CYBERSECURITY

looking backward
Conversations with
NEWT GINGRICH, ELAINE KAMARCK,
PETER SCHIFF and DENNIS KUCINICH
Every four years, the U.S. National Intelligence Council publishes its Global Trends Report for the incoming or returning
U.S. President. It is also released publicly as a tool for policymakers, academics, and others to use. The report gives a
viewpoint on trends in topics that include economics, demography, ecology, energy, health, governance, security, identity,
and geopolitics, and provides a framework for thinking about the next 20 years.
The Futurist thought it would be insightful to look backward almost ten years at Global Trends 2025, now that we’re
roughly halfway between its publication and the end of its ‘shelf life.’ Noteworthy and throught-provoking scenarios laid
out in the report for a newly elected President Obama included:
• U.S. influence and power will wane, and the United States will face constricted freedom of action in 2025. China and
Russia will grow in influence. Wealth will also shift away from the United States toward Russia and China.
• A broader conflict, possibly a nuclear war, could erupt between India and Pakistan. This could cause other nations to
align themselves with existing nuclear powers for protection.
• Rising world population, affluence, and shifts in Western dietary habits will increase global demand for food by 50%
by 2030. Some 1.4 billion people will lack access to safe drinking water.
After its publication, this magazine interviewed four experts with a range of backgrounds and viewpoints about the report. These
conversations with Newt Gingrich, Elaine Kamarck, Peter Schiff and Dennis Kucinich span numerous topics that are very top-ofmind
in 2015, including STEM education as a national security issue, student debt loads, a “RAND for cybersecurity,” the possibility
of a failed Mexico, the ambition and limits of a rising China, and the power of American innovation.
As we anticipate the upcoming Global Trends 2035 report to come after the next Presidential election in November 2016,
this short retrospective highlights the promise and challenges of forecasting policy-related issues twenty years out.
INTERVIEWER: To what extent do
you agree with the key points
outlined in the Global Trends 2025
report?
NEWT GINGRICH: The influence and
power of the United States may
decline, but this will not be a decline
in our economic, political, or military
strength. Rather than the United States
enjoying the role of the world’s lone
superpower, as we do today, the
influence of other countries such as
India and China will increase in
relative terms. As the countries with
the two largest populations, India and
China will certainly have a voice in the
next quarter century, and their current
economic growth, along with the
attendant increase in their military
strength, will support that voice.
With respect to India and Pakistan,
the United States can do much in the
way of reducing tensions between
them. What we are witnessing is a
continuing ascendance in the strategic
importance of both nations. The November
2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai
have raised tensions between India
and Pakistan considerably. The United
States can continue to work with both
nations to reduce these tensions, find
common ground where possible, and
forge a cooperative relationship between
them.
INTERVIEWER: Are the events laid
out in the report inevitable?
NEWT GINGRICH: Nothing is
inevitable. In my book, Implementing
the Art of Transformation, I provide a
point of reference for considering
what the decades ahead may look like.
There will be more growth in scientific
knowledge in the next 25 years than
occurred during the past 100 years.
We are exceeding, by four to seven
16 THE FUTURIST Summer 2015 • www.wfs.org
© 2015 World Future Society • All rights reserved.