Write 8 pages:
Based on the attached report.
-History of Climate Change
– Demographic Trends
-Economic Trends
-Socio-Cultural Trend
-Political Trend
-Technological trends
-Physical, Environmental Trends
All of them must be related to Climate change and with examples. External sources can be used but must be cited. More focus on the attached report.December 2000
Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts
This paper was approved for publication by the National Foreign Intelligence Board under the author- ity of the Director of Central Intelligence.
Prepared under the direction of the National Intelligence Council.
NIC 2000-02
13 December 2000
From the Director of Central Intelligence
I am pleased to introduce Global Trends 2015, which takes a look at the world over the next 15 years from the perspective of the national security policymaker. This is not a traditional intelligence assessment, depending on classified sources and methods. Rather, it reflects an Intelligence Community fully engaged with outside experts in a constructive dialogue about the future. I want to encourage this lively exchange.
From the beginning of this ambitious project in fall 1999, we intended to make GT-2015 an unclassified assessment to be shared with the public. Experts from academia, think-tanks and the corporate world have made major contributions, and their reactions, along with those of other specialists who will see our work for the first time, will strengthen our continuing analysis of the issues covered in GT-2015. Grappling with the future is necessarily a work in progress that, I believe, should constantly seek new insights while testing and revising old judgments.
I hope that GT-2015 will contribute to a growing strategic dialogue in the US Government that will help our country meet the challenges and opportunities ahead. I look forward to your comments.
George J. Tenet
DI Design Center 377188AI 12-00
From the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council:
The National Intelligence Council (NIC), a small center of strategic thinking in the US Intelligence Community, launched Global Trends 2015 to stimulate US policymakers to think “beyond their inboxes.” This work expands the effort of Global Trends 2010, published in 1997 under the leadership of my predecessor, Professor Richard Cooper of Harvard.
We identify global “drivers” and estimate their impact on the world over the next 15 years—demography and natural resources, technology, globalization and governance, likely conflicts and prospects for international cooperation, and the role of the United States. The judgments flow from our best efforts to produce a comprehensive picture of the world in 2015. Analysis will help senior leaders better cope with, for example, the uncertainties involved with the decline of Russia, the emergence of China, or the political, economic and societal dynamics in the Middle East.
Global Trends 2015 should be seen as a work-in-progress, a flexible framework for thinking about the future that we will update and revise as conditions evolve. As such, we are pleased to share it with the public, confident that the feedback we receive will improve our understanding of the issues we treat. We welcome comments on all aspects of this study.
Global Trends 2015 is not a traditional intelligence product based on classic intelligence sources, methods and procedures. The National Intelligence Council gave overall direction to the year-long effort, assisted by colleagues from other intelligence agencies and offices. We sought out and drew heavily on experts outside the Intelligence Community to help us both identify the key drivers and assess their impact worldwide. Ultimately, however, the conclusions are our responsibility.
The NIC’s Vice Chairman, Ellen Laipson, and I want to acknowledge the special contributions of several individuals. Enid Schoettle, my special adviser on the NIC, was a principal drafter and coordinator, and she was ably assisted by retired diplomat Richard Smith. The DCI Environmental and Societal Issues Center, led by Paul Frandano, made extensive, invaluable contributions. John Phillips, Chief Scientist of CIA, Directorate of Science and Technology, offered helpful suggestions. Tom Fingar of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research made important inputs, as did Ken Knight and Pat Neary of the Defense Intelligence Agency. All the regional and functional National Intelligence Officers (NIOs)—identified at the back page of this publication—contributed sections and provided insights in their areas of expertise. In the final stages of preparing the full text, Enid Schoettle and NIOs Stuart A. Cohen (with his crack staff), David F. Gordon, and Barry F. Lowenkron performed the critical service of integrating substantive comments and judgments.
We are particularly grateful to the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, who encouraged us to take on this ambitious project and provided us with the necessary assistance to bring it to fruition.
John Gannon Chairman
NATION
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NIC
DI Design Center 377189AI 12-00
(U) Note on Process
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In undertaking this comprehensive analysis, the NIC worked actively with a range of nongovernmental institutions and experts. We began the analysis with two workshops focusing on drivers and alternative futures, as the appendix describes. Subsequently, numerous specialists from academia and the private sector contributed to every aspect of the study, from demo- graphics to developments in science and technology, from the global arms market to implications for the United States. Many of the judgments in this paper derive from our efforts to distill the diverse views expressed at these conferences or related workshops. Major conferences cosponsored by the NIC with other government and private centers in support of Global Trends 2015 included:
• Foreign Reactions to the Revolution in Military Affairs (Georgetown University).
