The Next Decade

The Next Decade Plot Summary

Introduction

The modern American presidency faces a unique dilemma that would have shocked the nation's founders - how to manage what has accidentally become the world's most powerful empire while preserving the essence of a constitutional republic. This paradox emerges repeatedly throughout global history: how does a nation wield immense power abroad while maintaining its domestic liberties? The United States stands at a critical juncture, with its military deployed across continents, its economic influence reaching every market, and its cultural power shaping societies worldwide. Yet this global reach was never planned - it emerged organically through historical circumstances, opportunity, and necessity. What makes this challenge particularly acute is that the American system was specifically designed to prevent imperial power. The founders, having rebelled against British imperialism, created checks and balances precisely to limit concentrated authority. Today's presidents must navigate these constraints while simultaneously managing global responsibilities that demand rapid, decisive action. The tension between democratic values and imperial necessities creates difficult moral and strategic dilemmas. Throughout this exploration, we'll examine how successful American leaders have managed this balance, often through what might be called "Machiavellian virtue" - the willingness to employ morally ambiguous means in service of principled ends.

Chapter 1: The Unintended Empire: America's Global Position

The American president is indisputably the most influential political leader on earth, governing a nation whose economic and military decisions shape lives on every continent. This imperial reach wasn't planned or designed - it emerged gradually through historical circumstances. Following World War II and especially after the Soviet collapse in 1991, the United States found itself as the sole superpower in a unipolar world. This position wasn't sought through conquest or divine ordination but developed ipso facto from America becoming the only global military power with an economy more than three times larger than its nearest competitor. The economic dimensions of American power are staggering. The United States accounts for approximately 22.5% of global GDP and dominates international investment flows. American consumption patterns instantly ripple through global supply chains - when Americans develop a taste for shrimp, fish farmers in the Mekong Delta adjust their production; when demand falls during recessions, communities thousands of miles away feel the impact. This economic gravity creates dependencies that bind countries to American interests more effectively than any formal imperial system could. Standing behind this economic colossus is America's military might. American troops are deployed in over 150 countries, with bases, training missions, and operations spanning every continent. Unlike Rome's legions or Britain's colonial forces, American military power isn't primarily about territorial control but about preserving the global economic system that benefits American interests. The military ensures that no aggrieved nation can use force to redress perceived economic inequities, and it maintains open sea lanes that facilitate global commerce. This arrangement creates a profound geopolitical imbalance. The United States simultaneously provides technologies and goods, offers an enormous market for other nations' products, and maintains the military force that keeps the entire system functioning. Most nations find alignment with the United States necessary for their security and prosperity. The challenge for American presidents is that the public remains psychologically unprepared for imperial responsibilities. Americans still view their country through the lens of the anti-imperial republic it was designed to be, creating a dangerous disconnect between self-perception and global reality. The coming decade requires bringing order to this imperial reality. The alternative - continuing to operate as an undocumented, disorderly empire - creates unnecessary risks and squanders opportunities. American power, while overwhelming, is not omnipotent. The president's task is to manage this power in ways that minimize risks and maximize benefits, all while navigating the moral complexities of exercising global influence.

