WASHINGTON — Communal tensions flaring among indigenous groups from Mexico to the Amazon. Dozens of Chinese nuclear warheads aimed at the United States. Russia's power in serious decline, its population diminished by 16 million. A cold peace in the Mideast, but transcontinental terrorists attempting devastating attacks with weapons of mass destruction.
Welcome to the year 2015, as characterized in chilling detail by a sweeping new U.S. intelligence report to be released today.
As President-elect George W. Bush prepares to take office, the report offers the most specific insight ever provided an incoming administration about the forces shaping global change. It also underscores the enormous challenges facing Bush's new national security team, to be headed by retired Gen. Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, if it hopes to avert many of the worst-case scenarios.
"Global Trends 2015," the result of an intensive yearlong study involving all branches of the intelligence community as well as many of America's top thinkers, offers sobering predictions about the "drivers," or major forces, that will determine the world of 2015 and beyond.
The dangers are not just from traditional hot spots. Among the report's other predictions: more than 3 billion people, roughly half the world's population, living in "water-stressed" regions, from Southern California to northern China. And while new biotechnology will dramatically lengthen average life spans in rich countries, old diseases will shorten life spans in some African nations by as many as 40 years.
The report was prepared by the National Intelligence Council, the most influential analytic arm of the U.S. intelligence community. The council also produces classified "estimates" on dangers for all branches of the government.
"Global Trends 2015" is being released to launch a "strategic dialogue" within the government to deal with both the challenges and the opportunities ahead, said CIA Director George J. Tenet.
"Grappling with the future is necessarily a work in progress that, I believe, should constantly seek new insights while testing and revising old judgments," he wrote in a letter introducing the report.
The most fundamental shift will be in the world's balance of power, the report predicts.
China and India will be the world's new military powers, based on sheer numbers, growing economic might and technological capabilities.
