4 Years In The Making, Really.. 4 Years?

It’s been four years since its last appearance and since its culmination; audiences are now greater than ever, reaching out to a global community that only this type of event can generate.  Now it’s not the Presidential election, nor the Olympics, it’s the release of The National Intelligence Council's (NIC) Global Trends Report… Tadahhhh! 

What you say, my precious?  Since the first report was released in 1997, the audience for each Global Trends report has expanded, generating more interest and reaching a broader audience that the one that preceded it. Written by Mathew Burrows, a Counsellor and Director, Analysis and Production Staff, National Intelligence Council (NIC). 

A new Global Trends report is published every four years following the U.S. presidential election.  It actually engages expertise from outside government on factors of such as globalization, demography and the environment, producing a forward-looking document to aid policymakers in their long term planning on key issues of worldwide importance.  In short, it’s the crystal ball for the world policies. 

The 140-page report released Monday by the National Intelligence Council lays out dangers and opportunities for nations, economies, investors, political systems and leaders due to four “megatrends” that government intelligence analysts say are transforming the world.

Not Quite Orwellian, But Good Enough…

Those major trends are the end of U.S. global dominance, the rising power of individuals against states, a rising middle class whose demands challenge governments, and a Gordian knot of water, food and energy shortages, according to the analysts.

Leading the list of the “game-changers” — factors the report says will shape the impact of the megatrends — is the “crisis-prone” global economy, which is vulnerable to international shocks and to disparities among national economies moving at significantly different speeds.

We Are At A Critical Juncture In Human History

“We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures,” Council Chairman Christopher Kojm writes in the report.  Now here we must pause, doesn’t it seem a little egotistical proclaiming that we are a a critical juncture in human history.  How many times have we seen this proclaimed by figureheads of the past.  Now some do in fact have a point, junctures such as the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, or being present when the immortal words, “Watson, I need you” were first uttered over an electrical wire, or even the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  However, a vulnerable economy?  When is the economy ever assured?

Now the report does qualify it’s pronouncement, it envisions an international economy that remains prone to potential “black swans” such as the collapse of the euro and the European Union, a pandemic, a Chinese economic collapse, a nuclear war or a debilitating cyber attack.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

Interestingly enough, it does harbinger that “A return to pre-2008 growth rates and previous patterns of rapid globalization looks increasingly unlikely, at least for the next decade,” in part because total non-financial debt across G-7 countries has doubled since 1980 to 300 percent of GDP.

The key question, the report says, is whether divergent growth rates and increased volatility “will result in a global economic breakdown or whether the development of multiple growth centers will lead to resiliency.”

Circling the Wagons..

A world population that’s projected to rise to 8.3 billion from 7.1 billion today by 2030 will add to the strains, the report says. More people will join the middle class, especially in the developing world, and even conservative estimates forecast the global middle class doubling to more than 2 billion in 18 years.

Much of this growing middle class will flock to cities, increasing the world’s urban population from roughly 50 percent of the world’s total to nearly 60 percent by 2030. Rising incomes will fuel their appetite for food — especially protein from meat and fish — water and energy, which will be in shorter supply, the report says, in part because climate change and water shortages will alter patterns of arable land and greater demand for energy could curb the amount of fuel available to make fertilizers and other products.

Demand for food will rise 35 percent by 2030 as global gains in agricultural productivity decline, the report says. Worldwide water requirements will reach 6,900 billion cubic meters in 2030, 40 percent more than current sustainable water supplies, making water a likely cause of regional conflicts, particularly in South Asia and the Middle East, the report says.

Ok, Here Comes The Inconvenient Truth…

Climate change will complicate resource management, particularly in Asia, where monsoons are crucial to the growing season and decreased rainfall could disrupt the region’s ability to feed its growing population.  Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns are happening faster than expected, Burrows said. When his researchers updated their section on climate change, the new figures showed the rate of change was even greater than it was 18 months before, when they started the project.

No Longer the “Belle of the Ball”

New communications technologies and expanding educational opportunities, meanwhile, will empower the growing middle classes to make greater demands on their governments for services, a scenario that’s already part of the Arab Spring movements in countries such as Egypt.

The U.S. role in this new world order is hard to predict because the degree to which it continues to dominate the international system could vary widely, the report says.

“The ‘unipolar’ moment is over and Pax Americana — the era of American ascendancy in international politics that began in 1945 — is fast winding down,” the report says.

Despite that, the U.S. most likely will remain “first among equals” in 2030, the report says.

The U.S. will remain the only power “that can really orchestrate these coalitions, including non-state actors and state actors, to really manage, deal with these huge challenges and changes” the world faces, Burrows said.

While the report envisions the end of a unipolar world, and “the U.S. can’t dictate,” Burrows said, “You can’t see any other power out there that can organize it.”

So whether we are circling the wagons or the drain, rest assured that the US will be the “First among Equals”.  Awesome…

Source(s):

• http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization/national-intelligence-council-global-trends
• http://jacksonville.com/news/national/2012-12-10/story/usa-losing-global-dominance-trend-2030-says-national-intelligence
• http://www.weforum.org/global-agenda-councils/mathew-burrows

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

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