Download The Geopolitical Landscape: A 25 years long

A 25 years Long-Range Projections
February 2011
It’s the year 2011. What does the geopolitical landscape look like?
 The return of Asia to the world stage will define the era.
 The chasm between the United States and China could widen as their differing interests become more
pronouced.
 Emerging powers, even democratic ones, will have separate agendas, making international integration
more difficult.
 Cooperative approaches to an array of global issues, such as climate change, will be difficult to
accomplish.
 Nonstate actors, ranging from unofficial governing entities to terrorist organizations, will grow,
particularly in weak states.
 The United States’ influence, diminished by the rise of other states and nonstate actors, will be fatally
undercut if the country does not curb its unustainable reliance on debt.
 Avoiding famine will depend on a vast expansion of Africa’s lagging agriculture productivity.
 The resurgence of all the major religions will be marked by post-Western versions of Christianity and a
return of religious practice to secular Europe.
 Half the world will experience “fertility implosions,” thus leading to shortages of working-age
populations, with only sub-Saharan Africa producing a surplus of working-age men.
 The technology revolution, epitomized by the internet, will empower both people yearning for
democracy and repressive tyrants.
 The United States will remain the primary source of clear-enery revolution.
 Those states that best educate their citizens will win economic competition.
Relative Certainties
Likely Impact
Power today is distributed in a pattern that
resembles a complex three-dimensional chess
game. On the top chessboard, military power is
largely unipolar, and the United States is likely
to retain primacy for quite some time. On the
middle chessboard, economic power has been
multipolar for more than a decade, with the
United States, Europe, Japan, and China as the
major players and others gaining in importance.
The bottom chessboard is the realm of
transnational relations. It includes nonstate
actors as diverse as bankers who electronically
transfer funds, terrorists who traffic weapons,
hackers who threaten cybersecurity, and
challenges such as pandemics and climate
change. On this bottom board, power is widely
diffused, and it makes no sense to speak of
unipolarity, multipolarity, or hegemony.
By 2025 a single “international
community”
composed of nation-states will no longer
exist.
Power will be more dispersed with the
newer
players bringing new rules of the game
while risks will increase that the traditional
Western alliances will weaken. Rather than
emulating Western models of political and
economic development, more countries
may be attracted to China’s alternative
development model.
Relative Certainties
Likely Impact
• The unprecedented shift in relative
wealth and economic power roughly
from West to East now under way will
continue.
• China has a long way to go to equal the
power resources of the United States,
and it still faces many obstacles to its
development. Even if overall Chinese
GDP passed that of the United States
around 2030, the two economies,
although roughly equivalent in size,
would not be equivalent in composition.
As some countries become more invested
in their economic well-being, incentives
toward geopolitical stability could
increase. However, the transfer is
strengthening states like Russia that want
to challenge the Western order.
Relative Certainties
Likely Impact
The United States will remain the
single most powerful country but will
be less dominant.
Shrinking economic and military
capabilities may force the US into a
difficult set of tradeoffs between domestic
versus foreign policy priorities.
---------------------------------------------------Continued economic growth—coupled
with 1.2 billion more people by 2025—
will put pressure on energy, food, and
water resources.
--------------------------------------------------------The pace of technological innovation will
be key to outcomes during this period. All
current technologies are inadequate for
replacing traditional energy architecture
on the scale needed.
Relative Certainties
The number of countries with youthful
populations in the “arc of instability”1
will decrease, but the populations of
several youth-bulge states are projected
to remain on rapid growth trajectories.
Likely Impact
Unless employment conditions change
dramatically in parlous youth-bulge
states such as Afghanistan, Nigeria,
Pakistan, and Yemen, these countries
will remain ripe for continued instability
and state failure.
-----------------------------------------------------The need for the US to act as regional
balancer inthe Middle East will increase,
--------------------------------------------------------- although other outside powers—Russia,
The potential for conflict will increase
China and India—will play greater roles
owing to rapid changes in parts of the
than today.
greater Middle East and the spread of
lethal capabilities.
Relative Certainties
Likely Impact
Terrorism is unlikely to disappear by
2025, but its appeal could lessen if
economic growth continues in the
Middle East and youth unemployment is
reduced. For those terrorists that are
active the diffusion of technologies will
put dangerous capabilities within their
reach.
Opportunities for mass-casualty terrorist
attacks using chemical, biological, or less
likely, nuclear weapons will increase as
technology diffuses and nuclear power
(and possibly weapons) programs
expand. The practical and psychological
consequences of such attacks will
intensify in an increasingly globalized
world.
Key Uncertainties
Potential Consequences
Whether an energy transition away from
oil and gas—supported by improved
energy storage, biofuels, and clean
coal—is completed during the 2025
time frame.
With high oil and gas prices, major
exporters such as Russia and Iran will
substantially augment their levels of
national power, with Russia’s GDP
potentially approaching that of the UK and
France.
A sustained plunge in prices, perhaps
underpinned by a fundamental switch to
new energy sources,could trigger a longterm decline for producers as global and
regional players.
Key Uncertainties
Potential Consequences
How quickly climate change occurs and
the locations where its impact is most
pronounced.
Climate change is likely to exacerbate
resource scarcities, particularly water
scarcities.
-------------------------------------------------------Whether mercantilism stages a comeback
and global markets recede.
----------------------------------------------------Descending into a world of resource
nationalism increases the risk of great
power confrontations.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Political pluralism seems less likely in
Whether advances toward democracy
Russia in the absence of economic
occur in China and Russia.
diversification. A growing middle class
increases the chances of political
liberalization and potentially greater
nationalism in China.
Key Uncertainties
Potential Consequences
Whether regional fears about a nuclerarmed Iran trigger an arms race and
greater militarization.
Episodes of low-intensity conflict and
terrorism taking place under a nuclear
umbrella could lead to an unintended
escalation and broader conflict.
------------------------------------------------------Turbulence is likely to increase under
most scenarios. Revival of economic
growth, a more prosperous Iraq, and
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian
dispute could engender some stability as
the region deals with a strengthening Iran
and global transition away from oil and
gas.
-------------------------------------------------------Whether the greater Middle East becomes
more stable, especially whether Iraq
stabilizes, and whether theArab-Israeli
conflict is resolved peacefully.
Key Uncertainties
Potential Consequences
Whether Europe and Japan overcome
economic and social challenges caused or
compounded by demography
Successful integration of Muslim
minorities in Europe could expand the size
of the productive work forces and avert
social crisis. Lack of efforts by Europe and
Japan to mitigate demographic challenges
could lead to long-term declines
--------------------------------------------------------Emerging powers show ambivalence
toward global institutions like the UN and
IMF, but this could change as they become
bigger players on the global stage. Asian
integration could lead to more powerful
regional institutions. NATO faces stiff
challenges in meeting growing out-of-area
responsibilities with declining European
military capabilities. Traditional alliances
will weaken.
--------------------------------------------------------Whether global powers work with
multilateral institutions to adapt their
structure and performance to the
transformed geopolitical landscape.
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The Strategic Landscape has changed Considerably
Some improvements, several entrenched problems,
and slow progress in some areas for the foreseeable
Future.
Several Large scale threats to the Fundamental
Stability of the International Security System