Taps Coogan – January 15th, 2022

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George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures‘ Chairman and author of The Storm Before the Calm, recently spoke with Bloomberg about US-Russia and US-China relations, noting that the biggest geopolitical threat he sees in 2022 is instability by what he calls China’s “internal financial crisis.”

 

Some excerpts from George Friedman:

“Russia is trying to regain its buffer zones in Belarus, in Ukraine, now Kazakhstan. It’s rational that they should do this but it scares everybody else. China is coping with an internal financial crisis that’s only at its beginning. It’s a very serious transition that they now have to carry out…”

“The United States is under stress, under pressures as every country is, and we have to be very careful that the Russian situation and the Chinese situation don’t get out of hand…”

“The most interesting thing is the world is going to go back to the way it was 30 years ago. The Russians and the Americans are going to sit down in Geneva and cut a deal hopefully and the Europeans are really not playing in that and neither is China…”

“The United States is not responsible for the world. One of the things that we took out of Afghanistan with us is the idea that’s been there since Vietnam that we’re globally responsible… Why were we in Afghanistan? What were we trying to achieve? Why were we in Iraq? Why were we in Vietnam? I think the nation is undergoing a massive reappraisal.”

“The biggest risk (for 2022) is destabilization in China. China is undergoing an economy crisis that it hasn’t had for 40 years. It is used to being in a certain economic mode and… if that system doesn’t work, China becomes unpredictable internally and externally… How China handles this first economic crisis is really going to have a major impact on the world.”

There is more to the interview, so enjoy it above. 

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