Scanning the future: American and European perspectives

The US National Intelligence Council (NIC), in November 2008, released the report 'Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (GT 2025). The fundamental message of the GT 2025 is that unprecedented change is ahead, altering the relative power of both state and non-state actors. While stressing that no single outcome of the ongoing transformation process is pre-ordained, GT 2025 envisages that it is likely that the international system will be more heterogeneous, fragmented and potentially conflict-prone than today. Crucially, the gap between increasing disorder and weakening governance structures may be widening.

The main features of this important American perspective on long-term trends and their political implications are reviewed here with reference to both the 2004 NIC report 'Mapping the Global Future 2020' and the 2006 EUISS report 'The New Global Puzzle. What World for the EU in 2025?'

Website: National Intelligence Council http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_home.html

NIC: Global Trends 2025 http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html

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