This is the title of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) latest global futures report, which has a rave review from Australia:
The international hand-wringing over North Korea's rocket test is obscuring a bigger story this week about the long-term future of Asia and the world.

I'm referring to the dramatic conclusions of a major new US intelligence study which warns of unprecedented levels of uncertainty and complexity looking out to 2030. The US National Intelligence Council's latest global futures report, Alternative Worlds, makes for rich, rewarding and often unpleasant reading, and should be compulsory homework for political decision-makers, officials, journalists, business leaders and think tank denizens alike. There's so much real-world intellectual treasure here, and it is so well crafted, that I was tempted to nominate it as my book of the year.

The report represents an impressive process: each four years, the US intelligence community reaches out to the so-called 'open source world' of scholars, former officials, thinkers and experts of every stripe, as well as fiction writers for good measure. It is the ultimate cross-disciplinary study: hundreds of fine minds arguing out their best estimates about the future.

Over months of debate – much of it conducted online this time – a core team winnows the sharpest ideas, tests and tightens them, and presents the final document to the US president shortly after the election. Then not long later the report is released to the world.
Link to NIC report in PDF:http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/G...rends_2030.pdf

Or a very short summary:http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/I...0Le%20Menu.pdf

The principal author has four Q&A segments:http://www.youtube.com/user/ODNIgov

Link to a short review article:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...w-of-asia.aspx

I am aware of the NIC; has anyone read this report?