• Evolution of the Nation-State (University of Maryland).
• Trends in Democratization (CIA and academic experts).
• American Economic Power (Industry & Trade Strategies, San Fran- cisco, CA).
• Transformation of Defense Industries (International Institute for Stra- tegic Studies, London, UK).
• Alternative Futures in War and Conflict (Defense Intelligence Agency and Naval War College, Newport, RI, and CIA).
• Out of the Box and Into the Future: A Dialogue Between Warfighters and Scientists on Far Future Warfare (Potomac Institute, Arlington, VA).
• Future Threat Technologies Symposium (MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA).
• The Global Course of the Information Revolution: Technological Trends (RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA).
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• The Global Course of the Information Revolution: Political, Eco- nomic, and Social Consequences (RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA).
• The Middle East: The Media, Information Technology, and the Internet (The National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington, DC).
• Global Migration Trends and Their Implications for the United States (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC).
• Alternative Global Futures: 2000-2015 (Department of State/Bureau of Intelligence and Research and CIA’s Global Futures Project).
In October 2000, the draft report was discussed with outside experts, including Richard Cooper and Joseph Nye (Harvard University), Richard Haass (Brookings Institution), James Steinberg (Markle Foundation), and Jessica Mathews (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). Their comments and suggestions are incorporated in the report. Daniel Yergin (Cambridge Energy Research Associates) reviewed and commented on the final draft.
(U) Contents
Page
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Note on Process 1 Overview 5 The Drivers and Trends 8 Key Uncertainties: Technology Will Alter Outcomes 13 Key Challenges to Governance: People Will Decide 17 Discussion 19 Population Trends 19
Divergent Aging Patterns 19 Movement of People 20 Health 24
Natural Resources and Environment 26 Food 26 Water 27 Energy 28 Environment 31
Science and Technology 32 Information Technology 32 Biotechnology 33 Other Technologies 33
The Global Economy 34 Dynamism and Growth 34 Unequal Growth Prospects and Distribution 35 Economic Crises and Resilience 38
National and International Governance 38 Nonstate Actors 40 Criminal Organizations and Networks 41 Changing Communal Identities and Networks 41 Overall Impacts on States 46 International Cooperation 47
Future Conflict 49 Internal Conflicts 49 Transnational Terrorism 50 Interstate Conflicts 50 Reacting to US Military Superiority 56
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Major Regions 60 East and Southeast Asia 61 South Asia 64 Russia and Eurasia 68 Middle East and North Africa 70 Sub-Saharan Africa 71 Europe 74 Canada 76 Latin America 78
Appendix Four Alternative Global Futures 83
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(U) Overview Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts
Over the past 15 months, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), in close collaboration with US Government specialists and a wide range of experts outside the government, has worked to identify major drivers and trends that will shape the world of 2015.
The key drivers identified are:
(l) Demographics.
(2) Natural resources and environment.
(3) Science and technology.
(4) The global economy and globalization.
(5) National and international governance.
(6) Future conflict.
(7) The role of the United States.
In examining these drivers, several points should be kept in mind:
• No single driver or trend will dominate the global future in 2015.
• Each driver will have varying impacts in different regions and countries.
• The drivers are not necessarily mutually reinforcing; in some cases, they will work at cross-purposes.
Taken together, these drivers and trends intersect to create an integrated pic- ture of the world of 2015, about which we can make projections with vary- ing degrees of confidence and identify some troubling uncertainties of strategic importance to the United States.
The Methodology Global Trends 2015 provides a flexible framework to discuss and debate the future. The methodology is useful for our purposes, although admittedly inexact for the social scientist. Our purpose is to rise above short-term, tac- tical considerations and provide a longer-term, strategic perspective.
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Judgments about demographic and natural resource trends are based prima- rily on informed extrapolation of existing trends. In contrast, many judg- ments about science and technology, economic growth, globalization, governance, and the nature of conflict represent a distillation of views of experts inside and outside the United States Government. The former are projections about natural phenomena, about which we can have fairly high confidence; the latter are more speculative because they are contingent upon the decisions that societies and governments will make.
