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  1. #1
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Alternative Worlds

    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?
    davidbfpo

  2. #2
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Just How Intelligent is the NIC Global Trends 2030?

    A Time article by Thomas Barnett of the report, which spares no punches:http://nation.time.com/2012/12/21/ju...l-trends-2030/
    davidbfpo

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    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    A Time article by Thomas Barnett of the report, which spares no punches:http://nation.time.com/2012/12/21/ju...l-trends-2030/
    He makes a good point on our excessive focus on the human domain and non-state actors and transnational threats replacing the historical state threats. We have many in our security community, often evidenced on SWJ, who believe the State has become non-relevant.

    The Nonstate World suffers the worst internal logic of the four. In many ways, it seems to embrace Parag Khanna’s notion of a return to medieval times – i.e., an almost pre-Westphalian system in which states are less important than non-/sub-/trans-/supranational actors.
    The most globalized states in this world have the strongest governments – meaning strong in their regulatory powers but reasonably limited in their scope (and thus not authoritarian). The states with the best (and usually most) rules are generally the most globalized and successful within globalization.
    Don’t get me wrong – I’m not arguing that all of these nonstate actors won’t gain more power and importance. I’m just noting that this tends to happen most in those states with powerful and important governments that facilitate such connectivity/globalization – thus I argue it’s an additive/complimentary process rather than a subtractive one. In my opinion, Nonstate World is hardly an alternative world.

    Read more: http://nation.time.com/2012/12/21/ju...#ixzz2GZfm3Ghu

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    Council Member max161's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
    He makes a good point on our excessive focus on the human domain and non-state actors and transnational threats replacing the historical state threats. We have many in our security community, often evidenced on SWJ, who believe the State has become non-relevant.

    Excellent point Bill. On a related note I am also always curious to know what people think will replace the State? It is true there are a lot of non-state actors who wield a lot of power from criminal organizations to multi-national corporations. There are shifts in power but when people talk about the decline of the nation-state system what do they think will replace it? Some how I do not think we are going to go back to a City-State system (less Singapore who seems to be doing well) and monarchies and the like. But to all those who think the nation-state system and the concept of national sovereignty is obsolete I am curious to know what people think comes next?
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-31-2012 at 02:59 PM. Reason: Fix quote
    David S. Maxwell
    "Irregular warfare is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge." T.E. Lawrence

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    The state is going nowhere. But some states are in trouble.

    (replugging my post that I also linked on another thread, but is relevant to this discussion): http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...tan-.html#more

  6. #6
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default The decline of the nation state?

    The short answer is IMO It starts at home, not abroad.

    It is good to see this - shortened - question being asked here. We have often seen posts on the failure of governance as a or the significant factor in small wars occurring, but not IIRC the demise of the nation state that has so dominated world politics since at least 1815 (in Europe).

    I vividly recall IIRC "Sammy" Finer's writing on the ungovernability or overload of government of the UK in the late 1970's, probably as the power supply was reduced by a long labour strike. His article is not to hand, so a search is needed and has failed.

    In my search I found a speech by a current, if low profile Labour politician, David Miliband; it includes this:
    The latest British Social Attitudes Survey reports that in the last 25 years the percentage of people saying that politicians put the national interest before party interest has fallen from 47 per cent to 20 per cent. The percentage who say it is not worth voting has risen six fold (to 20%).

    (Shortly after) To cap it all, no one, not the Government nor Opposition, not the Bank of England nor the FSA, warned the public about the danger of the biggest economic crisis for eighty years. No wonder people are sceptical.
    Link:http://davidmiliband.net/speech/spea...isis%E2%80%99/

    Since the 1970's, IMHO in most Western democracies, we have seen the power of the state to be effective at home shrink for a number of reasons. Today it is the "fiscal cliff" so I shall stick with public finances being more unpredictable, with vested interests becoming the national interest as political power changes.

    Last week I read 'The age of turboparalysis: Why we haven’t had a revolution' by Michael Lind, unknown to me:http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/...urboparalysis/

    It opens with:
    ....the condition of the world continues to be summed up by what I’ve called ‘turboparalysis’ — a prolonged condition of furious motion without movement in any particular direction, a situation in which the engine roars and the wheels spin but the vehicle refuses to move.

    The greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression might have been expected to produce revolutions in politics and the world of ideas alike. Outside of the Arab world, however, revolutions are hard to find. Mass unemployment and austerity policies have caused riots in Greece and Spain, but most developed nations are remarkably sedate.
    The article's bio line is:
    Michael Lind is the author of Land of Promise: an Economic History of the United States and a columnist for Salon.
    davidbfpo

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