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Międzymorze
Międzymorze to kontynentalne wrota Wschodu na Zachód i Zachodu na Wschód. To stabilna i dobrze rozwijająca się część Europy uwolniona spod wpływu sowieckiego. Jej zjednoczenie mogłoby skutecznie ostudzić zapędy totalitarne mocarstw na całym świecie.
Koncepcja Międzymorza nie jest nowa. Intermarium z powodzeniem funkcjonowało wieki temu. Przywrócenie jego roli w geopolityce opiera się na głęboko zakorzenionej niepodległościowej, miłującej autonomię naturze regionu. Ale nie tylko.
W stale zmieniającym się świecie Międzymorze ma wciąż nowych zwolenników. Nic dziwnego - jest to właściwie najbardziej wysunięty na wschód, a paradoksalnie najbardziej wierny ideałom cywilizacji zachodniej przyczółek Europy.
Wizję Międzymorza wspierają zresztą nie tylko ambasadorowie tacy, jak Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, ale też najnowsza technologia w służbie historii. Z badań DNA mieszkańców Międzymorza wynika, że tereny te są najbardziej homogeniczne, najbardziej rdzennie europejskie.
700-stronicowa analiza dotycząca Międzymorza to rzetelne źródło wiedzy o regionie, jego możliwościach i trudnościach. Bardzo istotna lektura dla wszystkich, którzy chcą się wypowiadać na temat przyszłości Polski. Naszej geopolityki, naszych sojuszy, naszej emigracji, imigracji i kultury.
Koncepcja Międzymorza nie jest nowa. Intermarium z powodzeniem funkcjonowało wieki temu. Przywrócenie jego roli w geopolityce opiera się na głęboko zakorzenionej niepodległościowej, miłującej autonomię naturze regionu. Ale nie tylko.
W stale zmieniającym się świecie Międzymorze ma wciąż nowych zwolenników. Nic dziwnego - jest to właściwie najbardziej wysunięty na wschód, a paradoksalnie najbardziej wierny ideałom cywilizacji zachodniej przyczółek Europy.
Wizję Międzymorza wspierają zresztą nie tylko ambasadorowie tacy, jak Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, ale też najnowsza technologia w służbie historii. Z badań DNA mieszkańców Międzymorza wynika, że tereny te są najbardziej homogeniczne, najbardziej rdzennie europejskie.
700-stronicowa analiza dotycząca Międzymorza to rzetelne źródło wiedzy o regionie, jego możliwościach i trudnościach. Bardzo istotna lektura dla wszystkich, którzy chcą się wypowiadać na temat przyszłości Polski. Naszej geopolityki, naszych sojuszy, naszej emigracji, imigracji i kultury.
614 pages, Hardcover
First published October 30, 2012
3 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
About the author
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz
27 books17 followersBorn in 1962 in Warsaw, Poland is a Polish-American historian specializing in East Central European history of the 19th and 20th century. His historical works include: After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Relations in the Wake of World War II, and Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland. Chodakiewicz lives in the Greater Washington, DC area.
He earned B.A. degree from the San Francisco State University in 1988, M.Phil. from Columbia University, and Ph.D. with distinction from Columbia University in 2001. His Ph.D. thesis was entitled: Accommodation and Resistance: A Polish County Kraśnik during the Second World War and its Aftermath, 1939-1947. Between 2001 and 2003 Chodakiewicz was an assistant professor at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville as the holder of the Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies of the Miller Center of Public Affairs. In 2003, Chodakiewicz was appointed Research Professor of History and in 2004 Professor of History at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, where he teaches and conducts research on East Central Europe and Russia. His expert areas include History, Democracy Building, Communism, American Foreign Policy and International Relations. Since 2008, he has also held the Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies at IWP. In April 2005, Chodakiewicz was appointed by President George W. Bush for a 5-year term to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Chodakiewicz has also served as Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Patrick Henry College since 2008.
