Predictions of American Intelligence Officials by 2025

The growth of the world population alongside the diminishing natural resources, including energy and water, combined with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, could draw large parts of the globe into devastating regional conflicts in the next 15 to 20 years, as predicted in the new report “Global Trends 2025” by the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC).

The NIC report, an analytical body that brings together experts from 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, covers a wide range of strategic issues, including great power rivalry, demographic trends, climate change, terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation, and the state of energy and natural resources by 2025. The report paints a grim picture of a world of weak states, armed with weapons of mass destruction, and unable to cope with the burden of an increasing population without sufficient drinking water and food.

“These states most sensitive to conflict are located in a large arc of instability that stretches from sub-Saharan Africa, through North Africa, across the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, to South and Central Asia and parts of Southeast Asia,” the report states. The greatest pessimism is associated with the Middle East, which is assessed to potentially enter a nuclear arms race if Iran continues to develop such weapons.

“The prospects that a nuclear-armed Iran will trigger a nuclear arms race in the broader Middle East will bring new security challenges to this conflict-prone region, especially in conjunction with the proliferation of long-range missiles,” NIC analysts emphasize. The prospects for the use of nuclear weapons are assessed as “very low,” but with an increase in the next two decades, alongside the spread of nuclear technology.

The NIC predicts that the U.S. will remain the dominant world power by 2025, but with a relative decline and limitation of that dominance, alongside the strengthening influence of China, India, and Russia. “The U.S. will have less power in a multipolar world than it has enjoyed for many decades,” it is predicted. By 2025, “the U.S. will be one of several important players on the world stage,” playing “an important role in global events” but no longer as decisive as in the past.

The global shift from West to East in terms of wealth and economic power is “unprecedented in modern history.” Of the projected increase in the world population by 1.2 billion people, only three percent will be in Western countries, the report highlights. “We forecast a multipolar world. The unipolar moment is over, or will certainly be over by 2025,” said Thomas Fingar, chairman of the NIC, at a briefing on the report’s release.

For Russia, its emergence as a world power is assessed as “clouded” by persistent corruption and lagging investment in key energy industries, as well as the lack of development in other industries. NIC analysts warn that the same type of organized crime affecting Russia could lead to a country in Eastern or Central Europe being “effectively taken over and run by organized crime,” without naming a specific country.

No other country is forecasted to strengthen to the level of China, India, or Russia, with China standing out in terms of global influence, which will be the second-largest economy in the world by 2025 and an increasingly significant military power. The authors believe that countries such as Indonesia, Turkey, and post-clerical Iran can play dynamic roles in their regions. One of the bright predictions is the decline of the strength of the terrorist network Al Qaeda due to multiple weaknesses, such as “unachievable strategic goals, inability to gain broad support, and self-destructive actions.”

The NIC also predicts a weakening of the appeal of terrorism in general, especially with economic growth and declining unemployment in the Middle East. One of the greatest concerns is the terrorist use of biological weapons, or less likely, nuclear devices, to cause mass casualties. The NIC report adopts forecasts from the World Bank that food demand will grow by 50 percent by 2030, as a result of the growing population and the shift to a Western diet by an increasingly numerous middle class.

The number of countries with insufficient water supplies is expected to rise from 21 to 36 by 2025, with a combined population increasing from 600 million to 1.4 billion people. The emergence of new, highly contagious viral respiratory diseases for which there is no appropriate treatment could trigger a global pandemic, with examples cited such as bird flu, the H5N1 virus, or SARS coronavirus, and other forms of influenza. Possible outbreak locations for the pandemic are mentioned as “parts of China or Southeast Asia.” Globally, about one-third of the population could become ill, and hundreds of millions could die.

In terms of technology, the authors predict that the transition from fossil fuels to new energy sources will be slow, as will the development of new technologies, which are unlikely to be commercially available by 2025. However, it is noted that the world will rid itself of dependence on oil by 2025. It is assessed that the U.S. will take a leading role in the fight against climate change globally. Regarding global warming, among other things, it is said that it will extend the agricultural season in Russia and Canada and facilitate their access to oil fields in the north, strengthening their economies.

The report Global Trends 2025 is the fourth of its kind, and the NIC publishes it every four years to provide U.S. leaders with long-term insights into the problems and opportunities indicated by global trends. “This is not a prediction. Nothing we have identified in this report is set in stone. Nothing is inevitable or immutable. These are trends, developments, and dynamics that are subject to political interventions and manipulations,” emphasized Thomas Fingar at the briefing. (Hina/Metro-portal)