The drivers we emphasize will have staying power. Some of the trends will persist; others will be less enduring and may change course over the time frame we consider. The major contribution of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), assisted by experts from the Intelligence Community, has been to harness US Government and nongovernmental specialists to identify drivers, to determine which ones matter most, to highlight key uncertainties, and to integrate analysis of these trends into a national security context. The result identifies issues for more rigorous analysis and quantification.
Revisiting Global Trends 2010: How Our Assessments Have Changed
Over the past four years, we have tested the judgments made in the predecessor, Global Trends 2010, published in 1997. Global Trends 2010 was the centerpiece of numerous briefings, conferences, and public addresses. Various audiences were energetic in challenging, modifying or confirming our judgments. The lively debate that ensued has expanded our treatment of drivers, altered some projections we made in 1997, and matured our thinking overall—which was the essential purpose of this exercise.
Global Trends 2015 amplifies several drivers identified previously, and links them more closely to the trends we now project over the next 15 years. Some of the key changes include:
• Globalization has emerged as a more powerful driver. GT 2015 sees international economic dynamics—including developments in the World Trade Organization—and the spread of information technol- ogy as having much greater influence than portrayed in GT 2010.
(continued)
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• GT 2015 assigns more significance to the importance of governance, notably the ability of states to deal with nonstate actors, both good and bad. GT 2015 pays attention both to the opportunities for coop- eration between governments and private organizations and to the growing reach of international criminal and terrorist networks.
• GT 2015 includes a more careful examination of the likely role of science and technology as a driver of global developments. In addi- tion to the growing significance of information technology, biotech- nology and other technologies carry much more weight in the present assessment.
• The effect of the United States as the preponderant power is intro- duced in GT 2015. The US role as a global driver has emerged more clearly over the past four years, particularly as many countries debate the impact of “US hegemony” on their domestic and foreign policies.
• GT 2015 provides a more complete discussion of natural resources including food, water, energy, and the environment. It discusses, for example, the over three billion individuals who will be living in water-stressed regions from North China to Africa and the implica- tions for conflict. The linkage between energy availability, price, and distribution is more thoroughly explored.
• GT 2015 emphasizes interactions among the drivers. For example, we discuss the relationship between S&T, military developments, and the potential for conflict.
• In the regional sections, GT 2015 makes projections about the impact of the spread of information, the growing power of China, and the declining power of Russia.
Events and trends in key states and regions over the last four years have led us to revise some projections substantially in GT 2015.
• GT 2010 did not foresee the global financial crisis of 1997-98; GT 2015 takes account of obstacles to economic development in East Asia, though the overall projections remain fairly optimistic.
(continued)
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The Drivers and Trends
Demographics World population in 2015 will be 7.2 billion, up from 6.1 billion in the year 2000, and in most countries, people will live longer. Ninety-five percent of the increase will be in developing countries, nearly all in rapidly expanding urban areas. Where political systems are brittle, the combination of popula- tion growth and urbanization will foster instability. Increasing lifespans will have significantly divergent impacts.
• In the advanced economies—and a growing number of emerging market countries—declining birthrates and aging will combine to increase health care and pension costs while reducing the relative size of the working population, straining the social contract, and leaving significant shortfalls in the size and capacity of the work force.
• In some developing countries, these same trends will combine to expand the size of the working population and reduce the youth bulge—increas- ing the potential for economic growth and political stability.
• As described in GT 2010, there is still substantial uncertainty regarding whether China can cope with internal political and eco- nomic trends. GT 2015 highlights even greater uncertainty over the direction of Beijing’s regional policies.
• Many of the global trends continue to remain negative for the societ- ies and regimes in the Middle East. GT 2015 projects at best a “cold peace” between Israel and its adversaries and sees prospects for potentially destabilizing social changes due to adverse effects of glo- balization and insufficient attention to reform. The spike in oil reve- nues reinforces the assessment of GT 2010 about the rising demand for OPEC oil; these revenues are not likely to be directed primarily at core human resources and social needs.
• Projections for Sub-Saharan Africa are even more dire than in GT 2010 because of the spread of AIDS and the continuing prospects for humanitarian crises, political instability, and military conflicts.
