George Friedman is a geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs and the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. He has briefed numerous military and government organisations in the United States and overseas. For almost twenty years he was CEO and then chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996. We talked to George Friedman about global warmongering, how the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East will likely end, and whether the balance of power is shifting in a globalised world.
In a recent analysis on your website, you paint a bleak picture of what the future holds for the world. In the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas war you write about a possible Chinese-Japanese conflict, Turkey intruding in Central Asia, Russia’s sphere of influence, and according to your sources, Serbia is preparing for war, which would topple the Western Balkans into chaos. Are these actual predictions or just possible scenarios?
No. They are simply areas where I have knowledge of the level of tension. However, when you have so many areas that might have tension, the probabilities of multiple warfare rise. We are entering a period of warfare, which by the way is routine. We humans wage war on a constant basis. And obviously, World War I and World War II, but even the Cold War, had many aspects of warfare. So this is not unprecedented. It is not catastrophic, but it is what we are looking at.
In a time of globalisation, when the countries of the world are so tied together economically, one would think that—especially in the Western world—there would be no real appetite for war.
The global economy has been linked since the eighteenth century. It is kind of an illusion that we are in some sort of unique period of interdependence. The British were interdependent with the Indians, and so on. This is a routine thing. But interdependence also brings war. Each side is competitive with the other. Each side worries that the other will break free from its relationship. And war is one of the tools to keep them together. Or they become very dependent on each other, which leads them to want to dominate each other. So the idea that interdependence would create peace is very strange. This is the nature of the beast: increased interdependence can potentially lead to conflict.
So it is basically just history rewriting itself?
We are human beings. We wage war. So whenever there is peace, the question is whether there will be a war next. We, human beings, constantly think that we have reinvented the world. That now it no longer has to have wars. Nations are afraid of each other. And when they are afraid of each other, they try to protect themselves in some way, and sometimes this leads to war.
What about the current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East? Are they correlated in any way, or, as you said, it’s the nature of the beast, it is a time of war?
At the beginning of the war, when I was wondering how they managed to get all those missiles into Gaza, I thought that it might be Russian aircrafts landing them. But this is my American paranoia, I immediately thought of Russia, but it wasn’t that. But countries can take advantage of this. Any nation that has something to offer to a country at war becomes its friend. This is why war has spread. But many nations simply can’t wage war that long, and I think that is the truth about the Israelis and the Arabs. They last fought such a war in 1973. It was a similar war with the catastrophic intelligence failure by the Israelis. But in the end, can they really wage war for an extended period of time? Will people tolerate it? Normally these wars are vicious and short.
What about Ukraine? How long could the war last?
The Russians initiated the war and failed, but the Ukrainians can’t defeat the Russians. The Russians must keep the Americans away from Moscow, and the Americans will not let the Russians come to the border of NATO. This is absolutely essential. So we are in a situation where the Russians could probably defeat the Ukrainians, but they can’t defeat the Ukrainians and the Americans. So there has to be a peace agreement.
The problem is political. After everything Vladimir Putin went through, to lose the war, to walk away from it, is very difficult. The Ukrainians are fighting for their country, so it is very hard for them to do it. So I think the settlement will have to be not just a territorial, but a political and economic one.
Russia wants above all to be a respected modern nation state. The United States, when wars end, like in World War II, always rebuild countries. We rebuilt Japan and Germany. We understand that victory is not the end of the war. The end of the war is rebuilding countries in a direction that they can sustain themselves. I believe that this negotiation at the end will involve a certain economic promise: that the United States would not object to Russia becoming a global economic power, and that would open the doors for investment. Because in fact the United States has no objection to that. It is a place to make money and that is all we need.
But what I’m really saying is that this war cannot have a simple solution, and I think right now both sides are talking to each other. Maybe not the Ukrainians and the Russians, but the Americans and the Russians are certainly talking to each other. I think we might have a very interesting outcome. Remember, with American wars, very frequently the enemy becomes a friend very fast. And that would be, from the American point of view—many would disagree with me—the best solution. But I think we are at the negotiation state. Neither can force the other, and the Russians do not want to test the Americans. You should always remember, there is a rule in this war: the Americans do not shoot a Russian, the Russians do not shoot an American. That is the reality. The two countries respect each other.
For many years now there has been talk of China potentially invading Taiwan. Does China’s economic and military rise have anything to do with global tensions, and an appetite for war?
I don’t see the Chinese rising; just the opposite, they are falling. Their economy depended on exports, particularly to the United States. So many of their companies have gone bankrupt. So China has a problem. It has not invaded Taiwan because it can’t. It takes about ten hours for an amphibious landing force to cross from China to Taiwan. During that time, U.S. satellites will see them. We could easily send missiles. Now, will we? I don’t know. But the Chinese don’t know either. They can’t afford a major defeat. So they don’t attack Taiwan.
