THE STATE OF THE WORLD / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

The State of the World

Thoughts in and around geopolitics.

By: George Friedman

Looking at the current state of the world is a requisite step in forecasting. 

The way countries interact is shaped by necessity – be it economic, military or political. 

Their interactions may be hostile or cooperative, but interact they must. 

The world, then, is a kaleidoscope of contact, the significance of which is constantly changing. 

The task of the moment is to make sense of these patterns to better understand the future.

Central to that task is to discard the trivial and identify the important. 

Since the noise in the global system rarely correlates to long-term significance, the foundation of our method must be to extract the essential by focusing on the constraints imposed by reality. 

But that also demands that we understand the moment, because we live in the moment and must accommodate it, and because the shape of the world at the moment is the beginning of a forecast. 

Grasping this moment and creating a map of the important makes everything possible. 

In short, simplifying the world makes it understandable.

At this moment, the world pivots around the United States. 

It is the world’s largest economy and most powerful military force, and boasts the most powerful geographic position. 

It faces no threat on land, and there is no nation with the naval capability to invade it. 

It therefore faces no existential threat and has the greatest room for maneuver, plotting its course with fewer ramifications and easily recovering from consequences when it faces them.

The world has three other major forces: China, which is trying to emerge from centuries of external and internal friction and is now confronted with the question of whether its progress is sustainable; Russia, a one-time global power that seeks to recover what it lost in the 1990s; and Europe, which is trying to piece itself back together from the fragmentation that cost it its place atop the world order. 

The only other potentially significant force is India, whose incomparably factionalized landscape often prevents it from realizing its potential. 

There are dozens of other lesser powers, each sovereign to some extent, each exploiting other nations and each being exploited. 

They must be mapped and measured, too, as they can often punch above their weight.

We can summarize the world by summarizing the conflicts endemic to the major powers, as well as by the way the conflicts draw in lesser powers. 

One conflict is Russia's attempt to regain its strategic depth by forcing Ukraine to return to Russia. 

The other is the conflict between China and the U.S., in which China seeks to control its eastern waters, and the U.S. seeks to block it and thus retain its dominion over the seas. 

Europe, the historical foundation of the global system, has been at war with itself throughout its history and is now waging that war in ways that are both complex and difficult to understand. 

It will be addressed in due course.

The first conflict began under the Russian assumption that Ukraine would quickly be overrun – long before the United States could bring its power to bear. 

The failure to quickly defeat Ukraine has significantly weakened the Russian military and hurt its economy. 

The question most pertinent to our forecast is whether the existing Russian political system can recover, assuming continued military failure and economic duress.

The second conflict stems from China’s need for maritime access to trade. 

Exports are the foundation of its economic growth and its best weapon against domestic unrest. 

China’s imperative for access to the world’s oceans threatens America’s interest in protecting itself by controlling the seas. 

The U.S. has just completed building a cordon sanitaire from Japan to Australia, and India is fighting a small war with China on land. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. has imposed economic pressure that has weakened the Chinese economy and created a degree of economic unrest.

Much of this is obvious, of course, but the obvious is the beginning of understanding the world and forecasting. 

The obvious minus the noise is the essence of geopolitical reality. 

And grasping the simplest reality is the best waypoint we can muster to keep our bearings in the complexities of the world. 

You can’t permit the obvious to stand alone, but you also can’t forget one core fact: that the United States, like Britain or Rome before it, is the principal force shaping the world right now. 

The future comes later.