Chodakiewicz specializes in East Central European history of the 19th and 20th century including the history of Poland, Habsburg and Romanov Empires, Jewish-Polish relations, environmental politics, intellectual conservative tradition, and extremist movements including Communism and Fascism. His special area of interest is World War II and its aftermath. In 2003 Chodakiewicz received the Jozef Mackiewicz Literary Prize in Warsaw for his two-volume book of history entitled Ejszyszki.
Source as of 21.09.2015: wikipedia
He earned B.A. degree from the San Francisco State University in 1988, M.Phil. from Columbia University, and Ph.D. with distinction from Columbia University in 2001. His Ph.D. thesis was entitled: Accommodation and Resistance: A Polish County Kraśnik during the Second World War and its Aftermath, 1939-1947. Between 2001 and 2003 Chodakiewicz was an assistant professor at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville as the holder of the Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies of the Miller Center of Public Affairs. In 2003, Chodakiewicz was appointed Research Professor of History and in 2004 Professor of History at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, where he teaches and conducts research on East Central Europe and Russia. His expert areas include History, Democracy Building, Communism, American Foreign Policy and International Relations. Since 2008, he has also held the Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies at IWP. In April 2005, Chodakiewicz was appointed by President George W. Bush for a 5-year term to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Chodakiewicz has also served as Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Patrick Henry College since 2008.
Chodakiewicz specializes in East Central European history of the 19th and 20th century including the history of Poland, Habsburg and Romanov Empires, Jewish-Polish relations, environmental politics, intellectual conservative tradition, and extremist movements including Communism and Fascism. His special area of interest is World War II and its aftermath. In 2003 Chodakiewicz received the Jozef Mackiewicz Literary Prize in Warsaw for his two-volume book of history entitled Ejszyszki.
Source as of 21.09.2015: wikipedia
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October 18, 2023
.......
wikipedia
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (1962) is a Polish-American historian specializing in Central European history of the 19th and 20th centuries. He teaches at the Patrick Henry College and at the Institute of World Politics.
He has been described as conservative and nationalistic, and his attitude towards minorities has been widely criticized.
In April 2005, Chodakiewicz was appointed by President George W. Bush for a five-year term to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
Controversy erupted towards the end of his term over Chodakiewicz's claims in several publications that Polish nationalists who murdered Jews after the Holocaust were not motivated by antisemitism.
Chodakiewicz's appointment was criticized by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which said Chodakiewicz had published in far-right Polish publications.
In addition, the British anti-racism organization, Hope not Hate, has said Chodakiewicz is a frequent commentator for right-wing Polish media.
Chodakiewicz is associated with the Polish National Foundation, a "quasi-public organization funded by state-owned corporations to promote Poland's reputation abroad."
Within a period of two years, Chodakiewicz and his family received more than $250,000 from the foundation's funds.
---
Reviews summarized on Wikipedia - say it all
Karl A. Roider Jr. reviewed Intermarium for the Sarmatian Review. He describes the main theme of the book as a struggle between the democratic Polish model and the Russian totalitarian model over the Intermarium which per Chodakiewicz's includes the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.
While attempting to appeal to an American audience, the book demands the reader know quite a bit about Eastern European history.
Much of the book focuses on the post-1989 Intermarium, describing a struggle between patriots and post-communist Russophiles.
The Russophiles being described as "in cahoots with Western deconstructionists, feminists, environmentalists, gay rights advocates, nihilists, and postmodernists who are entrenched in American and Western European universities".
Roider's review is relatively negative, as he states that "there are conspiracies everywhere in this book, but the author offers no names, no institutions, no objectives, and no strategies" other than undermining the Intermarium's return to the pre-1772 Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Chodakiewicz calls for an alliance between the Eastern European countries to contain Russia, however according to Roider such a call is likely to fall on deaf ears as the United States' attention is focused elsewhere.
.......
In his critical review of Intermarium in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Dovid Katz is highly critical of the book author, and refers to the book's final chapter as a
"hatchet job against Jewish partisans... [that] resorts to a number of abuses of academic structure to mask the genre of nationalist polemic."
