The Next 100 Years

I’ve finished reading the Stratfor guy George Friedman’s book TheNext 100 Years, and it’s an awesome fun read. He analyzes the geopolitical world of the past 100 years, and then makes predictions of what’s going to happen in the rest of the 21st Century. It’s really engaging, and a whole lot sounds totally wacky at first, but his reasoning feels sound, and wickedly insightful. He predicts the next global war will be around 2050 - the United States against the coalition of Japan, Turkey and Poland. What? No freakin way, right? Ok well say it’s the year 1900 – Britain is an unassailable global power controlling the world’s oceans, and the United States is provincial bit player who’s happy to keep out of the nasty politics and imperialism of Old Europe. And somebody tells you that in 50 years all of Europe will be devastated and bankrupt, and the United States control of all the sea routes Britain used to have. No freaking way? Ok now it’s 1950 – Germany is a bombed out wasteland, and Japan’s cities have been firebombed and nuked. What if someone told you that by the year 2000 those two countries will be the second and third biggest economies in the world, and China - Communist China will have the fastest growing economy, the market that everyone wants to get into. No way! The point being that, in geopolitics, what you expect to happen won’t, and nothing is out of the question. Friedman sketches how the global war will play out, it reads like Tom Clancy but without the hardware geekiness.

My reaction to another of Friedman’s predictions revealed a personal prejudice I have. He thnks that around 2090, there will be a major confrontation between the US and…wait for it…Mexico. Uh…Mexico? What, they gonna storm across the border with leaf blowers, they gonna busboy us to death? Mexico gets no respect, it’s seen as a low-rent backwater, a corrupt source of drugs and unskilled labor. Am I wrong in thinking that a lot of the world, most the US anyway, shares this perception? And then I was thinking about the drug traffic from Mexico into the US, the surge of drugs and violence into the Southwest states that’s been in the news for the past year. Could it be something like the opium trade that troubled China in the 1800s? If Mexico legalized narcotics and kept feeding the North’s ravenous appetite for drugs, there would be huge amounts of money flowing into Mexico’s coffers, coincident with the addiction of huge swaths of the American population and the attendant problems for American society. If you believe the Reefer Madness-y position that drugs are the downfall of civilization. Anyway, what do we think about Mexico’s ability to become a global power? Basically all need is to Get Their Shit Together - end the corruption that poisons their government, reduce civil unrest by serving the interests of their citizens equally, improve the educational system. Look at a map: Mexico has a lot of the same geographic advantages the US does – access to both the Atlantic and the Pacific (the key to global trade) and they could control access through the Panama canal. If Mexico could control the Caribbean, they could shut down trade through the Port of New Orleans, which is how the US gets its grain out to the rest of the world, and how the world’s goods get to the American heartland. Stopper that up, and we’re in big trouble. Ooh look: southern Mexico is a lot closer to the equator than Vandenberg or Canaveral, which means they can put up satellites cheaper than we can. Their capitol Mexico City is also in the south, and just happens to be the largest metropolitan area in the hemisphere. Mexico could be the world leader for space launch. Again, if they can manage that getting-their-shit-together thing.