Trying to predict the future is a difficult task as George Friedman makes clear in his book, The Next 100 Years. His brief summary of the 20th century reminds us how unpredictable the future can be. He says, “Imagine that you were alive in the summer of 1900, living in London, then the capital of the world.” The future seemed fixed “peaceful, prosperous Europe would rule the world.”
By 1920, this assumption would seem like a distant memory. “Europe had been torn apart by an agonizing war. The continent was in tatters. The Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German, and Ottoman empires were gone and millions had died in a war that lasted for years.” Although there was lots of uncertainty, one thing was certain “the peace treaty that had been imposed on Germany guaranteed that it would not soon reemerge.”
Twenty years later in 1940, Germany had not only reemerged but conquered France and dominated Europe. The Soviet Union was allied with Nazi Germany, and it looked like Germany would dominate Europe and most of the world.
By 1960, Europe was very different. Germany had been crushed and Europe was split down the middle by the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States had emerged as a superpower as it attempted to face down both the communism in the Soviet Union and in China.
Twenty years later, the world was different again. “The United States has been defeated in a seven-year war—not by the Soviet Union, but by communist North Vietnam.” It was not only expelled from Vietnam but from Iran (and its oil fields seemed to fall into the hands of the Soviet Union). “To contain the Soviet Union, the United States had formed an alliance with Maoist China.”
By 2000, the Soviet Union had completely collapsed. China was communist in name but had become capitalist in practice. NATO had advanced into Eastern Europe and even into the former Soviet Union. Add to that the September 11, 2001 changed the world again.
All of this is a reminder that the future is always changing. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.
