Intelligence Report: Say Farewell To American Supremacy

WASHINGTON — Global warming could be a boon to Russia, a European country could be overrun by organized crime and the U.S. and its dollar could further decline in importance during the next two decades, says a U.S. intelligence report with predictions for the world in 2025.

The report, Global Trends 2025, is published every four years by the National Intelligence Council to give U.S. leaders insight into looming problems and opportunities.

The report says the warming earth will extend Russia and Canada's growing season and ease their access to northern oil fields, strengthening their economies. But Russia's potential emergence as a world power may be clouded by lagging investment in its energy sector, persistent crime and government corruption, the report says.

Analysts also warn that the same kind of organized crime plaguing Russia could eventually take over the government of an Eastern or Central European country. The report is silent on which one.

It also says countries in Africa and South Asia may find themselves unstable and ungoverned, as state regimes collapse or wither away under security problems and water and food shortages brought about by climate change and a population increase of 1.4 billion.

The potential for conflict will be greater in 2025 than it is now, as the world's population competes for declining and shifting food, water and energy resources.

Despite a more precarious world situation, the report also says al-Qaida's terrorist franchise could decay "sooner than people think." It cites its growing unpopularity in the Muslim world, where it kills most of its victims.

"The prospect that al-Qaida will be among the small number of groups able to transcend the generational timeline is not high, given its harsh ideology, unachievable strategic objectives and inability to become a mass movement," the report states.

The report forecasts a geopolitical rise in non-Arab Muslim states outside of the Middle East, including Turkey and Indonesia, and says Iran could also be a central player in a new world order if it sheds its theocracy.

The report, a year in the making, also suggests the world may complete its move away from its dependence on oil, and that the U.S. dollar, while remaining important, will decline to "first among equals" among other national currencies.

U.S. global power also will likely decline, as Americans' concerns about putting resources into solving domestic problems may cause the United States to pull resources from foreign and global problems.

___

On the Net:

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

Comments

[bighillaryfan]

More Right Wing P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A.

Wow, can you believe this site? Talk about P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A.

http://theliepolitic.com/2008/11/george-bush-is-just-so-anti-social/

The George Bush Lies!

[RoloTomassi]

Sorry, but you need to do a little reading; the best minds on the Left see a very similar future, and the authors I am referring to are far from being rightwing propagandists.

[Bec01]

All Empires will fall sooner or later. We just sped up our fall by electing W twice.

[HowietheScreamer]

Ya, well the question is do we go the way of the Brits, a long slow relatively calm decline? Or the Romans, and collapse with a shudder that snuffs out advancement for 1000 years?

[SaulBloodworth]

It took quite some time for the Roman Empire to vanish, it just seems short in hindsight. Also, it did not vanish completely, you still have the Catholic Church.

I'm not so sure of the "snuff-out-advancement"-part either. That seems to be the viewpoint from the Romans, not so much from the people occupied by the Romans.

http://cabal-thenovel.blogspot.com/

[BPCentrisAmerican]

If this is true, Bush-Cheney and there merry band of neo-con traitors brought us one step closer.

[leeman79]

It took an intelligence report to figure this out? We've been losing our supremacy for the last 30 years. What's alarming is how our rate of decline has accelerated over the last 8 years. Being a superpower is about your type of economy, and not about military might. When we can build an economy around production and exports, as opposed to, consumption and credit, then we'll be a superpower again. We've operated under "free trade" since it was introduced by Reagan. It's been a one way street, and a total disaster. The only consistent export we've had since 1980 is "American Jobs". It's time to declare "free trade" officially dead, and begin gradually adjusting to fair trade. Terminate the NAFTA's and CAFTA's and establish a think tank transition team to figure out how to adopt fair trade with Asia, and pay off China. We will continue to lose our sovereignty as long as we're owned by somebody else.

[j0n0]

I like that...move from Free Trade to Fair Trade. A perfect way of putting it.