.......
Alexander Prusin reviewing the book for the Slavic Review noted that it seems to be rather derivative of and of lesser significance and quality to similar works published recently by scholars such as Timothy Snyder, Kate Brown or Piotr Wandycz although "it will certainly find propitious ground among those who favor a new cordon sanitaire in Europe"
.....
Donald E. Pienkos in his review published in The Polish Review in 2018, notes that the book's main argument and "a good point" is that "the intermarium nations comprise a significant outpost of western civilization (versus Russia) and thus merit much more attention than they have ever received" in Western scholarly and political thought.
He notes that the historical overview of the region constitutes a "worthy, if not flawless, publication", but is more critical of its polemical part in which "the author castigates western scholars for their alleged ignorance of the region and their Russofilia", concluding that the polemical part significantly lowers the overall quality of the book.
......
......
The author has a lot of strong biases and yet this is an interesting yet weird and wacky work
He's been a commentator for right-wing Polish media, so your mileage may vary with his agenda.
Let's just say it hints at a touch of balance, with some interesting information where the subject can be as subjective or as objective as you want it to be with a political hotspot between Warsaw and Moscow's mentalities over a big chunk of time.
Take him with a pound of salt, like Francis Fukuyama's work...
or even a ton of salt!
I think it's 70% bullshit and 30% curiously interesting oddball stuff.
Basically the book is a paranoid rant about how 'eastern europe/poland is gonna be a real war of the TRUE patriots vs the Russophiles, and the degenerate flake liberals of the west will fall in line with the Russophiles...
"in cahoots with Western deconstructionists, feminists, environmentalists, gay rights advocates, nihilists, and postmodernists who are entrenched in American and Western European universities"
It's a GREAT conspiracy book
in one way, it reminds me of the batshit crazy Futurism by the founder of Stratford, some pipsqueak intelligence thinktank, the infamous George Friedman.
.........
Friedman was totally nuts with two things
a. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he studied potential for a Japan-U.S. conflict and co-authored with his wife The Coming War with Japan in 1991. The war he predicted did not occur.
Friedman and LeBard argue in the book that, with the USSR in a state of collapse and with the Cold War coming to a close at the time, the United States was more likely to come into conflict with Japan as the US no longer had sufficient reason to tolerate what the authors believed to be Japanese economic encroachment.
Friedman and LeBard predicted that a series of trade wars between the US and Japan would lead to a final rupture between the two countries.
The authors also expressed the view that, as with Imperial Japan in the 1930s and 40s, Japan would seek to take control of sources of raw materials and force the US out of the western Pacific.
The authors saw the only alternative to a hot war between the US and Japan as being a "long, miserable cold war".
The authors also made predictions about Europe, predicting that by 1992 European integration would lead to the US being "pushed out of" markets in Europe and the USSR.
Friedman and LeBard believed that the Japanese armed forces could be expanded rapidly into "a world-class military force".
To meet this perceived threat, Friedman and LeBard proposed that the US Navy be kept at its 1991 size, and the US Marine Corps be doubled in size, with this being paid for by cuts to the US Army and strategic forces.
Friedman and LeBard expected that a conflict between Japan and America would unfold within "a generation" and that the world would "settle into a new cold war before a hot war threatens".
They predicted that the casus belli would be the shutting off of supplies of raw materials to Japan by US action.
A map accompanying the book portrayed the Asia-Pacific region as being divided into US and Japanese spheres of influence by the year 2000, with Indonesia, North Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma portrayed as Japanese allies, whilst Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea were portrayed as being in the US sphere of influence, with other territories (including China, Vietnam, Mongolia, the Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia) being marked as "contested".
The original book jacket of the book stated that "conflict will escalate in the next two decades to include the possibility—indeed probability—of an armed conflict, a second US–Japanese war in the Pacific".
Later editions replaced this statement with positive reviews.
b. The Next 100 Years is a 2009 speculative nonfiction book by George Friedman. In the book, Friedman attempts to predict the major geopolitical events and trends of the 21st century.
