5 paragraphs for Argumentative essay on global trends

Argumentative essay, in your opinion which two global trends which have the greatest political implication for future joint u.s. military operations? Why? How will your selected global trends affect your professional and personal life in the future? Choose 2 of the 7 global trends. 5 paragraphs to include a conclusion, no plagiarism and references must be cited.

PARADOX OF
PROGRESS
A pub l ica t ion o f the Nat ional In te l l i gence Counci l

GLOBAL TRENDS

JANUARY

2

017
NIC 2017-00

1

ISBN

9

7

8

-0-16-0936

14

–

2

To view electronic version:
www.dni.gov/nic/globaltrends

G401 Global Trends and Challenges
Student Extract 20170301

NATIONAL INTELL IGENCE COUNCIL 1

We are living a paradox: The achievements of the industrial and information ages are
shaping a world to come that is both more dangerous and richer with opportunity than
ever before. Whether promise or peril prevails will turn on the choices of humankind.

The progress of the past decades is historic—connecting people, empowering individuals, groups,
and states, and lifting a billion people out of poverty in the process. But this same progress also
spawned shocks like the Arab Spring, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and the global rise of
populist, anti-establishment politics. These shocks reveal how fragile the achievements have been,
underscoring deep shifts in the global landscape that portend a dark and difficult near future.

The next five years will see rising tensions within and between countries. Global growth will
slow, just as increasingly complex global challenges impend. An ever-widening range of states,
organizations, and empowered individuals will shape geopolitics. For better and worse, the
emerging global landscape is drawing to a close an era of American dominance following the
Cold War. So, too, perhaps is the rules-based international order that emerged after World War
II. It will be much harder to cooperate internationally and govern in ways publics expect. Veto
players will threaten to block collaboration at every turn, while information “echo chambers” will
reinforce countless competing realities, undermining shared understandings of world events.

Underlying this crisis in cooperation will be local, national, and international differences
about the proper role of government across an array of issues ranging from the
economy to the environment, religion, security, and the rights of individuals. Debates
over moral boundaries—to whom is owed what—will become more pronounced, while
divergence in values and interests among states will threaten international security.

It will be tempting to impose order on this apparent chaos, but that ultimately would be
too costly in the short run and would fail in the long. Dominating empowered, proliferating
actors in multiple domains would require unacceptable resources in an era of slow growth,
fiscal limits, and debt burdens. Doing so domestically would be the end of democracy,
resulting in authoritarianism or instability or both. Although material strength will remain
essential to geopolitical and state power, the most powerful actors of the future will draw
on networks, relationships, and information to compete and cooperate. This is the lesson
of great power politics in the 1900s, even if those powers had to learn and relearn it.

The US and Soviet proxy wars, especially in Vietnam and Afghanistan, were a harbinger of
the post-Cold War conflicts and today’s fights in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia in
which less powerful adversaries deny victory through asymmetric strategies, ideology, and

T H E F U T U R E S U M M A R I Z E D

Extract from: Global Trends – Paradox of Progress, pp. IX-XI

Yet this dreary near future is hardly cast in
stone. Whether the next five or 20 years
are brighter—or darker—will turn on three
choices: How will individuals, groups, and
governments renegotiate their expectations of
one another to create political order in an era
of empowered individuals and rapidly changing
economies? To what extent will major state
powers, as well as individuals and groups, craft
new patterns or architectures of international
cooperation and competition? To what extent
will governments, groups, and individuals
prepare now for multifaceted global issues like
climate change and transformative technologies?

Three stories or scenarios—”Islands,” “Orbits,”
and “Communities“—explore how trends
and choices of note might intersect to create
different pathways to the future. These
scenarios emphasize alternative responses
to near-term volatility—at the national
(Islands), regional (Orbits), and sub-state
and transnational (Communities) levels.

• Islands investigates a restructuring of the
global economy that leads to long periods
of slow or no growth, challenging both
traditional models of economic prosperity
and the presumption that globalization
will continue to expand. The scenario
emphasizes the challenges to governments
in meeting societies’ demands for both
economic and physical security as popular
pushback to globalization increases,
emerging technologies transform work
and trade, and political instability grows.
It underscores the choices governments
will face in conditions that might tempt
some to turn inward, reduce support
for multilateral cooperation, and adopt
protectionist policies, while others find
ways to leverage new sources of economic
growth and productivity.

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS

societal tensions. The threat from terrorism
will expand in the coming decades as the
growing prominence of small groups and
individuals use new technologies, ideas,
and relationships to their advantage.

Meanwhile, states remain highly relevant.
China and Russia will be emboldened, while
regional aggressors and nonstate actors will see
openings to pursue their interests. Uncertainty
about the United States, an inward-looking West,
and erosion of norms for conflict prevention
and human rights will encourage China and
Russia to check US influence. In doing so, their
“gray zone” aggression and diverse forms of
disruption will stay below the threshold of hot
war but bring profound risks of miscalculation.
Overconfidence that material strength can
manage escalation will increase the risks of
interstate conflict to levels not seen since the
Cold War. Even if hot war is avoided, the current
pattern of “international cooperation where we
can get it”—such as on climate change—masks
significant differences in values and interests
among states and does little to curb assertions
of dominance within regions. These trends
are leading to a spheres of influence world.

Nor is the picture much better on the home
front for many countries. While decades of
global integration and advancing technology
enriched the richest and lifted that billion out
of poverty, mostly in Asia, it also hollowed out
Western middle classes and stoked pushback
against globalization. Migrant flows are
greater now than in the past 70 years, raising
the specter of drained welfare coffers and
increased competition for jobs, and reinforcing
nativist, anti-elite impulses. Slow growth
plus technology-induced disruptions in job
markets will threaten poverty reduction and
drive tensions within countries in the years
to come, fueling the very nationalism that
contributes to tensions between countries.

2

adapt to changing conditions, persevere in
the face of unexpected adversity, and take
actions to recover quickly. They will invest in
infrastructure, knowledge, and relationships
that allow them to manage shock—whether
economic, environmental, societal, or cyber.

Similarly, the most resilient societies will
likely be those that unleash and embrace
the full potential of all individuals—whether
women and minorities or those battered by
recent economic and technological trends.
They will be moving with, rather than against,
historical currents, making use of the ever-
expanding scope of human skill to shape the
future. In all societies, even in the bleakest
circumstances, there will be those who choose
to improve the welfare, happiness, and
security of others—employing transformative
technologies to do so at scale. While the
opposite will be true as well—destructive
forces will be empowered as never before—
the central puzzle before governments and
societies is how to blend individual, collective,
and national endowments in a way that yields
sustainable security, prosperity, and hope.

3

• Orbits explores a future of tensions created
by competing major powers seeking their
own spheres of influence while attempting
to maintain stability at home. It examines
how the trends of rising nationalism,
changing conflict patterns, emerging
disruptive technologies, and decreasing
global cooperation might combine to
increase the risk of interstate conflict.
This scenario emphasizes the policy
choices ahead for governments that would
reinforce stability and peace or further
exacerbate tensions. It features a nuclear
weapon used in anger, which turns out to
concentrate global minds so that it does
not happen again.

• Communities shows how growing public
expectations but diminishing capacity
of national governments open space for
local governments and private actors,
challenging traditional assumptions about
what governing means. Information
technology remains the key enabler, and
companies, advocacy groups, charities,
and local governments prove nimbler than
national governments in delivering services
to sway populations in support of their
agendas. Most national governments resist,
but others cede some power to emerging
networks. Everywhere, from the Middle
East to Russia, control is harder.