[Realization]

USTR and others (Congress) have been blathering about "Free Trade" and "Fair Trade" for years. Everyone else is looking for advantage. I have always figured that Adam Smith would be rolling over in his grave at the degree to which the U.S. fails to understand and act in its own interests.

[SaulBloodworth]

I can see that there is a problem, however, you can't have it both ways. Free trade also meant that U.S.-owned businesses had an inroad into other country's resources (check out "United Fruit" and Guatelama" or "Standard Oil" and "Iran").

Also, the American customer had the advantage of cheap, foreign-produced goods. Without free trade, more people might have a job, but you would be paying more for bananas, oil and TVs.

http://cabal-thenovel.blogspot.com/

[leeman79]

We already had an inroad to other country's thru export superiority. "Free trade" has not equated to having it both ways. It's amounted to us giving up our jobs, so we can overextend ourselves in consumption, and sink deeper in debt. This is why we're broke from the national level right on down.

I remember the old days when we made it here. American products were affordable. Granted, they didn't have "sweat shop" affordablility because the living standard of the american worker was taken into consideration.

The emphasis was on less consumption, and more saving. As a result, people were not in the type of financial turmoil that they are in today. Yes, you still had a degree of "keeping up with the Jones' back then, but, by and large, it was a pay as you go spending philosophy.

People don't have the money on hand to buy all of these imported products. Look at the credit card debt in this country. Back then you didn't have a credit card, and had very little debt as a result.

No, the answer out of this mess is not more of the same. It's going back to the basics. Making it here, and learning how to save money again.

[3rdCitizen]

Maybe a good deal of this speculation will prove to be correct, but all my life I've heard rational sounding predictions by "expert" futurists, and their track record has always been abysmal! History too often pivots on big, unexpected events that no one saw coming, or on apparently insignificant occurences that are only recognized in hindsight.

That being said, I hope we are heading into a more multi-lateral world. Being the only superpower has not been good for the U.S.: it's only undermined what was best in our national character & exaggerated what was worst. By the middle of the W. Bush administration, we'd fully embraced "the ends justify the means," "might makes right," & the most ignoble delusions of U.S. "exceptionalism." Maybe that's what happens to any society that possesses preeminent power for too long.

[BRlongview]

Haha! So much catastrophising in these comments... It's funny to read them and think about people hunched over their keyboards, eyes bloodshot from staring at the screen, grabbing what's left of their hair and screaming at a bunch of comments left by people they've never seen. So much energy wasted.

We are crueler to ourselves than any conspirator, regime, or disaster could ever be.

[nomoreofthesame]

you neocons are such comedians, we're laughing all the way to the gutter.

[ReasonableBill]

Anyone wondering how we got here so fast? GOOGLE a company called "ARBUSTO"

[leeman79]

You mean EL BUSTO?

[RoloTomassi]

From the wikipedia article on Arbusto Energy:

"Arbusto Energy (sometimes referred to as Arbusto Oil)was a petroleum and energy company formed in Midland, Texas, in 1977, by future US President George W. Bush and a group of investors which included Dorothy Bush, Lewis Lehrman, William Henry Draper III, Bill Gammell, and James R. Bath. The company's chief financial officer was K. Michael Conaway, now a United States Congressman from Texas.

"It was later revealed that Bath made an investment of $50,000 while representing Salem bin Laden of the Saudi Binladin Group. This fact became controversial after the September 11, 2001 attacks due to Salem bin Laden being an older, half-brother of Osama bin Laden, who planned and financed the attacks. Upon Salem bin Laden's death in a 1988 airplane crash, in Texas, his interest in Arbusto (along with other Binladin Group assets), passed to Khalid bin Mahfouz."

[SaulBloodworth]

William Henry Draper III? Is that guy related to General William Draper of Dillon, Read, an investment bank doing business with Brown Brothers, Harriman and Fritz Thyssen in WWII?

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showPerson.php?id=2611&name=Dillon-Read

[IconoclasticYouth]

If America is no longer the worlds sole superpower, or even a super power at all.... good riddance. Maybe Americans can focus some of the ridiculously over bloated military budget to schools, infrastructure, Social Security, and Health Care instead. You know, stuff that matters to people. The world is so interconnected economically and otherwise, we may never see a world war 3, or other form of major engagement. Its time to top trying to wield unprecedented amounts of hegemonic power.

[jeanrenoir]

I detest Bush, the Iraq War, the neocons, etc. And I'm a big fan of Obama (with reservations about bringing HIllary into the tent). All that said, except for the grotesque deviation from the norm caused by the neocons and Bush, I'm confident the world will someday feel very nostalgic for American hegemony, compared to Chinese. The great error of America bashers since the Sixties is that they are never candid about America's relative goodness. They attack America in a vacuum, and with perfectionistic, fantastic standards. Every great power in history has visited plenty of evil and devastation on the world. The British (think of their slave trade in the 17th and 18thC's, just for starters, and then their outright empire), though they may have been the most positive hegemonic power in history, relatively speaking, before America (which did literally save the world in WWII and in the Cold War), were no angels themselves. And the Germans, the French, the Spanish, the Russians, the Romans, the imperial Chinese past and present, and all the ancient empires from Egypt on, were incredibly savage and evil. America-bashers need to face the fact that it's the human race that's the problem, not America. It's the nature of human beings, which has always been a "heart of darkness." I speak as an agnostic, of course.

[ExpatinEurope2009]

Your idea that somehow human beings are born sinful and with dark hearts, is indeed some of the problem in this world.

Americans can be as cruel and savage as anyone else on this planet.

America did NOT win the Cold War or WWII, they HELPED. This is a big lie and fed to young Americans in school.

Fact is, without Russia during WWII it might have been a different story.

and for the Cold War? Its been said ,satellite TV helped put an end to that.

I worked with Russians who were brought up with the same kind of crap I was...........that the USA was the enemy and they had to have a strong miltary to protect Russia.

Now we know it was all a big game to keep both countries military industrial complex running.

[LOCUTUS13]

So much for The Project for the New American Century! Just shows how WRONG they were and that their efforts backfired. History shows that all empires eventually collapse from their own weight. Much like fighting wars on multiple fronts, bleeding money and manpower.

[nochange]

this was planned...........they want a one world government............

[DrJohnnySkeptic]

The "neo-con" dictatorship...

[ExpatinEurope2009]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=75627§ionid=3510203

Israel tasked with spying on Americans'

Bamford says concerns over the relationship between Israeli spy agencies and the FBI 'greatly increased following disclosure of the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping operations'.
The US entrusted Israeli intelligence services with spying on Americans after the 9/11 attacks, an intelligence journalist has revealed.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the White House launched a massive program to spy on millions of Americans, best-selling author James Bamford has claimed in his latest book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.

Bamford is a celebrated journalist who writes about US intelligence agencies.

According to the author, the National Security Agency (NSA) was tasked with monitoring 'billions of private hard-line, cell, and wireless telephone conversations; text, e-mail and instant Internet messages; Web-page histories, faxes, and computer hard drives'.

The two largest American telecom companies AT&T and Verizon collaborated with the NSA, assisting the federal government in eavesdropping on their customers.

Bamford maintains that the bugging of the entire two networks, 'carrying billions of American communications every day', were handed to two companies founded in Israel.

Verint and Narus, the two Israeli corporations, are 'super intrusive -- conducting mass surveillance on both international and domestic communications 24/7,' and sifting traffic at 'key Internet gateways' around the US, Bamford claims.

"The greatest potential beneficiaries of this marriage between the Israeli eavesdroppers and America's increas

[nochange]

THE banks have taken over the country and this is an engineered collapse

to bring in the NEW WORLD ORDER.......

paulson just stole 5 trillion and gave it to world banks ........

do not accept this quietly

america is NOT FINISHED>>>>>>>>

wake yup!!!!!!

