Futuríveis
segunda-feira, maio 09, 2005
MAPPING THE GLOBAL FUTURE
...
The future holds little comfort. The US National Intelligence Council, an offshoot of the Central Intelligence Agency, has just completed its latest exercise in global crystal-ball gazing.* Mapping the geopolitical landscape over the period to 2020, it presents a depressingly convincing picture of the evolution of international terrorism.
The key factors that spawned al-Qaeda and its associates, the NIC concludes, show no sign of abating during the next 15 years. Instead, the report says, the spread of radical Islamist ideology inside and outside the Middle East, frustration with authoritarian regimes, demographic "bulges" of disenchanted and disenfranchised young Muslims, the uneven distribution of the fruits of globalisation, failed states and the rapid diffusion of technology and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction threaten a "perfect storm". Terrorism will become more decentralised, but more dangerous. Extremist groups may acquire unconventional weapons, biological agents if not nuclear devices. These groups may well connect more directly with regional and separatist struggles - think of Chechnya and Kashmir, Mindanao and southern Thailand, as well as Palestine and Iraq.
...
Here the NIC report, which explores the new insecurities that come with the rise of identity politics and religious extremism as well as the shifting distribution of power between states, is a powerful antidote - a must-read not just for the US policymakers for whom it was written but for America's friends and allies.
It should be said that the picture it paints is not unremittingly gloomy. Rather it is one of a world that is at once more prosperous as well as insecure, more connected and fragmented, more democratic in parts and more authoritarian in others. Globalisation, which is seen as a powerful agent of geopolitical change as well as of economic development, promises the best of times as well as possibly the worst.
The good news includes the prospect that the world economy will be 80 per cent bigger in 2020 than at the beginning of the century. Average incomes will rise by 50 per cent, with most of the growth coming from poorer regions.
For all that it forecasts rising challenges to US primacy, the NIC also expects America to remain by far and away the world's preponderant power, retaining significant leads in economic output, technological and educational attainment and military prowess. The prospect of a great power conflict akin to the global conflagrations that scarred the first half of the 20th century thus seems relatively remote.
The binding thread of the report, though, is the conclusion that the international order that sustained the peace during the second half of that century risks becoming increasingly irrelevant in coming decades. The emergence of China and India, and possibly Brazil and Indonesia, as great powers will challenge the very concept of "the west" as a coherent entity. Other familiar axes of international relations - north/south, developed and developing - will seem far less relevant in a world in which China is the second biggest economic power and the output of Brazil matches that of Germany.
No-one yet knows how the new powers will be incorporated in the international system - or for that matter whether what we have come to see as a collaborative system will give way to something more akin to the competition between powers that defined the geopolitics, and conflicts, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Politicians yearn for predictability, for the straight lines that allow them to convey a simple message to voters. The future now is one of blind corners and unsignposted crossroads
...
Philip Stephens; Financial Times
NIC - 2020 Project
The future holds little comfort. The US National Intelligence Council, an offshoot of the Central Intelligence Agency, has just completed its latest exercise in global crystal-ball gazing.* Mapping the geopolitical landscape over the period to 2020, it presents a depressingly convincing picture of the evolution of international terrorism.
The key factors that spawned al-Qaeda and its associates, the NIC concludes, show no sign of abating during the next 15 years. Instead, the report says, the spread of radical Islamist ideology inside and outside the Middle East, frustration with authoritarian regimes, demographic "bulges" of disenchanted and disenfranchised young Muslims, the uneven distribution of the fruits of globalisation, failed states and the rapid diffusion of technology and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction threaten a "perfect storm". Terrorism will become more decentralised, but more dangerous. Extremist groups may acquire unconventional weapons, biological agents if not nuclear devices. These groups may well connect more directly with regional and separatist struggles - think of Chechnya and Kashmir, Mindanao and southern Thailand, as well as Palestine and Iraq.
...
Here the NIC report, which explores the new insecurities that come with the rise of identity politics and religious extremism as well as the shifting distribution of power between states, is a powerful antidote - a must-read not just for the US policymakers for whom it was written but for America's friends and allies.
It should be said that the picture it paints is not unremittingly gloomy. Rather it is one of a world that is at once more prosperous as well as insecure, more connected and fragmented, more democratic in parts and more authoritarian in others. Globalisation, which is seen as a powerful agent of geopolitical change as well as of economic development, promises the best of times as well as possibly the worst.
The good news includes the prospect that the world economy will be 80 per cent bigger in 2020 than at the beginning of the century. Average incomes will rise by 50 per cent, with most of the growth coming from poorer regions.
For all that it forecasts rising challenges to US primacy, the NIC also expects America to remain by far and away the world's preponderant power, retaining significant leads in economic output, technological and educational attainment and military prowess. The prospect of a great power conflict akin to the global conflagrations that scarred the first half of the 20th century thus seems relatively remote.
The binding thread of the report, though, is the conclusion that the international order that sustained the peace during the second half of that century risks becoming increasingly irrelevant in coming decades. The emergence of China and India, and possibly Brazil and Indonesia, as great powers will challenge the very concept of "the west" as a coherent entity. Other familiar axes of international relations - north/south, developed and developing - will seem far less relevant in a world in which China is the second biggest economic power and the output of Brazil matches that of Germany.
No-one yet knows how the new powers will be incorporated in the international system - or for that matter whether what we have come to see as a collaborative system will give way to something more akin to the competition between powers that defined the geopolitics, and conflicts, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Politicians yearn for predictability, for the straight lines that allow them to convey a simple message to voters. The future now is one of blind corners and unsignposted crossroads
...
Philip Stephens; Financial Times
NIC - 2020 Project
posted by CMT, 11:16 da tarde