In the 2010s, the conflict between the US and Islamic fundamentalists will die down, and a second Cold War, less extensive and shorter than the first, will take place between the United States and Russia.
Friedman speculates in the book that the United States will probably become a close ally of some Central and Eastern European countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
Around 2015, a Polish-led military alliance of countries in Central and Eastern Europe will begin to form, which is referred to in the book as the "Polish Bloc."
In the early 2020s, the New Cold War will end when the economic strain and political pressure on Russia, coupled with Russia's declining population, and poor infrastructure, cause the federal government of Russia to completely collapse, much like the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Other former Soviet countries will fragment as well.
Around this time, China will politically and culturally fragment as well.
The book asserts that the rapid economic development of China since 1980 will cause internal pressures and inequalities in Chinese society
Friedman gives two possible scenarios: that the Chinese central government will expel outside interests and rule with an iron fist to keep the country together, or that China will fragment, with the central government gradually losing much of its real power and the provinces becoming increasingly autonomous.
He works on the assumption that fragmentation is the most likely scenario.
In the 2020s, the collapse of the Russian government and the fragmentation of mainland China will leave Eurasia in general chaos.
Other powers will then move in to annex or establish spheres of influence in the area, and in many cases, regional leaders will secede.
In Russia, North Caucasus and other Muslim regions, as well as the Pacific Far East will become independent, Finland will annex Karelia, Romania will annex Moldova, Tibet will gain independence with help from India, Taiwan will extend its influence into mainland China, while the United States, European powers, and Japan will re-create regional spheres of influence in mainland China.
New Powers Arise
In the 2020s and 2030s, three main powers will emerge in Eurasia: Turkey, Poland, and Japan.
Initially supported by the United States, Turkey will expand its sphere of influence and become a regional power, much as it was during the time of the Ottoman Empire.
The Turkish sphere of influence will extend into the Arab world, which will have increasingly fragmented by then, and north into Russia and other former Soviet countries.
Israel will continue to be a powerful nation and will be the only country in the immediate region to remain outside the Turkish sphere of influence. However, Israel will be forced to come to an accommodation with Turkey due to Turkey's military and political power.
Meanwhile, Japan will expand its economic influence to regions of coastal China, the Russian Far East, and many Pacific Islands.
Friedman predicts that Japan will change its foreign policy during this time period, becoming more geopolitically aggressive, beginning a major military buildup.
Friedman predicts that Japan will build military strength capable of regionally projecting power across East Asia during this time.
Finally, Poland will continue to lead its military alliance, the "Polish Bloc."
Poland and its allies will be a major power, much like the time of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Now possessing substantial military strength, Poland will expand its economic influence into what was formerly European Russia, and will begin to compete with Turkey for influence in the important economic region of the Volga River Valley.
Around this time, space programs for military use will begin to emerge, and Japan and Turkey will increasingly begin to develop military capabilities in space.
At the beginning of this period, the United States will be allied with all three powers.
By 2020, the United States will have been allied with Turkey and Japan for over 75 years. However, in the years after the end of the Second Cold War and collapse of Russia, the United States will gradually become uneasy as Turkey and Japan expand their military power and economic influence.
Establishing regional spheres of influence, Turkey and Japan will begin to threaten US interests.
The growth of Turkish and Japanese naval power, and their military activities in space will be particularly disturbing to the United States.
The book asserts that Japan and Turkey, having similar interests, probably will form an alliance near the end of this period, in an effort to counter the overwhelming global power of the United States.
The book also speculates that Germany and Mexico may possibly join this anti-United States coalition, although it is generally unlikely. In this coming confrontation, the United States will be allied with the "Polish Bloc," probably with the UK, a restabilized China, India, and a reunified Korea.
By the 2040s, there will be global tension and competition between these two alliances.
???
.......
Basically I see Friedman with his weird obsession about Japan going all out Nazi to be sorta amusing in a bizarroland sorta way.
