The Next Decade is a 2010 speculative nonfiction book by George Friedman, who addresses the United States' relationships with other countries and the state of the world in general throughout the 2010s. The main theme of the book is how the American administrations of the 2010s will need to create regional power balances, some of which have been disturbed. Friedman conceptualizes America's successful management of world affairs not by directly enforcing countries, but by creating competing relationships, which offset one another, in the world's different regions. For example, in the past, Iraq balanced Iran, and currently Japan balances China. Friedman asserts this is the decade where the US as a power must mature to manage its power and balance as an unintended empire and republic. Source: Wikipedia (en)