The Next Decade

Where We've Been . . . and Where We're Going

By: George Friedman

Narrated by: Bruce Turk

Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

The author of the acclaimed New York Times best seller The Next 100 Years now focuses his geopolitical forecasting acumen on the next decade and the imminent events and challenges that will test America and the world, specifically addressing the skills that will be required by the decade’s leaders.

The next 10 years will be a time of massive transition. The wars in the Islamic world will be subsiding, and terrorism will become something we learn to live with. China will be encountering its crisis. We will be moving from a time when financial crises dominate the world to a time when labor shortages will begin to dominate. The new century will be taking shape in the next decade.

In The Next Decade, George Friedman offers listeners a pro­vocative and endlessly fascinating prognosis for the immedi­ate future. Using Machiavelli’s The Prince as a model, Friedman focuses on the world’s leaders - particularly the American president - and with his trusted geopolitical insight analyzes the complex chess game they will all have to play. The audiobook also asks how to be a good president in a decade of extraordinary challenge, and puts the world’s leaders under a microscope to explain how they will arrive at the decisions they will make - and the consequences these actions will have for us all.

©2011 George Friedman (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“There is a temptation, when you are around George Friedman, to treat him like a Magic 8-Ball.″ ( New York Times Magazine)

Challenges Ahead for America's Leadership

The book's main premise and Friedman's concern, at least how he states it in the introduction is that America has become an empire because it is now the sole major power in the world. Friedman builds a solid argument here and then moves on to describe his concern that the US is immature and our republic may not survive managing the empire. In his view, the Presidency is the major institution of government that can manage the empire and the republic. He makes a good case for how President Bush lost his balance in responding so strongly to the attacks of 09/11 and initiating a war on terror that can not be won, and has shifted America's focus from other major threats such as a resurgent Russia.

Friedman does a good job of laying out the foreign policy challenges the US faces in the next decade and offers prescriptions of what should be done to manage our long-term interests. Some of these are very counter intuitive to general thinking, but they make sense within the general framework he advocates to maintain America's interests. The chapters on what policy actions to take are the books strength.

The book's weakness, however, is the limited prescriptions as to what the President must do to manage the Republic while responding to these challenges. He cites Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan as three astute role models, while acknowledging they each pursued duplicitous strategies in some cases to achieve a moral objective. He notes the flaws in an idealistic or realistic approach to foreign policy and how a more nuanced view is needed. And while he describes how the President must communicate to citizens, he does not offer any solid definition of how the President must interact with Congress or the Judiciary. He does suggest that we need a more rationalized administration developing foreign policy. I think this book could have been much better if it was co-written with a political governance expert.

Though provoking

Would you consider the audio edition of The Next Decade to be better than the print version?

No, not better, but different. There are advantages to each. I like lying in bed listening to an audio book with the lights out. I do find that I have to listen more than once to grasp the ideas. Also, I tend to fall asleep. But I also listen while I'm doing chores, and I think the book is a better use of time than listening to the radio.

Any additional comments?

There is something that bothered me about Friedman's arguments in regard to morality and political realism, but I can't put my finger on it yet. And that is why this is a great read/listen. I'm really trying to think about what he says. Agree or not, this an interesting book.

Exquisite !

I hope our future leaders read this book .
Step by step formula for remaining the sole super power .

off by key

George Friedman, I think has a delusional outlook on foreign policy. To say that certain conditions would benefit a nation is one thing, to advocate that a nation should or could engineer those conditions is pure folly. Certainly that was what the war in iraq was, and its consequences are still unfolding. Although america may be in a position of leverage right now, coalitions can be formed to undermine that position. Noone sees the dragon coming, thats what makes it the dragon.