Revisiting Global Trends 2010: How Our Assessments Have Changed (continued)
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Natural Resources and Environment
Overall food production will be adequate to feed the world’s growing popu- lation, but poor infrastructure and distribution, political instability, and chronic poverty will lead to malnourishment in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. The potential for famine will persist in countries with repressive govern- ment policies or internal conflicts. Despite a 50 percent increase in global energy demand, energy resources will be sufficient to meet demand; the lat- est estimates suggest that 80 percent of the world’s available oil and 95 per- cent of its gas remain underground.
• Although the Persian Gulf region will remain the world’s largest single source of oil, the global energy market is likely to encompass two rela- tively distinct patterns of regional distribution: one serving consumers (including the United States) from Atlantic Basin reserves; and the other meeting the needs of primarily Asian customers (increasingly China and India) from Persian Gulf supplies and, to a lesser extent, the Caspian region and Central Asia.
• In contrast to food and energy, water scarcities and allocation will pose significant challenges to governments in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and northern China. Regional tensions over water will be heightened by 2015.
Science and Technology
Fifteen years ago, few predicted the profound impact of the revolution in information technology. Looking ahead another 15 years, the world will encounter more quantum leaps in information technology (IT) and in other areas of science and technology. The continuing diffusion of information technology and new applications of biotechnology will be at the crest of the wave. IT will be the major building block for international commerce and for empowering nonstate actors. Most experts agree that the IT revolution represents the most significant global transformation since the Industrial Revolution beginning in the mid-eighteenth century.
• The integration—or fusion—of continuing revolutions in information technology, biotechnology, materials science, and nanotechnology will generate a dramatic increase in investment in technology, which will fur- ther stimulate innovation within the more advanced countries.
• Older technologies will continue lateral “sidewise development” into new markets and applications through 2015, benefiting US allies and adversar- ies around the world who are interested in acquiring early generation bal- listic missile and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technologies.
• Biotechnology will drive medical breakthroughs that will enable the world’s wealthiest people to improve their health and increase their lon- gevity dramatically. At the same time, genetically modified crops will offer the potential to improve nutrition among the world’s one billion mal- nourished people.
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• Breakthroughs in materials technology will generate widely available products that are multi-functional, environmentally safe, longer lasting, and easily adapted to particular consumer requirements.
• Disaffected states, terrorists, proliferators, narcotraffickers, and organized criminals will take advantage of the new high-speed information environ- ment and other advances in technology to integrate their illegal activities and compound their threat to stability and security around the world.
The Global Economy and Globalization
The networked global economy will be driven by rapid and largely unre- stricted flows of information, ideas, cultural values, capital, goods and ser- vices, and people: that is, globalization. This globalized economy will be a net contributor to increased political stability in the world in 2015, although its reach and benefits will not be universal. In contrast to the Industrial Rev- olution, the process of globalization is more compressed. Its evolution will be rocky, marked by chronic financial volatility and a widening economic divide.
• The global economy, overall, will return to the high levels of growth reached in the 1960s and early 1970s. Economic growth will be driven by political pressures for higher living standards, improved economic poli- cies, rising foreign trade and investment, the diffusion of information technologies, and an increasingly dynamic private sector. Potential brakes on the global economy—such as a sustained financial crisis or prolonged disruption of energy supplies—could undo this optimistic projection.
• Regions, countries, and groups feeling left behind will face deepening economic stagnation, political instability, and cultural alienation. They will foster political, ethnic, ideological, and religious extremism, along with the violence that often accompanies it. They will force the United States and other developed countries to remain focused on “old-world” challenges while concentrating on the implications of “new-world” tech- nologies at the same time.
National and International Governance
States will continue to be the dominant players on the world stage, but gov- ernments will have less and less control over flows of information, technol- ogy, diseases, migrants, arms, and financial transactions, whether licit or illicit, across their borders. Nonstate actors ranging from business firms to nonprofit organizations will play increasingly larger roles in both national and international affairs. The quality of governance, both nationally and internationally, will substantially determine how well states and societies cope with these global forces.
• States with competent governance, including the United States, will adapt government structures to a dramatically changed global environment— making them better able to engage with a more interconnected world. The
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responsibilities of once “semiautonomous” government agencies increas- ingly will intersect because of the transnational nature of national security priorities and because of the clear requirement for interdisciplinary policy responses. Shaping the complex, fast-moving world of 2015 will require reshaping traditional government structures.
• Effective governance will increasingly be determined by the ability and agility to form partnerships to exploit increased information flows, new technologies, migration, and the influence of nonstate actors. Most but not all countries that succeed will be representative democracies.