But Friedman and Chodakiewicz have some strange obsession about Poland being the Big Man on Campus to take Moscow down a notch eventually.
Friedman goes into full weirdness with the future
Chodakiewicz goes into full weirdness with the past and future
---
The somewhat fawning reviews on Amazon
Dr. Chodakiewicz's unprecedented, long-overdue impeccably researched and extraordinarily well-argued study directly challenges the common view of the Intermarium as mere borderland between the 'West' and Russia. Professor Chodakiewicz's clarity of thought, highly readable prose, impressive command of 1,000 years of the area's history, and his unique perspectives gleaned from expert analysis of a multitude of foreign archival material rarely seen in English compel all those in academia, the US government, and the US foreign policy establishment to overturn the Moscow-centric approach to the Interrimarium that has governed US foreign policy for the last 70 years.
Dr. Robert W. Stephan (CIA Retired), Adjunct Professor Institute of World Politics; author, Stalin's Secret War, Soviet Counterintelligence against the Nazis 1941-1945
---
In this impressively ambitious, panoramic examination of a substantial part of Central and Eastern Europe roughly equivalent to the lands which constituted the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, Professor Chodakiewicz accentuates their rich diversity in ethnic, economic, religious and political terms... This brilliantly conceived, always fascinating and richly documented study is, incontrovertibly, an outstanding scholarly contribution, which should be mandatory reading for all with a serious interest in the history of Central and Eastern Europe and in American and broader international politics.
Peter D. Stachura, Slavonic and East European Review
---
Regional identity as a political concept is a useful, if controversial, vehicle for exploring important international relations issues. Chodakiewicz (Institute of World Politics) formulates "intermarium" to argue that the US should be more actively engaged with the region between the Baltic and the Black Seas.
He asserts that the US has failed to address the security implications of a "resurgent" Russia with "imperial objectives" that focus primarily on the intermarium.
Characterizing the history of the region as an effective defender of Western civilization since the time of the Mongols, he argues that today there is a convergence of interests and values among the states of the region and the US...
He concludes the book with a plea to scholars to engage in rebutting "Communist lies," ethnocentric myths, and Western distortions about the region. The book is recommended for all those interested in pursuing this challenge.
R. P. Peters, Choice
---
A well-researched and well-written book; a balanced combination of theoretical insights with good narratives; an objective study of an area full of subjectivities; and, a thorough summary of important historical events.”
Nicholas Dima, SFPPR News and Analysis
...............
interesting how some people love this book
wikipedia
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (1962) is a Polish-American historian specializing in Central European history of the 19th and 20th centuries. He teaches at the Patrick Henry College and at the Institute of World Politics.
He has been described as conservative and nationalistic, and his attitude towards minorities has been widely criticized.
In April 2005, Chodakiewicz was appointed by President George W. Bush for a five-year term to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
Controversy erupted towards the end of his term over Chodakiewicz's claims in several publications that Polish nationalists who murdered Jews after the Holocaust were not motivated by antisemitism.
Chodakiewicz's appointment was criticized by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which said Chodakiewicz had published in far-right Polish publications.
In addition, the British anti-racism organization, Hope not Hate, has said Chodakiewicz is a frequent commentator for right-wing Polish media.
Chodakiewicz is associated with the Polish National Foundation, a "quasi-public organization funded by state-owned corporations to promote Poland's reputation abroad."
Within a period of two years, Chodakiewicz and his family received more than $250,000 from the foundation's funds.
---
Reviews summarized on Wikipedia - say it all
Karl A. Roider Jr. reviewed Intermarium for the Sarmatian Review. He describes the main theme of the book as a struggle between the democratic Polish model and the Russian totalitarian model over the Intermarium which per Chodakiewicz's includes the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.
While attempting to appeal to an American audience, the book demands the reader know quite a bit about Eastern European history.
Much of the book focuses on the post-1989 Intermarium, describing a struggle between patriots and post-communist Russophiles.
