George Friedman Quotes

The twenty-first century will be the American century.

Understand that you're now in a superheated atmosphere; there are all kinds of rumors floating around. And one of the players is deliberately feeding us lies.

[D]isequilibrium will dominate the twenty-first century, as will efforts to contain the United States. It will be a dangerous century, particularly for the rest of the world.

Your 15 minutes are here, Friedman... I'm just saying, all your life you know useless and obscure things. And suddenly... It is a fairly strange experience.

I think Iraq will have a formally independent government that will be in perpetual gridlock and chaos, and essentially, there will be a U.S. military administration utilizing NGOs that can do a lot of the heavy lifting in the country.

Al Qaeda has failed in its goals. The United States has succeeded, not so much in winning the war as in preventing the Islamists from winning, and, from a geopolitical perspective, that is good enough.

Europe dominated the world, but it failed to dominate itself. For five hundred years Europe tore itself apart in civil wars.

[A]ny seagoing vessel—commercial or military, from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea to the Caribbean—could be monitored by the United States Navy, who could choose to watch it, stop it, or sink it.

The twenty-first century has begun with an American success that on the surface looks like not only a defeat but a deep political and moral embarrassment.

Mexico will emerge as a major global economic power. Ranked fourteenth or fifteenth early in the century, it will be firmly within the top ten by 2080. With a population of 100 million, it will be a power to be reckoned with anywhere in the world—except on the southern border of the United States.