MAPPING THE 21ST CENTURY

We are in a period of suspension between an old era (yet to be named) and a new era (also nameless) of fresh hope and opportunity for our nation and the world. So although we cannot predict the future it may be a good time to reflect on the forces that may shape our 21st century.

Who would have predicted two world wars, the splitting of the atom, computer technology, the discovery of antibiotics or modern literature, abstract painting or contemporary music in 1900? The only thing we know for sure is that there will be surprises, perhaps happening at a faster rate than ever before, impacting more lives globally than ever before. But that is all the more reason it is important to anticipate those larger forces that may shape our century.

One place to start is with the recent publication of the Atlantic Council report: Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The report begins with the following:

The international system—as constructed following the Second World War—will be almost unrecognizable by 2025 owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, an historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and the growing influence of non state actors. By 2025, the international system will be a global multipolar one with gaps in national power continuing to narrow between developed and developing countries. Concurrent with the shift in power among nation-states, the relative power of various non state actors—including businesses, tribes, religious organizations, and criminal networks—is increasing. The players are changing, but so too are the scope and breadth of transnational issues important for continued global prosperity. Potentially slowing global economic growth; aging populations in the developed world; growing energy, food, and water constraints; and worries about climate change will limit and diminish what will still be an historically unprecedented age of prosperity.

Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf

(For a PDF version of the report click link below):
http://www.acus.org/publication/global-trends-2025-transformed-world


FORCES OF CHANGE


1. CLIMATE

Climate change is perpetual on our dynamic planet. The last 400M years have seen several periods of near total species extinction, global heating and cooling, ice ages, rising and falling oceans, atmospheric change, etc., as our tectonic plates shift. Adapting our expanding (several additional billion) population to global/weather changes will require a high level of intense interdisciplinary/international research and public policy based on science, technology and economics.

2. DEMOGRAPHY

The demographic profile of our world, at least for the next 25 years, is much more knowable and will present few surprises. While Western Europe and Russia continue to grow older, lose their work forces and net populations, Asia, Africa and Latin America will account for most of the population growth of 1.4B persons. These areas of the world are also among the most economically challenged. So with a high percentage of their populations 18 or younger, political instability is highly probable. Those states most susceptible to conflict are in a great arc of instability stretching from Sub-Saharan Africa through North Africa, into the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, South and Central Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia. The United States will be counter to the shrinking size of most developed nations with a rising population due to higher birth rates and immigration.

3. ENERGY

The quest for new energy forms will move beyond fossil fuel as we reach “peak oil”, perhaps before the mid point of this century. We will be on a tight race between our expanding populations, new levels of urban concentration and diminishing fissile fuel resources. Economic development, critical for the reduction of poverty, production of food, etc., will place energy as our top priority. It will drive virtually every element of our social, economic and political future, transforming the map of our political alignments and create the paradigm that will name our new century.

4. SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Ironically we live at a time when science and technology have a greater effect on our personal lives and political future than at any time in our 200,000 year history as Homo sapiens, yet the average person knows little about science or the logic of its inquiry. While physics plays a dominant role in providing the theoretical basis for the other sciences, its future may well depend on man’s ability to find the missing piece (Higgs bosom) in the puzzle of what makes our world (mass) hold together. Should this final piece elude us will be have to return to square one? In biology we have already begun a journey to better understand life itself and the workings of the human brain. The applications of pure science to the technology of energy, food production and the management of our natural environment and resources present both a great risk as well as amazing opportunity. It is estimated that by 2030 our demand for food will increase by 50 percent and 36 countries (1.4B people) will be without adequate water resources. Sudden breakthroughs in energy production alone could change the quality of life for every person (will be about 9 billion by the end of the century) on the planet. On the other hand, science mismanaged could be a terrible weapon of mass destruction, especially in the hands of non-state terrorists.

5. NATIONALISM AND THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

While it will maintain its economic and military primacy, at least through the next 25 years, we will experience “the rise of the rest” as noted in the work of Fareed Zakaria. (See http://www.newsweek.com/id/171249 and The Post-American World, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2008) The projected growth of Brazil, Russia, India and China will collectively match the original G-7’s contribution to the global GDP by mid century. China will be a dominant economic force and major player. India will become a major force as well, making it important for the U.S. to see itself as part of a tripolar economic reality.

6. A SHRINKING PLANET

There will be a concentration of new populations in economically and environmentally stressed countries. A potential for failed states, the interconnections of our economic/financial systems and the proliferation of technologically advanced weapons of mass destruction, diminishing fossil fuel resource, and environmental changes all point to the reality of a planet that is fragile. We are interconnected and vulnerable. A sneeze in Iceland can produce a pandemic in Africa.

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE

1. A WORLD OF MIXED ECONOMIES

The current world economic crisis, which has underscored the inter connectedness of every national economy, makes it clear that HOW economies work is quite different from their ideologies. There is no pure free market, communist system or socialist state. We are all mixed economies that are inter dependent for ideas, technology, trade and culture. This may be an ideal time to face the facts and overcome rigid outdated ideologies. In the United States we have a chance to get over the myth of our being a “free market” system. We have been regulating our system for years with import quotas, subsidies, price supports, etc. One might be a democracy without the mythology of capitalism, especially when its “unseen guiding hand” has been greed. This may be a time to become adults and celebrate a world of mixed economies. We in the U.S. may learn to match our wants more with our needs.

2. COMMUNICATIONS

Our technical capability for communicating with one another is growing, virtually daily, out of proportion to our ability to process and meaningfully respond to events. Sound bites and video clips have replaced careful analysis and thoughtful dialogue. Bloggers are displacing journalists. Media increasingly makes, not just reports, our news by how it frames events. Our positive challenge is to find ways of using the iphone-ipod-blogisphere as a meaningful source for information based knowledge and decision making. It will require neural networks that can sift and sort in nanoseconds but the potential is there for expanding the network of talent and human creativity of a much higher percentage of the 9B persons who will not only inhabit but contribute to the enrichment of our planet.

3. BEYOND NATION STATES

The concept of the “nation state” and national sovereignty attributed to Hugo Grotius’ On the Laws of War and Peace, four centuries ago, may be ready for a major revision. Regional “states” (E.U.) and alliances have proved far more effective than imagined. Most important, as pointed out by John C. Reppert in a recent (12-03-08) address at Eckerd College:

If economies, security, businesses, communications, environment, and health issues are borderless, what is it we expect borders to provide us? Are the UN Declaration of human Rights and the World Health Organization suitable models for the future? If not, what do we have to propose? Is the concept of inter ‘national’ relations a quaint concept of a time gone by and are our leaders capable or willing to offer options that preserve our values, our democracy, and our freedoms.


ON THE CUSP OR THE BRINK?

As Fareed Zakaria pointed out in the article cited above (Newsweek, December 8, 2008, p. 37):

This is a rare moment in history. A more responsive America, better attuned to the rest of the world, could help create a new set of ideas and institutions – an architecture of peace for the 21st century that would bring stability, prosperity and dignity to the lives of billions of people. Ten years from now, the world will have moved on; the rising powers will have become unwilling to accept an agenda conceived in Washington or London or Brussels. But at this time . . . there is a unique opportunity to use American power to reshape the world.

It is critical for the U.S. to use its resources carefully, aware that we live in a multi-polar world. We may be living on the cusp of major advances for our species or on the brink of a precipice of decline. Learning to make sense of it all will not be easy, but it will be essential if we want to make-a-difference in a century that will allow us to participate in the future, as never before.


Merle F. Allshouse