The Next 100 Years

particularly not those that include U.S. citizens. On the other hand, it is 
very good at attacking and destroying enemy armies. U.S. space forces and 

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ground troops will therefore begin focusing on the possibility of confronta­
tion with the massed forces along the Mexican border. 
A meeting between the two presidents will defuse the situation, as it will 
be clear that no one really wants a war. In fact, no one in power will have 
wanted the crisis in the Southwest. But the problem is this: during these ne­
gotiations, however much both sides want a return to the status quo ante, 
the Mexican president will, in effect, be negotiating on behalf of American 
citizens of Mexican origin who are living in the United States. To the extent 
the crisis is defused, the status of Mexicans in the Mexican Cession is being 
discussed. From the moment the discussion turns to defusing the crisis, the 
question of who speaks for the Mexicans in the Mexican Cession will be de­
cided: it is the president of Mexico. 
While the crisis of the 2080s will subside, the underlying issue will not. 
The borderland will be in play, and while the Mexicans will not have the 
power to impose a military solution, the American government will not 
have the ability to impose a social and political solution. The insertion of 
American troops into the region, patrolling it as if it were a foreign country, 
will have changed the status of the region in the mind of the public. Mexi­
can negotiations on behalf of the people of the region will have extended 
that change. A radical secessionist movement in the region, heavily funded 
by Mexican nationalists, will continually irritate the situation, especially 
when splinter terrorist groups begin carrying out occasional bombings and 
kidnappings—not only within the Mexican Cession but throughout the 
United States. The question of the Mexican conquest will be opened up yet 
again. The region will still be part of the United States, but its loyalty will be 
loudly questioned by many. 
Expelling tens of millions of people will not be an option, as it would be 
logistically impossible and would have devastating consequences for the 
United States. At the same time, however, the idea that in the region those 
who are of Mexican origin are simply citizens of the United States will break 
down. Many will no longer see themselves that way, and neither will the rest 
of the United States. The political situation will become increasingly radi­
calized. 
By about 2090, radicals in Mexico will have created a new crisis. In a 
change to the Mexican constitution, Mexicans (defined by parentage and 

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culture) who live outside of Mexico, regardless of citizenship, will be now 
permitted to vote in Mexican elections. More important, Mexican congres­
sional districts will be established outside of Mexico, so that Mexicans living 
in Argentina, for example, can vote for a representative in the Mexican con­
gress, representing Mexicans living in Argentina. 
Since so many voters will qualify in the United States—the whole point 
of the change after all—the Mexican Cession will be divided into Mexican 
congressional districts, so that there might be twenty congressmen from Los 
Angeles and five from San Antonio elected to Congress in Mexico City. 
Since the Mexican communities will pay for the elections out of private 
funds, it is unclear whether this will violate any American law. Certainly, 
while there will be rage in the rest of the country, the federal government 
will be afraid to interfere. So the election to Congress will go forward in 
2090—with Mexicans in the United States voting for both the Congress in 
Washington and the Congress in Mexico City. In a few cases, the same per­
son will be elected to both congresses. It will be a clever move, putting the 
United States on the defensive, with no equivalent countermeasure avail­
able. 
By the 2090s, the United States will be facing a difficult internal situa­
tion, as well as a confrontation with a Mexico that will be arming itself furi­
ously, afraid that the United States will try to solve the problem by taking 
military measures against it. The Americans will have a tremendous advan­
tage in space, but the Mexicans will have an advantage on the ground. The 
United States Army won’t be particularly large, and controlling a city like 
Los Angeles still will require the basic grunt infantryman. 
Groups of Mexican paramilitaries will spring up throughout the region 
in response to the U.S. occupation, and will remain in place after the troops 
withdraw. With the border heavily militarized on both sides, the possibility 
of lines of supply being cut by these paramilitaries, isolating U.S. forces 
along the border, won’t be a trivial matter. The United States will be able to 
destroy the Mexican army, but that doesn’t mean it could pacify its own 
Southwest, or Mexico for that matter. And at the same time, Mexico will 
begin to launch its own satellites and build its own unmanned aircraft. 
As for the international reaction to this situation, the world will stand 
aside and watch. The Mexicans will hope for foreign support, and the 

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Brazilians, who will have become a substantial power in their own right, will 
make some gestures of solidarity with Mexico. But, while the rest of the 
world will secretly hope that Mexico will bloody its neighbor’s nose, no one 
is going to get involved in a matter so fundamentally critical to the United 
States. Mexico will be alone. Its strategic solution will be to pose a problem 
on the American border while other powers challenge the United States 
elsewhere. The Poles will have developed serious grievances against the 
Americans, while emerging powers like Brazil will be stifled by the limits 
placed on them by the United States in space. 
The Mexicans won’t be able to fight the United States until they can 
reach military parity. Mexico will need a coalition—and building a coalition 
will take time. But Mexico will have one enormous advantage: the United 
States will be facing internal unrest, which, while not rising to the level of 
insurrection, will certainly focus U.S. energies and limit U.S. options. In­
vading and defeating Mexico would not solve this problem. It might actu­
ally exacerbate it. America’s inability to solve this problem will be Mexico’s 
major advantage, and the one that will buy it time. 
The U.S. border with Mexico will now run through Mexico itself; its 
real, social border will be hundreds of miles north of the legal border. In­
deed, even if the United States could defeat Mexico in war, it would not 
solve the basic dilemma. The situation will settle into a giant stalemate. 
Underneath all of this will be the question that the United States has had 
to address almost since its founding: what should be the capital of North 
America—Washington or Mexico City? It had appeared likely at first that it 
would be the latter. Then centuries later it appeared obvious that it would 
be the former. The question will be on the table once again. It can be post­
poned, but it can’t be avoided. 
It is the same question that faced Spain and France in the seventeenth 
century. Spain had reigned supreme for a hundred years, dominating At­
lantic Europe and the world until a new power challenged it. Would Spain 
or France be supreme? Five hundred years later, at the end of the twenty-
first century, the United States will have dominated for a hundred years. 
Now Mexico will be rising. Who will be supreme? The United States will 
rule the skies and the seas, but the challenge from Mexico will be on the 
ground, and—a challenge only Mexico will be positioned to make—inside 

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the borders of the United States. It is the kind of challenge that U.S. mili­
tary power will be least suited to fight. Therefore, as the twenty- first century 
draws to a close, the question will be: North America is the center of gravity 
of the international system, but who will control North America? 
That is a question that will have to wait until the twenty- second century. 

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E P I L O G U E 
I
t might seem far-fetched to speculate that a rising Mexico will ultimately 
challenge American power, but I suspect that the world we are living in 
today would have seemed far-fetched to someone living at the beginning 
of the twentieth century. As I said in the introduction to this book, when we 
try to predict the future, common sense almost always betrays us—just look 
at the startling changes that took place throughout the twentieth century 
and try to imagine using common sense to anticipate those things. The 
most practical way to imagine the future is to question the expected. 
There are people being born today who will live in the twenty- second 
century. When I was growing up in the 1950s, the twenty- first century was 
an idea associated with science fiction, not a reality in which I would live. 
Practical people focus on the next moment and leave the centuries to 
dreamers. But the truth is that the twenty- first century has turned out to be 
a very practical concern to me. I will spend a good deal of my life in it. And 
on the way here, history—its wars, its technological changes, its social trans­
formations—has reshaped my life in startling ways. I did not die in a nu­
clear war with the Soviets, though I did witness many wars, most of them 
unforeseen.