The Russophiles being described as "in cahoots with Western deconstructionists, feminists, environmentalists, gay rights advocates, nihilists, and postmodernists who are entrenched in American and Western European universities".
Roider's review is relatively negative, as he states that "there are conspiracies everywhere in this book, but the author offers no names, no institutions, no objectives, and no strategies" other than undermining the Intermarium's return to the pre-1772 Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Chodakiewicz calls for an alliance between the Eastern European countries to contain Russia, however according to Roider such a call is likely to fall on deaf ears as the United States' attention is focused elsewhere.
.......
In his critical review of Intermarium in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Dovid Katz is highly critical of the book author, and refers to the book's final chapter as a
"hatchet job against Jewish partisans... [that] resorts to a number of abuses of academic structure to mask the genre of nationalist polemic."
.......
Alexander Prusin reviewing the book for the Slavic Review noted that it seems to be rather derivative of and of lesser significance and quality to similar works published recently by scholars such as Timothy Snyder, Kate Brown or Piotr Wandycz although "it will certainly find propitious ground among those who favor a new cordon sanitaire in Europe"
.....
Donald E. Pienkos in his review published in The Polish Review in 2018, notes that the book's main argument and "a good point" is that "the intermarium nations comprise a significant outpost of western civilization (versus Russia) and thus merit much more attention than they have ever received" in Western scholarly and political thought.
He notes that the historical overview of the region constitutes a "worthy, if not flawless, publication", but is more critical of its polemical part in which "the author castigates western scholars for their alleged ignorance of the region and their Russofilia", concluding that the polemical part significantly lowers the overall quality of the book.
......
......
The author has a lot of strong biases and yet this is an interesting yet weird and wacky work
He's been a commentator for right-wing Polish media, so your mileage may vary with his agenda.
Let's just say it hints at a touch of balance, with some interesting information where the subject can be as subjective or as objective as you want it to be with a political hotspot between Warsaw and Moscow's mentalities over a big chunk of time.
Take him with a pound of salt, like Francis Fukuyama's work...
or even a ton of salt!
I think it's 70% bullshit and 30% curiously interesting oddball stuff.
Basically the book is a paranoid rant about how 'eastern europe/poland is gonna be a real war of the TRUE patriots vs the Russophiles, and the degenerate flake liberals of the west will fall in line with the Russophiles...
"in cahoots with Western deconstructionists, feminists, environmentalists, gay rights advocates, nihilists, and postmodernists who are entrenched in American and Western European universities"
It's a GREAT conspiracy book
in one way, it reminds me of the batshit crazy Futurism by the founder of Stratford, some pipsqueak intelligence thinktank, the infamous George Friedman.
.........
Friedman was totally nuts with two things
a. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he studied potential for a Japan-U.S. conflict and co-authored with his wife The Coming War with Japan in 1991. The war he predicted did not occur.
Friedman and LeBard argue in the book that, with the USSR in a state of collapse and with the Cold War coming to a close at the time, the United States was more likely to come into conflict with Japan as the US no longer had sufficient reason to tolerate what the authors believed to be Japanese economic encroachment.
Friedman and LeBard predicted that a series of trade wars between the US and Japan would lead to a final rupture between the two countries.
The authors also expressed the view that, as with Imperial Japan in the 1930s and 40s, Japan would seek to take control of sources of raw materials and force the US out of the western Pacific.
The authors saw the only alternative to a hot war between the US and Japan as being a "long, miserable cold war".
The authors also made predictions about Europe, predicting that by 1992 European integration would lead to the US being "pushed out of" markets in Europe and the USSR.
Friedman and LeBard believed that the Japanese armed forces could be expanded rapidly into "a world-class military force".
To meet this perceived threat, Friedman and LeBard proposed that the US Navy be kept at its 1991 size, and the US Marine Corps be doubled in size, with this being paid for by cuts to the US Army and strategic forces.
Friedman and LeBard expected that a conflict between Japan and America would unfold within "a generation" and that the world would "settle into a new cold war before a hot war threatens".
