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 newerplayers 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 relativewealth and economic power roughlyfrom West to East now under way willcontinue.• 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 wantto challenge the Western order.

Relative Certainties Likely Impact

The United States will remain the single most powerful country but will be less dominant.

----------------------------------------------------Continued economic growth—coupledwith 1.2 billion more people by 2025—will put pressure on energy, food, andwater resources. 

Shrinking economic and military capabilities may force the US into a difficult set of tradeoffs between domestic versus foreign policy priorities. ---------------------------------------------------------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 Likely Impact

The number of countries with youthfulpopulations in the “arc of instability”1will decrease, but the populations ofseveral youth-bulge states are projectedto remain on rapid growth trajectories.

---------------------------------------------------------The potential for conflict will increaseowing to rapid changes in parts of thegreater Middle East and the spread oflethal capabilities.

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, China and India—will play greater roles than today.

Relative Certainties Likely Impact

Terrorism is unlikely to disappear by2025, but its appeal could lessen ifeconomic growth continues in theMiddle East and youth unemployment isreduced. For those terrorists that areactive the diffusion of technologies willput dangerous capabilities within theirreach. 

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) programsexpand. The practical and psychologicalconsequences of such attacks will intensify in an increasingly globalized world.

Key Uncertainties Potential Consequences

Whether an energy transition away fromoil and gas—supported by improvedenergy storage, biofuels, and cleancoal—is completed during the 2025time 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 GDPpotentially 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 long-term decline for producers as global and regional players. 

Key Uncertainties Potential Consequences

How quickly climate change occurs andthe locations where its impact is mostpronounced. --------------------------------------------------------Whether mercantilism stages a comeback and global markets recede.

---------------------------------------------------------Whether advances toward democracyoccur in China and Russia. 

Climate change is likely to exacerbate resource scarcities, particularly water scarcities. -----------------------------------------------------Descending into a world of resource nationalism increases the risk of great power confrontations. ------------------------------------------------------Political pluralism seems less likely in Russia in the absence of economic 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 nucler-armed Iran trigger an arms race andgreater militarization.

--------------------------------------------------------Whether the greater Middle East becomes more stable, especially whether Iraq stabilizes, and whether theArab-Israeli conflict is resolved peacefully.

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. 

Key Uncertainties Potential Consequences

Whether Europe and Japan overcome economic and social challenges caused or compounded by demography

---------------------------------------------------------Whether global powers work withmultilateral institutions to adapt theirstructure and performance to thetransformed geopolitical landscape. 

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.

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