The world as we know it will be a very different place in terms of political and economic developments in the coming 10 years, according to a private-intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor.
If these predictions are to believed, the world 10 years from now will be a more dangerous place, with US power waning and other prominent countries experiencing a period of chaos and decline.
1) Russia will collapse
Sanctions, declining oil prices, a plunging ruble, rising military expenses, and increasing internal discord will weaken the hold of Russia’s central government over the world’s largest country.
“We expect Moscow’s authority to weaken substantially, leading to the formal and informal fragmentation of Russia. It is unlikely that the Russian Federation will survive in its current form,” the report said.
“There will not be an uprising against Moscow, but Moscow’s withering ability to support and control the Russian Federation will leave a vacuum. What will exist in this vacuum will be the individual fragments of the Russian Federation, ” Stratfor warns.
2) US will have to use its military to secure Russia’s nukes
If Russia disintegrates, as Stratfor predicts, the breakout of its nuclear weapons stockpile will be “the greatest crisis of the next decade”.
And the US will have to figure out what to do about it. “Washington is the only power able to address the issue, but it will not be able to seize control of the vast numbers of sites militarily and guarantee that no missile is fired in the process,” the report states.
“The United States will either have to invent a military solution that is difficult to conceive of now, accept the threat of rogue launches, or try to create a stable and economically viable government in the regions involved to neutralise the missiles over time,” the report said.
3) Germany to suffer severe economic reversals
Being an export-dependent economy, Germany has the most to lose from a worsening Euro crisis and a resulting wave of “Euroscepticism.
“We expect Germany to suffer severe economic reversals in the next decade,” the report stated.
4) Poland will be one of Europe’s leaders
“At the center of economic growth and increasing political influence will be Poland,” the report upheld.
Poland’s population is not likely to decline as much as those of the other major European economies, according to Stratfor. The fact that Poland is the largest and most prosperous European state on Russia’s western border will thrust it into a position of regional leadership. Further, it also enjoys a close, longstanding strategic partnership with the US.
5) There will be four Europes
The report predicted there will be four Europes: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Island and they will be increasingly estranged from one another.
“The European Union might survive in some sense, but European economic, political, and military relations will be governed primarily by bilateral or limited multilateral relationships that will be small in scope and not binding,” the report said.
“Some states might maintain a residual membership in a highly modified European Union, but this will not define Europe.”
6) Turkey and US will be close allies for an unexpected reason
Turkey will want US help in keeping Moscow out of its backyard. “Turkey will continue to need US involvement for political and military reasons,” the report said.
“The United States will oblige, but there will be a price: participation in the containment of Russia. The United States does not expect Turkey to assume a war-fighting role and does not intend one for itself. It does, however, want a degree of cooperation in managing the Black Sea.”
Further, several Arab countries will remain in a state of free-fall and the major beneficiary from all of this will be Turkey, the report said.
7) China will face a huge problem
China’s growth hasn’t been geographically distributed evenly with coastal cities thriving, while the interior has less access to international markets and is comparatively poorer. This problem will only get worse as China continues to urbanise.
“The expectation that the interior — beyond parts of the more urbanized Yangtze River Delta — will grow as rapidly as the coast is being dashed,” the report says.
Further, there is an unlikely but “still conceivable outcome in which political interests along the coast rebel against Beijing’s policy of transferring wealth to the interior to contain political unrest.”
8) Japan will be Asia’s rising naval power
With China building a state-of-the-art navy, Japan will have no option but to project power into the region to counter China and protect its supply routes.
“Right now [Japan] depends on the United States to guarantee access,” the forecast states.
“But given that we are forecasting more cautious US involvement in foreign ventures and that the United States is not dependent on imports, the reliability of the United States is in question. Therefore, the Japanese will increase their naval power in the coming years.”
9) The South China Sea islands won’t start a war, but there’s a catch
Regional powers will decide that South China Sea island disputes aren’t worth a major military escalation, but they will still be a symptom of a volatile power dynamic.
“Fighting over the minor islands producing low-cost and unprofitable energy will not be the primary issue in the region,” the report predicts.
“Rather, an old three-player game will emerge. Russia, the declining power, will increasingly lose the ability to protect its maritime interests. The Chinese and the Japanese will both be interested in acquiring these and in preventing each other from having them.”
10) There will be 16 mini-Chinas
Sixteen emerging countries will benefit from the slowing down of China’s economy. China’s growth in production capacity will flat line and the entry-level manufacturing jobs that China used to enjoy will move to those countries.
So while China’s growth will stall, leading to unforeseeable political and economic consequences, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia could see improving economic fortunes over the next decade as more manufacturing jobs arrive.
11) US power will decline
US will not take an active leadership role in solving the world’s problems. A growing economy, surging domestic-energy production, declining exports, and the safety of being in the most stable corner of the world will give the US the luxury of being able to insulate itself against the world’s crises.
“The United States will continue to be the major economic, political, and military power in the world but will be less engaged than in the past,” the forecast says.
Is America declining?
“It will be a disorderly world, with a changing of the guard in many regions. The one constant will be the continued and maturing power of the United States — a power that will be much less visible and that will be utilized far less in the next decade.”