Chapter 2: The Machiavellian President: Power and Morality

The greatest challenge facing America in the modern era is how to preserve its republican character while managing its imperial reality. The founders were anti-imperialists by moral conviction, pledging "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" to defeat the British Empire and establish a republic based on self-determination and natural rights. An imperial relationship with other nations, whether intended or not, poses a fundamental challenge to these founding principles. This tension between republic and empire will define American politics in the decade ahead. The historical record gives us reason for concern. The Roman Republic was overwhelmed by its imperial acquisitions, as vast wealth flowed into the capital from conquered territories, corrupting republican virtues that had been Rome's greatest pride. Power and money distorted domestic politics, eventually destroying the republic itself. Similar dangers now confront the United States, as its global power generates constant threats and temptations. The national security apparatus, shrouded in official secrecy, operates beyond easy democratic oversight, while foreign entanglements create economic dependencies that can distort domestic priorities. The paradox is that America no longer has a choice about whether to be an empire. The vastness of the American economy, its entanglement with countries worldwide, and the global presence of American military power have created imperial responsibilities that cannot be easily abandoned. Disentangling from this global system would destabilize not only America's economy but the entire international order. When Americans understand the price of anti-imperialism, there would be scant support for it. The key to preserving the republic lies not in institutional arrangements but in personal leadership - specifically in what might be called the "Machiavellian presidency." Great presidents like Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan understood that good comes from the ruthless pursuit of power, not from trying to do good. They recognized that moral ends sometimes require immoral means. Lincoln preserved the Union and abolished slavery by trampling on civil liberties and dissembling about his intentions. Roosevelt formed an alliance with Stalin's Soviet Union, a regime morally equivalent to Nazi Germany, because it served American interests. Reagan supported anti-Soviet insurgents globally, including Muslim jihadists in Afghanistan who later became America's enemies. These presidents embodied what Machiavelli called virtù - not conventional moral virtue but the ability to overcome fortune through cunning and power. They recognized that a president's job is to protect the republic from a world full of people who are not virtuous in any conventional sense. In foreign policy, they transcended the false dichotomy between idealism and realism, recognizing that moral principles without power are merely words, while power without moral purpose is monstrous. The coming decade will require this same Machiavellian insight. The president must focus not on grand moral crusades but on the meticulous adjustment of power relationships, balancing American ideals with the realities of imperial management. This will demand both principled vision and ruthless pragmatism - the willingness to make distasteful accommodations in service of greater moral ends.

Chapter 3: Regional Balances: Middle East and Russia

The collapse of Iraq following the 2003 American invasion fundamentally altered the regional balance of power in the Middle East, creating a geopolitical vacuum that Iran has steadily filled. This outcome represents a strategic disaster for American interests, not because Iran is inherently evil, but because it disrupts the careful balancing act that had previously kept the region stable. For decades, American strategy in the Persian Gulf relied on maintaining equilibrium between Iraq and Iran, playing these powers against each other while ensuring neither could dominate the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula. When Iraq's government and military were dismantled, this balance collapsed completely. Iran suddenly found itself free from its traditional strategic constraints, able to project influence throughout the region with little effective counterweight. With a population of 70 million - equal to the entire Arabian Peninsula - and geographical security from most external threats, Iran became the dominant indigenous power in the Persian Gulf. American forces, initially intended to reshape Iraq as a democratic counterbalance, instead became the only significant check on Iranian ambitions. This situation proved unsustainable. The American occupation of Iraq consumed enormous resources while failing to create stability or establish a viable Iraqi state. Even worse, as American attention and resources focused almost exclusively on the Middle East, other crucial regions were neglected. Russia, in particular, seized this opportunity to reassert influence in its near abroad, culminating in the 2008 invasion of Georgia and growing pressure on Ukraine. The Russians understood that American overcommitment in the Middle East created a window for them to rebuild their position in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The fundamental challenge for American strategy in the coming decade is to restore regional balances while disengaging from direct military occupation. This will require difficult and counterintuitive measures. First among these is the necessity of reaching an accommodation with Iran. Just as Roosevelt allied with Stalin against Hitler, and Nixon with Mao against the Soviets, the American president must overcome ideological hostility to forge a working relationship with Tehran. Such an arrangement would allow American withdrawal from Iraq while maintaining regional stability and ensuring the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Simultaneously, the United States must counter Russia's resurgence by strengthening the states along Russia's western frontier, particularly Poland. The North European Plain has historically been the invasion route into Russia, and Moscow views American influence in this region as an existential threat. Yet the United States cannot abandon these countries to Russian domination. Instead, it must provide economic and military support to create a viable buffer zone - what historically has been called the "Intermarium," the lands between the Baltic and Black Seas. Both these strategic shifts will generate significant domestic opposition. Pro-Israel groups will resist any accommodation with Iran, while Eastern European countries will fear American abandonment. The president must navigate these concerns while remaining focused on the core strategic objective: restoring regional balances that constrain potential hegemons without requiring direct American military intervention. This approach recognizes that American power, while vast, is not unlimited, and that maintaining global influence requires husbanding resources rather than squandering them in unwinnable conflicts.

