US Intelligence Predicted (in 2000), What the World Would Look Like in 2015

[SeaBreeze]

US Intelligence predictions of how the world would look in 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/internat...ld-look-like-in-2015/384071/?single_page=true

Nine months before the September 11 attacks—and just days after the Supreme Court halted the Florida recount, handing the presidency to George W. Bush—U.S. intelligence officials published an 85-page prediction for what the world would look like in 2015.

It's a world that seems familiar in some ways, and utterly foreign in others. And it's a world in which power is diffusing and decaying—reflecting one of the most significant trends of 2014 and perhaps the coming year as well.

The future depicted in the National Intelligence Council's "Global Trends 2015" report, published in December 2000, contains numerous contemporary echoes, as my colleagues at Defense Onehave pointed out.

There's financial volatility; anonymous cyberattacks; widening economic divisions; an increasingly assertive China; a WMD-wielding North Korea; growing illegal migration to the U.S. from Central America; a mercurial, authoritarian Russia that "remains internally weak and institutionally linked to the international system primarily through its permanent seat on the UN Security Council"; a Middle East tormented by "demographic pressures, social unrest, religious and ideological extremism, and terrorism," and shaped by the destabilizing impact of new technology and the allure of political Islam.

 

[Ralphy1]

Quite a crystal ball they had!

 

[WhatInThe]

In some respects quite predictable to anyone who follows the news, pays attention or is aware of their surroundings. I've lived, worked and/or vacationed in high immigrant areas and the growing Hispanic demographic has been central or south American. The war in Bosnia/Serbia along with WTC attack one should've dropped obvious clues to most that the Muslim demographic would become an issue. Heck in Gulf War 1 in the early 90s I remember how "fragile" the coalition was with the Muslim countries. And when Mother Russia broke up/called it quits other than nukes and some stronger militaries capable of local conflict only a weak Russia was an easy call-everyone seems to forget they gave up on Afghanistan without any clear victories other than the initial invasion/occupation.

I find little or no surprise. I think the people who go 'Oh Wow' simply were not aware at the time. Even more scary some John Doe gets paid to write a report stating the obvious.

 

[rt3]

Willing to bet the real report was pretty accurate and specific, not the washed public one.