One year ago I started drjonsicu.com in the midst of the surreal brain numbing boredom of the Covid lockdown. I’ve written about 60 or so posts during that time on Covid, politics, news items and a general observation of the state America finds herself in. I read about 20 articles a day ranging from the extreme right to the extreme left. I’ve tried to provide unbiased (well not always) objective information. Upon reflection today, I realize a great deal of it is pretty pessimistic…..which I’m usually not. But something has changed in America and Covid just highlighted it.
I decided to research the concept of The Decline of America. Not an easy topic to search due to anti-social media and big tech controlled “news” outlets that don’t have un-biased material. It’s now possible to see and hear only what you WANT TO. I wrote about this in this post https://drjonsicu.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=635&action=edit entitled “Finding the “News” That Fits What You WANT to Believe”. I found plenty of garbage articles touting Biden as the savior from the havoc Trump had caused America. Likewise an equal amount of “bring back Trump” to save America. Well it’s not quite that simple. No surprise considering that a new Reuter’s poll puts the American media in LAST PLACE in the WORLD in media trust!
I stumbled upon a fascinating piece that was generated by The National Intelligence Council. “The National Intelligence Council (NIC) is best known as the organization that produces National Intelligence Estimates, which are intelligence community-wide forecasts of issues and challenges facing the security of the United States. The NIC reports to the Director of National Intelligence in his capacity as head of the intelligence community.” The NIC has delivered Global Trends, their REPORT to each incoming or returning U.S. presidential administration since 1997 as an unclassified assessment of the strategic environment, reflecting a broad range of expert opinion in the United States and abroad. The report is intended to help policymakers and citizens anticipate and prepare for a range of possible futures. So let’s have a look at some of the earlier ones and see if they got it right. Let’s start with the 2004 report predicting what the world would look like in 2020.
Most forecasts indicate that by 2020 China’s gross national product (GNP) will
exceed that of individual Western economic powers except for the United States.
India’s GNP will have overtaken or be on the threshold of overtaking European
economies.
Because of the sheer size of China’s and India’s populations—projected by the US
Census Bureau to be 1.4 billion and almost 1.3 billion respectively by 2020—their
standard of living need not approach Western levels for these countries to become
important economic powers.
The crisis over North Korea is likely to come to a head sometime over the next 15 years.
The key factors that spawned international terrorism show no signs of abating
over the next 15 years.
The global female trafficking industry, which already earns
an estimated $4 billion every year, is likely to expand, making it the second most
profitable criminal activity behind global drug trafficking.
Over the next 10 to 20 years there is a risk that advances in
biotechnology will augment not only defensive measures but also offensive biological
warfare (BW) agent development and allow the creation of advanced biological agents
designed to target specific systems—human, animal, or crop. (YIKES!!!)
All in all some pretty AMAZING predictions!! Remember….this report was written in 2004 about 2020!! These folks are good….too bad no one seems to be listening to them in DC. Let’s have a look at the 2008 report predicting 2025. The U.S. NIC admitted for the first time that America’s global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. Chinese innovation is on a trajectory toward world leadership in applied science and military technology sometime between 2020 and 2030, just as America’s current supply of brilliant scientists and engineers retires, without adequate replacement by an ill-educated younger generation. Here are the key findings:
A global multipolar system is emerging with the rise of China, India, and others.
The relative power of non-state actors—businesses, tribes, religious organizations, and even criminal networks—also will increase
The unprecedented shift in relative wealth and economic power roughly
from West to East now under way will continue.
The United States will remain the single most powerful country but will be less
dominant.
The potential for conflict will increase owing to rapid changes in parts of the
greater Middle East and the spread of lethal capabilities.
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.
Climate change is likely to exacerbate resource scarcities, particularly water scarcities.
The report than explores several vignettes as to the direction things may go after again reiterating that the U.S. is in decline. Let’s have a look at them.
- Global Scenario I, A World Without the West. The emerging powers will assume a greater role in areas affecting their vital interests, particularly in view of what may be growing burden fatigue for Western countries. These would be China, India and others.
- Global Scenario II, October Surprise. Global inattention to climate change leads to major unexpected impacts, thrusting the world into a new level of vulnerability. An extreme weather event—as described in this scenario—could occur. Coping with the greater frequency of such events, coupled with other physical impacts of climate change such as growing water scarcities and more food crises, may preoccupy policymakers even while options for solving such problems dwindle. HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS FOR THIS NEXT VISION: The emergence of a novel, highly transmissible, and virulent human respiratory illness for which there are no adequate countermeasures could initiate a global pandemic. If a pandemic disease emerges by 2025, internal and cross-border tension and conflict will become more likely as nations struggle—with degraded capabilities—to control the movement of populations seeking to avoid infection or maintain access to resources. YIKES!!! It goes on to say: “If a pandemic disease emerges, it probably will first occur in an area marked by high population density and close association between humans and animals, such as many areas of China“
- Global Scenario III, BRIC’s (Brazil, Russia, India and China) bust up. Chinese fears of disruption of China’s energy supplies spark a clash with India. With increasing resource constraints likely out to 2025, disputes over resources appear to us to be a growing potential source of conflict.
- Global Scenario IV, Politics is not always local. National governments’ relevance and power lessens in an increasingly decentralized world. In other words the role the U.S. plays in global politics will continue to decline.
So there you have SOME of it. Fascinating stuff with literally HUNDREDS of pages to look through. You can browse through it here: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf Frighteningly prophetic, it gives us pause. Why don’t we learn from the past? Nations can fall literally overnight. Empires are fragile and can unravel very quickly. A year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain. And THIS article is talking about 2025!! The most recent Global Trends report was published in March, 2021 projecting out to 2040. It envisions five plausible scenarios for the distant future in 2040. Look for my next post to look at THE FUTURE! You can take a peek here: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/GlobalTrends_2040.pdf
It’s later than you think!! Happy? 4th of July!