A Transformed World: "Global Trends 2025"

The National Intelligence Council recently submitted it's "Global Trends 2025″ report to U.S. leaders in order to give them insight into looming problems and opportunities throughout the world. The report is compiled every four years and includes a huge number of stunning and, sometimes disturbing, global trends. Although the report is not intended to be a "crystal ball" analysis, it's assessments are provocative:

It projects a "multipolar" global landscape, where the United States is merely "one of a number of actors on the world stage" and where the U.S. dollar will only be "first among equals" in a basket of international currencies.

Other trends include:

• A decline in Western Democratic Capitalism/A rise in State Directed Capitalism as in China
• Growing youth populations in the 3rd world, especially in the Middle East
• A decline in the influence of terrorist groups (a good thing)
• IMF & United Nations will lose influence
• Corporations and organized crime organizations will emerge as a challenge
• By 2025 clean, non-fossil fuels will be the norm

If you're interested in reading the report (or skimming through it), just click on the icon below.

I've also included a NPR audio segment about the report which encapsulates it's trends quite well. I believe it is incumbent upon all of us to try and understand the United States within the context of a more global perspective. Anyone who is being intellectually honest in these challenging times knows that we are not, nor can we afford to be isolationists. The better informed we are, as citizens, the more effective our leaders can move us into the future. Living in ignorance is not an option.

Click this picture to hear the NPR report on "Global Trends 2025″