More future history questions

G'day,

For work I recently read the book "The Next 100 Years" by George
Friedman. I'm not sure I really agree with some of his logic, but the
last few chapters made for an interesting sci-fi short story read.

So I'll do a quick summary here (sorry if this counts as spoilers) and I
wouldn't mind getting your opinion on how feasible it all seems.

I won't bother going through all the economic ups and downs he predicts,
suffice it to say that by 2035-2040 US is still the worlds major
superpower, its paying migrants to come to the country to pad out a
contracting workforce that even robotics can't compensate for and the
jihadist movements are basically old history. oh and an attempt by
Russia to regain past glory failed and they're a worse basket case than
ever.

So Russia's collapse leaves some wiggle room on its borders. He writes
off China as not having enough cohesion and India as hemmed in by
geography and instead proposes

1) Japan gets power by first economically allying with productive
coastal regions of China and them militarily going after the Pacific rim
areas of Russia. He goes through how they build up their military etc to
prepare, but basically the crux is 500 mile radius from Japan gets you
from Shanghai to Vladivostok so they don't need a super huge military to
pull it off.

2) Turkey as a regional economic power pushes up into the Caucasus as
Russia collapse and acts as the peaceful hand in the fragmenting Arab
nations/Muslim world and even moves into the Muslim areas of the Balkans
(US and Arab world initially supports them as less objectionable, for
different reasons, than Iran or Israel and Pakistan isn't healthy enough
to step up)

3) NATO falls apart but Poland heads up a coalition of dynamic
Slavic/eastern European and Baltic states that soak up ex-Russia's
eastern boundary (i.e. Ukraine, Belarus etc), again with US support
(western Europe is in financial decline due to aging populations so
don't play a big part apparently)

4) 2030s-2040s Japan and Turkey's space presence buidls up, though is
never as large as the US's (many nations also have commercial space
traffic at this point)

5) Polish Bloc and Turkey will end up at loggerheads (US ends up more
behind the Poles)

6) US puts many of its military eggs in space based command and control
centres which coordinate the strike capabilities of hypersonic aircraft
that can reach most of the world's surface (form US bases) in less than
an hour or so

7) Americans assume no one is as good as them at tech, thinking sneaky
etc and also that all threats will come from Earth (i.e. missiles fired
at satellites or satellites vs satellites using the kinetics that was
spoken of on the sf-consim list the other day)

8) US doesn't like growing military (especially naval) power of Turkey
and Japan, who in turn feel that US is trying to crush them so everyone
gets "tense"

9) No one takes nukes seriously as an option (except as a last resort)
as they don't want the PR disaster of civilian casualties

10) Many nations build industrial/research colonies on the moon by 2040s

11) In 2050 Turkey has a "crisis" with Poland over troops in the
Balkans, a ruse to keep the US attention there (President gets the PMs
together etc, seems to talk them down, great kudos etc everyone goes
home for the holidays happy). Japan does its bulk standard quarterly
military drills so no one really pays attention. The Japanese then make
a "secret" first strike by launching rocks (with rocket motors attached)
from secret part of their moon base, initially on "random" orbits so
just look like steroids so automated systems of US "Battlestars" ignore
them and even Space tech Joe Bloggs goes "Hmmm meteors are a bit higher
than normal but none headed for us so ok". On 3rd day from moon launch
of these rocks they go into terminal missile burn that redirects them at
the 3 US Battlestars. This is timed for late in the afternoon of
Thanksgiving so its hard to get the Joint Chiefs/important people
together. Battelstars put up valiant self defensive effort but
overwhelmed by more rocks. US is blind. Japanese have also got their
hypersonics airborne and hit US airfields/land command and control. In
the final hour Japan finally tells Turkey the plan... who activate
pre-made battle plans and smash Polish facilities.

12) US did get some of their own forces airborne, and do some damage to
Japan, but not sheet loads.

13) The Japanese-Turkish coalition isn't after capitulation just
breathing space so now push for political settlement - an agreement to
all stay out of each other's way/areas of influence.

14) US actually freaked out by the attacks and begins ratcheting its
responses - first gets US geekforce to upload new control programs for
remaining "old" satellites which go and kill Japanese/Turkish
satellites; mutual raiding and destruction of moon base capabiilities by
the secrte military guys inserted in each research team; the US
industrial complex rolls into action and turns out new gen aircraft (in
about 2 years) and uses mothballed secret bases to house them (they had
purposefully built these and kept the secret since 2030s or so just in
case)

15) Meanwhile Turkey kicks Polish butt, using hypersonic aircraft as
artillery and old fashioned land based invasion. US uses its remaining
airforce to help the Poles out and push the Turks back (buying time for
a US rebuild) - Turks also don't want to be too stretched as have to
keep Egypt etc under control.

16) 2051-2052 Germans agree to coalition with Turkey to defeat the Poles
(they get northeast europe in return if successful) and drag in the
French too. Britain is appalled and secretly hands its intel, airforce
resources and airbases to the US. Turks and Germans pusg througheastern
Europe again using power armoured troops (with robot minions so don't
need huge numbers of human bodies). Initially the electrical grid is
defended as both sides want ti to feed their PA. The US then reveals its
last trick, which is space based solar power beamed down to troops via
microwave (i.e. to on ground recievers) and so the Polish scorch earth
the electrical grid and Turkish advance grinds to a halt. On top of
which Congressional budget blocks will mean that a 4th battlestar was
built way back when but never launched and now it is... Japan and
Turkish advances reversed (again no requirement for unconditional
surrender, though US gets space to itself).

17) Poland will prosper, eventually reforming something vaguely like
NATO and economically sucking up beleaguered western Europe. US feels
threatened and now stats to back Turkey - Poles feel betrayed.

18) Military funded space based electrical power will see that form of
energy take off as most economic as commercial industry doesn't have to
pay for the infrastructure (as was the case for the interstate and early
internet/www) and you get another US boom

19) Meanwhile by 2060s-2080s Mexico has pulled itself together and is
now the Latin economy of note, moreover through now legal migration the
Mexican cession areas of the US are largely Latino populated (they are
almost a majority there now in 2000 so this isn't too far fetched)

20) Robotics and cheap energy means the labour force is finally not
needed for real and skill displacement can't soak them all up
(population problems compounded by genetic advances in health care
areas). End result US decides to go back to limiting migration and
sending home anyone on a temporary visa regardless of residence time.
Latinos (some of whom have now been in the US for decades) and Mexico
(who doesn't want waves of unemployed) get upset. Political tensions in
Mexico City and amongst Latino representatives in Washington, small
scale radicalisation in the "borderlands" sees some strikes on federal
facilities. President tries to federalise the national guard along the
Mexican border to protect federal installations. The Latino governors
tell him to go jump (and largely Latino national guard in those areas
support the governors). Radical strikes continue so Congress agrees to
allow US army in down there, Mexican army is moved to the border in
response. Mexican and US Presidents meet to parly with the Mexican
President effectively speaking for the Latinos in the Mexican cession
areas as well as Mexico itself. 

21) Change to Mexican constitution allows for diaspora to vote.

22) Mexico ramps up military forces

23) US army could probably take out the Mexican army (ok likely for sure
could) but it couldn't pacify the borderlands... the world holds its
breath to see whether the borders are formally redrawn.

Like I said interesting, but how plausible is it?

Beth