A quadrennial report from the US Government's National Intelligence Council (NIC) forecasts Asia taking over the reins of global power from the United States and Europe within two decades.
The "megatrends" identified by the report titled "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds" include individual empowerment and transfer of power from the West to the global East and South.
The diffusion of power among countries will have a dramatic impact by 2030, according to NIC, which says this report is intended to stimulate thinking about the rapid and vast geopolitical changes characterizing the world today and possible global trajectories during the next 15-20 years.
"Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, based upon GDP, population size, military spending, and technological investment. China alone will probably have the largest economy, surpassing that of the United States a few years before 2030."
"Potential Black Swans that would cause the greatest disruptive impact" include collapse or sudden retreat of US power, which probably would result in an extended period of global anarchy; no leading power would be likely to replace the United States as guarantor of the international order.
A return to pre-2008 growth rates and previous patterns of rapid globalization looks increasingly unlikely, at least for the next decade, as per the Global Trends report.
It does not rule out another major global economic crisis. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the potential impact of an unruly Greek exit from the euro zone could cause eight times the collateral damage as the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.
In addition to China, India, and Brazil, regional players such as Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Turkey will become especially important to the global economy. The economies of Europe, Japan, and Russia are likely to continue their slow relative declines, says the report.
The report also talks about the possibility of the emergence of a democratic China or a reformed Iran, saying it is not trying to predict the future, but provide a framework for thinking about possible futures and their implications.
The shift in national power may be overshadowed by an even more fundamental shift in the nature of power, enabled by communications technologies.
The NIC suggests that individual empowerment will accelerate substantially during the next 15-20 years due to poverty reduction and a huge growth of the global middle class, greater educational attainment, and better health care. For the first time, a majority of the world's population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world.
The report points to a potential danger of individuals and small groups having greater access to lethal and disruptive technologies (particularly precision-strike capabilities, cyber instruments, and bioterror weaponry), enabling them to perpetrate large-scale violence—a capability that has been the monopoly of states.
NIC believes that in the world of 2030, when the global population will have reached somewhere close to 8.3 billion people (up from 7.1 billion in 2012), four demographic trends will fundamentally shape most countries' economic and political conditions and relations among countries. They are, aging, a still significant but shrinking number of youthful societies and states, migration, and growing urbanization.
Demand for food, water, and energy will grow by approximately 35, 40, and 50 percent respectively owing to an increase in the global population and the consumption patterns of an expanding middle class. Climate change will worsen the outlook for the availability of these critical resources. Climate change analysis suggests that the severity of existing weather patterns will intensify, with wet areas getting wetter and dry and arid areas becoming more so. Much of the decline in precipitation will occur in the Middle East and northern Africa as well as western Central Asia, southern Europe, southern Africa, and the US Southwest.
NIC makes it clear that it is not trying to frighten the world that it is headed to a world of scarcities, but alerting policymakers and their private sector partners of the need to be proactive to avoid such a future.
It is good news for the United States, and the global community as a whole, in the energy sector. The world's largest natural gas producer, the US could become energy-independent in the coming decades, according to the NIC report. Additional crude oil production through the use of hydraulic fracturing technology on difficult-to-reach oil deposits could result in a big reduction in the US net trade balance and improved overall economic growth.
This would contribute to global spare capacity exceeding over 8 million barrels, at which point OPEC would lose price control and crude oil prices would collapse, causing a major negative impact on oil-export economies, the report anticipates.
Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, with NIC Counselor Mathew Burrows as its principal author, is the fifth installment in a series of reports published every four years.
The initial draft was subject to comments by experts on key themes discussed in Global Trends 2030 in about 20 countries.
National Intelligence Council Chairman Christopher Kojm expressed hope this report "stimulates dialogue on the challenges that will confront the global community during the next 15-20 years, and positive and peaceful ways to meet them."
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