The Next Decade

What happens when a republic built on anti-imperialist ideals finds itself ruling the world? In The Next Decade, geopolitical strategist George Friedman offers a provocative answer: the United States has unintentionally become a global empire—and how it manages that power in the next ten years will determine whether its democratic republic can survive. The book argues that America’s vast reach and responsibilities are now facts of life. The challenge is not to retreat but to learn how to exercise power wisely, balancing global dominance with ethical restraint at home and abroad.

Friedman contends that every empire faces a paradox. Power must be used to preserve security and prosperity, yet the very use of that power can corrupt the moral foundations of the republic. For America to thrive, its leaders—especially its president—must become what he calls a Machiavellian president: someone who can reconcile moral purpose with strategic ruthlessness. The next decade, he predicts, will test whether America can maintain global stability while keeping faith with its own ideals.

An Era of Unintended Empire

The book opens with the startling claim that America didn’t choose empire—it inherited it. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States was left with unmatched military, economic, and cultural power. Like Rome or Britain before it, this dominance created systems of dependence that extended American influence to every corner of the globe. But Friedman emphasizes that this empire is informal. The United States doesn’t conquer territories; it shapes global systems—financial, technological, and military—to serve both its own interests and the world’s stability.

This accidental empire, Friedman argues, now faces a balancing act. America must continue to uphold the global order—containing regional powers like Russia, China, and Iran—while also avoiding the overreach that toppled past empires. The nation’s greatest long-term threat isn’t external enemies but internal decay: the possibility that managing an empire will destroy the constitutional balance and civic virtue of the republic itself.

The Machiavellian President

Central to Friedman’s argument is the unique role of the American presidency. Drawing on Machiavelli’s The Prince, he asserts that the successful president must blend moral conviction with deception and pragmatism when necessary. Historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan embodied this balance. They were moral visionaries who also lied, manipulated, or broke laws when survival demanded it—preserving the republic through strategic cunning rather than purity of motive. In the coming decade, Friedman says, presidents will again need to act ruthlessly abroad to safeguard freedom at home.

This view contrasts sharply with idealistic foreign policy approaches that seek to impose democratic values universally. Instead, Friedman calls for realpolitik with a moral compass—a policy guided by American principles but grounded in cold strategic calculation. The president must accept that the world is dangerous, that allies often act from self-interest, and that moral purity without power invites chaos.

America’s Global Balancing Act

Friedman structures the book around the geopolitical regions where U.S. strategy will be tested in the next decade. In Europe, the United States must prevent a German-Russian entente that could dominate the Eurasian continent. In the Middle East, it must quietly disengage from moralistic crusades and reestablish a pragmatic balance of power—potentially even striking an accommodation with Iran. In Asia, the focus should be not on containing China’s rise but on managing Japan’s potential resurgence. And in the Western Hemisphere, the goal is simple: maintain security with minimal direct involvement, using regional partners like Mexico, Brazil, and Canada.

Through this lens, the next ten years represent a crucial transitional era. America must evolve from the reactive superpower of the post-9/11 years into a more subtle imperial manager—using diplomacy, proxy alliances, and economic leverage rather than constant wars or worldwide policing. The challenge will be to maintain influence while ceasing to overextend military force.

Empire, Republic, and the Moral Test Ahead

Friedman’s warning is both philosophical and practical. Empires often fail not from external defeat but from moral exhaustion—when the costs of power erode civic unity and ethical restraint. Like Rome sliding into imperial autocracy, America risks losing its republican soul if fear, secrecy, and militarization dominate public life. The presidency, therefore, must serve as the hinge between empire and republic, mastering power without succumbing to tyranny.

Ultimately, The Next Decade calls for maturity—in leadership and in the public. Americans must abandon fantasies of either righteous withdrawal or moral perfection. As Friedman puts it, “Justice comes from power, and power is only possible from a degree of ruthlessness most of us can’t abide.” Yet he insists this realism need not mean cynicism. Power, handled with wisdom and restraint, can serve liberty rather than destroy it.

“The tragedy of political life,” Friedman writes, “is the conflict between the limits of good intentions and the necessity of power.”

This tragedy, he argues, is not a flaw of America but the essence of its global role. The nation’s task in the next decade is to learn how to live with power—honestly, prudently, and without losing the moral backbone that made it great in the first place.

