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03.11
Book Review:
The Next Decade
Reviewed By George F.
McClure
The just-published book, The
Next Decade: Where We’ve Been…and Where We’re
Going (2011), posits that the United
States has evolved from a republic to an empire,
not intentionally but through circumstances.
The United States accounts for more than 20
percent of all foreign direct investment in the
world, while China in 2009 accounted for 4.4
percent. The U.S. economy is a quarter of the
world economy. We spend over 40 percent of the
total world military budget.
Is that sustainable? Probably
not, but the role of the United States should
not be the world’s policeman but the balance
wheel that works with alliances to serve our
interests. We have moved beyond the
military-industrial complex. In the past we
have allied with some unsavory governments, but
that is changing as regimes shift, currently in
the middle east.
The United States has used
foreign aid to help keep balance between Egypt
and Israel. As Israel prospered, our foreign
aid accounted for only 1.5 percent of Israel’s
GDP, down from 25 percent. The foreign aid was
used for foreign military sales, as the money
came back to the United States to buy F-15s,
F-16s, weapons and support equipment.
The author, George Friedman,
recounts some history as far back as empires of
Rome, Britain and the Ottoman Empire to show how
the world has evolved to the present day. A key
function of the United States is keeping
sea-lanes open for commerce. Whiled this is for
our own benefit, it also benefits our trading
partners and binds other countries to us.
Poland is an example of a
country that has been invaded from both west
(Germany) and east (Russia). With U.S. support
it can be the balancer between those two
powers. Relations had a setback when we
canceled the ABM missile basing in Poland and
the related radar system for the Czech Republic.
We have spent a decade fighting
an amorphous enemy, terrorism. It has been
passionate, expensive and overdone.
To quote Freidman in his chapter
“The Unintended Empire”: “In the next decade the
need will be for less passion and more
meticulous adjustment in relations such as
Israel and Iran. The time also calls for the
creation of alliance systems to include nations
such as Poland and Turkey that have newly
defined relations with the United States. This
is the hard and detailed work of imperial
strategy. Yet the president cannot afford the
illusion that the world will simply accept the
reality of overwhelming American hegemony, any
more than he can afford to abandon the power.
He can never forget that despite his
quasi-imperial status, he is the president of
one country and not of the world. That is why
the one word he must never use is empire.”
Economic interests of other
countries dictate their behavior. North Korea
will face starvation again this year for perhaps
a fifth of its people. Russia for 200 years was
preoccupied with its security. Now, it is an
exporter of commodities — oil and gas to Europe
and the main source of natural gas for Germany.
It has a labor surplus which Germany needs,
after relying on Turks for many years. The key
concern in China is unemployment, as it was
earlier in Japan.
Globally, balance is needed in
three areas: India-Pakistan, Iraq-Iran, and
Israel- Palestine. The Himalayas form a natural
barrier between Chins and India.
Recent developments in Egypt,
Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Yemen and Bahrain imply
continuing instability. Saudi Arabia is offering its
citizens $36 billion to quell unrest — including
a 15 percent salary increase for public
employees to offset inflation, reprieves for
imprisoned debtors, and financial aid for
students and the unemployed. Israel has
discovered large deposits of oil and gas in
offshore territorial waters that could, over
time, make them a net energy exporter after
satisfying domestic needs.
http://online.wsj.com Lebanon, next door,
plans to explore for energy in its own
territorial waters.
http://online.wsj.com/video/lebanon-needs-more-power/8173C689-CB5C-463B-846D-3AC835685B05.html?KEYWORDS=israel+oil+gas
The specialty of the author,
George Friedman, is global geopolitical
intelligence. He has been a political science
professor at Dickinson College and is the
founder and CEO of STRATFOR.
The book lacks an index, as did
Friedman’s previous book, The Next Hundred
Years — a Forecast for the 21st
Century.
To Dig Deeper
-
After Words – 59 minute
video interview with George Friedman
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Wordwi#
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NATO’s 150K troops in
Afghanistan is untenable; United States has
no national interest there. See Bing West’s
book, recommending reduction to 40,000
troops, with an end to the “Peace Corps”
mission and a focus on warfighting only.
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The United States accounts
for 25 percent of the world economy and
spends more than 40 percent of the world’s
military budget.
http://www.globalissues.org. Stability
is in our interest (we have bases in 27
countries, according to Friedman). The next
decade will be the American decade, if we
can manage our alliances well.
George F. McClure is
Technology Policy editor for IEEE-USA
Today’s Engineer and the IEEE Vehicular
Technology Society's representative to
IEEE-USA's Committee on Transportation and
Aerospace policy.
Comments may be submitted to
todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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