They predicted that the casus belli would be the shutting off of supplies of raw materials to Japan by US action.
A map accompanying the book portrayed the Asia-Pacific region as being divided into US and Japanese spheres of influence by the year 2000, with Indonesia, North Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma portrayed as Japanese allies, whilst Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea were portrayed as being in the US sphere of influence, with other territories (including China, Vietnam, Mongolia, the Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia) being marked as "contested".
The original book jacket of the book stated that "conflict will escalate in the next two decades to include the possibility—indeed probability—of an armed conflict, a second US–Japanese war in the Pacific".
Later editions replaced this statement with positive reviews.
b. The Next 100 Years is a 2009 speculative nonfiction book by George Friedman. In the book, Friedman attempts to predict the major geopolitical events and trends of the 21st century.
In the 2010s, the conflict between the US and Islamic fundamentalists will die down, and a second Cold War, less extensive and shorter than the first, will take place between the United States and Russia.
Friedman speculates in the book that the United States will probably become a close ally of some Central and Eastern European countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
Around 2015, a Polish-led military alliance of countries in Central and Eastern Europe will begin to form, which is referred to in the book as the "Polish Bloc."
In the early 2020s, the New Cold War will end when the economic strain and political pressure on Russia, coupled with Russia's declining population, and poor infrastructure, cause the federal government of Russia to completely collapse, much like the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Other former Soviet countries will fragment as well.
Around this time, China will politically and culturally fragment as well.
The book asserts that the rapid economic development of China since 1980 will cause internal pressures and inequalities in Chinese society
Friedman gives two possible scenarios: that the Chinese central government will expel outside interests and rule with an iron fist to keep the country together, or that China will fragment, with the central government gradually losing much of its real power and the provinces becoming increasingly autonomous.
He works on the assumption that fragmentation is the most likely scenario.
In the 2020s, the collapse of the Russian government and the fragmentation of mainland China will leave Eurasia in general chaos.
Other powers will then move in to annex or establish spheres of influence in the area, and in many cases, regional leaders will secede.
In Russia, North Caucasus and other Muslim regions, as well as the Pacific Far East will become independent, Finland will annex Karelia, Romania will annex Moldova, Tibet will gain independence with help from India, Taiwan will extend its influence into mainland China, while the United States, European powers, and Japan will re-create regional spheres of influence in mainland China.
New Powers Arise
In the 2020s and 2030s, three main powers will emerge in Eurasia: Turkey, Poland, and Japan.
Initially supported by the United States, Turkey will expand its sphere of influence and become a regional power, much as it was during the time of the Ottoman Empire.
The Turkish sphere of influence will extend into the Arab world, which will have increasingly fragmented by then, and north into Russia and other former Soviet countries.
Israel will continue to be a powerful nation and will be the only country in the immediate region to remain outside the Turkish sphere of influence. However, Israel will be forced to come to an accommodation with Turkey due to Turkey's military and political power.
Meanwhile, Japan will expand its economic influence to regions of coastal China, the Russian Far East, and many Pacific Islands.
Friedman predicts that Japan will change its foreign policy during this time period, becoming more geopolitically aggressive, beginning a major military buildup.
Friedman predicts that Japan will build military strength capable of regionally projecting power across East Asia during this time.
Finally, Poland will continue to lead its military alliance, the "Polish Bloc."
Poland and its allies will be a major power, much like the time of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Now possessing substantial military strength, Poland will expand its economic influence into what was formerly European Russia, and will begin to compete with Turkey for influence in the important economic region of the Volga River Valley.
Around this time, space programs for military use will begin to emerge, and Japan and Turkey will increasingly begin to develop military capabilities in space.
At the beginning of this period, the United States will be allied with all three powers.
By 2020, the United States will have been allied with Turkey and Japan for over 75 years. However, in the years after the end of the Second Cold War and collapse of Russia, the United States will gradually become uneasy as Turkey and Japan expand their military power and economic influence.
