George Friedman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dr. George Friedman is an American political scientist and author. He is the founder, chief intelligence officer, financial overseer, and CEO of the private intelligence corporation Stratfor. He has authored several books, including America's Secret War, The Intelligence Edge, and The Future of War.
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[edit] Biography
Friedman was born in Hungary to Holocaust survivor parents. In order to flee from the Communists, his family left Hungary in 1949. They went to Austria and lived in a displaced person camp for several years before getting visas to come to the United States. Friedman has described theirs as "a very classic story of refugees making a new life in America." Arriving in the US at the age of three, "[b]asically, I grew up as a New York kid." Living in the Bronx and attending the Charles Dorsey School in the New York City school system. He graduated with a B.A. from the City College of New York where he majored in political science, and received a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. In 1974, he accepted a post teaching political science at Dickinson College where he taught for almost 20 years.
Friedman's original interest was in political philosophy and most of his early work was on Marxism. In 1981, Cornell University Press published a book he wrote on the Frankfurt School. Becoming increasingly interested in the problems of international conflict, he studied the U.S.-Soviet balance from a military perspective. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he came to study impending U.S.-Japan conflicts, co-authoring a book titled The Coming War With Japan in 1991.
Friedman was an early designer of computerized war games. During his years in academics, Friedman briefed widely on security and national defense matters, including senior commanders in all armed services, the Office of Net Assessments, SHAPE Technical Center, the U.S. Army War College, National Defense University and the RAND Corporation.
In 1994, Friedman founded the Center for Geopolitical Studies at Louisiana State University, which engages in integrated economic, political and military modeling and forecasting; it was the only non-DOD/non-governmental organization granted access to Joint Theater Level Simulation (JTLS) by the Joint Warfighting Center.
Friedman entered the private sector in 1996 and founded Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting Inc.), a private intelligence firm which provides foreign affairs analysis to its (mostly corporate) clients. He serves as its chief intelligence officer, and CEO.
[edit] Personal life
Friedman was first married to Dorothy.
Friedman is now married to Meredith Friedman (nee LeBard) with four children and currently lives in Austin, Texas. Two of their children serve in the U.S. Military.
[edit] Political viewpoint
Friedman has described himself as "a conservative Republican." "Up until 1989 I would have considered myself a classic conservative, my primary concern being the Soviet Union and anti-communism." "One of the things, I think, as a conservative I believe is there's a constancy in the human condition. There isn't dramatic changes, millennial changes, where everything is solved and we live happily in peace". [1]
Having parents who had been Holocaust survivors and also fled from Communism, Friedman developed "a kind of deep and abiding hatred of totalitarianism."
[edit] Books
- The Political Philosophy of the Frankfurt School (1981). Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1279-X.
- Coming War With Japan, with Meredith LeBard (1991). St Martins Press. Reprint edition, 1992, ISBN 0-312-07677-0.
- The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the Twenty-First Century with Meredith Friedman (1996). 1st ed., Crown Publishers, ISBN 0-517-70403-X. St. Martin's Griffin, 1998, ISBN 0-312-18100-0.
- The Intelligence Edge: How to Profit in the Information Age with Meredith Friedman, Colin Chapman, and John Baker (1997). Crown, 1st edition. ISBN 0-609-60075-3.
- America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between the United States and Its Enemies (2004). Doubleday, 1st ed, ISBN 0-385-51245-7. Broadway, reprint edition (2005). ISBN 0-7679-1785-5.
- The Next Hundred Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century (2009). Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-51705-X.
[edit] External links
- Bio of Friedman at STRATFOR's website.
- Bio of Friedman at America's Secret War's website.
- Bio of Friedman at Commentary's website.
- Friedman quotes at ThinkExist.com.
- Stratfor Founder Said 9/11 Attack Designed to Draw U.S. into Combat, report on Friedman's November 2004 address to JINSA's Board of Directors.
[edit] Articles by, and interviews with, Friedman
- Transcript of interview with Friedman and Meredith LeBard on Booknotes about The Coming War With Japan, 9 June 1991.
- New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize.
- Naming the War (on the naming of the War on Terror).
- Iran's Redefined Strategy.
- Interview on America's Secret War.
- Interview with Friedman and Brian Jenkins on Mornings with Paula Zahn, 20 November 2001.
- U.S. Intelligence and the Hunt for Bin Laden, CNN.com chat room, 21 November 2001.
- The Death of Arafat.
- The Ghost City, a review in The New York Review of Books, Volume 52, Number 15 (October 6, 2005).
- Borderlands and Immigrants, on Mexican immigration.
- Guerrilla War in Iraq, 18 June 2003.
- The Shanwei Shootings and China's Situation.
- The Cartoon Backlash: Redefining Alignments.
- Faith, Reason and Politics: Parsing the Pope's Remarks.
- Special Report: Situation Review on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, July 18, 2006.
- American Isolation and the European Reality, 12 March 2003.
- The Presidency: Deepening Questions.
- Iraq and the Broader War, 30 July 2003.
- The Importance of the Plame Affair, 17 October 2005.
- Breakpoint: What went Wrong.
- Audio interview on The Dennis Prager Show, 29 September 2006.