Chapter 4: European and Asian Dynamics (2010-2020)

Europe enters the decade facing profound identity questions and structural challenges that will reshape its geopolitical landscape. The dream of European unity, which seemed so promising after the Cold War, has begun to fray under economic pressures and resurgent nationalism. The 2008 financial crisis exposed fundamental flaws in the European Union's architecture, particularly the tension between a common currency and divergent national economies. As Germany - Europe's economic powerhouse - resisted underwriting the debts of struggling southern economies like Greece, Spain, and Italy, the continent's division into a prosperous core and struggling periphery became increasingly pronounced. This economic divergence coincides with a shift in Europe's strategic relationship with both the United States and Russia. Germany, dependent on Russian natural gas and seeking new markets, has begun moving closer to Moscow despite historical animosities. France, seeing opportunity in a more independent European stance, has encouraged this eastward orientation. Meanwhile, countries on Europe's eastern frontier, particularly Poland and the Baltic states, view this German-Russian rapprochement with alarm, strengthening their ties to the United States as a counterbalance. In Asia, similar tectonic shifts are underway. China's meteoric economic rise, which dominated the early 2000s, has begun to encounter structural limitations. The Chinese economic miracle depended on massive exports to Western markets, cheap labor, and authoritarian stability - all factors now under strain. As China's wealth inequality worsens and its population ages, internal tensions will increasingly consume Beijing's attention, limiting its ability to project power globally. Japan, meanwhile, remains the world's third-largest economy despite two "lost decades" of minimal growth. Its technological sophistication and naval power make it the natural regional counterweight to China. The American strategy toward these regions must be calibrated to leverage these evolving dynamics. In Europe, the United States should strengthen bilateral relationships with countries on Russia's periphery, particularly Poland, while publicly maintaining its commitment to NATO. This approach preserves American influence without directly confronting the German-Russian entente developing at the heart of the continent. In Asia, the United States should continue its naval dominance while encouraging Japan's gradual reemergence as a normal power willing to take greater responsibility for regional security. These strategies recognize that direct American intervention is neither necessary nor desirable in either region. Unlike the Middle East, where power vacuums create immediate threats, Europe and Asia contain multiple sophisticated powers capable of maintaining regional balances without constant American supervision. The president's task is to ensure these balances develop in ways compatible with American interests, using limited resources to shape outcomes rather than dictate them. The most significant danger would be a formal alliance between Germany and Russia, which would create a Eurasian power potentially stronger than the United States. To prevent this, American policy must be subtle and indirect, working to maintain divisions within Europe while appearing supportive of European unity. Similarly, in Asia, the United States must maintain good relations with both China and Japan while ensuring neither achieves regional hegemony.

Chapter 5: The Hemisphere and Africa: Strategic Priorities

The Western Hemisphere represents America's most secure geopolitical domain, yet even here, strategic challenges require careful management. Unlike distant regions where American influence must compete with local powers, the Americas have been under effective U.S. hegemony since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. This dominance stems from both geography and history - the United States enjoys overwhelming economic and military advantages, while potential rivals remain divided by mountain ranges, jungles, and divergent national interests. Among Latin American nations, only Brazil possesses the potential to emerge as a meaningful competitor to the United States. With the world's eighth-largest economy, fifth-largest population, and abundant natural resources, Brazil has slowly built the foundations for regional leadership. Its balanced export profile - sending roughly equal amounts to Latin America, Europe, and Asia - gives it flexibility that other regional economies lack. While Brazil presents no immediate threat to American interests, prudence dictates that the United States begin cultivating Argentina as a potential counterweight, reviving its historical role as South America's second power. More immediate concerns center on Mexico and Cuba. Mexico's geographic proximity and deep economic integration with the United States create unique challenges, particularly regarding immigration and drug trafficking. Both issues stem from market forces - American employers' demand for low-wage labor and American consumers' demand for narcotics - that policy alone cannot resolve. Rather than pursuing unattainable goals of sealing the border or eliminating drug use, American strategy should focus on containing violence within Mexico while managing immigration flows to serve economic needs. Cuba warrants special attention because of its strategic location controlling access to the Gulf of Mexico. Just as the Soviet missiles in Cuba represented an existential threat in 1962, any future global competitor would likely target Cuba as a base for projecting power against the United States. Preemptively bringing Cuba back into the American sphere of influence, particularly as the Castro era ends, represents a strategic opportunity that should not be missed. Africa, by contrast, holds minimal strategic importance for the United States in the coming decade. Unlike the Cold War era, when the continent served as a battleground for superpower competition, today's Africa offers few threats or opportunities that require significant American involvement. China's growing economic presence, focused on resource extraction, serves Chinese interests without threatening American security. The continent's internal challenges - from ethnic conflicts to failing states - remain tragic but peripheral to core American concerns. This assessment may seem coldly pragmatic, but it reflects the necessity of prioritization in global strategy. With pressing challenges in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, American resources cannot be effectively deployed everywhere. In Africa, limited humanitarian aid and counterterrorism operations serve both moral and strategic purposes without overextending American commitments. The president must resist domestic pressure for greater involvement unless specific American interests are threatened. The Western Hemisphere demonstrates the essence of successful imperial management - maintaining regional stability without constant intervention. By working through local allies, leveraging economic influence, and intervening directly only when necessary, the United States can preserve its dominance while conserving resources for more contested regions.