• States with ineffective and incompetent governance not only will fail to benefit from globalization, but in some instances will spawn conflicts at home and abroad, ensuring an even wider gap between regional winners and losers than exists today.
Globalization will increase the transparency of government decision-mak- ing, complicating the ability of authoritarian regimes to maintain control, but also complicating the traditional deliberative processes of democracies. Increasing migration will create influential diasporas, affecting policies, politics and even national identity in many countries. Globalization also will create increasing demands for international cooperation on transna- tional issues, but the response of both states and international organizations will fall short in 2015.
Future Conflict The United States will maintain a strong technological edge in IT-driven “battlefield awareness” and in precision-guided weaponry in 2015. The United States will face three types of threats:
• Asymmetric threats in which state and nonstate adversaries avoid direct engagements with the US military but devise strategies, tactics, and weap- ons—some improved by “sidewise” technology—to minimize US strengths and exploit perceived weaknesses;
• Strategic WMD threats, including nuclear missile threats, in which (bar- ring significant political or economic changes) Russia, China, most likely North Korea, probably Iran, and possibly Iraq have the capability to strike the United States, and the potential for unconventional delivery of WMD by both states or nonstate actors also will grow; and
• Regional military threats in which a few countries maintain large military forces with a mix of Cold War and post-Cold War concepts and technologies.
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The risk of war among developed countries will be low. The international community will continue, however, to face conflicts around the world, rang- ing from relatively frequent small-scale internal upheavals to less frequent regional interstate wars. The potential for conflict will arise from rivalries in Asia, ranging from India-Pakistan to China-Taiwan, as well as among the antagonists in the Middle East. Their potential lethality will grow, driven by the availability of WMD, longer-range missile delivery systems and other technologies.
Internal conflicts stemming from religious, ethnic, economic or political disputes will remain at current levels or even increase in number. The United Nations and regional organizations will be called upon to manage such conflicts because major states—stressed by domestic concerns, per- ceived risk of failure, lack of political will, or tight resources—will mini- mize their direct involvement.
Export control regimes and sanctions will be less effective because of the diffusion of technology, porous borders, defense industry consolidations, and reliance upon foreign markets to maintain profitability. Arms and weap- ons technology transfers will be more difficult to control.
• Prospects will grow that more sophisticated weaponry, including weapons of mass destruction—indigenously produced or externally acquired—will get into the hands of state and nonstate belligerents, some hostile to the United States. The likelihood will increase over this period that WMD will be used either against the United States or its forces, facilities, and interests overseas.
Role of the United States
The United States will continue to be a major force in the world community. US global economic, technological, military, and diplomatic influence will be unparalleled among nations as well as regional and international organi- zations in 2015. This power not only will ensure America’s preeminence, but also will cast the United States as a key driver of the international system.
The United States will continue to be identified throughout the world as the leading proponent and beneficiary of globalization. US economic actions, even when pursued for such domestic goals as adjusting interest rates, will have a major global impact because of the tighter integration of global mar- kets by 2015.
• The United States will remain in the vanguard of the technological revolu- tion from information to biotechnology and beyond.
• Both allies and adversaries will factor continued US military pre-emi- nence in their calculations of national security interests and ambitions.
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• Some states—adversaries and allies—will try at times to check what they see as American “hegemony.” Although this posture will not translate into strategic, broad-based and enduring anti-US coalitions, it will lead to tac- tical alignments on specific policies and demands for a greater role in international political and economic institutions.
Diplomacy will be more complicated. Washington will have greater diffi- culty harnessing its power to achieve specific foreign policy goals: the US Government will exercise a smaller and less powerful part of the overall economic and cultural influence of the United States abroad.
• In the absence of a clear and overriding national security threat, the United States will have difficulty drawing on its economic prowess to advance its foreign policy agenda. The top priority of the American pri- vate sector, which will be central to maintaining the US economic and technological lead, will be financial profitability, not foreign policy objec- tives.
• The United States also will have greater difficulty building coalitions to support its policy goals, although the international community will often turn to Washington, even if reluctantly, to lead multilateral efforts in real and potential conflicts.
• There will be increasing numbers of important actors on the world stage to challenge and check—as well as to reinforce—US leadership: coun- tries such as China, Russia, India, Mexico, and Brazil; regional organiza- tions such as the European Union; and a vast array of increasingly powerful multinational corporations and nonprofit organizations with their own interests to defend in the world.
