George Friedman Quotes - Page 2

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• If you lose yourself to rage in the complexity of battle, you are going to be lost.

  George Friedman

  Battle, Rage, Losing Yourself

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• Well what are our geopolitical objectives? First, that North America be peaceful, prosperous, dominated by the United States. Second, that no nation be able to approach the United States militarily ... Those are the goals. It's very simple. We achieve that by making certain that all conflict takes place in the Eastern Hemisphere so we don't have conflict here.

  George Friedman

  Simple, America, Goal

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  7 Copy quote

• Because the US has control of the sea. Because the US has built up its wealth. Because the US is the only country in the world really not to have a war fought on its territory since the time of the Civil War ... Therefore we can afford mistakes that would kill other countries. And therefore we can take risks that they can't ... the core answer to why the United States is like this is we didn't fight World War I and World War II and the Cold War here.

  George Friedman

  Country, War, Mistake

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  9 Copy quote

• We cannot anticipate the moral circumstances under which we will live. And therefore [I refuse] to say that I will not live in a moral circumstance that requires violence.

  George Friedman

  Violence, Moral, Circumstances

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• The most horrible sort of war is civil war.

  George Friedman

  War, Civil War, Horrible

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• War to me is very much like sex. You can develop a theory that says sex is primarily for the exchange of genetic material, or that it's a celebration of life, or you can make up 50,000 theories about why human beings have sex, all of which are in some sense true, all of which by themselves miss the point. Because the answer is extraordinarily complex. It may be for fun, it may be for reproduction, for financial reasons, any number of things.

  George Friedman

  Sex, Fun, War

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• Germany is the new pig. Germany depends on exports and its markets are drying up. When the Germans start getting 10% unemployment, 15% unemployment, which is the real variable, how are they going to handle it?

  George Friedman

  Real, Pigs, Unemployment

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  4 Copy quote

• In a way, we can have a much easier discussion about the future of technology than we can about why a young man kills another man in a war.

  George Friedman

  War, Technology, Men

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• One definition of the wicked is that they will resort to whatever means are necessary to achieve their ends. Therefore, if those who oppose wickedness don't learn the art of war, they will be helpless.

  George Friedman

  Art, War, Mean

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• Europeans have always thought of U.S. presidents as either naive, as they did with Jimmy Carter, or as cowboys, as they did with Lyndon Johnson, and held them in contempt in either case.

  George Friedman

  Cowboy, President, Cases

  6 Copy quote

• While certain coastal cities have become very prosperous, the rest of China has a per capita income of $200 a year. The coast wants to have nothing to do with the interior; it wants to work with Tokyo and New York. This is an old story in China. It is why Mao succeeded in 1927. He wanted [coastal] Shanghai to throw the foreigners out, but Shanghai was doing too well financially [to expel foreigners]. So Mao went to the interior and raised a peasant army. He came back to Shanghai and sealed off the country.

  George Friedman

  Country, New York, Army

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• So as soon as you want something to happen you begin skewing the data to support it. Our stuff is invaluable to decision-makers precisely because we have no ax to grind.

  George Friedman

  Data, Want Something, Support

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  5 Copy quote

• Assad's mother was a terror. He was terrified of her and she kept saying to him, you're not like your father. That's interesting, but it's useless information. It doesn't tell me anything about how the first and second armored brigades are going to operate.

  George Friedman

  Mother, Father, Interesting

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  5 Copy quote

• Politicians are enormously smart and rational. They don't have the same interests as businessmen ... But a man rises to the top of the United States. He's clawed his way out of 330 million people. OK. He didn't do that because he was dumb, or lucky, or something like that. He understands power. And he understands how to take it. And he understands how to keep it.

  George Friedman

  Smart, Men, People

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  5 Copy quote

• Every theory I've seen that contains an explanation of war fails. I think they fail for the same reason that explanations of sex fail. War derives from things so deep and so complex, I'm thoroughly baffled by it at the end of the day.

  George Friedman

  Sex, War, Thinking

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• There is a radical and unprecedented shift [in war] that is part of the general transformation of civilization. First, understand that the past 150 years of warfare are totally unprecedented in that we introduced a breathtakingly inefficient technology: guns. In the First World War, and this is not an exaggeration, it took 10,000 rounds of ammunition to kill one person. Any given shot had a one in 10,000 probability of ending someone's life.

  George Friedman

  War, Technology, Gun

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• I think there are worse things than war. For example, injustice.

  George Friedman

  War, Thinking, Example

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  15 Copy quote

• War is an extraordinary condition to be in - to be, for example, in the combat information center of a warship [and behaving] as though you were merely processing credit card applications. [Instead,] the information you're processing is that an incoming missile is 15 kilometers away, now 10 kilometers away, now 5 kilometers. You have to separate yourself psychologically from the fact that your mortal existence may well end. That is the ancient reality of war.

  George Friedman

  War, Reality, Cards

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• Italy is the fourth-largest economy in Europe and the eighth-largest economy in the world, and its banking system is collapsing. And Germany is desperate. It must maintain its standard of living. It can only do that with exports and Deutsche Bank is very exposed to Italian debt. But so is the rest of Europe.

  George Friedman

  Italian, Europe, Germany

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  4 Copy quote

• The important thing in war is that there is an element of rage, but you must remain very distant from it.

  George Friedman

  War, Important, Elements

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  5 Copy quote

• The poets think about war more than the social scientists.

  George Friedman

  War, Thinking, Scientist

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  6 Copy quote

• I think the personal and psychological aspects of war remain the same. War is about killing and dying. A man or woman stands at the post and there is a very real possibility of dying in the next five minutes. Whether he dies or not depends partly on him and partly on luck, and yet he must continue to function.

  George Friedman

  Real, War, Men

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  4 Copy quote

• So you go to Brookings, or you go to Heritage or others, they know their position on any subject before they research it. If you go to an investment bank, they know what parts of the world they are going to cover and what parts of the world they are not going to cover depending on client interest. We cover the world without being skewed by that. And that makes it more valuable.

  George Friedman

  Heritage, Research, World

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  5 Copy quote

• When you have the countries like Germany, China, and Russia decline, and be replaced by others, that's when systemic wars start. That's when it gets dangerous, because they haven't yet reached a balance. So Germany united in 1871 and all hell broke loose. Japan rose in the early 20th century, and then you had chaos. So we're looking at a systemic shift. Be ready for war.

  George Friedman

  Country, War, Japan

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  4 Copy quote

• The Chinese central government will slowly and steadily lose authority while regional armies [gain power]. The Western powers are going to take sides to protect their investments - they have put billions of dollars into Shanghai. Their fear is that [these investments] are going to be expropriated by a warlord from the interior who will sweep down on Shanghai. They will try to form alliances with warlords to protect their concessions, and there will be a huge flow of weapons into China.

  George Friedman

  Army, Government, Chinese

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  7 Copy quote

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