From the Desk of George Friedman

Last Sunday, I received an email from a close friend telling me and others that after 60 years he was canceling his subscription to...

Let me turn over some cards. Reasonable people (every one of you, I’m sure) are likely wondering what in the world I am doing, swinging from discussions of enchantment to the benefits of solid over liquid propellants in missiles, and back again. The motivation is embedded in my life; I have been asked to write […]

The United States is in the process of shifting a core dimension of its strategic doctrine. In the past, the U.S. resorted to the...

One of the most extraordinary facts of history is that during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union never launched a...

Last weekend, my wife and I visited our grandson (children were subsidiary to this visit) who lives in Rochester, New York. He and his...

From the beginning, mankind’s presence in space had to do with war. In World War II, humanity went beyond the Earth’s atmosphere in order to kill. The first rocket that passed out of the Earth’s atmosphere was neither American nor Soviet but rather the German V-2. It was the first combat missile and had a […]

For several years, there has been a significant shift underway in U.S. strategy toward the Middle East, where Washington has consistently sought to avoid...

In order to begin thinking about space-based warfare, we need to think about sea-based warfare. The best place to do that is in World War II with the U.S.-Japanese war. When the United States forced its way into Japan, Japan lacked any powered instruments of production. It was a muscle-driven society. When they saw American […]

The evolution of the American political system inevitably has an impact on the global system. If the United States shifts direction in even minor matters, there are regional consequences. Political events are difficult to predict, but the key variables of the process can be identified by comparing the current evolution to a roughly similar prior […]

It is time to end this series of philosophical ruminations and turn instead to something that is at the center of geopolitics: war. The roots of my philosophical mumblings and my thoughts on war are from two of my books. The first is from my early academic work, “The Political Philosophy of the Frankfurt School.” […]

China celebrates the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China today. It has been a great and terrible time for China, as history has been for most countries. But China is a nation on a scale that dwarfs other countries – and, therefore, both its greatness and tragedy dwarf those of […]

The fundamental problem of geopolitical theory is simple: Why do soldiers choose to die for their country? Gen. George Patton famously told his troops that he didn’t want them to die for their country. He wanted the other poor bastards to die for theirs. He and his troops knew that as solicitous as Patton appeared […]