Key Uncertainties: Technology Will Alter Outcomes
Examining the interaction of these drivers and trends points to some major uncertainties that will only be clarified as events occur and leaders make policy decisions that cannot be foreseen today. We cite eight transnational and regional issues for which the future, according to our trends analysis, is too tough to call with any confidence or precision.
• These are high-stakes, national security issues that will require con- tinuous analysis and, in the view of our conferees, periodic policy review in the years ahead.
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Science and Technology
We know that the possibility is greater than ever that the revolution in sci- ence and technology will improve the quality of life. What we know about this revolution is exciting. Advances in science and technology will gener- ate dramatic breakthroughs in agriculture and health and in leap-frog appli- cations, such as universal wireless cellular communications, which already are networking developing countries that never had land-lines. What we do not know about the S&T revolution, however, is staggering. We do not know to what extent technology will benefit, or further disadvantage, disaf- fected national populations, alienated ethnic and religious groups, or the less developed countries. We do not know to what degree lateral or “side- wise” technology will increase the threat from low technology countries and groups. One certainty is that progression will not be linear. Another is that as future technologies emerge, people will lack full awareness of their wider economic, environmental, cultural, legal, and moral impact—or the continuing potential for research and development.
Advances in science and technology will pose national security challenges of uncertain character and scale.
• Increasing reliance on computer networks is making critical US infra- structures more attractive as targets. Computer network operations today offer new options for attacking the United States within its traditional continental sanctuary—potentially anonymously and with selective effects. Nevertheless, we do not know how quickly or effectively such adversaries as terrorists or disaffected states will develop the tradecraft to use cyber warfare tools and technology, or, in fact, whether cyber warfare will ever evolve into a decisive combat arm.
• Rapid advances and diffusion of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and the materials sciences, moreover, will add to the capabilities of our adversar- ies to engage in biological warfare or bio-terrorism.
Asymmetric Warfare As noted earlier, most adversaries will recognize the information advantage and military superiority of the United States in 2015. Rather than acquiesce to any potential US military domination, they will try to circumvent or min- imize US strengths and exploit perceived weaknesses. IT-driven globaliza- tion will significantly increase interaction among terrorists, narcotraffickers, weapons proliferators, and organized criminals, who in a networked world will have greater access to information, to technology, to finance, to sophis- ticated deception-and-denial techniques and to each other. Such asymmetric approaches—whether undertaken by states or nonstate actors—will become the dominant characteristic of most threats to the US homeland. They will
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be a defining challenge for US strategy, operations, and force development, and they will require that strategy to maintain focus on traditional, low- technology threats as well as the capacity of potential adversaries to harness elements of proliferating advanced technologies. At the same time, we do not know the extent to which adversaries, state and nonstate, might be influ- enced or deterred by other geopolitical, economic, technological, or diplo- matic factors in 2015.
The Global Economy Although the outlook for the global economy appears strong, achieving broad and sustained high levels of global growth will be contingent on avoiding several potential brakes to growth. These include:
The US economy suffers a sustained downturn. Given its large trade deficit and low domestic savings, the US economy—the most important driver of recent global growth—is vulnerable to a loss of international confidence in its growth prospects that could lead to a sharp downturn, which, if long last- ing, would have deleterious economic and policy consequences for the rest of the world.
Europe and Japan fail to manage their demographic challenges. European and Japanese populations are aging rapidly, requiring more than 110 million new workers by 2015 to maintain current dependency ratios between the working population and retirees. Conflicts over social services or immigra- tion policies in major European states could dampen economic growth.
China and/or India fail to sustain high growth. China’s ambitious goals for reforming its economy will be difficult to achieve: restructuring state- owned enterprises, cleaning up and transforming the banking system, and cutting the government’s employment rolls in half. Growth would slow if these reforms go off-track. Failure by India to implement reforms would prevent it from achieving sustained growth.
Emerging market countries fail to reform their financial institutions. Many emerging market countries have not yet undertaken the financial reforms needed to help them survive the next economic crisis. Absent such reform, a series of future economic crises in emerging market countries probably will dry up the capital flows crucial for high rates of economic growth.
Global energy supplies suffer a major disruption. Turbulence in global energy supplies would have a devastating effect. Such a result could be driven by conflict among key energy-producing states, sustained internal instability in two or more major energy-producing states, or major terrorist actions.
