Intelligence report predicts post-pandemic world will be marked by climate change and social fragmentation

Intelligence reports in the United States have little to offer as comfort to a tired planet from more than a year of pandemic. According to them, in the next twenty years, the world will continue to move closer to a place quite dark.

On Thursday, the National Intelligence Council, an office center of the National Intelligence Directorate responsible for preparing strategic forecasts and estimates, released its quadrennial report entitled “Global Trends”.

According to an article in Washington post included in the report, in our time horizon, we will witness a world troubled by the coronavirus pandemic, the ravages of climate change, marked by massive migration, and a growing gap between what people demand of their leaders and what they can actually deliver.

The intelligence community has long warned lawmakers and the general public that the The pandemic could profoundly reshape US global politics and national security.

The authors of the report, which does not represent official U.S. policy, describe the pandemic as a glimpse of the crises to come.

Indeed, the The COVID-19 pandemic has been a destabilizing event globally -the editorial board defined it as “the biggest and most unique global disruption since WWII- which “reminded the world of its fragility” and “shook old ideas” about how governments and institutions might respond to a disaster.

Further, the authors state that The pandemic has accelerated and exacerbated the social and economic cracks already present before its arrival, in February 2020. And that it heightened the risks of “more cascading global challenges, from disease to climate change and disruption to new technologies and financial crises,” the authors write.

The report warns of an “imminent imbalance between current and future challenges and the capacity of institutions and systems to respond”.

Within societies, fragmentation is increasing – politically, culturally and economically – and “Large segments of the world’s population are suspicious of institutions and governments which they believe are unwilling or unable to meet their needs.”says the report.

As a result, the effects of the pandemic will persist and may shape the expectations of future generations of their governments., especially when a warming world leads to new human conflicts, including a dire scenario of global food shortages and mass violence.

The report finds that the international scene is largely determined by the rivalry between China and the United States, but he asserts that no state is ready to become the dominant world force. As competing powers struggle to improve their positions, progress will be made towards “a more unstable and conflict-prone geopolitical environment.”

TechnologyWith its full potential to boost economies and improve communications, it can also exacerbate political tensions, as it has done in the past.

More and more people are susceptible “Lean into the information spaces of people who share similar views, which strengthens beliefs and one’s own understanding of truth ”, the report concludes.

While the predictions are risky and the report’s authors warn they are not trained to see the future, they dare to draw five scenarios on some sort of sliding scale that can help us know where the world will turn as 2040 approaches.

The 5 scenarios of the future analyzed by intelligence specialists

In the most optimistic extreme, a sort of “The Renaissance of Democracies” could usher in a new era of American global leadership, in which economic growth and technological achievements offer solutions to the world’s greatest problems. In this painting, Russia and China will be weakened, almost like authoritarian remnants from which the brightest scientists and businessmen have fled to the United States and Europe.

On the other side, in the dark version of the future, there is “tragedy and mobilization”; a scenario in which the United States is no longer the dominant player, and a global environmental catastrophe causes food shortages and a “bottom-up” revolution, with young people scarred by the mistakes of their leaders during the pandemic, the need to adopt policies to redress the climate crisis and long-standing social inequalities. In this scenario, a European Union dominated by green parties works with the United Nations to expand international aid and focus on sustainability, and China joins in to quell internal unrest in its famine-stricken cities.

Between these extremes, the report imagines three other possibilities: China is becoming a leading state but not globally dominant; The United States and China prosper and compete as two great powers; and globalization fails to create a single source of influence, and the world becomes more or less competing blocs, preoccupied with threats to its prosperity and security.

The present has a lot to say about the future, and this is where the authors find reasons to be alarmed. “The international system, including organizations, alliances, rules and norms, is ill-configured to deal with the aggravating global challenges facing populations,” the authors write.

KEEP READING: