10ish years ago I was walking through a bookstore somewhere, and I came across George Friedman’s “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century”. Friedman is a professional prognosticator in the sphere geopolitics. The book was written in 2009. I honestly don’t remember whether I read it before or after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, but in 2009 Friedman predicted that Russia would rise again.
“…we must consider the future of Eurasia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since 1991, the region has fragmented and decayed. The successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia, is emerging from this period with renewed self-confidence. Yet Russia is also in an untenable geopolitical position. Unless Russia exerts itself to create a sphere of influence, the Russian Federation could itself fragment. On the other hand, creating that sphere of influence could generate conflict with the United States and Europe.”
Since Vladmir Putin annexed Crimea and then invaded Ukraine, there has been a chorus of experts saying that if he is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, he will not stop on his campaign to build that sphere of influence, and who knows what country he would attempt to descend upon next. 
Fast forward to 2020 and George Friedman published “The Storm Before the Calm: America’s Discord, the Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond”. The title itself was hopeful enough that it made me want to read the book. God knows a little hope would go a long way these days. So, I ordered a copy and I devoured it in short order.
Without giving away too much, Friedman’s argument for hopefulness is that this has all happened before and it is followed by a period of “confidence and prosperity”. He contends that throughout history America has gone through two different cycles that repeat themselves with astonishing consistency. The first is the “institutional” cycle, which involves the foundations and functions of our government. This cycle lasts 80 years and then as society changes, the institutions of our government don’t function anymore, and they must be re-invented to serve the population well again.
The second cycle is the “socio-economic” cycle. The United States is currently going through a period of social and economic instability. The socio-economic cycle lasts 50 years.
Friedman also asserts that what is going on in the United States right now is particularly tumultuous because for the first time in history both cycles are coming to an end at near the same time in the mid to late 2020s. Friedman offers historical context to the previous times that the cycles began and ended and there is clear evidence of the cycles repeating themselves consistently every 80 and 50 years.
I found the book to be fascinating. I also found it to be believable, and that did give me the hope that we will weather the storm. There are certainly days that it most definitely doesn’t seem possible. When I read the book originally, I filled it with little Post-It notes to mark passages that I thought were particularly poignant or important, and now when one of those dark days occurs, I read a couple of the passages I had marked to give me some of that hope back.
Either of these books are excellent reads, but “The Storm Before the Calm” is up there on my list of favorite books of all time.
George Friedman’s Books on Bookshop
George Friedman’s Books on Amazon
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