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The Middle East Global trends from demography and natural resources to globalization and governance appear generally negative for the Middle East. Most regimes are change-resistant. Many are buoyed by continuing energy revenues and will not be inclined to make the necessary reforms, including in basic education, to change this unfavorable picture.
• Linear trend analysis shows little positive change in the region, raising the prospects for increased demographic pressures, social unrest, religious and ideological extremism, and terrorism directed both at the regimes and at their Western supporters.
• Nonlinear developments—such as the sudden rise of a Web-connected opposition, a sharp and sustained economic downturn, or, conversely, the emergence of enlightened leaders committed to good governance—might change outcomes in individual countries. Political changes in Iran in the late 1990s are an example of such nonlinear development.
China Estimates of developments in China over the next 15 years are fraught with unknowables. Working against China’s aspirations to sustain economic growth while preserving its political system is an array of political, social, and economic pressures that will increasingly challenge the regime’s legiti- macy, and perhaps its survival.
• The sweeping structural changes required by China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the broader demands of economic global- ization and the information revolution will generate significantly new lev- els and types of social and economic disruption that will only add to an already wide range of domestic and international problems.
Nevertheless, China need not be overwhelmed by these problems. China has proven politically resilient, economically dynamic, and increasingly assertive in positioning itself for a leadership role in East Asia. Its long-term military program in particular suggests that Beijing wants to have the capa- bility to achieve its territorial objectives, outmatch its neighbors, and con- strain US power in the region.
• We do not rule out the introduction of enough political reform by 2015 to allow China to adapt to domestic pressure for change and to continue to grow economically.
Two conditions, in the view of many specialists, would lead to a major secu- rity challenge for the United States and its allies in the region: a weak, dis- integrating China, or an assertive China willing to use its growing economic wealth and military capabilities to pursue its strategic advantage in the
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region. These opposite extremes bound a more commonly held view among experts that China will continue to see peace as essential to its economic growth and internal stability.
Russia Between now and 2015, Moscow will be challenged even more than today to adjust its expectations for world leadership to its dramatically reduced resources. Whether the country can make the transition in adjusting ends to means remains an open and critical question, according to most experts, as does the question of the character and quality of Russian governance and economic policies. The most likely outcome is a Russia that remains inter- nally weak and institutionally linked to the international system primarily through its permanent seat on the UN Security Council. In this view, whether Russia can adjust to this diminished status in a manner that pre- serves rather than upsets regional stability is also uncertain. The stakes for both Europe and the United States will be high, although neither will have the ability to determine the outcome for Russia in 2015. Russian gover- nance will be the critical factor.
Japan The first uncertainty about Japan is whether it will carry out the structural reforms needed to resume robust economic growth and to slow its decline relative to the rest of East Asia, particularly China. The second uncertainty is whether Japan will alter its security policy to allow Tokyo to maintain a stronger military and more reciprocal relationship with the United States. Experts agree that Japanese governance will be the key driver in determin- ing the outcomes.
India Global trends conflict significantly in India. The size of its population—1.2 billion by 2015—and its technologically driven economic growth virtually dictate that India will be a rising regional power. The unevenness of its internal economic growth, with a growing gap between rich and poor, and serious questions about the fractious nature of its politics, all cast doubt on how powerful India will be by 2015. Whatever its degree of power, India’s rising ambition will further strain its relations with China, as well as com- plicate its ties with Russia, Japan, and the West—and continue its nuclear standoff with Pakistan.
Key Challenges to Governance: People Will Decide
Global Trends 2015 identifies governance as a major driver for the future and assumes that all trends we cite will be influenced, for good or bad, by decisions of people. The inclusion of the United States as a driver—both the US Government as well as US for-profit and nonprofit organizations—is based on the general assumption that the actions of nonstate actors as well as governments will shape global outcomes in the years ahead.
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An integrated trend analysis suggests at least four related conclusions:
National Priorities Will Matter
• To prosper in the global economy of 2015, governments will have to invest more in technology, in public education, and in broader participa- tion in government to include increasingly influential nonstate actors. The extent to which governments around the world are doing these things today gives some indication of where they will be in 2015.
