Some quotes, future forcasts, from Strategic Trends 2007-2036

“Kamal, that’s like totally boring !!!”

So, I am reading “Strategic Trends 2007-2036” a document of near future forecasts made by the UK’s Ministry of Defense DCDC Directorate General. I’m also reading a few other interesting bureaucratic pearls that I might post about later.

So, you should check it out. Why? Well, I find it to be a really fascinating document, that attempts to forecast and analyze future social and strategic trends in the Western World for the next 30 years. I do not buy into many of the document’s conclusions. At all. And yet, I still find it fascinating.

What I find most interesting about these type of strategic forecast documents (many are open, non-classified, and floating around in libraries and on the net) is the way they illustrate the set of assumptions carried by the people who write these sort of things.

What they say about the authors’ worldviews, and those of the policy-making and implementing circles they float in. High and refined milieux indeed.

Let’s take it further, such writings speak to the assumptions, beliefs, hopes, and fears, of the classes from which these bureaucratic management apparat and elites are drawn.

Anyone who wants to be an informed citizen should read these things and think them over.

So here are a few interesting predictions

“…By 2010, most people (above 50%) will be living in urban rather than rural
environments. Poor housing, weak infrastructure and social deprivation will
combine with low municipal capacity to create a range of new instability risks in
areas of rapid urbanization, especially in those urban settlements that contain a
high proportion of unplanned and shanty development…

..During the next 30 years, every aspect of human life will change at an unprecedented
rate, throwing up new features, challenges and opportunities. Three areas of change, or
Ring Road issues, will touch the lives of everyone on the planet and will underpin these
processes: climate change, globalization and global inequality (see panels below).
Progressive climate change will shape the physical environment within which a rapidly
expanding world population will live, influencing variable access to habitable land, food
and water. The volume of the world economy will grow more quickly than at any time in
human history and, in socio-economic terms, will become more tightly integrated, creating
globalized interdependencies and enabling multiple supra-national linkages in all areas of
human endeavour.

While life for most people is likely to improve materially, a significant number will
continue to experience hardship, and unevenness and fluctuations within a globalized
market-based economy will still mean that life will be uncertain for most. In all but the
most affluent societies, rapid, large shifts in global markets, which are increasingly
sensitive to uneven supply and changing demand, will result in potentially dramatic
changes in personal fortune and confidence. Globalized communications will feed
aspirations, heighten expectations and will serve to expose differences in advantage and
opportunity, stimulating grievance and raising the significance of global inequality as a
social and political issue…”

others..

“The Middle Class Proletariat
The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the
proletariat by Marx. The globalization of labour markets and reducing levels of national
welfare provision and employment could reduce peoples’ attachment to particular states.
The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich
individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes
are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of
acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite. Faced by these twin
challenges, the world’s middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources
and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest.”

“Decline in Ethical Constraints
A more permissive R&D environment could accelerate the decline of ethical constraints
and restraints. The speed of technological and cultural change could overwhelm society’s
ability to absorb the ethical implications and to develop and apply national and
international regulatory and legal controls. Such a regulatory vacuum would be
reinforcing as states and commercial organizations race to develop and exploit economic,
political and military advantage. The nearest approximation to an ethical framework could
become a form of secular utilitarianism, in an otherwise amoral scientific culture.”

“Broadcasts to the Brain
By 2035, an implantable information chip could be developed and wired directly to the
user’s brain. Information and entertainment choices would be accessible through
cognition and might include synthetic sensory perception beamed direct to the user’s
senses. Wider related ICT developments might include the invention of synthetic
telepathy, including mind-to-mind or telepathic dialogue. This type of development would
have obvious military and security, as well as control, legal and ethical, implications.”

“Micro Government
Governments are likely to demand increased self-reliance from citizens, who will in turn
expect their obligations to be reduced in proportion, possibly focusing government on its
core roles of Defence, Justice and Legislation. The operation of globalized markets and
communications might further weaken levels of identity between the citizen and state to a
point where increasingly footloose and apolitical populations see the latter purely as the
guarantor of an area of jurisdiction, the guardian of a body of law and a force of last resort.”

