NIC Report: US Geopolitical Influence to Diminish by 2025
Posted by slowsmile November 21, 2008
In a report just out from the US National Intelligence Council called Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, the assessments therein will be used to predict possible world "futures" with application to current US political strategies. Points made in the analysis have highlighted the following:
- The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China— have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.
- The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future.
- Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with 1.5 billion more people, will put pressure on resources—particularly energy, food, and water—raising the specter of scarcities emerging as demand outstrips supply.
- The potential for conflict will increase owing partly to political turbulence in parts of the greater Middle East
For a longer assessment of this document, here is a wider report and view from The Times :
The next two decades will see a world living with the daily threat of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe and the decline of America as the dominant global power, according to a frighteningly bleak assessment by the US intelligence community.
“The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over resources, including food and water, and will be
haunted by the persistence of rogue states and terrorist groups with greater access to nuclear weapons,” said the report by the National Intelligence Council, a body of analysts from across the US intelligence community.
The analysts said that the report had been prepared in time for Barack Obama’s entry into the Oval office on January 20, where he will be faced with some of the greatest challenges of any newly elected US president.
“The likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used will increase with expanded access to technology and a widening range of options for limited strikes,” the 121-page assessment said.
The analysts draw attention to an already escalating nuclear arms race in the Middle East and anticipate that a growing number of rogue states will be prepared to share their destructive technology with terror groups. “Over the next 15-20 years reactions to the decisions Iran makes about its nuclear programme could cause a number of regional states to intensify these efforts and consider actively pursuing nuclear weapons,” the report Global Trends 2025 said. “This will add a new and more dangerous dimension to what is likely to be increasing competition for influence within the region,” it said.
The spread of nuclear capabilities will raise questions about the ability of weak states to safeguard them, it added. “If the number of nuclear-capable states increases, so will the number of countries potentially willing to provide nuclear assistance to other countries or to terrorists.”
The report said that global warming will aggravate the scarcity of water, food and energy resources. Citing a British study, it said that climate change could force up to 200 million people to migrate to more temperate zones. “Widening gaps in birth rates and wealth-to-poverty ratios, and the impact of climate change, could further exacerbate tensions,” it said.
“The international system will be almost unrecognisable by 2025, owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalising economy, a transfer of wealth from West to East, and the growing influence of nonstate actors. Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor, the United States’ relative strength – even in the military realm – will decline and US leverage will become more strained.”
Global power will be multipolar with the rise of India and China, and the Korean peninsula will be unified in some form. Turning to the current financial situation, the analysts say that the financial crisis on Wall Street is the beginning of a global economic rebalancing.
The US dollar’s role as the major world currency will weaken to the point where it becomes a “first among equals”.
“Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, investments and technological innovation, but we cannot rule out a 19th-century-like scenario of arms races, territorial expansion and military rivalries.” The report, based on a global survey of experts and trends, was more pessimistic about America’s global status than previous outlooks prepared every four years. It said that outcomes will depend in part on the actions of political leaders. “The next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks,” it said.
The analysts also give warning that the kind of organised crime plaguing Russia could eventually take over the government of an Eastern or Central European country, and that countries in Africa and South Asia may find themselves ungoverned, as states wither away under pressure from security threats and diminishing resources..
The US intelligence community expects that terrorism would survive until 2025, but in slightly different form, suggesting that alQaeda’s “terrorist wave” might be breaking up. “Al Qaeda’s inability to attract broad-based support might cause it to decay sooner than people think,” it said.
On a positive note it added that an alternative to oil might be in place by 2025.
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November 22nd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I routinely read NIC Reports and find them instructive with the caveat that you MUST sift out the politics. Having written some analysis myself I know how many hands, filters, revisions and partisans they have to pass through.
Any step toward socialism by the U. S. (call it wealth transfer, redistribution, justice or bullshit) is a step backwards.
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Thanks Richard. I would also suggest that your warning concerning the NIC Report could apply to every govt agency in every country in the world today. Every govt. plays that tedious game. But I have found a good site for US govt. statistics though - the site is call http://www.shadowstats.com - run by John Williams. A meticulous and thorough man, I think. He even writes about the history of 'biased' American govt. reporting.
I also agree that shuffling around and redistributing taxes will not help to resolve or repay the current US Fiscal Debt problem to any extent. Adopting such a policy will aid this current problem about as much as giving tax cuts I fear. Bush gave two notable tax cuts in his reign, and managed - single handedly - to nearly double the US National Debt. A debt must always be paid back.
Perhaps a departure from Keynesian/Friedman Economics is now necessary since consumerism, debt, risk and greed have contributed so much as cause to this financial crisis. Maybe a return to Savings and Production - a much older way - and adopting the tenets of The Austrian School of Economics would help the situation.
Much has been said about whether we should or should not have free markets. I would generally accept this as a natural rule for the markets, but I would add that the reasons for the reasons for the current financial mess are not about bad business practices.
The habit of greed, leverage and risk-taking were never adequately scaled into anybody's economic theories. I'm fairly sure that Keynes, Friedman and Hayek were all geniuses - but how do you write a consistent mathematical formula for taking risk and greed ? It's impossible, because these are human traits, therefore utterly unpredictable.
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:49 am
The reference to the increased likelihood of international conflict over resources should remind us that it was once - certainly before and during World War 2 - widely taken for granted that there were major economic causes of war, and that economic policies and international economic institutions were important to prevent this and to increase the chances of peace. The economist Keynes, who is being revived today, certainly believed this. It may be in part because of the success of Keynes' project of post-war prosperity and therefore peace that we have largely lost sight of this - until now. Anyone wanting to think about the economic causes of war and (international and domestic) economic policies for encouraging peace might like to start by reading a book called "John Maynard Keynes and International Relations - Economic Paths to War and Peace", by Donald Markwell. It's especially interesting on free trade and peace - really important today!
November 24th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Tanya,
Thanks for your comments. I completely agree with you here, Keynes was a great man with a wonderful vision. His plan, via Breton Woods, was remarkable in putting the world back on to its economic feet after WW2. However, I really believe that Keynesian Economics has had its day now, as evidenced and explained in three parts by this link:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/106043-the-downfall-of-keynesian-economics-and-the-u-s-part-1-of-3
I regard real and adverse economic situations as a Darwinian beast, a continuous moving target that cannot be predicted or held back. Here, logic and economic theories are plainly inadequate, since it can be said that the economic theories of both Keynes and Friedman have been followed since the 1950s and have clearly led us to this current critical financial point.
As to my own further reasons, a partial explanation for this lack of economic foresight may indeed be because these economic theories are logical, are so set in concrete, and are never capable of adjusting to the continually shifting economic terrains. Perhaps part of the reasons for this inadequacy is the inability to foresee, factor in or explain the relationships between market confidence, leverage, risk and greed into their economic mathematical equations. These are all involved as major causes of the current financial crisis and are - for the greater part - all human characteristics that are impossible to predict.