Friedman places the U.S. presidency at the heart of his vision for America’s next decade. He sees it as the only institution capable of managing the contradictions between global empire and domestic democracy. To succeed, the president must understand Machiavelli’s lesson: power isn’t inherently evil—it’s necessary. The challenge is to use it morally without becoming enslaved by morality itself.

Learning When Not to Be Good

Friedman quotes Machiavelli’s famous line: “It is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good.” In practice, this means recognizing when deception, secrecy, or even wrongdoing serves a higher moral purpose. He cites Abraham Lincoln suspending habeas corpus, Franklin Roosevelt lying to preserve domestic support for aiding Britain before Pearl Harbor, and Ronald Reagan secretly arming Iran to fund anti-communist fighters in Nicaragua. Each violated law or precedent in pursuit of what they believed was an essential good. Their greatness, Friedman argues, came from the moral compass that guided their ruthlessness.

Virtue Redefined: Cunning and Courage

Machiavelli’s virtue (virtù) meant courage, cunning, and the ability to bend fortune to one’s will. Friedman insists the next president must possess these traits to navigate an unpredictable world. Ideology and sincerity are weaknesses when detached from strategy. “Trying to be virtuous will bring not only the president to grief but the country as well,” he warns. Instead, leaders must act decisively, knowing that perfection is impossible.

Balancing Realism and Idealism

Friedman rejects the simplistic division between realist and idealist camps in foreign policy. True leadership, he argues, requires combining both. “Ideals without power are simply words,” he writes; “power without ideals is thuggery.” The Machiavellian president must wield power to uphold justice while understanding that moral language can’t substitute for strategic necessity. (He echoes Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, which similarly argued that nations must act differently than individuals.)

Illusions of Innocence

American presidents, Friedman believes, are hobbled by the nation’s self-image as morally pure and reluctant to lead an empire. Yet avoiding realism doesn’t make America virtuous—it makes it reckless. Like Jimmy Carter’s naïve idealism or George W. Bush’s moral crusades, good intentions without strategy lead to chaos. The Machiavellian leader must maintain moral purpose but act with cold calculation. That, Friedman concludes, is how to preserve the republic in an age of empire.

Friedman argues that America’s founders—and later leaders like Roosevelt and Eisenhower—understood a timeless imperial principle: to dominate the globe without exhausting yourself, you must foster regional balances of power. Rather than invading, America should manipulate. Its genius must lie in subtlety.

Power Through Rivalries

Britain’s nineteenth-century empire kept Europe and Asia stable by playing rivals against each other—supporting the weaker side to prevent any power from dominating. Friedman says the U.S. must resume this playbook. In Asia, that means ensuring neither China nor Japan dominates; in Europe, dividing Russia and Germany; in the Middle East, balancing Iran and its Arab neighbors. The goal is not friendship but equilibrium.

During the Cold War, America used this approach effectively—arming some allies, containing others, and avoiding direct conquest. But post-9/11 presidents abandoned it, fixating on terror rather than structure. Friedman’s remedy: rebuild a coalition-driven, multi-regional strategy that consumes other nations’ energies while preserving American primacy.

War as Last Resort

In Friedman’s view, military intervention should come only after allies fail to control emerging threats themselves. The U.S. should rely on proxies, economics, and technology first. Empires, he warns, collapse when they fight too many wars with their own soldiers. His practical rule echoes Lord Palmerston’s realist maxim: “We have no eternal allies… Our interests are eternal and perpetual.”

Managing Hatred and Dependence

Friedman accepts that resentment is the price of empire: “The United States, like all nations, is brutally self-interested.” But instead of fearing hatred, smart leaders channel it, using selective generosity—aid, trade, or technology—to disguise manipulation. The task of the next decade, he writes, is to institutionalize this realism through regional institutions, not Cold War relics like NATO or the UN. These should serve as new platforms for influence, not moral crusades for consensus.

Friedman’s sharpest critique targets the “war on terror”. He calls it a conceptual blunder that threw America off balance, turning a police problem into an imperial obsession. Terrorism, he says, is not the enemy—it’s a tactic. Fixating on it gave every small group pretending to be al Qaeda global significance and crippled U.S. strategy elsewhere.

