This week I'm sending you a real treat. My friend & geopolitical expert George Friedman has written a fascinating new book, The Next Decade: Where We've Been... And Where We're Going. His previous book, The Next 100 Years, hit the New York Times bestseller list, so it's not just his fishing buddies like me that think he's good.
I've had the pleasure of reading a galley copy, and after a grueling arm-wrestling match, won the exclusive privilege of sending you the Author's Note and Introduction a few weeks before the book's release. The Author's Note will give you a sense of George & why he set out to write this book. The Introduction sets up this concept of the U.S. as an unintended empire (a striking phrase, but he backs it up well). You can view them both below.
Better yet, read the hard copy. If you <<order the book here>> for $16 (same as the Amazon price), George is offering a free 3-month subscription to STRATFOR, his global intelligence company, which I read daily. As George says, the book and STRATFOR are "part of a single fabric of thought". I'm positive you'll enjoy both.
John Mauldin
This book is about the relation between empire, republic, and the exercise of power in the next ten years. It is a more personal book than The Next 100 Years because I am addressing my greatest concern, which is that the power of the United States in the world will undermine the republic. I am not someone who shuns power. I understand that without power there can be no republic. But the question I raise is how the United States should behave in the world while exercising its power, and preserve the republic at the same time.
I invite readers to consider two themes. The first is the concept of the unintended empire. I argue that the United States has become an empire not because it intended to, but because history has worked out that way. The issue of whether the United States should be an empire is meaningless. It is an empire.
The second theme, therefore, is about managing the empire, and for me the most important question behind that is whether the republic can survive. The United States was founded against British imperialism. It is ironic, and in many ways appalling, that what the founders gave us now faces this dilemma. There might have been exits from this fate, but these exits were not likely. Nations become what they are through the constraints of history, and history has very little sentimentality when it comes to ideology or preferences. We are what we are.
It is not clear to me whether the republic can withstand the pressure of the empire, or whether America can survive a mismanaged empire. Put differently, can the management of an empire be made compatible with the requirements of a republic? This is genuinely unclear to me. I know the United States will be a powerful force in the world during this next decade—and for this next century, for that matter—but I don’t know what sort of regime it will have.
READ FULL POST HERE
I've had the pleasure of reading a galley copy, and after a grueling arm-wrestling match, won the exclusive privilege of sending you the Author's Note and Introduction a few weeks before the book's release. The Author's Note will give you a sense of George & why he set out to write this book. The Introduction sets up this concept of the U.S. as an unintended empire (a striking phrase, but he backs it up well). You can view them both below.
Better yet, read the hard copy. If you <<order the book here>> for $16 (same as the Amazon price), George is offering a free 3-month subscription to STRATFOR, his global intelligence company, which I read daily. As George says, the book and STRATFOR are "part of a single fabric of thought". I'm positive you'll enjoy both.
John Mauldin
The Next Decade: Where We've Been... And Where We're Going
By George Friedman
AUTHOR'S NOTE This book is about the relation between empire, republic, and the exercise of power in the next ten years. It is a more personal book than The Next 100 Years because I am addressing my greatest concern, which is that the power of the United States in the world will undermine the republic. I am not someone who shuns power. I understand that without power there can be no republic. But the question I raise is how the United States should behave in the world while exercising its power, and preserve the republic at the same time.
I invite readers to consider two themes. The first is the concept of the unintended empire. I argue that the United States has become an empire not because it intended to, but because history has worked out that way. The issue of whether the United States should be an empire is meaningless. It is an empire.
The second theme, therefore, is about managing the empire, and for me the most important question behind that is whether the republic can survive. The United States was founded against British imperialism. It is ironic, and in many ways appalling, that what the founders gave us now faces this dilemma. There might have been exits from this fate, but these exits were not likely. Nations become what they are through the constraints of history, and history has very little sentimentality when it comes to ideology or preferences. We are what we are.
It is not clear to me whether the republic can withstand the pressure of the empire, or whether America can survive a mismanaged empire. Put differently, can the management of an empire be made compatible with the requirements of a republic? This is genuinely unclear to me. I know the United States will be a powerful force in the world during this next decade—and for this next century, for that matter—but I don’t know what sort of regime it will have.
READ FULL POST HERE
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