Every four years since 1997, the US National Intelligence Council has been publishing a Global Trends report on the key trends that will shape the world over the following twenty years. This unclassified strategic report is intended to provide the incoming administration and other senior leaders with a framework for long-range policy assessment.
Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, released four years ago, identified four overarching megatrends that are expected to shape and transform the world by 2030: the empowerment of individuals - which will accelerate the reduction of poverty and raise the standard of living around the world; the diffusion of power among states, - which will shift power to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world; changing demographic patterns especially rapid aging, urbanization, and increased migration; and growing demands on resources such as food, water and energy, - which might lead to scarcities.
The latest Global Trends report, Paradox of Progress, was released earlier this year. It begins by explaining its title. “We are living a paradox: The achievements of the industrial and information ages are shaping a world to come that is both more dangerous and richer with opportunity than ever before… The progress of the past decades is historic - connecting people, empowering individuals, groups, and states, and lifting a billion people out of poverty in the process. But this same progress also spawned shocks like the Arab Spring, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and the global rise of populist, anti-establishment politics. These shocks reveal how fragile the achievements have been, underscoring deep shifts in the global landscape that portend a dark and difficult near future.”
- The rich are aging, the poor are not. Younger, working-age populations are shrinking in advanced economies, China and Russia, while growing in poorer countries especially in Africa and South Asia, continuing to spur migration around the world.
- The global economy is shifting. Weak economic growth will persist in the near term, a result of shrinking workforces and diminishing productivity gains in advanced economies, and threatening poverty reduction in emerging and developing countries.
- Technology is accelerating progress but causing discontinuities. While creating new opportunities, technology advances will continue to aggravate divisions between winners and losers. Automation and AI threaten to further displace workers in advanced economies and limit development opportunities in emerging ones.
- Ideas and identities are driving a wave of exclusion. Weak growth, limited opportunities and global connectivity will increase tensions within and between countries, giving rise to populism, xenophobia and more authoritative governments.
- Governing is getting harder. Governments will find it harder to satisfy the growing demands of their citizens, especially greater security and a higher standard of living.
- The nature of conflict is changing. Conflicts will likely increase due to the diverging interests of major powers, terrorism threats, instability in weak states, and the spread of lethal weapons and technologies.
- Climate change, environment, and health issues will demand attention. A number of global hazards pose threats that can only be properly addressed through collective actions, including extreme weather, rising sea-levels, greater pollution, water shortages, food scarcities and pandemic threats.
As these trends evolve and amplify each other, governing and cooperation will become harder, change the nature of power, and fundamentally alter the global landscape, leading to what the report calls The Map of the Future:
The next five years will see rising tensions within and between countries. “Global growth will slow, just as increasingly complex global challenges impend. An ever-widening range of states, organizations, and empowered individuals will shape geopolitics. For better and worse, the emerging global landscape is drawing to a close an era of American dominance following the Cold War. So, too, perhaps is the rules-based international order that emerged after World War II. It will be much harder to cooperate internationally and govern in ways publics expect. Veto players will threaten to block collaboration at every turn, while information “echo chambers” will reinforce countless competing realities, undermining shared understandings of world events.”
Meanwhile, states remain highly relevant. China and Russia will be emboldened, while regional aggressors and nonstate actors will see openings to pursue their interests. “Uncertainty about the United States, an inward-looking West, and erosion of norms for conflict prevention and human rights will encourage China and Russia to check US influence. In doing so, their ‘gray zone’ aggression and diverse forms of disruption will stay below the threshold of hot war but bring profound risks of miscalculation… These trends are leading to a spheres of influence world.”
Nor is the picture much better on the home front for many countries. “While decades of global integration and advancing technology enriched the richest and lifted billion out of poverty, mostly in Asia, it also hollowed out Western middle classes and stoked pushback against globalization. Migrant flows are greater now than in the past 70 years, raising the specter of drained welfare coffers and increased competition for jobs, and reinforcing nativist, anti-elite impulses. Slow growth plus technology-induced disruptions in job markets will threaten poverty reduction and drive tensions within countries in the years to come, fueling the very nationalism that contributes to tensions between countries.”
But, the report also reminds us that this dreary view of the future is not cast in stone. Whether brighter or darker, the future depends on our answers to these three key questions:
- “How will individuals, groups, and governments renegotiate their expectations of one another to create political order in an era of empowered individuals and rapidly changing economies?”
- “To what extent will major state powers, as well as individuals and groups, craft new patterns or architectures of international cooperation and competition?”
- “To what extent will governments, groups, and individuals prepare now for multifaceted global issues like climate change and transformative technologies?”
Finally, Paradox of Progress illustrates how the future might play out over the next few decades through three different scenarios or short stories, each embodying the key issues, trends, decisions and uncertainties that are likely to define the next 20 years:
Islands presumes long periods of slow or no growth, as governments adjust to changing economic and technological conditions. “The scenario emphasizes the challenges to governments in meeting societies’ demands for both economic and physical security as popular pushback to globalization increases, emerging technologies transform work and trade, and political instability grows.” Some governments will turn inward and adopt protectionist policies, while others will find new sources of economic growth.
Orbits explores a future of rising tensions as competing major powers seek to establish their own spheres of influence. This scenario “examines how the trends of rising nationalism, changing conflict patterns, emerging disruptive technologies, and decreasing global cooperation might combine to increase the risk of interstate conflict.” Competing governments face serious policy choices that will either reinforce stability and peace or further exacerbate tensions with each other.
Communities looks at the impact of weakening national governments, and the rise of alternative governance networks of local governments, companies, advocacy groups and charities. Leveraging information technologies, they will likely “prove nimbler than national governments in delivering services to sway populations in support of their agendas.” While some national governments will resist this potential scenario, other will embrace and share power with these emerging governance partners.
“As the paradox of progress implies, the same trends generating near-term risks also can create opportunities for better outcomes over the long term… In the emerging global landscape, rife with surprise and discontinuity, the states and organizations most able to exploit such opportunities will be those that are resilient, enabling them to adapt to changing conditions, persevere in the face of unexpected adversity, and take actions to recover quickly. Similarly, the most resilient societies will likely be those that unleash and embrace the full potential of all individuals - whether women and minorities or those battered by recent economic and technological trends… [T]he central puzzle before governments and societies is how to blend individual, collective, and national endowments in a way that yields sustainable security, prosperity, and hope.”
Paradox of Progress is a product, at least in part, of a constantly changing set of preferences and capabilities of that strongest, yet most fragile component of the global system -- the human.
Defining the capabilities required to deal with each of the three scenarios seems to me of paramount importance.
What consideration is being given to this issue?
Jim
Posted by: James Drogan | May 15, 2017 at 11:06 AM
What is striking about this summary is the complete and total ignorance of the concept of ownership. As long as less than 1% of the population owns a majority of the earth's resources the "paradoxes" will only multiply. We've reached a turning point in our evolution. Technological gain will continue to serve us only if we figure out how to distribute and share the wealth we make. I'd add an eighth trend and list it first: "The lower and middle classes notice that they are being dealt out of the game."
Posted by: Mitch Anthony | May 15, 2017 at 10:58 PM