“Cities Challenge States
Successful, internationally networked cities, as engines of economic development and
opportunity, could increasingly assert their independence and new found status in contrast
to their backward, less developed and burdensome hinterlands. The formation of new
city-states would challenge the major assumption that underpins the current international
system – the sovereignty and integrity of the nation-state. Recognition of city-states’
sovereignty could cause wider secession and new alignments, leading to uncertain
diplomacy and a heightening of international instability.”

“Chinese Collapse
China’s economic growth will be accompanied by significant demographic changes,
including the urbanization of its population, which uniquely among developing countries, is
ageing. These factors, together with changing patterns of land use, the failure to deliver
per capita prosperity and environmental stresses caused by climate change and pollution,
could reduce China’s traditional resilience to natural disaster. A future large-scale
disaster might therefore cause China’s progress towards strategic power status to stall
and might even result in it becoming a failed state, prone to civil conflict and separatism.”

“Chinese Power Projection
Vigorous economic growth and investment in key technologies might enable China to
generate a global power projection capability before 2025. Although unlikely to match the
US force-on-force in the medium term, China would nevertheless be able to deploy a
significant military presence wherever its interests were considered to lie. This aspect will
become increasingly evident as it seeks to safeguard stability and growth through control
of commodity and energy pricing and continued access to markets. China’s ability to ‘pop
up’ with increasing frequency in areas of competing interests would present the US and
others with significant strategic dilemmas, increasing the possibilities of confrontation and
crisis, possibly leading to conflict.”

“Separatism and Secession in the US
A growing Hispanic population in the US might lead to increasing social tensions, possibly
resulting in an aggressive separatist movement. Unlike the Black Power militants of the
1960s, this movement might focus on geographically-based self-determination as its aim,
threatening secession by Hispanic-majority states. Confronted by this threat, the US
might become increasingly introspective, withdrawing from all non-essential overseas
commitments. In the wider world, other states and non-state actors could take advantage
of the US withdrawal or break-up, using violence to pursue objectives that, otherwise,
might have provoked a US military response.”

“Globalized Inter-Communal Conflict
Economic globalization and indiscriminate migration may lead to levels of international
integration that effectively bring interstate warfare to an end; however, it will also result in
communities of interest at every level of society that transcend national boundaries and
could resort to the use of violence. Operating within a globalized system, states might not
be willing or able to regulate these groups’ activities, concentrating on containing the risk
and diverting their activities elsewhere according to their interests. In addition, rivalries
between interest groups that cannot gain economic and information leverage might
increasingly resort to violence and coercion, evolving loose arrangements and networks
similar to those currently used by criminal organizations.”

“Terrorist Coalition of the Willing
Islamist terrorism is likely to remain the most obvious manifestation of the international
terrorist threat until at least 2020. However, changes in the strategic context could cause
this threat to evolve in unusual ways. A generational change among leading Islamist
terrorists could lead to a more broadly based coalition of opposition to the cultural invasion
caused by globalization and modernization. A terrorist coalition, including a wide range of
reactionary and revolutionary rejectionists, such as ultra-nationalists, religious groupings
and even extreme environmentalists, might conduct a global campaign of greater
intensity.”

“Legal Complexity
The legal context for future conflict could become too complex for participants to be
confident of compliance with international law and national responsibilities. The risk of
subsequent legal challenges might be perceived to be too great by most states, inhibiting
their willingness to engage in any conflict that did not involve a direct threat to their own
national security or stability. This would have a significant impact on the international
availability of forces for Peace Support Operations and other discretionary enterprises,
leaving the field open to private or irregular forces and to those less concerned by the
ethical or legal implications of their conduct.”

“‘Magic Bullet’
In a globalized environment, military technologies will be developed at an accelerating
pace, some of which might have the potential to render established capabilities obsolete.
For example, a cheap, simple-to-make and easy-to-use weapon might be invented that is
effective against a wide range of targets and against which established countermeasures
are ineffective. Based on civilian developments, which have become widely available this
could flood the world’s arms markets, from the OECD nations to the bazaars of Africa and
Asia, altering perceptions about the use of force and power balances..”

– Quotes are from Strat Trends 23 January 2007

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