The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century

This book first dispels so many myths we have come to believe over the last few decades. For that reason alone it is worth the read. My advice - focus on his predictions for the next 30 years. Anything past that is too hard to forecast in my opinion. CHINA - NOT THE NEXT SUPER POWER China is not as solid as we are lead to believe. The poverty, controlled and manipulated economic engine, and the pace they can't maintain will continue to put strains on their current success. A growing divide between the coastal cities where the money is being made will collide with the rest of the country that remains in poverty. AMERICAN - RADICAL ISLAM WAR WILL END This will be replaced by a new cold-war with communist Russia. WORLD POPULATION - Will not get out of control I did not know that the predictions we tend to follow about world populations getting out of control is not the case. Fertility rates around the world are actually dropping and will continue for decades naturally controlling population growth. SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM - will prove as big failures Socialism does not work - China is not the great power. More than half of the country lives in poverty. Marxism, Communism and Socialism will continue to fail but continue to be repackaged because they are centered around power to the few. NEXT WORLD WAR A new WW will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and a coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Far East. Armies will be much smaller through technology and he does not see it being nuclear in nature. US REMAINS ON TOP The US will remain as a super power around the world. JAPAN, POLAND, AND TURKEY AS MINI SUPER POWERS: Japan will continue to be the second most powerful economic country in the world. Poland and Turkey will become powerful nations as well. Turkey is already the most powerful country in the Middle East. TECHNOLOGY Our focus on alternative energies and new energies harnessed from space will reduce need for oil. We'll also focus on space for military gain as we harness solar energy from space. WHAT HE MISSED The effect the Internet will continue to have on everyone around the world socially and economically.

This book is about a series of potential resistances to American dominance over the next 8 or 9 decades. The players in the confrontation, or fragmentation, of grand strategies include, not in order, Mexico, Turkey, Japan, Russia and China. The author's reason for America's position, aside from its geography, is its unique wins in key battles that led to relative strengths of army and navy. Space will be the next decisive advantage. Geopolitics drives the scenarios because other factors, such as global warming, will be demographically and technically solved, e.g. by flattening of population growth and development of space-based energy sources. America again enjoys being the major world culture midway through the century. Robotics poses social challenges after that. There are many permutations which could be exercised, but are not discussed, and the ending is somewhat of a cliff-hanger. (Minor comment would be that the philosophy of computers in chapter 3 could stand further treatment and might change the outcome, if only in digital versions.)

Don't let average/below average reviews here discourage you from reading this book--if you want a geopolitical simulator in book form, written by the guy who basically runs the private CIA, George Friedman is your guy and this is a must-read book