HomeFrom the Desk of George Friedman

From the Desk of George Friedman

China’s Economic Crisis and Its Foreign Policy

China has reached a critical point that many countries often reach and that, however painful, is cleansing in the long term. Consider what happened...

Apocalypse Then

Sixty years ago, almost to the day, the Soviet Union detonated a 50-megaton nuclear bomb, the largest discharged ever before or since, vastly dwarfing...

Germany, Merkel and the Danger of Self-Confidence

Germany held an election to replace Angela Merkel, who led the German government for 16 years – through much of the implementation of the...

How the Global Economy Works, or Seems To

There is an interesting pattern that takes place in the global system. A nation emerges that is able to produce industrial products at low...

Why Australia Spurned France

The decision by the Australian government to join a U.S.-British consortium to help construct a nuclear submarine capability enraged France, whose previous efforts to...

Bonus Chapter: The Five Eyes

Editor’s note: In a supplementary chapter of his book “The Storm Before the Calm,” GPF founder George Friedman wrote last summer about how the...

John F. Kennedy and the Origin of Wars Without End

I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to answer a fundamental question: Why did the United States, economically and militarily the most powerful nation...

Afghanistan and the 40-Year War

I have to confess that I find it difficult to hold an analytic distance on Afghanistan. I am angry – at no one in...

Facing Reality: China’s Strategy

China is the definition of dynamic. Until the 20th century, the regions of Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria and Inner Mongolia were not under the political...

The American Need to be Admired

On a trip to France in 1976, I had a scholar of some repute explain to me how the Vietnam War, having cost Washington...

When You’re Wounded and Left on Afghanistan’s Plains

I was shocked by what happened in Afghanistan in the past week or so. Not because I didn’t expect it – President Joe Biden...

Facing Reality: A New American Strategy

The United States has been at war for almost the entire 21st century, and it’s only 2021. In contrast, the United States was at...

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