George Friedman
The foundation of this strategy is that the United States’ priority must be its own national interests, namely its security and economic well-being. Therefore, the United States must maintain its position as the most powerful military and economic force in the world, while measuring its actions in both dimensions against those that are in its national interest.
Perhaps the most important element in the document is that, whereas after World War II there was a fundamental ideological component to U.S. foreign policy, that ideological perspective is not present here. The Cold War was built around ideology, a confrontation between liberal democracy and communism. From this concept flowed a strategic principle that the fundamental threat to the United States was the spread of communism, and the fundamental interest of the U.S. was to limit the spread of communism. Therefore, the United States needed to strengthen the economies of non-communist nations as well as help defend them with military aid and sometimes even direct intervention. Since communism was a global threat, the United States was compelled to confront it – and its foundational nation, the Soviet Union – anywhere in the world.
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