The US National Intelligence Council – which supports the Director of National Intelligence and is the centre for long-range analysis in the US intelligence community – has just published a major report on global trends to 2025 (pdf).
The timing’s no accident: the report was deliberately scheduled to emerge after the election but before the inauguration, in order to set out a bipartisan, big picture view of the global context for the incoming President, and to be at the top of the in-tray of his National Security Advisor. In keeping with the increasingly open stance of the Office of the DNI (see David’s post on the DNI Open Source Conference, which he attended in DC earlier this year), the NIC report has been based on intensive engagement with external stakeholders around the world, including two Chatham House seminars.
Although most UK coverage focuses on the report’s key message of the ‘sun setting on US power’ (almost identical headlines in the Guardian and the Times), the other standout story here is the prominence given to scarcity issues. Energy, food and water constraints, together with climate change, are all mentioned in the very first paragraph of the report’s executive summary; by contrast, you need to search through the next four pages of the report before you’ll find any mention of the word ‘terrorism’.
It’s a sobering analysis – and one that poses the question of whether US and international policymaking systems are up to the job. David and I have an analysis piece in the Guardian this morning arguing that the answer to that is a resounding No.
