George Friedman

Author Archive

  • Nov 28, 2023
    Last week’s election in the Netherlands produced a radical change. Traditionally, the Netherlands is among the most classically liberal states in Europe. But in a vote whose...
  • Nov 21, 2023
    Some of you may remember Ukraine. Just a few months ago, it was all the talk. Since then, war has broken out between Hamas and Israel, a potentially game-changing summit took place...
  • Nov 14, 2023
    U.S. President Joe Biden will meet this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It’s an important meeting in that both presidents are weak and thus seek to improve their...
  • Nov 8, 2023
    A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece titled “The World Begins to Reorder Itself.” There is certainly a new order coming, but unlike the reordering that took place...
  • Oct 31, 2023
    The practice of foreign policy, like many other practices, consists of hints and bluffs amid uncertainty. There’s value in making the worthless seem invaluable and the baffling...
  • Oct 24, 2023
    In a recent article, I wrote that the war in Ukraine is over, but nobody knows how to end it. What I meant by that was that the general outline of the military aspects of the...
  • Oct 17, 2023
    The world is focused on the Hamas-Israel war that is now raging. But this war has its psychological antecedents in a war that occurred 50 years before, in 1973, when Syria and Egypt...
  • Oct 10, 2023
    I wrote a few months ago that the world is in the process of reordering itself, something it does every few generations. It is not a process that depends on the decisions of the...
  • Oct 3, 2023
    It has been more than one and a half years since Russia launched its attack on Ukraine. The war has not gone as the Russians expected, unless they had planned for more than a year of...
  • Sep 26, 2023
    Russia’s focus currently is on its western front, in Ukraine and neighboring countries. There is, however, another front that concerns Russia: its southern border, which runs...
  • Sep 19, 2023
    Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu has disappeared. Some reports say he was meeting with Vietnamese officials when he was escorted away, but according to other reliable reports, he...
  • Sep 12, 2023
    It has been 22 years since the 9/11 attack that destroyed the World Trade Center buildings and a wing of the Pentagon and launched a string of American actions that were both...
  • Sep 5, 2023
    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced over the weekend that he replaced his defense minister with someone new – unsurprising, given the exhaustion the minister must...
  • Aug 29, 2023
    Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is dead. He died of a fatal dose of self-confidence. He made three mistakes. First, he thought himself a competent commander. 
  • Aug 15, 2023
    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko made a speech last week in which he appeared to be reaching out to the West. Belarus has been a close Russian ally for years; it might even...
  • Aug 8, 2023
    A month and a half ago, right after the attempted Wagner coup, there appeared to be chaos in Moscow, with the future of President Vladimir Putin in question. There were indications...
  • Aug 1, 2023
    A few years ago, I was invited to a military meeting in Australia. When I walked into the room, I expected to see Australian officers.
  • Jul 5, 2023
    The points below are drawn from my book, “The Next 100 Years,” which was published in 2009. In the points that follow, I try to explain how I reached these...
  • Jul 3, 2023
    Two hundred and forty years ago today, the American people were declared to be a unique and independent nation, distinct from all others. This was the conception of the people, but...
  • Jun 26, 2023
    There has been a great deal of talk that the Wagner Group’s attempted insurrection over the weekend may have weakened Russian President Vladimir Putin.
  • Jun 20, 2023
    “The Next 100 Years” is the first book I wrote that was intended to be a serious forecasting book. Others followed, but this perfected my method to the extent that it...
  • Jun 15, 2023
    Over the past weekend, major global media outlets revealed that the heads of intelligence of about two dozen countries held a (formerly) secret meeting in
  • Jun 6, 2023
    Over the past weekend, major global media outlets revealed that the heads of intelligence of about two dozen countries held a (formerly) secret meeting in Singapore and had in fact...
  • May 30, 2023
    Soon after Josef Stalin signed a mutual defense pact with Adolf Hitler, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that Russia was a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Russian military...
  • May 23, 2023
    Last week, I wrote about the major expansion of the U.S.-Philippine alliance, Japanese alignment with Taiwan and possible three-way links with South Korea, and a planned visit by...
  • May 16, 2023
    Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visited Washington last week, where he signed what is essentially a collective defense agreement. In doing so, he sealed their bilateral...
  • May 10, 2023
    There are too many unknowns to count in the Ukraine war. From the upcoming spring offensive to covert U.S. intelligence operations, mysteries abound. But perhaps none is more...
  • May 3, 2023
    The Philippine coast guard reported last week that two of its ships were involved in a confrontation with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea.
  • Apr 26, 2023
    We are a few weeks away from the anniversary of Victory Day, which marks the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. The annual parade in Moscow boasts
  • Apr 19, 2023
    In recent weeks I have focused on the social and economic evolution of the United States. Obviously, we also need to discuss U.S. strategic policy.
  • Apr 17, 2023
    The article I published earlier this week about the intensifying crisis in the United States generated a significant number of comments that ought to be
  • Apr 12, 2023
    The current political system cannot manage this situation. A solution must emerge now, to be presided over by the next president. It is impossible to explain all the details of a...
  • Apr 5, 2023
    The massive spring offensive against Ukraine that Russia threatened has not materialized. This does not mean it won’t happen, but it raises serious
  • Mar 28, 2023
    I recently rose from a slumber to discover that many of the learned had risen up to declare the U.S. war in Iraq not only a failure but also a misbegotten
  • Mar 16, 2023
    Editor’s note: By definition, geopolitics moves slowly. It’s a drawn-out explanation for the long-term trajectory of nations, one that all too often gets
  • Mar 7, 2023
    The Russian government has informed Hungary that its diplomats entering Russia will have to pay a fee rather than pass into Russia without paying for
  • Feb 28, 2023
    There has been a great deal of discussion about Chinese military aid to Russia. The United States warned Beijing against sending such aid, and Beijing
  • Feb 21, 2023
    I recently wrote about Russian preparations for a major offensive in Ukraine: a pincer movement that would close Ukrainian forces in from the north and
  • Feb 15, 2023
    The relationship between nations is always complex and sometimes difficult to understand. Sometimes it enters the realm of the bizarre. And then, at the
  • Feb 7, 2023
    The United States has kept the front intact by introducing new weapons. The current weakness of the Ukrainian army is due to a lack of longer-range rockets that could strike the...
  • Feb 1, 2023
    Over the past few days, two senior U.S. officials – Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of the U.S. Air Force Mobility Command, and Michael McCaul, the chairman
  • Jan 11, 2023
    Last week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visited President Xi Jinping in China, where they agreed to cooperate in peace and security operations and in developing gas and...
  • Jan 10, 2023
    In working on GPF’s Annual Forecast recently, I was looking for ways to measure national power and differentiate countries with large mouths from