George Friedman famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Conventional analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination. It imagines passing clouds to be permanent and is blind to powerful, long-term shifts taking place in full view of the world.
-- George Friedman

#Powerful #Clouds #Views
Wars are times of intense technological transformation, because societies invest - sometimes with extensive borrowing - when and where matters of life and death are at stake.
-- George Friedman

#War #Life And Death #Matter
Galvanized people can do careless things. It is in the extreme and emotion-laden moments that distance and coolness are most required. I am tempted to howl in rage. It is not my place to do so. My job is to try to dissect the event, place it in context and try to understand what has happened and why. From that, after the rage cools, plans for action can be made. Rage has its place, but actions must be taken with discipline and thought.
-- George Friedman

#Jobs #Distance #Taken
The great presidents never forget the principle of the republic and seek to preserve and enhance them â€“ in the long runâ€“ without undermining the needs of the moment. Bad presidents simply do what is expedient, heedless of principles. But the worst presidents are those who adhere to the principles regardless of what the fortunes of the moment demand.
-- George Friedman

#Running #Long #President
Europeans have always thought of U.S. presidents as either naive, as they did with Jimmy Carter, or as cowboys, as they did with Lyndon Johnson, and held them in contempt in either case.
-- George Friedman

#Cowboy #President #Cases
A century is about events. A decade is about people.
-- George Friedman

#People #Events #Century
Strategy is something that emerges from reality, while tactics might be chosen.
-- George Friedman

#Reality #Tactics #Might
Anger does not make history. Power does. And power may be supplemented by anger, but it derives from more fundamental realities; geography, demographics, technology, and culture.
-- George Friedman

#Technology #Reality #Doe
Recent presidents have gone off on ad hoc adventures. They have set unattainable goal because they have framed the issue incorrectly, as they believed their own rhetoric.
-- George Friedman

#Adventure #Issues #Goal
Idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can only be corrected by a profound understanding power in its complete sense.
-- George Friedman

#Self #Profound #Understanding
It has always struck me as the world's great fortune that the two great superpowers were the United States and the Soviet Union, who managed the Cold War with meticulous care in retrospect. Imagine the European diplomats of 1914 or 1938 armed with nuclear weapons. It is easy to believe they would not have been as cautious.
-- George Friedman

#War #Believe #Two

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