“What is the great fear of the United States? That an Eastern power will build a navy to challenge us. How do you keep them from doing that? Keep them at each other's throats so they don't have any money to do this. This is why we fought the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War.” WorldFirstsWarStatesChallengesUnitedUnited StatesColdWar Of The WorldsThroatCold WarEasternNavySecond World WarFirst World War Author:George Friedman
“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.” WorldWarCountryStatesFightingWealthAnswersUnitedMistakeUnited StatesRiskSeaColdBuiltCoreWar Of The WorldsCivil WarTerritoryWorld War IiWorld War IOther CountriesCold War Author:George Friedman
“There has never been a century that has not had a systemic war - a systemic war, meaning when the entire system convulses. From the Seven Years' War in Europe to the Napoleonic Wars of the 19th century to the World Wars, every century has one.” WorldYearsWarCenturyEuropeSevenWar Of The WorldsSeven Years19th CenturyNapoleonic Author:George Friedman
“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.” WorldYearsFirstsPersonsWarPastGivenTechnologyCivilizationGunShotsTransformationRoundsRadicalWar Of The WorldsWarfareProbabilityExaggerationUnprecedentedAmmunitionFirst World War Author:George Friedman
“The British bombed German cities [during World War II] to keep the workers awake at night. So instead of dropping one bomb, we sent a thousand planes and, yes, we took out the factory sometimes, but we also took out the city. It reached the point where we wanted more efficient ways to destroy a city. The result was nuclear weapons.” WorldWayWarSometimesWantedNightResultsCitiesThousandWeaponsWorkersBritishNuclearPlanesAwakeWar Of The WorldsBombsWorld War IiFactoriesEfficientWorld War INuclear WeaponsDroppingAwake At Night Author:George Friedman