As the paradox of progress implies, the same
trends generating near-term risks also can
create opportunities for better outcomes over
the long term. If the world were fortunate
enough to be able to take advantage of these
opportunities, the future would be more
benign than our three scenarios suggest. In the
emerging global landscape, rife with surprise
and discontinuity, the states and organizations
most able to exploit such opportunities will
be those that are resilient, enabling them to

T R E N D S T R A N S F O R M I N G
T H E G L O B A L L A N D S C A P E

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS

Global Trends and Key Implications Through 203

5

The rich are aging, the poor are not. Working-age populations are shrinking in wealthy countries, China, and Russia
but growing in developing, poorer countries, particularly in Africa and South Asia, increasing economic, employment,
urbanization, and welfare pressures and spurring migration. Training and continuing education will be crucial in
developed and developing countries alike.

The global economy is shifting. Weak economic growth will persist in the near term. Major economies will confront
shrinking workforces and diminishing productivity gains while recovering from the 2008-09 financial crisis with high
debt, weak demand, and doubts about globalization. China will attempt to shift to a consumer-driven economy from
its longstanding export and investment focus. Lower growth will threaten poverty reduction in developing countries.

Technology is accelerating progress but causing discontinuities. Rapid technological advancements will increase
the pace of change and create new opportunities but will aggravate divisions between winners and losers.
Automation and artificial intelligence threaten to change industries faster than economies can adjust, potentially
displacing workers and limiting the usual route for poor countries to develop. Biotechnologies such as genome
editing will revolutionize medicine and other fields, while sharpening moral differences.

Ideas and Identities are driving a wave of exclusion. Growing global connectivity amid weak growth will increase
tensions within and between societies. Populism will increase on the right and the left, threatening liberalism. Some
leaders will use nationalism to shore up control. Religious influence will be increasingly consequential and more
authoritative than many governments. Nearly all countries will see economic forces boost women’s status and
leadership roles, but backlash also will occur.

Governing is getting harder. Publics will demand governments deliver security and prosperity, but flat revenues,
distrust, polarization, and a growing list of emerging issues will hamper government performance. Technology will
expand the range of players who can block or circumvent political action. Managing global issues will become harder
as actors multiply—to include NGOs, corporations, and empowered individuals—resulting in more ad hoc, fewer
encompassing efforts.

The nature of conflict is changing. The risk of conflict will increase due to diverging interests among major powers,
an expanding terror threat, continued instability in weak states, and the spread of lethal, disruptive technologies.
Disrupting societies will become more common, with long-range precision weapons, cyber, and robotic systems to
target infrastructure from afar, and more accessible technology to create weapons of mass destruction.

Climate change, environment, and health issues will demand attention. A range of global hazards pose imminent
and longer-term threats that will require collective action to address—even as cooperation becomes harder. More
extreme weather, water and soil stress, and food insecurity will disrupt societies. Sea-level rise, ocean acidification,
glacial melt, and pollution will change living patterns. Tensions over climate change will grow. Increased travel and
poor health infrastructure will make infectious diseases harder to manage.

The Bottomline

These trends will converge at an unprecedented pace to make governing and cooperation harder and to change
the nature of power—fundamentally altering the global landscape. Economic, technological and security trends,
especially, will expand the number of states, organizations, and individuals able to act in consequential ways.
Within states, political order will remain elusive and tensions high until societies and governments renegotiate their
expectations of one another. Between states, the post-Cold War, unipolar moment has passed and the post-1945
rules based international order may be fading too. Some major powers and regional aggressors will seek to assert
interests through force but will find results fleeting as they discover traditional, material forms of power less able to
secure and sustain outcomes in a context of proliferating veto players.

Extract from: Global Trends – Paradox of Progress, pp. 6-2

8

5

T R E N D S T R A N S F O R M I N G
T H E G L O B A L L A N D S C A P E

The post-Cold War era is giving way to a new
strategic context. Recent and future trends
will converge during the next 20 years at an
unprecedented pace to increase the number
and complexity of issues, with several, like
cyber attacks, terrorism, or extreme weather,
representing risks for imminent disruption.
Demographic shifts will stress labor, welfare,
and social stability. The rich world is aging while
much of the poorer world is not and is becoming
more male to boot. More and more people are
living in cities, some of which are increasingly
vulnerable to sea-level rise, flooding, and storm
surges. So, too, more people are on the move–
drawn by visions of a better life or driven by
horrors of strife. Competition for good jobs has
become global, as technology, especially mass
automation, disrupts labor markets. Technology
will also further empower individuals and
small groups, connecting people like never
before. At the same time, values, nationalism,
and religion will increasingly separate them.

At the national level, the gap between popular
expectations and government performance
will grow; indeed democracy itself can no
longer be taken for granted. Internationally, the
empowering of individuals and small groups
will make it harder to organize collective action
against major global problems, like climate
change. International institutions will be visibly
more mismatched to the tasks of the future,
especially as they awkwardly embrace newly
empowered private individuals and groups.

Meanwhile, the risk of conflict will grow. Warring
will be less and less confined to the battlefield,
and more aimed at disrupting societies–using
cyber weapons from afar or suicide terrorists
from within. The silent, chronic threats of
air pollution, water shortage, and climate
change will become more noticeable, leading
more often than in the past to clashes, as
diagnoses of and measures to deal with these
issues remain divisive around the globe.

South African school students. Much
of the growth in the world’s working
age population over the next several
decades will come from Africa as
well as South Asia.

6NATIONAL INTELL IGENCE COUNCIL

Franco Lucato / Shutterstock.com

Worldwide, the number of people reaching
working age during the coming two decades
will decline sharply from the previous two–
from 1.20 billion in 1995-2015 to 850 million in
2015-35, according to UN projections. Most of
these new workers, however, will be in South
Asia and Africa, many of them in economies
already struggling to create new jobs in the
modern global economy due to inadequate
infrastructure, limited education systems,
corruption, and lack of opportunity for women.

• Integrating more women into the
workforce will be particularly challenging
due to longstanding cultural norms, but a
study by McKinsey Global Institute assesses
that such moves could boost output and
productivity. According to the study, global
GDP could rise by more than 10 percent
by 2025 if roles and relative compensation
for women across each region were
improved to match the levels of the most-
equitable country in that region. McKinsey
highlighted improvements in education,
financial and digital inclusion, legal
protection, and compensation for care
work as crucial to gains in gender economic
equity—and ultimately beneficial to all
workers as well.

More People Are Living In Cities. Demographic
trends will boost popular pressure for effective
public policy, especially in providing services and
infrastructure needed to support increasingly
urban populations. Just over half of humanity
lives in cities today, a number forecast to rise to
two-thirds by 2050. Aging countries that adapt
health care, pensions, welfare, employment,
and military recruitment systems are likely
to successfully weather demographic trends
while countries with younger populations
would benefit from focusing on education
and employment. Immigration and labor
policies will remain divisive in the near term,

The Rich Are Aging, The Poor Are Not

The world’s population will be larger, older, and
more urban, even as the rate of global population
growth slows. The effects on individual countries
will vary, however, as the world’s major
economies age and the developing world remains
youthful. The world population is forecasted to
jump from roughly 7.3 to 8.8 billion people by
2035. Africa—with fertility rates double those of
the rest of the world—and parts of Asia are on
course for their working-age populations to soar.
This could lead to economic progress or disaster,
depending on how well their governments and
societies ramp up investment in education,
infrastructure, and other key sectors.

Labor and welfare patterns are set to change
dramatically, both in rapidly aging countries
and chronically young countries. People over
60 are becoming the world’s fastest growing
age cohort. Successful aging societies will
increase elderly, youth, and female workforce
participation to offset fewer working-age
adults. Median ages will reach highs by 2035 in
Japan (52.4), South Korea (49.4), Germany (49.6),
and in several other countries. Europe will
be hit especially hard, as well as Cuba (48),
Russia (43.6), and China (45.7). The United States
is aging at a slower rate—reaching a median
age of approximately 41 by 2035—and will
maintain a growing working-age population.

• Chronically young populations—with
an average age of 25 years or less—
will challenge parts of Africa and Asia,
especially Somalia, as well as Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Iraq, and Yemen. These states
historically have been more prone to
violence and instability. Even youthful
states, however, will have increasing
numbers of elderly to support, adding
to their needs for infrastructure and
socioeconomic safety nets.

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS7

Less than 6 years
Thousands

6-8.9 years

9-

11

.9 years

12 or more years

-100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 25

0

Japan
Germany

South Korea
Poland

Czech Republic
Russia

Ukraine
Italy

Spain
Romania

Belarus
Bulgaria
Hungary

Netherlands
Serbia

Greece
Hong Kong

Mexico
Philippines

China

Thailand
Portugal

Brazil
Iraq

Kenya
Uganda

Egypt
Tanzania

Indonesia
Nigeria

India
Madagascar

Niger
Mozambique

Angola
Afghanistan

Sudan
Bangladesh

Ethiopia
Pakistan

Estimated Change in Working-Age (15-64)
Population 2015-35, Selected Countries

Millions

The world’s working-age population will grow the most in South Asian and African
countries, where education levels are among the lowest—putting them at a disadvantage in
the evolving global economy, which will favor higher-skilled workers.

The biggest working-age decreases will be in China and in Europe, where employment
opportunities will probably be greatest for skilled laborers and service-sector workers.

Worldwide, low-value-added manufacturing—historically the steppingstone to economic
development for poor countries, and a pathway to prosperity for aspiring workers—will tend
toward needing ever-fewer unskilled workers as automation, artificial intelligence, and other
manufacturing advances take effect.

Average years of education

Note: The 40 countries highlighted in this chart are the countries with the largest
increases and largest decreases of working-age population, in absolute numbers.
Source: UN population data (median projection).

8

displaced persons reached the highest absolute
levels ever recorded in 2015, with 244 million
international migrants and roughly 65 million
displaced persons. In short, one in every 112
persons in the world is a refugee, an internally
displaced person, or an asylum seeker. Growth in
the number of international migrants, refugees,
asylum seekers, and internally displaced
persons is likely to continue due to major
income disparities between areas, persistent
conflicts, and festering ethnic and religious
tensions. The number of people on the move will
remain high or even increase as environmental
stresses become more pronounced.

. . . And More Are Male. The recent increase
in men compared to women in many countries
in the Middle East and in East and South Asia
signals countries under stress and the lasting
influence of culture. Largely due to sex-selective
abortion, female infanticide, and female
selective neglect, China and India are already
seeing significant numbers of men without

although over time—and with training and
education—such policies could address
critical labor shortfalls in aging societies.

• Population growth will continue to
concentrate in areas vulnerable to sea-level
rise, flooding, and storm surges. By 2035,
roughly 50 percent more people than in
the year 2000 will live in low-elevation
coastal zones worldwide, with the number
in Asia increasing by more than 1

50

million and in Africa by 60 million. Many
megacities, such as Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh
City, Jakarta, and Manila, will continue to
sink because of excessive groundwater
extraction and natural geologic activity.

More Are On The Move . . . Migration flows
will remain high during the next two decades
as people seek economic opportunity and flee
conflict and worsening environmental conditions.
International migrants—or persons who reside
outside their countries of birth—and forcibly

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS
0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

Megacities of
10 million or more

Large cities of
5 to 10 million

Medium-sized cities
of 1 to 5 million

Cities of 500,000
to 1 milllion

Urban areas smaller
than 500,000

20

30

(estimated)

201419

90

Population (million)

731

558

63

41 cities

28 cities
43

41

7

525

10

29

4

23

9

21

Global Urban Population Growth Is Propelled by the Growth of Cities of All Sizes

The lion’s share of the
world’s 20-percent
population increase
between 2015 and
2035 will end up in cities,
as inflows of people
from rural settings join
already-growing city
populations. Cities of
all sizes will continue to
increase in number, led by
“megacities” of 10 million or
more residents, which will
be found on every continent
except Australia.

Source: United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs,
“World Urbanization Prospects, 2014 Revision.”

9

Extreme Poverty Is Declining. Economic
reforms in China and other countries, largely
in Asia, have fueled a historic rise in living
standards for nearly a billion people since
1990, cutting the share of the world living in
“extreme poverty” (below $2 a day) from 35
to around 10 percent. Two dollars a day hardly
makes life easy but does move people beyond
surviving day-to-day. Improved living standards,
however, lead to changed behaviors while raising
expectations and anxieties about the future.

Western Middle Classes Are Squeezed. A global
boom in low-cost manufacturing—together with
automation driven in part by cost pressures from
increased competition—hit US and European
middle-class wages and employment hard over
the past several decades. At the same time,
however, it brought new opportunities to the
developing world and dramatically reduced
the costs of goods for consumers worldwide.

prospects for marriage. Gender imbalances
take decades to correct, generating increased
crime and violence in the meantime.

The Global Economy Is Shifting

Economies worldwide will shift significantly
in the near and distant futures. Wealthy
economies will try to halt recent declines
in economic growth and maintain lifestyles
even as working-age populations shrink and
historically strong productivity gains wane.
The developing world will seek to maintain its
recent progress in eradicating abject poverty
and to integrate rapidly growing working-age
populations into its economies. Developed
and developing alike will be pressed to identify
new services, sectors, and occupations to
replace manufacturing jobs that automation
and other technologies will eliminate—and
to educate and train workers to fill them.

10
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
Megacities of
10 million or more
Large cities of
5 to 10 million
Medium-sized cities
of 1 to 5 million
Cities of 500,000
to 1 milllion
Urban areas smaller
than 500,000
2030
(estimated)
20141990
Population (million)
731
558
63
41 cities
28 cities
43
417

525
10

294
239
21
Global Urban Population Growth Is Propelled by the Growth of Cities of All Sizes

The lion’s share of the
world’s 20-percent
population increase
between 2015 and
2035 will end up in cities,
as inflows of people
from rural settings join
already-growing city
populations. Cities of
all sizes will continue to
increase in number, led by
“megacities” of 10 million or
more residents, which will
be found on every continent
except Australia.

Source: United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs,
“World Urbanization Prospects, 2014 Revision.”
0
1
2
3
4
5

6

7
8

2015200019801960194019201900

18

801860184018

20

World population (billions)Extreme poverty is defined as
living at a consumption (or income)
level below $1.90 per day in real,
purchasing-power parity terms
(adjusted for price differences
between countries and inflation).

Number of
people living in

extreme poverty

Number of people
not living in

extreme poverty

World Population Living in Extreme Poverty, 1820-20

15

Source: OurWorldinData.org Max Roser based on World Bank and Bourguignon and Morrisson.

• Financial crises, the erosion of the middle
class, and greater public awareness
of income inequality—all with roots
predating the 2008 downturn—have fed
sentiment in the West that the costs of
trade liberalization outweigh the gains.
As a result, the historic, 70-year run of
global trade liberalization faces a major
backlash, undermining future prospects
for further liberalization—and raising the
risk of greater protectionism. The world
will be closely watching the United States
and other traditional supporters of trade
for signs of policy retrenchment. Further
liberalization of free trade may be limited
to more narrow issues or sets of partners.

Stagnant wages are the most dramatic sign of
the relentless drive for increased cost-efficiency:
real median household incomes in the United
States, Germany, Japan, Italy, and France rose
by less than 1 percent per year from the mid-
1980s through the Global Financial Crisis in 2008,
according to the OECD. The post-crisis period
has brought little respite, notwithstanding some
improvement in the United States in 2015.
McKinsey estimated that as of 2014, two-thirds
of households in developed economies had
real incomes at or below their 2005 levels.