Establishing regional spheres of influence, Turkey and Japan will begin to threaten US interests.
The growth of Turkish and Japanese naval power, and their military activities in space will be particularly disturbing to the United States.
The book asserts that Japan and Turkey, having similar interests, probably will form an alliance near the end of this period, in an effort to counter the overwhelming global power of the United States.
The book also speculates that Germany and Mexico may possibly join this anti-United States coalition, although it is generally unlikely. In this coming confrontation, the United States will be allied with the "Polish Bloc," probably with the UK, a restabilized China, India, and a reunified Korea.
By the 2040s, there will be global tension and competition between these two alliances.
???
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Basically I see Friedman with his weird obsession about Japan going all out Nazi to be sorta amusing in a bizarroland sorta way.
But Friedman and Chodakiewicz have some strange obsession about Poland being the Big Man on Campus to take Moscow down a notch eventually.
Friedman goes into full weirdness with the future
Chodakiewicz goes into full weirdness with the past and future
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The somewhat fawning reviews on Amazon
Dr. Chodakiewicz's unprecedented, long-overdue impeccably researched and extraordinarily well-argued study directly challenges the common view of the Intermarium as mere borderland between the 'West' and Russia. Professor Chodakiewicz's clarity of thought, highly readable prose, impressive command of 1,000 years of the area's history, and his unique perspectives gleaned from expert analysis of a multitude of foreign archival material rarely seen in English compel all those in academia, the US government, and the US foreign policy establishment to overturn the Moscow-centric approach to the Interrimarium that has governed US foreign policy for the last 70 years.
Dr. Robert W. Stephan (CIA Retired), Adjunct Professor Institute of World Politics; author, Stalin's Secret War, Soviet Counterintelligence against the Nazis 1941-1945
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In this impressively ambitious, panoramic examination of a substantial part of Central and Eastern Europe roughly equivalent to the lands which constituted the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, Professor Chodakiewicz accentuates their rich diversity in ethnic, economic, religious and political terms... This brilliantly conceived, always fascinating and richly documented study is, incontrovertibly, an outstanding scholarly contribution, which should be mandatory reading for all with a serious interest in the history of Central and Eastern Europe and in American and broader international politics.
Peter D. Stachura, Slavonic and East European Review
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Regional identity as a political concept is a useful, if controversial, vehicle for exploring important international relations issues. Chodakiewicz (Institute of World Politics) formulates "intermarium" to argue that the US should be more actively engaged with the region between the Baltic and the Black Seas.
He asserts that the US has failed to address the security implications of a "resurgent" Russia with "imperial objectives" that focus primarily on the intermarium.
Characterizing the history of the region as an effective defender of Western civilization since the time of the Mongols, he argues that today there is a convergence of interests and values among the states of the region and the US...
He concludes the book with a plea to scholars to engage in rebutting "Communist lies," ethnocentric myths, and Western distortions about the region. The book is recommended for all those interested in pursuing this challenge.
R. P. Peters, Choice
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A well-researched and well-written book; a balanced combination of theoretical insights with good narratives; an objective study of an area full of subjectivities; and, a thorough summary of important historical events.”
Nicholas Dima, SFPPR News and Analysis
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interesting how some people love this book
April 28, 2025
A very interesting concept: a history, analysis, and assessment of East Europe MINUS Russia. As a "thorough" history book, it is obviously deficient as it would be many volumes to cover the full story of this region. The author has an obvious preference for Poland in discussing about people and places at a given time, but it is also the country he is most familiar with. There is occasional awkward English, but that is to be expected and is overall excellent.
What the book does do extremely well is to introduce the region to an American unfamiliar with it. You will not be an "expert" in East Europe by the time you're done with the book, but you will have a pretty good grasp on the problems that afflict the region and how they came to be.
What the book does do extremely well is to introduce the region to an American unfamiliar with it. You will not be an "expert" in East Europe by the time you're done with the book, but you will have a pretty good grasp on the problems that afflict the region and how they came to be.
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