FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Rachel Lapal
On-sale: January 25, 2011 212-782-9390
“There is a temptation, when you are around George Friedman, to treat him like a Magic 8-Ball.”
—New York Times Magazine
THE NEXT DECADE
Where We’ve Been…and Where We’re Going
By George Friedman
Founder of STRATFOR and bestselling author of The Next 100 Years
The author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The New 100 Years now concentrates his geopolitical forecasting on the next decade—and the imminent events and challenges that will test America and the world.
Praise for The Next 100 Years
“With a unique combination of cold-eyed realism and boldly confident fortune-telling, Friedman offers a global tour of war and peace in the upcoming century. Whether all of the visions in Friedman’s crystal ball actually materialize, they certainly make for engrossing entertainment.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Futurologist Friedman entertainingly explains how America will bestride the world during this century… [Friedman] makes a reasonable case, backed with vast knowledge of geopolitics delivered in accessible prose.”
—Kirkus
“This is an excellent book.”
—Booklist
In THE NEXT DECADE: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going (Doubleday; ISBN 978-0-385-53294-5; On-sale: January 25, 2011), the highly anticipated follow-up to the provocative book The Next 100 Years, George Friedman delivers keen insights into the world’s, and specifically America’s, immediate future. Friedman focuses his geopolitical forecasting skills on the next ten years and the major events and challenges that will test America and the American President.
Whereas The Next 100 Years took a macro look at the global forces that were influencing the future century, THE NEXT DECADE zooms in and focuses on a short span of time and the crucial situations and imminent decisions that the American President will face in the coming ten years.
THE NEXT DECADE predicts that, above all, American power will be tested, and while it will endure, it will require extraordinary skill of the decade’s Presidents to navigate turbulent waters and balance relationships. First, THE NEXT DECADE examines what makes great Presidents like Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan—deep moral intentions followed by ruthless, unprincipled pursuits of those convictions. Friedman then applies those necessary qualities to near future conditions and judgments.
In THE NEXT DECADE, George Friedman presents readers with a provoking and endlessly fascinating prognosis for the future as he analyzes the complex chess game on the near horizon.
The next decade will be a time of massive transition, and some of Friedman’s predictions include:
· America (and especially the American President) will have to recognize and accept that the United States is now an unintended empire; the next ten years will bring myriad internal tensions between the growth of “empire” and the survival of “republic.”
· The wars in the Islamic world will be subsiding, and terrorism will become something we learn to live with.
· Though distasteful, The United States will move toward accommodation with Iran to help stabilize the area. Meanwhile, the U.S. will also quietly distance itself from Israel, and will help strengthen Pakistan (or at least put an end to its weakening).
· A possible alliance between Germany and Russia will have to be carefully monitored by the United States. Poland will become increasingly important to the U.S. as it faces a renewed Russia and Germany who will continue to have more common interests with Russia than the European Union.
· The European Union will also come under massive internal strains.
· China will be encountering its own crisis. Our current preoccupation with Chinese expansion will diminish as that country’s economic miracles come of age. China’s economic performance will slow to that of a more mature economy—a more mature economy with over a billion people living in abject poverty.
· Meanwhile, Turkey and Japan will be charting independent courses. Japan, the third largest economy in the world and the nation with the largest navy in northeast Asia will become America’s focus.
· America must find the path out of the current economic problems not only for itself but also for the world. However, we will also be shifting from a time when financial crises dominate the world to a time when labor shortages will begin to dominate.
THE NEXT DECADE is a clearly explained, riveting look at the history that led us to this point and the situations, conflicts, opportunities, and events that will unfurl in the next decade.
***
About the Author:
George Friedman is the founder and CEO of STRATFOR, the world’s leading publisher of global geopolitical intelligence. He is frequently called upon as a media expert and is the author of six books and numerous articles on national security, information warfare, and the intelligence business. He lives in Austin, Texas.
THE NEXT DECADE
Where We’ve Been…and Where We’re Going
George Friedman
Doubleday
ISBN 978-0-385-53294-5
$28.95
On-sale: January 25, 2011
For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact
Rachel Lapal at 212-782-9390 or
ACCURATE FORECASTS FROM STRATFOR:
· Beginning in 2005, STRATFOR began to identify and track the declining influence of al Qaeda as a group and identified the beginning of a trend in which al Qaeda's main influence was to inspire spin-off groups that are now spread around the world, from Indonesia to Yemen.
· In November 2005, STRATFOR identified vulnerabilities to cargo aircraft, foreshadowing the transportation disruptions caused when militants shipped improvised explosive devices on cargo planes from Yemen in Oct. 2010.
· In our 2005-2015 Decade Forecast, STRATFOR warned of trouble to come for the European Union that would shake its political foundation. The economic crisis in the eurozone beginning in 2009, subsequently raised questions for the survival of the euro will and underscored Germany’s increasingly powerful role in the region.
· In June 2009, STRATFOR accurately forecast that Greece would likely be the first debt-ridden European country melt down in the wake of the financial crisis.
· In our 2007 annual forecast, STRATFOR predicted Russia's resurgence as a major geopolitical power and later identified Georgia as a key battleground, well ahead of the Russo-Georgian war in August of 2008.
· STRATFOR predicted six months before the invasion of Iraq that the U.S. would have to work with the Iranians to handle issues with Iraq. Subsequently, negotiating with Iran became a key agenda item for the Bush and Obama administrations.
· In June 2008, STRATFOR wrote about splits between conservatives in Iran’s power circles – more than a year before those splits became evident during the so-called "Green Revolution" in the wake of the 2009 presidential elections.
· In July 2007, STRATFOR predicted that Turkey would emerge from its post-Ottoman period of introspection and move to reclaim its role as a regional power – a trend demonstrated by Turkey’s 2010 challenge to Israel over its blockade of the Gaza flotilla.
· In May 2008, STRATFOR investigated the possibility of NATO forces negotiating with the Afghan Taliban. At the time discussed only behind closed doors at NATO, the policy option didn’t emerge from official sources until Jan. 2010.
· In December 2004, STRATFOR foresaw that China’s economic policies would lead to a confrontation between China and its Western trading partners, an issue that made daily headlines in 2010.