Growth Will Be Weak. During the next five years,
the global economy will continue to struggle to
resume growth, as the world’s major economies
slowly recover from the 2008 crisis and work
through sharp increases in public-sector debt.
Moreover, the global economy also will face
political pressures threatening open trade just
as China undertakes a massive effort to redirect
its economy toward consumption-based growth.
As a consequence, most of the world’s largest
economies are likely to experience, at least
in the near term, performance that is sub-
par by historical standards. Weak growth will
threaten recent gains in reducing poverty.

• China and the European Union (EU)—two
of the world’s three largest economies—
will continue to attempt major, painful
changes to bolster longer-term growth.
China will be the biggest wildcard, as
it attempts to continue raising living
standards while shifting away from a
state-directed, investment-driven economy
to one that is consumer- and service-
centered. Meanwhile, the EU is trying to
foster stronger economic growth while
struggling to manage high debt levels and
deep political divisions over the future of
the EU project.

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS

Imagining a surprise
news headline in 2018 . . .

“Robin Hoodhacker”
Paralyzes Online Commerce,

Upends Markets

Nov. 19, 2018 – New York

Online commerce ground to a halt a week
before the Christmas shopping season
started in the United States, Canada, and
Europe after numerous attacks by the
persona “Robin Hoodhacker.” The attacks
created chaos by altering online payment
accounts by as much as $100,000 in credit
or debts—sparking a frenzy of online
shopping that has forced retailers to shut
down all digital transactions. The disruption
sent global financial markets into a free
fall before trading was suspended in most
exchanges due to uncertainty about how
long and widely the hacking would persist.

11

12

-10

0
10
20
30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

999080706050403020100

Changes in Real Income by World Income Percentiles
(at Purchasing Power Parity) From 1988 to 2008

Real Income growth (percent)

Percentiles of global income distribution

WINNERS: The very rich.
About half are the top
12 percent of US citizens, also
the richest 3 to 6 percent
from the UK, Japan, France,
and Germany, and the top
1 percent from Brazil, Russia,
and South Africa.

WINNERS: The middle classes
in emerging economies,
particularly China and India.

LOSERS: The very poor, in
Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere,
where incomes remain almost
unchanged during this period. LOSERS: Citizens of rich

countries with stagnating
incomes, plus much of
the population of former
communist countries.

Poorest Richest

Source: Branko Milanovic.

The “Elephant Chart,” showing real household income changes between 1989 and 2008, shows that
the period of the greatest globalization of the world economy—and the rapid growth it fostered in the
developing world—brought large income gains to all but the very poorest of the bottom two-thirds of
the world’s households, and to the world’s very wealthiest. The chart—and subsequent variations to it,
which show slightly different relative gains between groups but the same broad pattern—suggests that
globalization and advanced manufacturing brought relatively little gain to the top third of the world’s
households apart from the very wealthiest. This segment includes many of the lower-to-middle-income
households of the US and other advanced economies.

The data behind the chart only shows changes for each income percentile; individual households in any
country could have moved up or down within percentiles and as a result seen substantially larger—or
smaller—gains than these global averages.

Technology Complicates the
Long-Term Outlook

Most of the worlds’ largest economies will
struggle with shrinking working-age populations,
but all countries will face the challenge of
maintaining employment—and developing
well-trained, resilient workers. Automation,
artificial intelligence (AI), and other technological
innovations threaten the existence of vast
swaths of current jobs up and down the
socioeconomic ladder, including high-technology
manufacturing and even white-collar services.

• Finding new ways to boost productivity in
rich countries will become more difficult.
The demographic, improved-efficiency,

and investment factors behind the post-
World War II period of growth are fading.
This challenge will be especially relevant
as populations in the largest economies
age. Advances in technology will help
boost productivity in developed and
developing countries alike, but improving
education, infrastructure, regulations, and
management practices will be critical to
take full advantage of them.

• As technology increasingly substitutes
for labor and puts downward pressure
on wages, personal-income-based tax
revenues will grow more slowly than
economies—or even shrink in real terms.

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS

Financial Shocks and Economic Doldrums

Debt-fueled economic growth in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan during the past
several decades led to real-estate bubbles, unsustainable personal spending, price spikes for oil
and other commodities—and, ultimately, in 2008, to massive financial crises in the United States
and Europe that undercut economies worldwide. Anxious to stimulate greater growth, some
central banks lowered interest rates to near—and even below—zero. They also attempted to
boost recovery through quantitative easing, adding more than $11 trillion to the balance sheets of
the central banks of China, the EU, Japan, and the United States between 2008 and 2016.

These efforts prevented further defaults of major financial institutions and enabled beleaguered
European governments to borrow at low rates. They have not sparked strong economic growth,
however, because they have not spurred governments, firms, or individuals to boost spending.
Equally important, these efforts have not created incentives for banks to increase lending to
support such spending, amid new prudential standards and near-zero or even negative inflation.

Efforts by Beijing, for example, to stoke growth since 2008 have helped maintain oil and
raw-materials markets, as well as the producers in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East who
supply them. Nonetheless, these markets have sagged with the realization that China’s growth—
based largely on investment to boost industrial capacity—is unsustainable.

In this low-rate, low-growth environment, investors have remained skittish. They have vacillated
between seeking higher returns in emerging markets and seeking safehavens during periodic
scares, providing only unreliable support for potential emerging-economy growth.

13

to be human. Such developments will magnify
values differences across societies, impeding
progress on international regulations or norms
in these areas. Existential risks associated with
some of these applications are real, especially
in synthetic biology, genome editing, and AI.

ICT are poised to transform a widening array
of work practices and the way people live and
communicate. The associated technologies will
increase efficiencies and alter employment in
transportation, engineering, manufacturing,
health care and other services. These tools have
been around for some time, but will become
increasingly mainstream as developers learn
to break down more jobs into automated
components. Skyrocketing investment in
AI, surging sales of industrial and service
robotics, and cloud-based platforms operating
without local infrastructure will create more
opportunities for convergence and more
disruption—especially in the near term—
to labor markets. The “Internet of Things”
(IOT)—where more and more interconnected
devices can interact—will create efficiencies
but also security risks. The effects of new ICTs
on the financial sector, in particular, are likely
to be profound. New financial technologies—
including digital currencies, applications of
“blockchain” technology for transactions, and
AI and big data for predictive analytics—will
reshape financial services, with potentially
substantial impacts on systemic stability and
the security of critical financial infrastructure.

Biotechnologies are at an inflection point,
where advances in genetic testing and editing—
catalyzed by the new methods to manipulate
genes—are turning science fiction into reality.
The time and cost required to sequence a
person’s genome has been slashed. Such
capabilities open the possibility of much more
tailored approaches to enhancing human
capabilities, treating diseases, extending
longevity, or boosting food production. Given

Fiscal pressure on countries that rely on
such taxes will increase, possibly making
value-added taxes or other revenue
schemes more attractive.

Technological Innovation Accelerates
Progress but Leads to Discontinuities

Technology—from the wheel to the silicon
chip—has greatly bent the arc of history, but
anticipating when, where, and how technology
will alter economic, social, political, and
security dynamics is a hard game. Some high-
impact predictions—such as cold fusion—still
have not become realities long after first
promised. Other changes have unfolded
faster and further than experts imagined.
Breakthroughs in recent years in gene editing
and manipulation, such as CRISPR,a are opening
vast new possibilities in biotechnology.

Technology will continue to empower individuals,
small groups, corporations, and states, as well
as accelerate the pace of change and spawn
new complex challenges, discontinuities,
and tensions. In particular, the development
and deployment of advanced information
communication technologies (ICT), AI, new
materials and manufacturing capabilities
from robotics to automation, advances in
biotechnology, and unconventional energy
sources will disrupt labor markets; alter health,
energy, and transportation systems; and
transform economic development. They will also
raise fundamental questions about what it means

aCRISPR is the acronym for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced
Short Palindromic Repeats,” which refers to short segments
of DNA, the molecule that carries genetic instructions for all
living organisms. A few years ago, the discovery was made that
one can apply CRISPR with a set of enzymes that accelerate or
catalyze chemical reactions in order to modify specific DNA
sequences. This capability is revolutionizing biological research,
accelerating the rate at which biotech applications are developed
to address medical, health, industrial, environmental, and
agricultural challenges, while also posing significant ethical and
security questions.

14

• Without regulatory standards, the
development and deployment of AI—even
if less capable than human intellect—is
likely to be inherently dangerous to
humans, threaten citizens’ privacy, and
undermine state interests. Further, failure
to develop standards for AI in robotics is
likely to lead to economic inefficiencies and
lost economic opportunities due to non-
interoperable systems.

• Biopharmaceutical advances will generate
tension over intellectual property
rights. If patent rejections, revocations,
and compulsory licenses become
more widespread, they could threaten
innovation of new medicines and undercut
the profits of multinational pharmaceutical
companies. Governments will have to
weigh the economic and social benefits of
adopting new biotechnologies—such as
genetically engineered (GE) crops—against
competing domestic considerations.

Internationally, the ability to set standards and
protocols, define ethical limits for research,
and protect intellectual property rights will
devolve to states with technical leadership.
Actions taken in the near-term to preserve
technical leadership will be especially critical for
technologies that improve human health, change
biological systems, and expand information and
automation systems. Multilateral engagement
early in the development cycle has the
potential to reduce international tensions
as deployment approaches. This, however,
will require a convergence of interests and
values—even if narrow and limited. More
likely, technical leadership and partnerships
alone will be insufficient to avoid tensions
as states pursue technologies and regulatory
frameworks that work to their benefit.

that most early techniques will only be available
in a few countries, access to these technologies
will be limited to those who can afford to travel
and pay for the new procedures; divisive political
debates over access are likely to ensue.

Further development of advanced materials
and manufacturing techniques could speed
transformation of key sectors, such as
transportation and energy. The global market
for nanotechnology has more than doubled
in recent years, with applications constantly
expanding from electronics to food.

The unconventional energy revolution is
increasing the availability of new sources
of oil and natural gas, while a wide range of
technological advancements on the demand side
are breaking the link between economic growth
and rising energy utilization. Advancements
in solar panels, for example, have drastically
reduced the cost of solar electricity to be
competitive with the retail price of electricity.
With more new energy sources, overall global
energy costs will remain low and the global
energy system will become increasingly
resilient to supply shocks from fossil fuels, to
the benefit, in particular, of China, India, and
other resource-poor developing countries.

Emerging technologies will require careful
parsing to appreciate both the technology
and its cumulative effects on human beings,
societies, states, and the planet. There is
a near-term imperative to establish safety
standards and common protocols for emerging
ICT, biotechnologies, and new materials.
Few organizations—whether governmental,
commercial, academic, or religious—have the
range of expertise needed to do the parsing, let
alone explain it to the rest of us, underscoring
the importance of pooling resources to assess
and contemplate the challenges ahead.

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS15

shaping efforts by organizations, governments,
and thought leaders. Some of these identities
will have a transnational character, with groups
learning from one another and individuals able
to seek inspiration from like-minds a world away.

A key near-term implication of rising identity
politics is the erosion of traditions of tolerance
and diversity associated with the United States
and Western Europe, threatening the global
appeal of these ideals. Other key implications
include the explicit use of nationalism and
threatening characterizations of the West to
shore up authoritarian control in China and
Russia, and the inflaming of identity conflicts
and communal tensions in Africa, the Middle
East and South Asia. How New Delhi treats
Hindu nationalist tendencies and Israel balances
ultra-orthodox religious extremes will be key
determinants, for example, of future tensions.

Populism is emerging in the West and in parts
of Asia. Characterized by a suspicion and
hostility toward elites, mainstream politics, and
established institutions, it reflects rejection
of the economic effects of globalization and

Ideas and Identities Will Exclude

A more interconnected world will continue
to increase—rather than reduce—differences
over ideas and identities. Populism will increase
over the next two decades should current
demographic, economic, and governance trends
hold. So, too, will exclusionary national and
religious identities, as the interplay between
technology and culture accelerates and people
seek meaning and security in the context of
rapid and disorienting economic, social, and
technological change. Political leaders will
find appeals to identity useful for mobilizing
supporters and consolidating political control.
Similarly, identity groups will become more
influential. Growing access to information and
communication tools will enable them to better
organize and mobilize—around political issues,
religion, values, economic interests, ethnicity,
gender, and lifestyle. The increasingly segregated
information and media environment will harden
identities—both through algorithms that provide
customized searches and personally styled
social media, as well as through deliberate

Ritual of Hindu God Idol Ganesh
Immersion at India’s Ganges River
in 2015.

16

ZIGROUP-CREATIONS / Shutterstock.com

is increasing, due largely to high fertility
rates in the developing world, according to
a Pew Research Center study on the future
of religion. Studies of American politics
indicate that religiosity, or the intensity of
individual expressions of faith, is a better
predictor of voter behavior than the
particular faith a person follows.

Governing Is Harder and Harder

How governments govern and create political
order is in flux and likely to vary even more
over the coming decades. Governments will
increasingly struggle to meet public demands
for security and prosperity. Fiscal limits, political
polarization, and weak administrative capacity
will complicate their efforts, as well as the
changing information environment, the growing
stock of issues that publics expect governments
to manage, and the proliferation of empowered
actors who can block policy formation or
implementation. This gap between government
performance and public expectations—combined
with corruption and elite scandals—will result
in growing public distrust and dissatisfaction.
It will also increase the likelihood of protests,
instability, and wider variations in governance.

• High-profile protests in places like Brazil
and Turkey—countries where middle
classes have expanded during the past
decade—indicate that more prosperous
citizens are expecting better, less corrupt
governments and society. They are also
looking for protection from losing what
they have gained. Meanwhile, slower
growth, stagnant middle-class wages, and
rising inequality in developed countries
will continue to drive public demands
to improve and protect living standards.
This will occur at a time when many
governments are constrained by more
debt, more intense global economic

frustration with the responses of political
and economic elites to the public’s concerns.
Both right-wing and left-wing populist
parties have been rising across Europe—as
leaders of political parties in France, Greece,
and the Netherlands, for example, criticize
established organizations for failing to protect
the livelihood of European residents. South
America has had its own waves of populism,
as have the Philippines and Thailand.

• Moreover, anti-immigrant and xenophobic
sentiment among core democracies of the
Western alliance could undermine some of
the West’s traditional sources of strength in
cultivating diverse societies and harnessing
global talent.

• Populist leaders and movements—
whether on the right or left—may leverage
democratic practices to foster popular
support for consolidation of power in
a strong executive and the slow, steady
erosion of civil society, the rule of law, and
norms of tolerance.

Nationalist and Some Religious Identities. A
close cousin to populism, nationalist appeals will
be prominent in China, Russia, Turkey, and other
countries where leaders seek to consolidate
political control by eliminating domestic political
alternatives while painting international relations
in existential terms. Similarly, exclusionary
religious identities will shape regional and local
dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa and
threaten to do so in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa
between Christian and Muslim communities.
In Russia, nation and religion will continue
to converge to reinforce political control.

• Religious identity, which may or may
not be exclusionary, is likely to remain a
potent connection as people seek a greater
sense of identity and belonging in times
of intense change. Over 80 percent of the
world is religiously affiliated and that share

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS17

where institutions and norms are well in place.
Future reforms of international and regional
institutions will move slowly, though, because of
divergent interests among member states and
organizations and the increasing complexity of
emerging global issues. Some institutions and
member countries will continue to cope on an ad
hoc basis, taking steps to partner with nonstate
actors and regional organizations and preferring
approaches targeting narrowly defined issues.

