Book Review: The Storm Before the Calm
Summary in Brief
Dr. George Friedman, founder of STRATFOR and Geopolitical Futures, and one of the biggest contributor to how I have come to view geopolitics has released a new book, The Storm Before the Calm: America’s Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond. The book’s prologue is Friedman to the core, and the thesis statement perfectly encapsulates the dispassion that he’s known for: “we are simply passengers on the American roller-coaster.” The book is filled with statements like these, devoid of condemnation or endorsement, a feature of his that has led many to feel he is overly fatalistic, while more regular readers will recognize this as Friedman’s often frustrating style at identifying truths that most people are already aware of, but are just not willing to accept on an emotional level. “Frustrating,” is a word that defines The Storm Before the Calm.
The Storm Before the Calm is divided into three parts, with the first two concerned with establishing the basis for Friedman’s forecasts which show up in part three. For those who’ve read Friedman’s work at Geopolitical Futures, STRATFOR and his previous books, these first two chapters should seem pretty familiar. Unfortunately, at times they feel a little too familiar, often falling into a degree of repetition that seems to be for the benefit of newer readers, but for a seasoned geopolitics buff these sections had me waiting for the book to move along and get to its main point. That having been said, the first two parts are still worth the read for the few new perspectives that emerge.
Section by Section Breakdown
Part One of Storm Before the Calm deals with the Invention of America, both in terms of the country’s founding and the book’s central thesis that America routinely reinvents itself. These first chapters are concerned with analyzing and identifying the uniqueness of the Republican experiment, the men who created it, and most importantly its relationship to Americans’ national identity, with Friedman’s trademark combination of sobering analysis and almost reverence for the Founding Fathers. He speaks of America as an invented nation, with invention and technology being intimately tied to its founding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The first half of the Invention of America is essentially a refresher course of high school social studies, blended with Friedman’s unique perspectives. Later, Friedman explores the impact of geography on the United States, specifically what he considers the country’s biggest geographic advantage- the Greater Mississippi river network- and how geography drove the country’s early attempts to conquer the continent. Uniquely, these chapters treat the history of Indian Nations without the pity or condescension that is so common in American history, using the rise of the Comanche Empire as a specific example as to how the Native peoples of America should be treated as having agency over their history post-Columbus, rather than simply being seen as hapless victims of an alien invader. It is in this chapter that Friedman stumbles on a peculiar idea:
There is a fierce unity to America, and simultaneously there are deep differences that turn into mutual contempt at times of stress. This tension actually has a virtue hidden within it. The tension within the country, the radical differences in culture and outlook, actually become a goad driving the country forward but leaving some behind.
This concept comes back many times throughout the book, but it serves as the central discussion for the end of Part One, where I felt the book gets a little of the rails. I can’t shake the feeling this section of the book was cut down from a much longer draft, as several paragraphs seem to be leading to something before being cut off rather abruptly. Then, in a a somewhat awkward section on American archetypes, Friedman goes into an impromptu movie review of the film High Noon, which serves to get the chapter’s point across, but feels out of place in a more lucid discussion about the contradictions in our national archetypes. Those contradictions, Friedman argues, create a permanent tension in American society that drives our routine reinventions.
The book really starts to come into its own by Part Two, which deals with the two historic cycles that Friedman touched on in The Next 100 Years: the 50 year Socioeconomic Cycle and the 80 year Institutional Cycle. For those familiar with the theories of Neil Howe and William Strauss, know that the chapter on the latter cycle is not a retread of The Fourth Turning, as the book focuses on how the institutional cycles redefine the country’s relationship with its government and alters our national identity, rather than how the institutional cycle exist. Its notable that Friedman never gives any explanation for the duration or reason for either cycle, beyond claiming that this is the way America was set up, a claim that isn’t backed up by anything presented in the book. Stranger still, Friedman never credits, or makes reference to The Forth Turning or any other works by Howe and Strauss.
The book lays out and reiterates the patterns of the socioeconomic cycle by going over the previous five, starting with the presidency of George Washington. For those who’ve read the Next 100 Years, this chapter is familiar but covers a lot of new ground, and Friedman takes care to emphasize the similarities between each of the cycles and the present. The book outlines the socioeconomic cycle as a pattern of economic reform lasting about a decade from a Presidential election, followed by a twenty to thirty year period of economic prosperity, a foreshock to the coming crisis about a decade before, followed by the failure of the economic system established at the start of the cycle, attempted to be solved by a President representing the ideals of the previous reformer administration, but only resolved by a new President who takes a radically different approach. However, where in the Next 100 Years Friedman only focused on the economic aspect of the socioeconomic cycles, in the Storm Before the Calm he explores how these shifts effect culture, and ultimately the social order. Friedman makes the case that the crisis is largely permitted to exist because of the divide in the social classes, which he claims run deeper than “rich and poor.” One class benefits from the old system, and exercises its electoral power to maintain it at the expense of another class. This breeds contempt, which in turn paralyzes the political system for a time, thus preventing a solution, only until a rising class overpowers the declining class. Friedman concludes this section by stating that the Reagan Era has broken down, and Trump’s election is the social foreshock to the crisis we will face around the middle of the 2020s, in which a new President will emerge exemplifying the solutions of Reagan, only to fail and be replaced by someone radically different who represents the will of the rising, largely urban, diverse, technological class, at the expense and contempt of the white industrial working-class.
If you’re here for forecasting, Part Three is what you’re paying for, but be warned, the writing in this chapter often feels schizophrenic. There are inconsistencies as to the names of the cycles, and statements about rising and declining classes the contradict those made a chapter prior. Friedman states point-blank that he expects the failed Presidency that will mark the end of the institutional AND socioeconomic cycles to be a Democrat, because they would likely represent the declining class, the technocrats… even though in the previous chapters, and again only a few pages later, Friedman refers to the technocrats as the rising class. He states that the White Working Class is in the same socioeconomic position today as African Americans in the 1970s, a statement so painfully out of touch with reality that it could have come out of the mouth of a more eloquent Donald Trump.
Despite these inconsistencies, Friedman’s point seems to be that as the two major cycles are ending at the same time, the stresses on the system and the mutual contempt between the rising and falling classes will only get worse. Trump is just a foreshock, and Friedman lays out a pretty bleak picture for the 2020s, asserting that regardless of whether or not Trump is President next year, the public is simply going to continue to lose faith in the political process and our institutions. America’s leadership will be caught in analysis paralysis, and the public will struggle to accept that expertise does not guarantee results. Thus, Friedman expects conspiracy theories about how the government is being sabotaged from the inside to only get worse, as the government fails to address the problems the country faces. “Deliberate collusion,” is the only explanation most Americans will be able to understand, rather than simply recognizing that the federal government is structurally incapable of rendering the kinds of broad policy solutions that those on the left and the right have come to demand. In short, no person is in control of the situation, institutions are and they are not built to handle the crisis. This distrust in institutions will only make the socioeconomic crisis worse.
Friedman does not expect to see a reversal of the government’s role in the economy or society, he even goes so far as to say that the US government is not large enough to deal with the responsibilities of a nation of its current size. The problem, according to Friedman, is that the technocratic approach to governing that emerged during World War II, is that it never created a class of professional managers who could see the forest for the trees. Friedman expects to see political leadership to reassert itself in the face of paralyzed technocratic leadership. Friedman stresses that the old political systems are not coming back, but the services provided by the old party bosses that let voters more easily petition the government is likely to return. One of the first things Friedman expects to change in this effort is the primary process, both to grow the political coalition that will elect the new President, and to eliminate the threat of fringe candidates and congressional gridlock which will be seen as inexcusable in the face of the coming crisis. Ultimately, the fight will be one of Expertise vs. Common Sense, of an Impersonal Government vs. one more accessible to the average person. This fight will permeate every aspect of the culture, from politics, to journalism, to higher education, and business.
Conclusions and Nitpicks
I can’t say that I liked The Storm Before the Calm, though I can see new readers of geopolitics to find it interesting. For me it was just frustrating, mostly because the book really felt like it could have used one more draft to iron out errors that often make Friedman’s point difficult to follow. Its also devoid of citations or a bibliography that would help a lot of readers unfamiliar with many of the theories presented. Worse yet, there is an air of intellectual laziness about this book, as conclusions are often made with gaps in logic or supporting evidence, and forecasts often have a lot of holes in their logic or outright defy previous statements made by Friedman in his writings over the past decade.
The most egregious part of this book comes with Friedman’s take on climate change. He does not dispute anthropological climate change, but he does not treat it as a serious threat. He equates it to the fears with overpopulation in the 60s, and seems to think it more political theater. He admits his lack of expertise on the subject, but claims that since we don’t have a complete understanding on how the climate works, he is unwilling to incorporate the threat into his model. Friedman expects someone like Norman Borlaug to come along and find a solution to the problem, with Space Based Solar power being an important candidate. Where I can’t disagree with him at all, however, is that Friedman does not believe any political action will be taken to stop Climate Change, as the restructuring of our lives will be too disruptive for most people to accept when the threat is still seen as an abstract.
If you’ve never read any Friedman or geopolitics books before, The Storm Before the Calm isn’t going to be a waste of your time, but it would be better spent reading The Next 100 Years. If you have read any of Friedman’s past work, give his latest book a miss.
For a full breakdown of the book’s forecasts, head on over to my Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/36182786
