George Friedman’s Thoughts: Enchantment and Geopolitics

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 to be of their health, many of them would die in the course of killing their enemy. Thomas Hobbes wrote that the passion of men was to avoid pain and achieve pleasure. It is out of this concept that much of modern utilitarian philosophy arose. Utilitarianism argued for the greatest good for the greatest number. It never settled, from my point of view, why I should care about the happiness of the majority. Out of this came Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, who argued that the greatest good came from everyone selfishly pursuing their own ends. Smith was trying to square the circle, solving the problem that Hobbes posed (the passionate pursuit of one’s own pleasure) and that John Stuart Mill (the father of utilitarianism) argued for: the pursuit of the good of the many. Thus was born Smith’s economic man, feeling virtuous […]