• A rise in veto power. Competing interests
among major and aspiring powers will limit
formal international action in managing
disputes, while divergent interests among
states in general will prevent major reforms
of the UN Security Council’s membership.
Many agree on the need to reform the
UN Security Council, but prospects for
consensus on membership reform are dim.

• Lagging behind. Existing institutions are
likely to wrestle with nontraditional issues
such as genome editing, AI, and human
enhancement because technological
change will continue to far outpace the
ability of states, agencies, and international
organizations to set standards, policies,
regulations, and norms. Cyber and space
also will raise new challenges, especially as
private commercial actors play a bigger role
in shaping capabilities and norms of use.

• Multi-stakeholder multilateralism.
Multilateral dynamics will expand as
formal international institutions work
more closely with companies, civil society
organizations, and local governments to
address challenges. As experimentation
with multi-stakeholder forums grows, new
formats for debate will arise, and private
sector involvement in governance is likely
to increase.

competition, and swings in financial and
commodity markets.

• Greater public access to information about
leaders and institutions—combined with
stunning elite failures such as the 2008
financial crisis and Petrobras corruption
scandal—has undermined public trust in
established sources of authority and is
driving populist movements worldwide.
Moreover, information technology’s
amplification of individual voices and of
distrust of elites has in some countries
eroded the influence of political parties,
labor unions, and civic groups, potentially
leading to a crisis of representation
among democracies. Polls suggest that
majorities in emerging nations, especially
in the Middle East and Latin America,
believe government officials “don’t care
about people like them,” while trust in
governments has dropped in developed
countries as well. Americans demonstrate
the lowest levels of trust in government
since the first year of measurement
in 1958.

• Democracy itself will be more in question,
as some studies suggest that North
American and Western European youth
are less likely to support freedom of
speech than their elders. The number of
states that mix democratic and autocratic
elements is on the rise, a blend that
is prone to instability. Freedom House
reported that measurements of “freedom”
in 2016 declined in almost twice as many
countries as it improved—the biggest
setback in 10 years.

International institutions will struggle to adapt
to a more complex environment but will still have
a role to play. They will be most effective when
the interests of the major powers align on issues
like peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance,

18

weapons are likely to be more common. Activist
groups like Anonymous are likely to employ
increasingly disruptive cyber attacks. These
groups have relatively little reason to restrain
themselves. Since deterrence is harder, states
have had to go on the offense and attack these
actors more aggressively, which sometimes
feeds the groups’ ideological causes.

War From Afar. Meanwhile, both state and
nonstate actors will continue to develop a
greater capacity for stand-off and remote
attacks. Growing development of cyber attacks,
precision-guided weapons, robotic systems and
unmanned weapons lowers the threshold for
initiating conflict because attackers put fewer
lives at risk in their attempts to overwhelm
defenses. The proliferation of these capabilities
will shift warfare from direct clashes of opposing
armies to more stand-off and remote operations,
especially in the initial phases of conflict.

• A future crisis in which opposing militaries
possess long-range, precision-guided
conventional weapons risks quick
escalation to conflict because both sides
would have an incentive to strike before
they were attacked.

• In addition, the command, control, and
targeting infrastructure, including satellites
that provide navigation and targeting
information, would probably become
targets of attacks for forces seeking to
disrupt an enemy’s strike capabilities.
Russia and China, for example, continue
to pursue weapons systems capable of
destroying satellites on orbit, which will
place US and others’ satellites at greater
risk in the future.

New WMD Concerns. The threat posed by
nuclear and other forms of weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) probably will increase in the
years ahead due to technology advances and
growing asymmetry between forces. Current

The Nature of Conflict is Changing

The risk of conflict, including interstate conflict,
will increase during the next two decades due
to evolving interests among major powers,
ongoing terrorist threats, continued instability
in weak states, and the spread of lethal and
disruptive technologies. The decline in the
number and intensity of conflicts during the
past 20 years appears to be reversing: conflict
levels are increasing and battle-related deaths
and other human costs of conflict are up
sharply since 2011—if not earlier—according
to published institutional reports. Furthermore,
the character of conflict is changing because
of advances in technology, new strategies, and
the evolving global geopolitical context—all
of which challenge previous conceptions of
warfare. More actors will employ a wider range
of military and non-military tools, blurring the
line between war and peace and undermining
old norms of escalation and deterrence.

Future conflicts will increasingly emphasize
the disruption of critical infrastructure,
societal cohesion, and basic government
functions in order to secure psychological and
geopolitical advantages, rather than the defeat
of enemy forces on the battlefield through
traditional military means. Noncombatants
will be increasingly targeted, sometimes
to pit ethnic, religious, and political groups
against one another to disrupt societal
cooperation and coexistence within states.
Such strategies suggest a trend toward
increasingly costly, but less decisive conflicts.

Disruptive Groups. Nonstate and substate
groups—including terrorists, insurgents, activists,
and criminal gangs—are accessing a broader
array of lethal and non-lethal means to advance
their interests. Groups like Hizballah and ISIL
have gained access to sophisticated weaponry
during the last decade, and man-portable
anti-tank missiles, surface-to-air missiles,
unmanned drones and other precision-guided

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS19

“Gray Zone” Conflicts. The blurring line
between “peacetime” and “wartime” will make
it harder for adversaries to rely on traditional
calculations of deterrence and escalation in
managing conflicts. Strong-arm diplomacy,
media manipulation, covert operations,
political subversion, and economic coercion are
longstanding pressure tactics, but the ease and
effectiveness of launching cyber disruptions,
disinformation campaigns, and surrogate attacks
are heightening tensions and uncertainty.
The ability to stay below the threshold for
a full-scale war will lead to more persistent
economic, political and security competition in
the “gray zone” between peacetime and war.

Climate Change Looms

A changing climate, increasing stress on
environmental and natural resources, and
deepening connection between human and
animal health reflect complex systemic risks that
will outpace existing approaches. The willingness
of individuals, groups, and governments to
uphold recent environmental commitments,
embrace clean energy technologies, and prepare
for unforeseen extreme environmental and
ecological events will test the potential for
cooperation on global challenges to come.

Climate Change. Changes in the climate will
produce more extreme weather events and
put greater stress on humans and critical
systems , including oceans, freshwater, and
biodiversity. These changes, in turn, will
have direct and indirect social, economic,
political, and security effects. Extreme weather
can trigger crop failures, wildfires, energy
blackouts, infrastructure breakdown, supply-
chain breakdowns, migration, and infectious
disease outbreaks. Such events will be more
pronounced as people concentrate in climate-
vulnerable locations, such as cities, coastal
areas, and water-stressed regions. Specific

nuclear weapon states will almost certainly
continue to maintain, if not modernize, their
nuclear forces out to 2035. Nuclear sabre-rattling
by North Korea and uncertainty over Iran’s
intentions could drive others to pursue nuclear
capabilities. The proliferation of advanced
technologies, especially biotechnologies, will
also lower the threshold for new actors to
acquire WMD capabilities. Internal collapse of
weak states could also open a path for terrorist
WMD use resulting from unauthorized seizures
of weapons in failing or failed states that no
longer can maintain control of their arsenals
or scientific and technical knowledge.

20

Space

Once the domain only of major powers,
space is increasingly democratic. As budgets
for national space agencies plateau, private
industry will fill the void and pursue serious
programs such as space tourism, asteroid
mining, and inflatable space habitats. Full
realization of their commercial potential,
however, is probably decades away.

