The US will remain the single most important actor but will be less dominant
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=5314
US economic, military and political dominance is likely to http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4600 over the next two decades, according to a new US intelligence report on global trends.
The National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicts China, India and Russia will increasingly challenge US influence.
It also says the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=5977 may no longer be the world’s major currency, and food and water shortages will fuel conflict.
However, the report concedes that these outcomes are not inevitable and will depend on the actions of world leaders.
It will make sombre reading for President-elect Barack Obama, the BBC’s Jonathan Beale in Washington says, as it paints a bleak picture of the future of US influence and power.
“The next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks,” says Global Trends 2025, the latest of the reports that the NIC prepares every four years in time for the next presidential term.
Washington will retain its considerable military advantages, but scientific and technological advances; the use of “irregular warfare tactics”; the proliferation of long-range precision weapons; and the growing use of cyber warfare “increasingly will constrict US freedom of action”, it adds.Nevertheless, the report concludes: “The US will remain the single most important actor but will be less dominant.”
The NIC’s 2004 study painted a rosier picture of America’s global position, with US dominance expected to continue.
But the latest Global Trends report says that rising economies such as China, India, Russia and Brazil will offer the US more competition at the top of a multi-polar international system.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7741049.stm