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Hudson Historically:
THE YEAR 2000
As Hudson Institute approaches its
50th anniversary in 2011, Hudson
Institute News and Review will feature
summaries of Institute studies
that have shaped public policy.
Forty years ago, in 1967, Hudson
Institute published The Year 2000:
A Framework for Speculation on
the Next Thirty-Three Years—a
book-length study commissioned
by the prestigious American Aca -
demy of Arts and Sciences.
Whereas some, if not most, think
tank studies have a short-term perspective,
The Year 2000 was a visionary
exercise, an immediate best-seller
translated in num erous languages
that sought to sketch alternative
world futures.
The study’s authors—Institute
founder and chairman Herman Kahn
and researcher Anthony J. Wiener—
pioneered mathematical models to
predict developments in economics,
science, technology, and international
relations—often highlighting the
dynamic interplay between trends.
These models’ use of imaginative
scenarios helped shape the future of
corporate strategic planning.
Kahn and Wiener argued that the
world would likely see sustained glo -
bal economic development. Whereas
the United States and Soviet
Union would decline in influence,
intermediate powers would play a
rising role, both economically and
politically—especially Japan, West
Germany, France, China, the United
King dom, and India, and the increasingly
integrated “European political
community.”
The Year 2000 predicted the wide
use of robots, mobile phones, video
communication, high-speed data
processors, international computer
networks, and home satellites.
negotiations to foster cooperation in
economic regulation and security procedures
among the United States,
Canada, and Mexico. Sands and
Anderson find that the fears some
critics raise—that this process is the
first step toward a European-style
“North American Union”—are
unfounded, but that the SPP process is
fatally flawed by the exclusion of
Congress and a lack of transparency.
Leaders failed to address these problems
at their recent summit in
Montebello, Quebec, leaving it to next
year’s summit in the United States, or
to the next U.S. administration.
■ The U.N. and Beyond:
United Democratic Nations
(Hudson Institute)
Edited by Anne Bayefsky
The U.N. and Beyond is a compilation
of essays from 19 experts in
gov ernment, politics, journalism,
and academia. The essays present
evidence of increasing anti-Ameri -
canism and anti-Semitism within the
United Nations and challenge the
assumption that for democratic
nations there is no alternative to the
U.N. Con trib utors include Hudson
President Herbert London, distinguished
Middle East scholar Bernard
Lewis, author Aayan Hirsi Ali, former
Education Secretary William Bennett,
former U.N. Ambassador John
Bolton, Senator Tom Coburn, and
Senator Norman Coleman. The
papers were originally presented at a
conference Hudson convened in New
York in September 2006 to discuss
alternatives to the U.N. This book
is available for purchase on
Amazon.com.
■ Is The United States
Losing Turkey?
(Hudson Institute)
By S. Enders Wimbush
and Rajan Menon
The alliance between the United
States and Turkey, which has endured
since the Truman doctrine in 1947,
currently finds itself in a downward
spiral, with neither side taking serious
steps to remedy the situation. Should
this neglect continue, the price paid by
both sides will be high.
This paper presents several
recommendations, including fashioning
a “Grand Bargain” between the
Kurdistan Regional Government and
Turkey, and making Turkey a central
participant in any regional settlement
on Iraq.
16 HUDSON INSTITUTE / FALL 2007