An increase in space activity brings risks
as well, and international action may be
necessary to identify and remove the debris
most threatening to an expanding global
space presence. The immense strategic and
commercial value offered by outer space
assets ensures that space will increasingly
be an arena in which nations vie for
access, use, and control. The deployment
of antisatellite technologies designed to
purposefully disable or destroy satellites
could potentially intensify global tensions.
A key question will be whether spacefaring
countries—in particular China, Russia, and
the United States—can agree to a code of
conduct for outer space activities.

cover, and sustained shifts in temperature
and precipitation.

• Current climate models project long-
term increases in global average surface
temperatures, but climate scientists warn
that more sudden, dramatic shifts could
be possible, given the complexity of the
system and climate history. Such shifts in
the climate or climate-linked ecosystems
could have dramatic economic and
ecological consequences.

Climate change—whether observed or
anticipated—will become integral to how
people view their world. Many ecological
and environmental stresses cut across state
borders, complicating the ability of communities
and governments to manage their effects.
The urgency of the politics will vary due to
differences in the intensity and geography
of such change. We expect to see increased

extreme weather events remain difficult to
attribute entirely to climate change, but unusual
patterns of extreme and record-breaking
weather events are likely to become more
common, according to the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Past greenhouse gas emissions already
have locked in a significant rise in global
mean temperatures for the next 20 years,
no matter what greenhouse gas reduction
policies are now being implemented. Most
scientists expect that climate change will
exacerbate current conditions, making hot,
dry places hotter and drier, for example.

• Over the longer term, global climatological
stresses will change how and where people
live, as well as the diseases they face.
Such stresses include sea-level rise, ocean
acidification, permafrost and glacial melt,
air quality degradation, changes in cloud

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS

-2

0
2
4
6

2050 21002000

Degrees Celsius

Projected Average Surface Temperature Change

Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fifth Assessment Report, September 2013.

The bold curves represent
averages in global surface
temperatures determined
from computer modeling,
but the actual trajectory
will have many peaks
(higher than average)
and valleys (lower than
average). The peaks are
qualitatively important
because they probably
represent snapshots
of future average
climate conditions.

LOWEST EMISSIONS SCENARIO:
Representative Concentration

Pathway (RCP) 2.6

HIGHEST EMISSIONS SCENARIO:
Representative Concentration

Pathway (RCP) 8.5
Scenarios do not diverge appreciably
over the next two decades, especially
when considering climate variability.

2035

21

country equity markets will see investment
gains. Agriculture, infrastructure, and real
estate are also expected to benefit through
2050. Financial costs from droughts, storms,
floods, and wildfires have risen modestly
but consistently since at least the 1970s,
according to research by development and
humanitarian relief agencies worldwide—and
are set to increase with more frequent and
severe occurrences in the coming decades.

Climate change will drive both geopolitical
competition and international cooperation as
well. China, poised for global leadership on
climate change, would likely keep to its Paris
commitments but could weaken its support
for monitoring mechanisms and gain favor
with developing world emitters like India.
Tensions over managing climate change could
sharpen significantly if some countries pursue
geoengineering technologies in an effort to
manipulate large-scale climate conditions. Early

popular pressure globally to address these
concerns as citizens in the developing world
gain awareness and a growing political voice.

• China’s experience is a cautionary one
for today’s developing world, with new
members of the middle class expressing
greater concern about pollution, water
quality, and basic livability. A 2016 Pew
poll found that half of Chinese polled
were willing to trade economic growth for
cleaner air.

Climate change and related natural disasters,
policy decisions, and new abatement
technologies will create new investment and
industry winners and losers, too. One large
financial consultant forecasts that developed-
country equity markets will see sustained
declines in most sectors over the next 35
years due to concerns about climate change.
Meanwhile, most of the sectors in developed

22

0 40 80

Climate change is a
very serious problem

China

Middle East

Asia/Pacific

Europe

Africa

Latin America

0 40 80

Climate change is
harming people now

0 40 80

Very concerned that
climate change will
harm me personally

74

61

54

45

38

18

54%

77

52

60

48

26

49

63
61

27

37

27
15

GLOBAL MEDIAN

51%

GLOBAL MEDIAN
40%

GLOBAL MEDIAN

Regional medians

Latin America, Africa More Concerned About Climate
Change Compared With Other Regions

Note: In the United States: 45 percent said “climate change is a very serious problem,”
41 percent said “climate change is harming people now,” and 30 percent said they
were “very concerned that climate change will harm me personally.”
Source: Pew Research Center. Spring 2015 Global Attitudes survey. Q32, Q41, and Q42.

will increasingly struggle to address the
complex interdependencies of water, food,
energy, land, health, infrastructure, and labor.

• By 2035, outdoor air pollution is projected
to be the top cause of environmentally
related deaths worldwide, absent
implementation of new air quality policies.
More than 80 percent of urban dwellers
are already exposed to air pollution that
exceeds safe limits, according to the World
Health Organization.

• Half of the world’s population will face
water shortages by 2035, according to
the UN. Rising demands from population
growth, greater consumption, and
agricultural production will outstrip water
supplies, which will become less reliable in
some regions from groundwater depletion
and changing precipitation patterns. More
than 30 countries—nearly half of them in
the Middle East—will experience extremely
high water stress by 2035, increasing
economic, social and political tensions.

• Melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctica
will accelerate sea level rise over time. An
increasingly navigable Arctic will shorten
commercial trading routes and expand
access to the region’s natural resources in
the decades ahead. Glacier melting in the
Tibetan Plateau—the source of nearly all
of Asia’s major rivers—will also have far-
reaching consequences.

• More than a third of the world’s soil, which
produces 95 percent of the world’s food
supply, is currently degraded, and the
fraction will probably increase as the global
population grows. Soil degradation—the
loss of soil productivity due to primarily
human-induced changes—is already
occurring at rates as much as 40 times
faster than new soil formation.

research efforts largely live in computer models
to explore techniques to alter temperature
and rainfall patterns such as injecting aerosols
in the stratosphere, chemically brightening
marine clouds, and installing space-mirrors in
orbit. Other approaches focus on removing
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Given the lack of international standards or
regulations for such activities, any efforts to
test or implement large-scale geoengineering
techniques would raise tensions over the risks
and potential unintended consequences.

Environment and Natural Resources. Nearly all
of the Earth’s systems are undergoing natural
and human-induced stresses outpacing national
and international environmental protection
efforts. Institutions overseeing single sectors

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS

Imagining a surprise
news headline in 2033 . . .

Bangladesh Climate
Geoengineering
Sparks Protests

April 4, 2033 – Dhaka

Bangladesh became the first country to
try to slow climate change by releasing
a metric ton of sulfate aerosol into the
upper atmosphere from a modified Boeing
797 airplane in the first of six planned
flights to reduce the warming effects
of solar radiation. The unprecedented
move provoked diplomatic warnings by
25 countries and violent public protests
at several Bangladeshi Embassies, but
government officials in Dhaka claimed its
action was “critical to self-defense” after
a spate of devastating hurricanes, despite
scientists’ warnings of major unintended
consequences, such as intensified acid
rain and depletion of the ozone layer.

23

Health. Human and animal health will
increasingly be interconnected. Increasing
global connectivity and changing environmental
conditions will affect the geographic distribution
of pathogens and their hosts, and, in turn,
the emergence, transmission, and spread of
many human and animal infectious diseases.
Unaddressed deficiencies in national and
global health systems for disease control
will make infectious disease outbreaks more
difficult to detect and manage, increasing
the potential for epidemics to break out
far beyond their points of origin.

• Noncommunicable diseases, however—
such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and
mental illness—will far outpace infectious
diseases over the next decades, owing to
demographic and cultural factors, including
aging, poor nutrition and sanitation,
urbanization, and widening inequality.