[Mr Grey]

America will only fail from within, not from without. If the American people and economy are not strong, we cannot be a strong nation, much less a world leader. America is broken. Perhaps in the new geopolitical situation we should lead by example. Fix our problems here at home, economy, energy, health care, etc. Use war and support of foreign conflicts only as a last resort. Reduce our military spending and use the money for foreign aid. Help the needy nations to build a green infrastructure, provide sources of clean water, help them to establish trade that, in the long run, will make them less dependent on foreign help. Most of the worlds problems are not new, but some are. It is going to take new thinking to survive much less restore America and help the world. Yes help the world, because if the world is a better place for others, it will be a better and safer place of us all. We have to start now, because if we don't do it now, what we do later will be too little, too late.

[nochange]

what are you talking about ???

the banks have stolen ALL THE MONEY........

who cares about going green right now we are going to be in a depression if we dont get rid of the government that sold us out long ago.........

global warming is a scam...they want to tax us for it..!!!!!! its a joke

[ExpatinEurope2009]

There is an old saying ''if you stay in the shitehouse long enough, you no longer smell the stench''

[CologneCitizen]

Exactly, like the "boiled frog theory". If you put a frog in boiling water, it will make attempts to get out. If you heat the water slowly, it will die whilst being cooked.

[SupportTech2]

IT'S FINISHED

Will Americans need a breaking news flash to understand, or admit , the economic experiment failed, the party is over and it's time to regroup.......We can can move forward if we choose to reason with the social science and let go of that which has proven to fail like clockwork......or will we hold on to pide for pride sake......America can CHANGE .....or we join all the other great Nations on the pages of history that held to stubborn pride to the fall.

[ExpatinEurope2009]

If only we could take 300 million people and have them take a tour of some really modern advanced countries for a week.

Things would change in a hurry.

[almoguy]

I believe it was Ken Kesey who said: "Don't drop Bombs, drop Sears catalogs"

[nochange]

yiouy need to wake up and realize whats going on here....

the world banks are taking over with that bailout scam they played and

OBAMA VOTED FOR IT TOO......
so if your waiting for him to change anything .....NO CHANCE

wake up

[SupportTech2]

nochange

your nick says it all(about you)
Deal with reality and stop the hate, Obama's 1 vote among 100 senators, didn't create this economic fall. I'm sure you have more irrelevant hate. You should look at other working models that exist and open your mind to one or something close to one thats works.

[Veri]

We Americans know it. Only inertia and the current economic crisis carry us forward. Our country is being looted of its last treasures. And still, Americans have faith in the government. Until they lose everything. By then, most will be starving, homeless, and without proper clothing. Our children will be living with us in the gutter.

Other Americans, however, will be living in a gilded cage, praying not to be one of the unfortunate many. And still others, they will be the new masters. The New Aristocracy.

If you are in debt, you are a slave to The Money-Men. They have made this so. And you meekly accept it. Your own slavery.

[ExpatinEurope2009]

One of the first things America should do is start taxing the charatans and purveyours of bullshite on TV and in the churches.

Secondly, ban TV evangelism that fleeces ignorant people of their money and enriches the thieves and liars.

You say you have 'free speech'' but all the free speech in the world hasn't changed your situation.

[OutsiderSA]

That is not likely to happen esp with the evangelicals. the problem is they have gone international and IMO their brand of xianity does not represent what is stated in the bible. Fortunate for us here in SA, the majority find their roots in Europe which is more real and more tolerant. There never was a huge issue when gays got their rights here with the churches.

I pray the USA will grow out of this stone age mentality soon. Nothing wrong being a Christian but no need to impose beliefs on others.

[SaulBloodworth]

The Evangelicals are a special brand of the Christian churches that does not sell abroad, pretty much like the Nazi "Reichskirche" that only existed within the Third Reich.

They both preach the same thing, an aggressive stance against "non-believers".

[vippy]

neither did religion!