The Threat Reconsidered

After 9/11, President Bush launched two major wars to defeat an enemy that couldn’t be conquered by military means. Friedman compares the move to declaring a “war on naval aviation” after Pearl Harbor. By naming terrorism itself the enemy rather than specific groups, America expanded its war endlessly. The result: trillions spent to kill a few thousand enemies while allowing major powers—Russia, China, and Iran—to rebuild their influence.

Proportionate Response

Clausewitz defined war as politics by other means. Friedman builds on this: a meaningful war must have a measurable political end. Terror, he argues, is a condition to be managed, not obliterated. Real security comes from maintaining perspective—not letting fear drive strategy. Presidents must assure the public emotionally while allocating resources rationally. In other words: calm the country, don’t chase ghosts.

Focus Beyond Fear

Friedman insists terrorism will persist but rarely poses an existential threat. Far more dangerous is letting paranoia devour the nation’s global leverage. The next decade’s job, he says, is to reframe threats—replacing terror as the central organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy with the older, saner strategy of balance and restraint. (This parallels arguments by John Mueller in Overblown, who noted that Americans overestimate terrorist power dramatically.) For Friedman, wisdom lies not in fighting everywhere, but in discerning what truly matters.

Europe, Friedman predicts, will rediscover that geography and nationalism—not bureaucracy—define its fate. After decades of peace under the EU, Europe believed it had transcended conflict. But the ghosts of Germany and Russia are stirring again. Geography cannot be legislated away.

Germany’s Perennial Dilemma

Friedman revisits why Europe’s twentieth century was soaked in blood: a powerful, insecure Germany trapped between France and Russia. Today, the same geography endures. Reunified Germany is Europe’s economic engine but feels anxious—dependent on Russian energy, yet fearful of Russian power. The rest of Europe, reliant on German credit or wary of its dominance, oscillates between admiration and resentment. This equilibrium, he warns, will fray in the next decade as both Germany and Russia seek autonomy from U.S. influence.

Russia’s Tactical Revival

The fall of the USSR seemed final, yet Friedman shows how Moscow is reassembling its sphere of influence through energy leverage and strategic patience. Putin, a former KGB operative, understood Russia’s weakness: a declining population and vulnerable geography. His solution was to use oil and gas to buy time and rebuild power. Europe’s dependence on Russian pipelines gives Moscow a grip not even tanks could achieve. The U.S., therefore, must prevent a Berlin–Moscow axis—a “Eurasian heartland” that could unseat American predominance. Poland, the new frontline state, will be key.

Europe’s belief in inevitable peace, Friedman concludes, is an illusion. History is back, and with it, old fears in new forms. The U.S. must stay, shrewdly if quietly, as the continental balancer—arming Poland and eastern states to deter both German and Russian ambitions.

Asia’s future, Friedman argues, will hinge less on China’s rising power than on Japan’s quiet resilience. Both are ancient rivals locked in symbiosis, yet each faces internal limits that make a U.S. role essential. The trick: don’t overreact to China’s hype, and don’t underestimate Japan’s comeback.

China’s Fragile Miracle

China’s explosive growth, Friedman argues, was a one-time correction after Mao’s repression and Western investment booms. Its social fabric hides deep fractures: 60 million rich coastal elites versus more than a billion rural poor. Geography compounds the divide—prosperity hugs the coast while interior provinces stagnate. Should exports falter, social unrest could threaten unity. Thus Beijing’s true war is internal, not with Washington. Contrary to popular belief, China cannot yet project naval power to rival the U.S. or even Japan.

Japan’s Silent Strength

Japan, meanwhile, remains the world’s third-largest economy and possesses the Pacific’s most capable navy besides the U.S. Although demographically aging, Japan’s social cohesion gives it stability China lacks. Its economic stagnation since 1990 masks immense accumulated wealth. Detached from moral guilt and bound by self-defense laws, Japan can rearm quickly if threatened. Friedman suggests its main resource constraint—dependence on imported oil—will continue tying it to the U.S. But U.S.–Japanese divergence is inevitable as Japan seeks greater independence.

America’s Role: Wait and Shape

The U.S., Friedman advises, should avoid direct confrontation or excessive management. Let China and Japan adjust to one another. Meanwhile, America maintains equilibrium through allies like South Korea, Australia, and Singapore—key logistical anchors balancing Northeast and Southeast Asia. This “management by delay” strategy creates stability while preparing for the day Japan, not China, redefines Asian geopolitics.