US Responsibilities Will Cover the World, Old and New
• The United States and other developed countries will be challenged in 2015 to lead the fast-paced technological revolution while, at the same time, maintaining military, diplomatic, and intelligence capabilities to deal with traditional problems and threats from low-technology countries and groups. The United States, as a global power, will have little choice but to engage leading actors and confront problems on both sides of the widening economic and digital divides in the world of 2015, when global- ization’s benefits will be far from global.
US Foreign Priorities Will be More Transnational
• International or multilateral arrangements increasingly will be called upon in 2015 to deal with growing transnational problems from economic and financial volatility; to legal and illegal migration; to competition for scarce natural resources such as water; to humanitarian, refugee, and environmental crises; to terrorism, narcotrafficking, and weapons prolifer- ation; and to both regional conflicts and cyber threats. And when interna- tional cooperation—or international governance—comes up short, the United States and other developed countries will have to broker solutions among a wide array of international players—including governments at all levels, multinational corporations, and nonprofit organizations.
National Governments Will be More Transparent
• To deal with a transnational agenda and an interconnected world in 2015, governments will have to develop greater communication and collaboration between national security and domestic policy agencies. Interagency cooper- ation will be essential to understanding transnational threats and to develop- ing interdisciplinary strategies to counter them. Consequence management of a biological warfare (BW) attack, for example, would require close coor- dination among a host of US Government agencies, foreign governments, US state and municipal governments, the military, the medical community, and the media.
Discussion
19
Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts
The international system in 2015 will be shaped by seven global drivers and related trends: population; natural resources and the environment; science and technology; the glo- bal economy and globalization; national and international governance; the nature of conflict; and the role of the United States. These trends will influence the capacities, priorities, and behavior of states and societies and thus substantially define the international security environment.
Population Trends
The world in 2015 will be populated by some 7.2 billion people, up from 6.1 billion in the year 2000. The rate of world population growth, however, will have diminished from 1.7 percent annually in 1985, to 1.3 percent today, to approximately 1 percent in 2015.
Increased life expectancy and falling fertility rates will contribute to a shift toward an aging population in high-income developed countries. Beyond that, demographic trends will sharply diverge. More than 95 percent of the increase in world population will be found in developing countries, nearly all in rapidly expanding urban areas.
• India’s population will grow from 900 mil- lion to more than 1.2 billion by 2015; Paki- stan’s probably will swell from 140 million now to about 195 million.
• Some countries in Africa with high rates of AIDS will experience reduced population growth or even declining populations despite relatively high birthrates. In South Africa, for example, the population is projected to drop from 43.4 million in 2000 to 38.7 million in 2015.
Russia and many post-Communist countries of Eastern Europe will have declining popula- tions. As a result of high mortality and low birthrates, Russia’s population may drop from its current 146 million to as low as 130 to 135 million in 2015, while the neighboring states of Central Asia will experience continued popula- tion growth. In Japan and West European coun- tries such as Italy and Spain, populations also will decline in the absence of dramatic increases in birthrates or immigration.
• North America, Australia, and New Zealand—the traditional magnets for migrants—will continue to have the highest rates of population growth among the devel- oped countries, with annual population growth rates between 0.7 percent and 1.0 percent.
Divergent Aging Patterns In developed countries and many of the more advanced developing countries, the declining ratio of working people to retirees will strain social services, pensions, and health systems. Governments will seek to mitigate the problem through such measures as delaying retirement, encouraging greater participation in the work
Los Angeles 4,000,000
12,900,000 14,200,000
Dhaka 400,000
10,000,000 19,000,000
Mexico City 3,500,000
17,600,000 19,000,000
New York 12,000,000 16,500,000 17,600,000
Sao Paulo 2,300,000
17,300,000 19,000,000
Buenos Aires 5,250,000
12,200,000 13,900,000
Lagos 1,000,000
12,200,000 24,400,000
Cairo 2,100,000
10,500,000 14,400,000
Karachi 1,100,000
11,000,000 20,600,000
Mumbai 2,800,000
16,900,000 27,400,000
Calcutta 4,450,000
12,500,000 17,300,000
Jakarta 2,800,000 9,500,000
21,200,000
Shanghai 4,300,000
13,900,000 23,400,000
Tokyo 6,200,000
27,700,000 28,700,000
Beijing 1,700,000
11,700,000 19,400,000
Boundary representation is no necessarily authoritative.
DI Cartography Center 753949AI 12-00
Growth in Megaci t iesa
> 100 mi l l ion
50-100 mi l l ion
10-50 mi l l ion
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