Welcome to 2025: American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:



Welcome to 2025
American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early

By Michael T. Klare


Memo to the CIA: You may not be prepared for time-travel, but welcome to 2025 anyway! Your rooms may be a little small, your ability to demand better accommodations may have gone out the window, and the amenities may not be to your taste, but get used to it. It's going to be your reality from now on.

Okay, now for the serious version of the above: In November 2008, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an affiliate of the Central Intelligence Agency, issued the latest in a series of futuristic publications intended to guide the incoming Obama administration. Peering into its analytic crystal ball in a report entitled Global Trends 2025, it predicted that America's global preeminence would gradually disappear over the next 15 years -- in conjunction with the rise of new global powerhouses, especially China and India. The report examined many facets of the future strategic environment, but its most startling, and news-making, finding concerned the projected long-term erosion of American dominance and the emergence of new global competitors. "Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor (in 2025)," it stated definitively, the country's "relative strength -- even in the military realm -- will decline and U.S. leverage will become more constrained."

That, of course, was then; this -- some 11 months into the future -- is now and how things have changed. Futuristic predictions will just have to catch up to the fast-shifting realities of the present moment. Although published after the onset of the global economic meltdown was underway, the report was written before the crisis reached its full proportions and so emphasized that the decline of American power would be gradual, extending over the assessment's 15-year time horizon. But the economic crisis and attendant events have radically upset that timetable. As a result of the mammoth economic losses suffered by the United States over the past year and China's stunning economic recovery, the global power shift the report predicted has accelerated. For all practical purposes, 2025 is here already. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175131/michael_klare_the_great_superpower_meltdown (this piece follows an intro titled 'The Great Superpower Meltdown')

[ixion]

1. kicked and recommended

seriously, all these unrec folks, get a grip.

[independentpiney]

2. Can't imagine why anyone would unrec this

It's a well written article whether you agree or disagree with the opinion, with which I agree.
Another k&r

[glitch]

5. Reality aka "doom & gloom" harshes the high of the Cheerleaders.

Any such postings are obvious calls for Obama to fail.

:sarcasm:

Here's a counter K & R for Klare, who has been right on the mark for decades.

[raccoon]

3. Rec'd. nt

[wuvuj]

4. The real danger will be the retrograde...

...who will want to keep doing the SOS even when it hasn't and won't work?

So what happens when things go down the tubes even more and the Repugnuts get back in power by 2016? Can you say deep dish fascism?