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March 13, 2005
REVIEWS: The world in 2020
WHAT would the world look like 15 years from now? Preposterous as it may seem, this question may be easier to answer than what the world will look like just next year. To answer this question, the US National Intelligence Council (NIC), which advises the CIA, assembled an MGM-style cast of one thousand non-governmental futurists, including renowned authors such as Alvin Toffler and Peter Schwarz.
The product, a report entitled Mapping the Global Future, contains not one but multiple answers. It should be of great interest in Pakistan, since the previous report in this series laid out some very dire predictions for Pakistan in the year 2015. This report sidesteps those dire predictions, but it does talk about the dangers arising out of Kashmir, the questionable safety and reliability of Pakistan’s nuclear assets and the growth of radicalism.
China and India emerge in the report as arriviste powers. Their emergence will, like that of a united Germany in the 19th century and of the United States in the early 20th century, presage a transformation of the global geopolitical landscape. Their rise will come about through “a combination of sustained high economic growth, expanding military capabilities, and large populations”. It repeats the consensus among experts that by 2020, China’s gross national product (GNP) will exceed that of all others except for the US and that India’s GNP may well exceed that of all European economies.
The report cites globalization as an overarching “mega-trend”, but says that its benefits will not be shared equally. This could create tensions between state and non-state actors. The greatest benefits will accrue to countries that can access and adopt new technologies.
Globalization, while spurring global economic growth, would strain supplies of raw materials such as oil. The NIC cautions that new energy supplies that are being counted on for meeting rising demands are located in risky areas around the Caspian Sea, Venezuela, and West Africa. Supplies from the Middle East will continue to be fraught with their own risks. Energy issues, rather than regional conflicts, will shape Asian foreign policies.
Another significant trend called out in the report is the emergence of political Islam, which may lead to an authority that transcends national boundaries and extends beyond the Middle East.
Regardless of how this trend plays out, the world will be characterized by a pervasive sense of insecurity, brought on by the “absence of effective conflict resolution mechanisms in some regions, the rise of nationalism in some states, and the raw emotions and tensions on both sides of some issues, for example, the Taiwan Strait or India/Pakistan issues”. It expresses a concern that advances in modern weaponry could create circumstances encouraging the preemptive use of military force.
On the issue of terrorism, the report paints a grim picture. It says that Iraq has the potential for becoming a haven for terrorists and goes on to say that the key factors that have spawned international terrorism are unlikely to abate over the next 15 years. It points to the deepening solidarity among Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya, Iraq, Kashmir, Mindanao, and southern Thailand that could lead to the supercession of Al Qaeda by other extremist groups spawned from local separatist movements.
The report asserts it will be harder to fight such groups than a centralized Al Qaeda but stops short of saying that the US to needs to change its strategy, from a unidimensional focus on the military to a multi-dimensional approach involving the creation of more open political systems in the Muslim world and to bringing economic development to the Muslim world.
One wishes that the report had been more specific on this topic, so that it would not be mistaken for representing a continuation of the current US policy, which involves exporting democracy at the battle of a gun and the carrying out of psychological operations.
While not claiming to predict the future, the report lays out four scenarios of the world in 2020. One of them, “Davos World”, is marked by rapid global growth in China and India. Another, “Pax Americana”, envisions a world where the US has ably fashioned a more inclusive global order. A third one, “Caliphate”, represents a culmination of the global movement fueled by radical Muslim groups and a fourth one, “Cycle of Fear”, heralds the creation of Orwellian states that impose intrusive security measures on their citizens.
The report says that while so single country will rival the US militarily, several will be in a position to make the US pay a heavy price for carrying out military missions against them. It also recognizes that the US will increasingly find itself at odds with world public opinion, and acknowledges it has dramatically shifted since the end of the Cold War.
The report suffers from several weaknesses. For example, it does not discuss how the rise of India will be taken by its smaller neighbors, particularly Pakistan, or whether or not it will lead to a clash with China. Nor does it discuss how the rise of China will be perceived by those in Washington who are the jealous guardians of American primacy and who had proclaimed in the mid-nineties that this was going to the next American century.
As Michael Lind of the New America Foundation noted recently, the US is adopting the very strategy that caused the Soviet Union to lose the Cold War. It is relying exclusively on military power to intimidate other nations. Andrew Bacevich in his book, A New Militarism, argues that militarism has crept into America’s strategic culture. War is now a first resort, contrary to American ideals and values.
The NIC document is silent on the reverse impact of pursuing a misguided foreign policy on American culture and security. Even then, it differs so much from the Pollyannic thinking coming out of the Pentagon that it is a must read for all students of current affairs, not just the futurists.
Mapping the Global Future
US National Intelligence Council
Report available on the website: www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_globaltrend2020.html
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