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.
Obama has made his first speech on climate, via video to US governors…
He had this message for those who will shortly be heading to Poznan:
Let me also say a special word to the delegates from around the world who will gather in Poland next month: your work is vital to the planet. While I won’t be President at the time of your meeting and while the United States has only one President at a time, I’ve asked Members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there. Once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change. Now’s the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option, Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high; the consequences too serious.
The rumour that Barack Obama may appoint Hilary Clinton as his top diplomat has filled the Sunday papers. Personally, I think she would be a better Defense Secretary or a nominee to the Supreme Court, although she is bound to do well as Secretary of State too.
If she were given the State Department, she is more likely to follow Colin Powell’s management style -– which a place like Foggy Bottom sorely needs –- than emulate Condi Rice’s neglect of the department. At the same time, she is likely to play a key role in foreign policy, unlike General Powell, as President Obama is compelled to focus on the economy.
It is just that I think Senator Clinton would do better at the Pentagon. She supported the Iraq War, which will make her better at coaxing the military into a draw-down of forces and a shift of focus onto Afghanistan. Though the officers and soldiers will accept the democratic transition from Bush to Obama, a military that has gone to war twice, suffered both casualties and reputationally, and seen itself as the sharp end of U.S foreign policy for eight years will need to be helped to make the switch by someone they trust. With her hawkish views, time on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and work on Unified Action, a large U.S military exercise, the New York senator is well placed to take this role on.
– The summit is unlikely to be able to live up to its billing. Leaders do not yet understand the nature of the problem well enough to be able to implement viable solutions. However, the problem is more fundamental than a simple lack of shared awareness.
– History suggests that leaders will only think the unthinkable on institutional reform once the challenge they face has really hit rock bottom. But history also suggests that we are wrong to think that the worst of the crisis is now past, given that many past banking crises have taken five years or more to unravel.
– Bretton Woods 1 looked across the whole international economic waterfront in 1944, while this weekend’s summit will be much more narrowly focused. Leaders will make a big mistake if they try and tackle finance in isolation, given the growing impact of resource scarcity, and that 2009 is supposed to see another ambitious global deal – on climate.
– We need to recalibrate what we expect from globalization through a serious debate about subsidiarity. Where has globalization gone too far, too fast? Where do we need more integration at a global level? These were exactly the questions that preoccupied Keynes in 1933, when he weighed the relative benefits of global versus local across a range of variables. We need a similar debate today as a precursor to serious international economic reform.
– Leaders need to extend their horizons in (at least) five directions: onto longer time scales; beyond financial regulation into wider resource scarcity challenges; into other international processes, especially climate; towards grand bargains with emerging powers; and beyond government, to non-governmental networks.
Full version after the jump, or better yet here’s the pdf.
The US secret service has assigned Obama the code name ‘Renegade’. The Chicago Tribune, Obama’s hometown paper, reported that Obama’s wife has been named ‘Renaissance’, and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha, have been given the designations ‘Radiance’ and ‘Rosebud’.
