The Storm Before the Calm: America's discord and the coming crisis of the 2020s will lead to...remarkably...the triumph beyond.

• Author: Fischer, Carolyn
• Position: POLITICAL LANDSCAPE - The Storm Before the Calm: America's Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond - Book review

FOUNDER and chairman of Geopolitical Futures since 2015, George Friedman earlier had served as chairman of the global intelligence company Stratfor, which he founded in 1996. A geopolitical forecaster, Friedman's well-founded predictions transcend politics, and his research presents unique cyclical relationships of the past, present, and future. Friedman has authored nine books, including The New York Times bestsellers, The Next Decade: Empire and Republic in a Changing World and The Next Hundred Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century.

In his latest effort, The Storm Before the Cahn: America 's Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond, Friedman considers the current unrest in the U.S. as mere "tremors of the coming crises of the 2020s," during which he predicts governmental and political foundations will change in a "seismic way." He bases his forecast on two geopolitical cycles that have marked turning points in the nation's history. First, an institutional cycle has occurred approximately every 80 years: Revolutionary War (1775-83), Civil War (1861-65), World War II (1939-45), and the "imminent crisis of the 2020s."

The second cycle, which occurs approximately every 50 years, marks socioeconomic dynamics, such as the emergence of the industrial class, middle class, and a class of technocrats. In delineating these five socioeconomic cycles, Friedman uses presidential tenures: George Washington-John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson-Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes-Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt-Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan-fill in the blank (for 2028).

Friedman terms the tenures "street signs"; the presidents themselves do not bring about cycles, but they "permit [cycles] to happen."

Donald Trump's election marked the beginning of the fourth institutional cycle and the sixth socioeconomic cycle. As the institutional model increasingly has shown its failure to function successfully, the only solution lies in "redefining the relationship of the Federal government to itself." At the same time, the social and economic crises have produced a "massive decline" in the condition of the working class.

In the 2020s, when these major geopolitical cycles converge for the first time in the same decade, many of the country's "outmoded" government, political, economic, and social foundations will be challenged to change. Friedman predicts the U.S. will emerge in the late 2020s "stronger and more stable."

America's unique ability to "refuel itself from these cyclical crises originated in the founding of the nation. The Continental...