"The likely emergence of China and India as new major global players - similar to the advent of a united Germany in the 19th century and a powerful United States in the early 20th century - will transform the geopolitical landscape," they conclude in their 120-page report, "Mapping the Global Future," published this week.

Their strikingly pessimistic report suggests that it will become a steadily more difficult world for the United States, with "dramatically altered alliances and relationships with Europe and Asia under threat, and with the military and strategic dominance the U.S. has enjoyed since the collapse of the Soviet Union starting to face more and more serious challenges.

"While no single country looks within striking distance of rivaling U.S. military power by 2020, more countries will be in a position to make the U.S. pay a heavy price for any military action they oppose," the report says.

"The European Union, rather than NATO, will increasingly become the primary institution for Europe," the report says, adding that it remains to be seen whether the EU seeks to become a world-class military superpower to match its leading economic status.

"Whether the EU will develop an army is an open question, in part because its creation could duplicate or displace NATO forces," says the report.

While weak on military force, Europe's strength may be in providing a model of global and regional governance, particularly if other countries are looking for a "Western" alternative to depending on the United States. An EU-China alliance, though still unlikely, is no longer unthinkable, the NIC suggests.

In Asia, the NIC report sees a range of possibilities as China and India become great powers, "from the U.S. enhancing its role as balancer between contending forces to Washington being seen as increasingly irrelevant."

And if the United States seeks to maintain its current global dominance (as the Bush administration's national security doctrine published in September 2002 says it should), it may not be able to afford it.

"The U.S. economy will become more vulnerable to fluctuations in the fortunes of others as global commercial networking deepens," says the NIC report. "U.S. dependence on foreign oil supplies also makes it more vulnerable as the competition for secure access grows and the risks of supply side disruptions increase."

Moreover, the United States may be facing a world that increasingly questions and opposes American ideas and values.

"Over the next 15 years the increasing centrality of ethical issues, old and new, have the potential to divide worldwide publics and challenge U.S. leadership," the report says.

"These issues include the environment and climate change, privacy, cloning and biotechnology, human rights, international law regulating conflict, and the role of multilateral institutions. The U.S. will increasingly have to battle world public opinion."

Amid all these challenges, strategic, economic, ethical and possibly military, the NIC says that terrorism remains its biggest worry.

"Our greatest concern is that terrorists might acquire biological agents or, less likely, a nuclear device, either of which could cause mass casualties," the report says.

"Bioterrorism appears particularly suited to the smaller, better-informed groups. We also expect that terrorists will attempt cyber attacks to disrupt critical information networks and, even more likely, to cause physical damage to information systems."

"The key factors that spawned international terrorism show no signs of abating over the next 15 years," it goes on.

"Facilitated by global communications, the revival of Muslim identity will create a framework for the spread of radical Islamic ideology inside and outside the Middle East, including Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Western Europe." (The report includes graphs that suggest that Muslims could account for between 23 and 38 percent of Europe's population by the year 2025.)

The new world is likely to be a less kindly and caring place, with the European and Japanese social models, based on a costly and generous welfare state, becoming unsustainable in a world of sharpening competition.

Japan and Europe are defined as the "ageing" powers, and their graying populations and shrinking work forces will become a major economic and political challenge for the years to come.

"Either European countries adapt their work forces, reform their social welfare, education, and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations, or they face a period of protracted economic stasis that could threaten the huge successes made in creating a more United Europe," the NIC warns.

The current welfare state is thought by to be "unsustainable," and the lack of any economic revitalization could lead to the "splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the European Union, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role.

Indeed, without fundamental economic reforms, the EU could break down within the next 15 years.

On the brighter side, the world economy is projected to grow by about 80 percent by 2020, and average per capita income should be roughly 50 percent higher - but this increased wealth is likely to be spread unevenly, and not necessarily in the same uneven way that recently benefited North America, Europe and Japan.

The NIC is officially defined as "a center of strategic thinking within the U.S. Government analyzing how world developments could evolve," and this is its third long term report after previous surveys of global trends looking ahead to the years 2010 and 2015.

The "Mapping the Global Future" project brings together academics from U.S. universities and think tanks with professional intelligence officers and analysts from the CIA, the U.S. military and the State Department.

The latest exercise took over a year and involved more than 1,000 people, most of them from the academic world. Ambassador Robert Hutchings, the NIC chairman, was a U.S. Navy officer who then became an adviser to the Secretary of State in 1992, and then ran the international studies department of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

All rights reserved. � 2004 United Press International. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by United Press International. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of United Press International.

Related Links
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only