December 19, 2010

NIC: Making policy in the shadow of the future

Back in 2008, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) put out a report titled "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" where it made projections about what the world will look like in 2025 based on recent trends. Now, the NIC has followed-up by describing what the United States needs to do about it:
How should U.S. policy adapt now to account for these trends and the future that will result from them? This paper takes on that task. It focuses on important issues for which a long-term perspective leads to different immediate choices for U.S. policy than would result from only a short-term perspective. These include energy and climate change; defense policy, including the diffusion of nuclear weapons and the movement to abolish them; the reshaping of international law and institutions; the structure of the federal government; and the U.S. relationship with Mexico. For some other issues, long- and short-term thinking produce similar conclusions; yet for still others, the two perspectives seem difficult to reconcile.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think the one thing the author doesn't address is that China doesn't play by the 'rules'. If they're able to they'll put weapons platforms in orbit, they'll augment their citizenry through eugenics, and they'll otherwise pursue every advantage they can get without much regard to the human and environmental costs. I think China is brutal and dangerous and will grow more so in the next few decades.