Converging Trends Will Transform
Power and Politics

Together, these global trends will make
governing harder while altering what it means
to exert power. The number and complexity of
issues beyond the scope of any one individual,
community, or state to address is increasing—
and doing so at a seemingly faster pace than
decades ago. Issues once considered long-term
will more frequently impose near-term effects.
For example, complex, interdependencies like
climate change and nefarious or negligent
applications of biotechnologies have the
potential to degrade and destroy human life.
Cyber and information technologies—complex
systems on which humans are increasingly
dependent—will continue to create new forms of
commerce, politics, and conflict with implications
that are not immediately understood.

• Diversity in the biosphere will continue
to decline despite ongoing national and
international efforts. Climate change
will increasingly amplify ongoing habitat
loss and degradation, overexploitation,
pollution, and invasive alien species—
adversely affecting forests, fisheries,
and wetlands. Many marine ecosystems,
particularly coral reefs, will face critical
risks from warming and acidifying oceans.

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Sharing Water Will Be
More Contentious

A growing number of countries will
experience water stress—from population
growth, urbanization, economic
development, climate change, and poor
water management—and tensions over
shared water resources will rise. Historically,
water disputes between states have led
to more sharing agreements than violent
conflicts, but this pattern will be hard to
maintain. Dam construction, industrial
water pollution, and neglect or non-
acceptance of existing treaty provisions
aggravate water tensions, but political
and cultural stress often play an even
larger role.

Nearly half of the world’s 263 international
river basins lack cooperative management
agreement as well as only a handful
of the more than 600 transboundary
aquifer systems. Moreover, many existing
agreements are not sufficiently adaptive
to address emergent issues such as climate
change, biodiversity loss, and water quality.
Ongoing disputes in key river basins, such
as the Mekong, Nile, Amu Darya, Jordan,
Indus, and the Brahmaputra, will illustrate
how water governance structures adapt in
an era of increasingly scarce resources.

• Nonprofits, multinational corporations,
religious groups, and a variety of other
organizations now have the ability to
amass wealth, influence, and a following—
enabling them to address welfare and
security in ways that may be more effective
than those that political authorities wield.

• Similarly, the increasing accessibility of
weapon technologies, combined with
effective recruiting and communications,
has enabled nonstate groups to upend
regional orders.

The information environment is fragmenting
publics and their countless perceived realities—
undermining shared understandings of world
events that once facilitated international
cooperation. It is also prompting some to
question democratic ideals like free speech
and the “market place of ideas.” When
combined with a growing distrust of formal
institutions and the proliferation, polarization,
and commercialization of traditional and
social media outlets, some academics and
political observers describe our current era as
one of “post-truth” or “post-factual” politics.
Nefarious attempts to manipulate publics
are relatively easy in such contexts, as recent
Russian efforts vis-à-vis both Ukraine and the
US presidential election, including manipulation
of alleged Wikileaks disclosures, demonstrate.

• Studies have found that information
counter to an individual’s opinion or prior
understanding will not change or challenge
views but instead will reinforce the belief
that the information is from a biased or
hostile source, further polarizing groups.

• Compounding matters, people often turn
to leaders or others who think like they
do and trust them to interpret the “truth.”
According to an Edelman Trust Barometer
survey, a sizeable trust gap is widening

Economic, technological, and security trends
are increasing the number of states that can
exert geopolitical influence, bringing the
unipolar post-Cold War period to a close. The
economic progress of the past century has
widened the number of states—Brazil, China,
India, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, and Turkey—
with material claims to great and middle
power status. This opens the door to more
actors—and their competing interests and
values—seeking to shape international order.
Even with profound uncertainties regarding
the future of global economic growth, leading
forecasters broadly agree that emerging
market economies like China and India will
contribute a much larger share of global GDP
than is currently the case—shifting the focus
of the world’s economic activity eastward.

Technology and wealth are empowering
individuals and small groups to act in ways
that states historically monopolized—and
fundamentally altering established patterns
of governance and conflict. Just as changes
in material wealth challenge the international
balance of power, empowered but embattled
middle classes in wealthy countries are putting
extraordinary pressure on once-established
state-society relations, specifically on the
roles, responsibilities, and relationships that
governments and citizens, elites and masses
expect of one another. The reduction of
poverty, especially in Asia, has expanded the
number of individuals and groups who are
no longer focused solely on subsistence but
instead wield the power of consumption,
savings, and political voice—now amplified by
the Internet and modern communications.

• The ICT revolution placed in the hands
of individuals and small groups the
information and the ability to exert
worldwide influence—making their actions,
interests, and values more consequential
than ever before.

GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS25

between college-educated consumers
of news and the mass population.
The international survey reveals that
respondents are increasingly reliant on a
“person like yourself,” who is more trusted
than a CEO or government official.

• A Pew study from 2014 showed that the
highest percentage of trust for a news
agency among the US persons polled was
only 54 percent. Alternatively, individuals
are gravitating to social media to obtain
news and information about world and
local events.

The power of individuals and groups to block
outcomes will be much easier to wield than the
constructive power of forging new policies and
alignments or implementing solutions to shared
challenges, especially when the credibility of
authority and information is in question.

• For democratic governments, this
means greater difficulty in setting and
communicating a narrative around the
common interest. It also complicates
implementing policy.

• For political parties, it heralds a further
weakening of their traditional role in
aggregating and representing interests
to the state. Special interest groups have
been rising at the expense of political party
membership in the United States since
the early 1970s, well before the Internet,
but information technology and social
networking have reinforced that trend.

• For authoritarian-minded leaders and
regimes, the impulse to coerce and
manipulate information—as well as the
technical means to do so—will increase.

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GLOBAL TRENDS: PARADOX OF PROGRESS

The Changing Nature of Power

As global trends converge to make governance and cooperation harder, they
are changing the strategic context in ways that make traditional, material forms
of power less sufficient for shaping and securing desired outcomes. Material
power—typically measured through gross domestic product, military spending,
population size, and technology level—has always been, and will continue to
be, a prime lever of the state. With such might, powerful states can set agendas
and summon cooperation—as with the recent Paris climate accords—and even
unilaterally impose outcomes, as Russia’s annexation of Crimea attests. Material
power does not explain the impact, however, that nonstate actors, like ISIL, have
had in shaping the security environment nor the constraints that major state
powers have faced in countering such developments. It also does little to compel
those who chose the path of non-compliance.

Securing and sustaining outcomes—whether in combating violent extremism,
or managing extreme weather—will get harder because of the proliferation
of actors who can veto or deny the ability to take action. Growing numbers of
state and nonstate actors are deploying new or nontraditional forms of power,
such as cyber, networks, and even manipulating the environment, to influence
events and create disruption, placing increased constraints on the ability of
“materially powerful” states to achieve outcomes at reasonable costs. States
and large organizations now confront the increased possibility that those
who disagree—whether activists, citizens, investors, or consumers—will exit,
withdraw compliance, or protest, sometimes violently. In addition, expanding
global connectivity through information and other networks is enabling weaker
but well-connected actors to have an outsized impact.

The most powerful actors of the future will be states, groups, and individuals
who can leverage material capabilities, relationships, and information in a
more rapid, integrated, and adaptive mode than in generations past. They will
use material capabilities to create influence and in some instances to secure
or deny outcomes. They will demonstrate “power in outcome,” however, by
mobilizing large-scale constituencies of support, using information to persuade
or manipulate societies and states to their causes. The ability to create evocative
narratives and ideologies, generate attention, and cultivate trust and credibility
will rest in overlapping but not identical interests and values. The most
powerful entities will induce states—as well as corporations, social or religious
movements, and some individuals—to create webs of cooperation across
issues, while exhibiting depth and balance across their material, relational, and
informational capabilities. Sustaining outcomes will require a constant tending
to relationships.

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