In the meantime, the United States is politically successful. We already had good relations with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Since then, the United States has signed an agreement with the Philippines, giving them five bases in the Philippines. The Australians signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea. So at this point, the Pacific, which the Chinese want to reach, has been cut off from the Aleutian Islands all the way to Australia. This happened in the past few weeks.
It is therefore not surprising that the President of China came to the United States. Who goes where shows power. But he had to come. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative collapsed. It is not financially functioning. And remember, China’s economy was constructed with American imports of Chinese goods, and investment. The Chinese understand that they need a source of capital. That Russia is not a source of capital. And the capital flow of the international system will not flow through without the United States. They learned that in Russia.
The Chinese are very realistic: they have had their growth period, they will grow again, but they need an understanding with the United States. And I think the United States once again is very happy to have an understanding in which we can invest in China. I see the region having shifted away from China and China having suffered a severe economic downturn that they are trying to manage. So does interdependence lead to peace? No. But one side being very weak, that makes it peaceful.
So is the U.S. going to maintain its economic and military might, will it be the first and foremost power in the world?
The United States has all sorts of internal chaos, which it normally has, but the US military continues to be a major power, and we are the lender, the first recourse. The Europeans have to come to us. So we have to remember that the American power is substantial.
Will it continue to act as a sort of international police force around the world?
The world’s greatest economic power is going to be involved with the world, this goes without saying. Whether or not we want to be the world’s policeman? I think the answer is, emphatically, no. But at this point, we don’t have a choice. Firstly, there is Israel. And Russia was threatening the security of NATO. That had to be dealt with. But, on the whole, the American public is much more interested in making money and going on vacation.
You wrote in one of your analyses that the decade 2020-2030 is such a period which will bring dramatic upheaval and reshaping of American government, foreign policy, economics, and culture.What do you mean by that?
Well, every fifty years the United States goes through a major crisis and a transformation. The last one was in the 1920s, the Great Depression, and that brought to power Franklin Roosevelt. And he changed the entire system. Fifty years later, Ronald Reagan came to power. Remember the 1970s, the oil embargo, the incredibly high interest rates. The country was unstable. There were riots everywhere.
You know, we are an invented country. None of us was really born here. We all came from somewhere. I came from Hungary. And we are trying to carve ourselves into a coherent state. At the same time we live off of invention. We invent cars, we invent AI. And that destabilizes. People do not understand how the evolution of technology destabilizes the country. But you can go all the way back to the founding. We find our footing.
So what I’m saying is that there is going to be tremendous discord in the United States. But that this is historically necessary to open the doors for a new president to come in. Someone who does things that you would not believe are possible: Roosevelt increasing taxes on the rich to give to the poor; Reagan increasing taxes on the poor to give to the rich in order to be able to invest in things. And that person is not yet visible to me.
How do you see Europe’s status as a global player in the decades to come?
We talk about Europe as if it were a nation making decisions. I think the European Union was a very bad idea. It was a bad idea because Europeans were not the same, by any means. They just claimed that they were. But more than that, they lived in different economic conditions. Having a single currency for the Germans and the Italians is insane. So, every decision that the EU makes, attacks someone.
Hungary is caught in this situation, because it wants to both not be trapped by it, but have its benefits. This is what makes the EU work. It bribes countries with too much money to stay, and they accept it. They really need that money, and they can’t, therefore, break free. The revolution in 1848 argued that national self-determination was the foundation of liberal democracy. The EU violates that. At some point, some countries will stand up and say, I’ll do without your money because I’m going to lose it anyway to the Germans. I think the EU is a very troubled organization that no one has had the heart yet to really break with. Viktor Orbán pinches them once in a while. But even he can’t run away. But sometime in the next decade or so, this can’t go on.
So, it’s bound to fall apart?
Fall apart or dribble away, I don’t know. But how can this entity speak for all these different countries, values, and everything else? How can it maintain order when they have radically different ideas about almost everything? What is the relationship between Hungary and the Netherlands? I mean, Texas and New York have enough trouble trying to figure out what they’re doing in the same place. But yet we know. What is Hungary and the Netherlands doing together?
Migration and the integration of Muslims into Europe is one of the topics where there is huge disagreement between member states. The war in the Middle East, and the antisemitic acts and pro-Palestinian marches in Western Europe are developments that Eastern Europe does not want. Is the war between Israel and Hamas also a civilisational war that is being felt in Europe?
With regards to immigration, there is a difference between the United States and Europe. My wife is Australian. I’m Hungarian. Immigration has been built into the fabric of America. But the Europeans are different countries. They are organic. When someone who is not Hungarian comes to Hungary, he is an outcast from the beginning. Not because the Hungarians are cruel. It is simply that they have for so long had a Hungarian identity. I think the Israeli question is a passing one and will not be the one that Europe has to face. But Europe has to face the fact of what kind of countries they are, and all the liberals must understand that immigration to these countries is not easy: it could be done, but it is not like the United States.
