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Author : V. Surguladze
Leading methodologist for strategic planning, R.O.S.T.U. Company, Candidate of Science (Philosophy)
George Friedman's book Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Eu-
rope (Anchor Books, 2015) that appeared in Russian in 2016 is as
enticing, evidently debatable and interesting as could be expected.
GEORGE FRIEDMAN'S BOOK offers a novel approach to the
geopolitical processes seen through the prism of collective psychol-
ogy and national identities of European nations. They, in their turn,
are contemplated through the prism of personal experience of the
author's parents who survived the Holocaust and found shelter in
the United States. An analysis of global changes made by a member
of a Jewish family that fled Europe is tinged with the pride and enthusiasm of an American,
whose country, unlike Europe that for centuries was waging bloody wars and is steeped in con-
tradictions, has been developing peacefully. The author looks at the European political processes
in the context of his family history and a crisis of his own identity which he interprets as a con-
firmation of his Americanism. While Henry Kissinger describes the horrors of European
geopolitics in the categories of political and social psychology, Friedman speaks of the same as
a history of one family.
As could be expected, this approach to the analysis of political transformations is not free from
psychoanalysis in a somewhat inflated or even slightly exaggerated manner.
THE AUTHOR insists that his analysis is necessarily objective: real forecasts require honest and
straightforward investigation. His intellect, knowledge and analytical abilities do not cause any
doubts but it cannot be said about his conclusions.
A lot of what he has written is true; however, placed in a wider context of international and
world development, his arguments sound doubtful. Geopolitical arguments are invariably in the
picture yet the world has become too complicated. Today, long-term foreign policy forecasts re-
quire a much bigger number of varied factors to justify the reliance on rational and substantiated
yet simplified or even roughly hewn schemes of the future George Friedman has offered. Foreign
policy analysis can no longer be based on individual and isolated phenomena.
The author is consistently debunking the myth about European unity and exposing the shady
sides of European integration and its complicated problems (that the EU leaders prefer to sweep
under the carpet), at the same time demonstrating with unhidden pleasure the superiority of
those living on the other side of the Atlantic.
The author has offered his highly interesting analysis of the patchwork nature of the united
West and the monolithic and multinational yet united mainland Russia.
It is not by chance that the concluding lines of the book written by prominent American political
scientist about the fates of Europe are dedicated to Russia. In the context of the complicating
Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
Geopolitical Forecasting and "Flashpoints" of Self-Awareness:
World Development Trends as Seen by the Founder of Stratfor