Earth-Info.Net feels that anyone trying to understand the present war in Iraq (and world affairs in general!) would benefit from reading a
CIA report entitled
Global Trends 2015:
A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts...
The report outlines
4 alternate scenarios for the future:
*
Inclusive Globalization: A
virtuous circle develops among technology, economic growth, demographic factors, and effective governance, which enables a majority of the world's people to benefit from globalization.
*
Pernicious Globalization:
Global elites thrive, but the majority of the world's population fails to benefit from globalization. Population growth and resource scarcities place heavy burdens on many developing countries, and migration becomes a major source of interstate tension
*
Regional Competition: Regional
identities sharpen in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, driven by growing political resistance in Europe and East Asia to US global preponderance and US-driven globalization and each region's increasing preoccupation with its own economic and political priorities.
*
Post-Polar World: US domestic preoccupation increases as the
US economy slows, then stagnates. Economic and political tensions with Europe grow, the US-European alliance deteriorates as the United States withdraws its troops, and Europe turns inward, relying on its own regional institutions.