Chapter 6: Technology and Demographics: Coming Challenges

Two powerful forces will reshape the global landscape in the coming decade: demographic transitions and technological limitations. The demographic challenge appears first as aging populations in developed nations, particularly Japan and Western Europe, where declining birthrates have created societies with more retirees than workers. This imbalance strains pension systems, healthcare resources, and economic productivity. The United States faces similar pressures as the Baby Boom generation - the demographic bulge born between 1946 and 1964 - moves into retirement, although America's higher fertility rate and immigration levels provide partial mitigation. This demographic shift coincides with a troubling plateau in technological innovation. Despite the proliferation of consumer electronics and digital services, fundamental breakthroughs have become increasingly rare. The transformative innovations that drove economic growth in previous generations - the internal combustion engine, antibiotics, the microprocessor, the internet - have not been matched by equally revolutionary technologies in recent years. Instead, development has focused on incremental improvements and new applications of existing technologies, with diminishing returns for productivity and economic growth. The energy sector epitomizes this technological challenge. Rising global energy demand, driven by development in China and India, cannot be satisfied by current renewable technologies, yet environmental concerns make expanded use of fossil fuels problematic. Natural gas, particularly through hydraulic fracturing (fracking), offers a transitional solution with lower carbon emissions than coal, but it remains a stopgap rather than a true breakthrough. Long-term solutions like space-based solar power or fusion energy remain technically feasible but commercially distant. Water scarcity presents a similar challenge. Increasing industrialization and higher living standards are depleting aquifers and river systems faster than they can be replenished. While desalination technology exists, its energy requirements make large-scale implementation prohibitively expensive with current technology. Without innovations that dramatically reduce these energy costs, water conflicts will intensify in vulnerable regions. Healthcare faces its own technological bottleneck. As populations age, degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes become more prevalent. Current treatments primarily manage symptoms rather than addressing underlying causes. Despite mapping the human genome and other scientific advances, cures for these conditions remain elusive, creating enormous human and economic costs. The convergence of these demographic and technological challenges creates a perfect storm for the 2020s. An aging population will require more healthcare and pension support precisely when productivity growth is slowing due to technological stagnation. This combination threatens to create persistent economic headwinds that conventional policy tools cannot easily address. The president's approach to these challenges must balance short-term pragmatism with long-term vision. In the energy sector, this means supporting natural gas development while simultaneously investing in fundamental research for breakthrough technologies. In healthcare, it requires both expanding current services and funding basic science that might yield future cures. Most importantly, it demands honest communication with the public about the limits of current capabilities and the trade-offs inherent in any policy choice.

