Russian, they don't want to be steamrolled again. Poland serves as a counterweight to Russia until in the mid 2020s, they collapse again.
There's a lot of hype surrounding China when it comes to 'who is the next Superpower game' but Friedman isn't buying it. China is too geographically isolated (the coast from the interior) and the social and economic gap is growing wider by the day. Friedman predicts that China fragments- perhaps not as badly as it did at the end of the 19th Century, but coastal regions will grow increasingly distant from Beijing and seek to maximize their own economic benefits without toeing the government line. Chaos results.
In the Middle East... well, Iran doesn't get anywhere and Friedman picks Turkey to emerge back into prominence as a major power, recapturing much of it's former sphere of influence. Friedman predicts Japan will rise again as well- being the only nation to challenge the US for technological dominance in space- the key military battleground for the 21st Century. A coalition between Turkey and Japan makes a play to grab what they can mid-century, taking on Poland and surprising the United States initially- before the United States gently, but firmly pushes them back ending Friedman's predicted conflict more of a superpower than ever before.
Basically, by the end of the century, North America is the center of gravity of the world geopolitical system- and whomever controls North America becomes the preeminent power in the world. And here's where Friedman really shoots the moon- he picks Mexico to emerge as a serious challenge to the United States by 2080.
That seems completely loopy, but Friedman points out that Mexico has plenty of time to get its house in order- which it does- and some of it's inherent instability right now can be marked down to the fact that it really only emerged as a multi-party democracy barely a decade ago. There are going to be some very messy growing pains. But by the end of the century, Mexico will be increasingly influential on both sides of the border- a population slowdown (another surprising prediction by Friedman) will means that the 2030s see a huge demand for immigrants, but by the 2080s, advances in robotics will make a lot of those job outdated- and in the meantime, the Southwest- especially Arizona and New Mexico will be overwhelmingly Mexican-American- citizens who have more in common with Mexico than the United States and political tensions will start to ratchet up as a result.
Who wins the battle for control of North America? That, Friedman says is a question for the 22nd Century...
Overall **** out of ****: fascinating and believable I hope I can keep this book until the year 2100 and then compare notes. It'd be interesting to see how right Friedman actually is. Or was. Or will be... hmmm...
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