Yeah, $5 trillion of it just got nationalized - for starters.
On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> [via Lou Proyect's Marxmail]
>
> Washington Post - September 10, 2008
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903302.html>
>
> Reduced Dominance Is Predicted for U.S.
> Analyst Previews Report to Next President
> By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
> Washington Post Staff Writers
>
> An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future
> global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming
> decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate
> change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water
> and energy.
>
> The report, previewed in a speech by Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence
> community's top analyst, also concludes that the one key area of continued
> U.S. superiority -- military power -- will "be the least significant" asset
> in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because "nobody is
> going to attack us with massive conventional force."
>
> Fingar's remarks last week were based on a partially completed "Global
> Trends 2025" report that assesses how international events could affect the
> United States in the next 15 to 17 years. Speaking at a conference of
> intelligence professionals in Orlando, Fingar gave an overview of key
> findings that he said will be presented to the next occupant of the White
> House early in the new year.
>
> "The U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will
> be much diminished," Fingar said, according to a transcript of the Thursday
> speech. He saw U.S. leadership eroding "at an accelerating pace" in
> "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas."
>
> The 2025 report will lay out what Fingar called the "dynamics, the
> dimensions, the drivers" that will shape the world for the next
> administration and beyond. In advance of its completion, intelligence
> officials have begun briefing the major presidential candidates on the
> security threats that they would be likely to face in office. Sen. Barack
> Obama (D-Ill.) received an initial briefing Sept. 2, with Sen. John McCain
> (R-Ariz.) expected to receive one in the coming days, intelligence officials
> said.
>
> As described by Fingar, the intelligence community's long-term outlook has
> darkened somewhat since the last report in 2004, which also focused on the
> impact of globalization but was more upbeat about its consequences for the
> United States. The new view is in line with that of prominent economists and
> other global thinkers who have argued that America's influence is shrinking
> as economic powerhouses such as China assert themselves on the global stage.
> The trend is described in the new book "The Post-American World," in which
> author Fareed Zakaria writes that the shift is not about the "decline of
> America, but rather about the rise of everyone else."
>
> In the new intelligence forecast, it is not just the United States that
> loses clout. Fingar predicts plummeting influence for the United Nations,
> the World Bank and a host of other international organizations that have
> helped maintain political and economic stability since World War II. It is
> unclear what new institutions can fill the void, he said.
>
> In the years ahead, Washington will no longer be in a position to dictate
> what new global structures will look like. Nor will any other country,
> Fingar said. "There is no nobody in a position . . . to take the lead and
> institute the changes that almost certainly must be made in the
> international system," he said.
>
> The predicted shift toward a less U.S.-centric world will come at a time
> when the planet is facing a growing environmental crisis, caused largely by
> climate change, Fingar said. By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity
> of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to
> the Horn of Africa.
>
> For poorer countries, climate change "could be the straw that breaks the
> camel's back," Fingar said, while the United States will face "Dust Bowl"
> conditions in the parched Southwest. He said U.S. intelligence agencies
> accepted the consensual scientific view of global warming, including the
> conclusion that it is too late to avert significant disruption over the next
> two decades. The conclusions are in line with an intelligence assessment
> produced this summer that characterized global warming as a serious security
> threat for the coming decades.
>
> Floods and droughts will trigger mass migrations and political upheaval in
> many parts of the developing world. But among industrialized states,
> declining birthrates will create new economic stresses as populations become
> grayer. In China, Japan and Europe, the ratio of working adults to seniors
> "begins to approach one to three," he said.
>
> The United States will fare better than many other industrial powers, in
> part because it is relatively more open to immigration. Newcomers will
> inject into the U.S. economy a vitality that will be absent in much of
> Europe and Japan -- countries that are "on a good day, highly chauvinistic,"
> he said.
>
> "We are just about alone in terms of the highly developed countries that
> will continue to have demographic growth sufficient to ensure continued
> economic growth," Fingar said.
>
> Energy security will also become a major issue as India, China and other
> countries join the United States in seeking oil, gas and other sources for
> electricity. The Chinese get a good portion of their oil from Iran, as do
> many U.S. allies in Europe, limiting U.S. options on Iran. "So the
> turn-the-spigot-off kind of thing -- even if we could do it -- would be
> counterproductive."
>
> Nearly absent from Fingar's survey was the topic of terrorism. Since the
> last such report, the intelligence community has projected a declining role
> for al-Qaeda, which was deemed likely to become "increasingly decentralized,
> evolving into an eclectic array of groups, cells, and individuals." Inspired
> by al-Qaeda, "regionally based groups, and individuals labeled simply as
> jihadists -- united by a common hatred of moderate regimes and the West --
> are likely to conduct terrorist attacks," the 2004 document said.
>
> The new assessment saw a continued threat from Iran, however. Fingar
> predicted steady progress in the Islamic republic's attempts to create
> enriched uranium, the essential fuel used in nuclear weapons and commercial
> power reactors. For now, however, there is no evidence that Iran has resumed
> work on building a weapon, Fingar said, echoing last year's landmark
> National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which concluded that warhead-design
> work had halted in 2003.
>
> He said Iran's ultimate decision on whether to build nuclear weapons
> depended on how its leaders viewed their "security requirement" -- whether
> they thought their government sufficiently safe in a region surrounded by
> traditional enemies.
>
> Iranians are "more scared of their neighbors than many think they ought to
> be," Fingar said. But he noted that the United States had eliminated two of
> Iran's biggest enemies: Iraq's Saddam Hussein and the Taliban regime in
> Afghanistan.
>
> "The United States took care of Iran's principal security threats," he said,
> "except for us, which the Iranians consider a mortal threat."
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