Chapter 7: The Republic in an Imperial Age

The tension between America's republican values and its imperial responsibilities will define the coming decade. This is not merely a theoretical concern but a practical challenge that affects every aspect of governance. The American system was designed for a small, relatively isolated republic with limited international engagements. Its checks and balances, separation of powers, and democratic accountability all presume a government focused primarily on domestic concerns. Yet today's global realities demand rapid decision-making, strategic secrecy, and complex interventions that strain these constitutional arrangements. Three essential transformations must occur for America to manage this contradiction successfully. First, the foreign policy apparatus must be rationalized. The current system - with sixteen overlapping intelligence agencies, competing departments, and ambiguous lines of authority - creates unnecessary friction and wastes resources. While maintaining democratic oversight, the president needs streamlined mechanisms for implementing coherent global strategy rather than constant bureaucratic warfare. Second, the American public must develop a more mature understanding of power and its exercise. The childish expectation that global leadership can be maintained without moral compromises undermines effective policy. Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan all understood that pursuing moral ends sometimes requires immoral means. The public must recognize this reality and judge presidents not on ideological purity but on whether they effectively advance American interests while preserving core values. Third, American strategy must shift from reactive crisis management to proactive balancing of power. The obsessive focus on terrorism and Middle Eastern conflicts during the past decade distracted from more significant long-term challenges. By returning to the traditional approach of maintaining regional balances of power, the United States can leverage local actors to contain potential threats while conserving American resources for truly vital interests. The foundation of American power remains control of the oceans. While land wars in Asia and the Middle East have consumed enormous resources with limited returns, naval dominance secures global trade, projects American influence, and prevents potential rivals from threatening the homeland. Future military investments should prioritize maintaining this maritime advantage over costly ground interventions with ambiguous objectives. Perhaps most importantly, the president must recalibrate the relationship between moral principles and power politics. Idealism divorced from strategic reality leads to ineffective moralizing, while realism without moral purpose degenerates into cynical maneuvering. The most successful presidents have united these approaches, pursuing moral ends through pragmatic means. They recognized that power serves virtue, not by imposing American values directly, but by creating conditions where those values can flourish organically. Benjamin Franklin, when asked what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had created, famously replied, "A republic, if you can keep it." That challenge has never been more relevant than today, when imperial responsibilities threaten republican institutions. The next decade will determine whether America can navigate this contradiction - maintaining global power while preserving domestic liberty. Success requires not just skilled leadership but an engaged citizenry willing to face difficult truths about power and its proper exercise in a complex, often hostile world.

Summary

Throughout history, great powers have faced the fundamental challenge of balancing expansive international commitments with domestic political constraints. For the United States, this challenge is particularly acute because its global empire emerged unintentionally, through historical circumstance rather than deliberate design. The resulting tension between republican values and imperial necessities creates strategic dilemmas that will dominate American politics in the coming decade. The core insight this exploration reveals is that effective global leadership requires reconciling moral principles with power politics - recognizing that worthy ends sometimes demand unseemly means. The path forward demands both strategic clarity and moral courage. American leaders must first acknowledge the reality of American imperial power rather than hiding behind comforting illusions. They must restore regional balances of power that allow local actors to contain potential threats without constant American intervention. Most critically, they must reframe the relationship between morality and power - understanding that virtue in international affairs often looks different from conventional morality. As Machiavelli understood five centuries ago, good leaders must sometimes "learn how not to be good" in order to achieve greater goods. For the American republic to survive its imperial responsibilities, it needs presidents who embrace this paradox - who pursue moral ends through means that may appear immoral, who maintain democratic values through actions that sometimes transcend democratic constraints. This reconciliation of contradictions represents the essential challenge of American leadership in the twenty-first century.

About Author

Loading...

George Friedman

George Friedman is an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs and the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. A New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Friedman's most recent book, THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM: America’s Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond, published February 25, describes how “the United States periodically reaches a point of crisis in which it appears to be at war with itself, yet after an extended period it reinvents itself, in a form both faithful to its founding and radically different from what it had been.” The decade 2020-2030 is such a period which will bring dramatic upheaval and reshaping of American government, foreign policy, economics, and culture.

 His most popular book, The Next 100 Years, is kept alive by the prescience of its predictions. Other best-selling books include Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, The Next Decade, America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages. Dr. Friedman has briefed numerous military and government organizations in the United States and overseas and appears regularly as an expert on international affairs, foreign policy and intelligence in major media. For almost 20 years before resigning in May 2015, Dr. Friedman was CEO and then chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996. Friedman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York and holds a doctorate in government from Cornell University.

Read more