STRATFOR FOUNDER GEORGE FRIEDMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT U.S. GEOPOLITICAL STRATEGIES

I came across some quite interesting thoughts from George Friedman, the founder and former CEO of Stratfor which has been referred to as "the Shadow CIA" by Barron's (1). Mr. Friedman expressed his views during a discussion on the emerging crisis in Europe - the discussion took place during spring 2015 (2). 

Among many things, Mr. Friedman spoke about the USA as a superpower and "empire":

"The United States has a fundamental interest, it controls all the oceans of the world, no power has ever done that. Because of that, we get to invade people and they don’t get to invade us, that is a very nice thing. Maintaining control of the sea and control of space is the foundation of our power. The best way to defeat an enemy fleet is to not let it be built."

"...empires that are directly governed by the empire like the Nazi Empire failed. No one has that much power. You have to have a level of cleverness. However, our problem is not yet that, it is actually admitting that we have an empire."

When asked, if Islamic extremism is really the major threat to the United States, 
Mr. Friedman answered:

"It is a problem to the United States, it is not an existential threat. It has to be dealt with, but it has to be dealt with proportionately. We have other foreign policy interests. So, the primordial interest of the United States over which for centuries we have fought wars, the first, second and cold war has been the relationship between Germany and Russia. Because united they are the only force that could threaten us, and to make sure that that doesn’t happen."

Later on, Mr. Friedman continued on this subject:

"For the United States, the primordial fear is Russian capital, Russian technology, 
I mean German technology and German capital, Russian natural resources and Russian manpower as the only combination that has for centuries scared the hell out of the United States."

Sources:

1) International Business Times (26.2.2012):
http://www.ibtimes.com/wikileaks-reveal-e-mails-inside-private-shadow-cia-416500

2) Uaposition.com (5.4.2015):
http://uaposition.com/stratfor-founder-and-ceo-george-friedman-about-europe-ukraine-and-us-military-power/