In what may be his most controversial assertion, Friedman argues that the U.S. must shift from moral rhetoric about democracy to a cold calculus of interests in the Middle East. The ideal is stability, not transformation. That means working with flawed regimes and even adversaries if balance demands it.

Israel and Iran: The Inevitable Reversal

Friedman calls for a quiet U.S. disengagement from Israel—not because Israel is unjust, but because it no longer serves core American strategic needs. Its survival is assured, but its policies inflame Islamic resentment and entangle Washington morally. Meanwhile, he foresees a Nixon-style opening to Iran: just as Washington allied with Stalin to defeat Hitler and with Mao to contain the USSR, the U.S. will court Tehran to counterbalance Sunni Arab instability. Both nations share interests in opposing Sunni jihadists and keeping oil flowing through the Persian Gulf.

Power, Not Friendship

Such a reversal would shock allies, but Friedman insists it’s unavoidable. Saudi Arabia, he predicts, will decline as a dependable partner. Iran, with its size, culture, and control over the Strait of Hormuz, dominates by default. Making peace with Tehran secures U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and prevents another costly war. Pragmatic diplomacy must replace moral outrage—just as Roosevelt allied with Stalin when necessary. “Distasteful,” he admits, “but effective.”

Turkey’s Coming Rise

In the longer horizon, Friedman forecasts Turkey’s ascent as a regional superpower bridging Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The U.S. should position itself early as Ankara’s quiet partner, ensuring Turkey counterbalances Iran. Together, they could stabilize a region long driven by chaos. Morality, he concludes, must yield to math: support whoever sustains equilibrium.

Beyond geopolitics, Friedman warns that internal forces—aging populations and stalled innovation—will pressure the U.S. and other advanced nations in the 2010s. The same Baby Boomers who built postwar prosperity are retiring, creating economic drag. Simultaneously, technological breakthroughs are slowing. A society used to exponential growth faces stagnation.

Aging Empires

An aging workforce means higher healthcare costs, fewer producers, and shrinking dynamism. This demographic shift, seen first in Japan and Europe, will reach America mid-decade. Immigration will be necessary to fill the gap—a political powder keg. Like Rome importing mercenaries, America will depend on others’ youth to sustain itself. The resulting culture clash will test national cohesion as profoundly as any foreign war.

Slower Innovation

Meanwhile, Friedman predicts a lull in transformative technologies. The digital revolution has matured: new devices now refine, not redefine, life. Without major breakthroughs—comparable to railways, microchips, or antibiotics—economic productivity may sag. He foresees the next revolution arising from robotics and energy, but not until the 2020s. In the short term, nations must adjust to slower growth and higher social costs.

Energy and Adaptation

Finally, Friedman spotlights energy geopolitics as both challenge and opportunity. Fracking and natural gas will dominate the next decade, reshaping North America’s fortunes and diminishing Middle Eastern leverage. The U.S. president’s task will be to balance environmental ideals with strategic security—favoring fossil transition without fantasy solutions. Realism, not wishful thinking, he argues, is what keeps empires solvent.

Friedman closes with a sobering meditation: the greatest danger to America is not external at all—it’s the corrosion of its republican spirit under the weight of empire. Managing global power requires secrecy, surveillance, and manipulation, yet democracy thrives on transparency and truth. The tension, he warns, could break the nation’s moral backbone.

Power’s Moral Price

From Rome to Britain, empires failed when citizens tired of complexity and demanded moral simplicity. The American public, Friedman laments, still wants to be loved abroad and blameless at home. But an empire cannot be innocent. Maturity means accepting the costs of power without surrendering to arrogance or despair. “A republic,” Benjamin Franklin said, “if you can keep it.” Keeping it now means growing up politically.

A Call to Mature Citizenship

Friedman calls for a wiser public—one that tolerates imperfect leaders, understands strategic deceit, and judges presidents by results rather than rhetoric. Lincoln’s suspensions of liberty, Roosevelt’s manipulations, and Reagan’s duplicity all provoked outrage—but preserved the nation. America’s survival, he suggests, depends less on moral purity than on disciplined realism aligned with enduring values of freedom and balance.

Ultimately, The Next Decade is both warning and guidebook. It challenges you, as a citizen, to see empire not as a choice but a responsibility—and to demand leaders capable of wielding power with wisdom, cunning, and conscience. The stakes are nothing less than the survival of the republic in an imperial age.