GLOBAL TRENDS 2025: THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL'S 2025 PROJECT



I am not suggesting that the United States should walk on eggshells or otherwise cater to our enemies or adversaries, nor am I embracing the idea that the United States is the villain in global affairs.

Rather, I am suggesting that members of the US general public not believe in absurdities regarding US foreign policy or otherwise embrace cartoonish or simplistic ideas about US foreign policy.

Maybe coming to terms with the likelihood that the United States will sooner or later lose its super-power status is a good idea, in terms of preserving quality of life in our society. No empire in history has lasted forever.

I’m concerned that if our nation doesn’t come to terms with the likelihood of no longer being a superpower, we may experience increased militarism, perhaps fascism or some other disruption to, if not destruction of, our civil society and other aspects of the quality of life many members of our society enjoy.

I say that based on thinking our nation's foreign policy may become desperate in its attempts to keep our nation's superpower status. That desperation may cause serious damage to our political process and to our civil liberties.

At what point do we, as a nation, determine that we must give up on being a superpower in order to preserve what we value about our country? Some people may think it’s treasonous, unmanly, or cowardly to even ask such a question.

First of all, I am asking questions and presenting ideas for consideration. I am not even necessarily claiming that the United States is better off to embrace the idea of not being a super-power. Further, it may be the case that the quality of life for our nation's people will be damaged whether or not the United States clings to being a super-power.

But I think asking these questions is not treasonous because I am doing so because I would like to preserve what I think is valuable about our country.

It’s not cowardly because I ask this question so as to face reality, as opposed to trying to run away from it.

Regarding the unmanly part, well, my guess is that there is an aspect of some people’s form of patriotism (though not mine) that involves taking a sort of pride in dominating other countries. Maybe it involves machismo. That machismo may also involve trying to dominate the natural environment and the non-human beings living in it.

Maybe some people think it's nerdy, unmanly, and perhaps even ‘faggish’ to drive a compact car with modest power under its hood, or to otherwise concern oneself with energy conservation or other aspects of environmentalism.

But this exaggerated sense of power isn't limited to males. Some, if not many women, have embraced this form of patriotism.

That type of patriotism may involve thinking that we Americans can use as much energy as we please, and perhaps even blatantly waste it from time to time just to show ourselves and the world that we can. Sharing the planet's resources more fairly? That's just sissy talk !

That exaggerated sense of power in terms of being an ‘American’ (that is, a citizen of the United States, which is one of many countries in the Americas), may involve thinking that Americans can and perhaps even ought to, use energy and other resources without giving much thought to conservation, based on the idea that our nation’s military and economic might sort of gives us that right.

Other people, including myself, may sometimes wonder, whether US society and Western culture in general has such worthwhile values to offer the rest of the world, that maybe, in at least some cases, that justifies our nation’s extraordinary access to the world’s resources. After all 'we Americans' or,'we Westerners' are the ones who know best about what to do with the planet's resources, so we should be the ones having the lion's share of them, right? If it weren't 'us' it would be somebody else, right? Does China or India seem poised to be the better lead stewards of Earth's resources?

Maybe some people would argue that our quality of life in this society depends on our nation remaining a superpower.

About that idea, my guess would be that, yes, many of us in this society get various benefits from, for example, our nation’s extraordinary access to the world’s resources. Having said that though, could it be possible that there could come a time at which the costs (money, our soldier’s lives, and so on) and other risks, may outweigh whatever we Americans may gain by prolonging our nation’s extraordinary access to the world’s resources ?

My guess would be that losing its superpower status will not be a matter of the United States becoming an impoverished nation existing on the margins, living off the crumbs that happen to fall from the table where the major powers feast on Earth's resources.

I don’t think the United States will become so weak as to be manipulated left and right by proxy wars and other geopolitical chess-game maneuvers of whatever major powers exist at the time. Perhaps the fact that I wrote that sentence indicates that I want to reassure myself and others that other nations aren't likely to do to 'us' what our nation has done to other people, such as the common people of Vietnam who were killed in the US-led war there.

My guess is that, barring some sort of extreme event that would change, drastically, the human and natural resource capacity of the United States, our nation may still be a major power, though it may not be likely to remain the sole superpower or be a superpower at all.

Also, geopolitics may become such that empires and superpowers won't exist in the sense that we have known them in the 21st and previous centuries.

It is not the case that I would, necessarily, prefer a world order with some nation or group of nations at the center of power in place of the United States. This is perhaps due to the fact that I’m a member of US society, and, thereby, get various benefits , perhaps, at least to some extent, at the expense of people in other parts of the world.

Sure, our national self-concept seems to involve the idea that we Americans are the good guys. I think that idea may be true in some respects. But some people with whom I have spoken have said that a significant part of U.S. foreign policy has involved pretty much doing whatever it takes to maximize our nation's military, political, and economic power, come what may to the less fortunate of the world, or to some of the members of US society.

I am not sure if I agree with that entirely. I venture that there's more than a grain of truth to that idea, but I think our nation's foreign policy is more complex in its motivations than that. Please comment, so I can find out what you think about that idea.

Some people refer to what the United States, and the 'West' has been doing around the world as 'neo-colonialism.' My understanding of that term is that it involves the most powerful nations such as the United States using its power and institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF to exploit the people of the so-called Third World and people of 'developing' nations. Of course, forms of exploitation that are unrelated to 'Western' control or influence exist within and among societies.

Multiple times, I have read about or heard people cite the statistic about the United States using approximately a quarter of the world's resources, while having approximately 1/20th of the world's population. And therefore...what ? What does that figure indicate in terms of what we, as a nation, should do ?

I am not eagerly awaiting or promoting the decline of US world domination. One may strive for an ideal world in which no nation, group of nations, or anyone for that matter, on the most micro or the most macro scale, dominated anyone.

Is it a cynical copout to think that some form of domination will always be part of human affairs, (and also the affairs of non-human members of the animal kingdom)?

If China becomes a superpower, I expect that nation's foreign policy to pursue essentially the same types of goals that the United States pursued during the second half of the 20th century and onward. Though China's style would likely differ, human nature being what it is, I imagine that the acquisition of as much power as possible would be the objective of that nation's foreign policy.

My guess would be that if China and India become super-powers, that will be a blow to White, world-wide ethnocentrism. But, of course, an end to US superpower status, and with it, perhaps the end of Western culture's world domination, wouldn't mean an end to such things as oppression and prejudice.

Likely, there would be new ways that human beings exploit one another. Also, there are many sorts of ways that human beings oppress one another that are or have been outside of the scope of Western culture's domination of the world during the past 500 years or so.

Various forms of prejudice and oppression occurred, for example, among the Native Americans or among the peoples of Africa, Asia, and the 'Middle East' before their experience with European colonialism and before their experience with neo-colonialism.

Power and privilege affects the human psyche, regardless of whether that psyche belongs to a Caucasian, an African, an Asian, and regardless of whatever other category we place a particular human being into based on religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, and so on.
(I put the term ‘Middle East’ in quotes to acknowledge the fact that that region has had that name based on a reference to the position of Western Europe in world geography.)

I hesitate to state the obvious, but the obvious seems often forgotten : prejudice and oppressive behavior is a part of human nature, as is resisting and striving to correct it. It is not something limited to whatever category of people our human minds can invent---rich, poor, gay, straight, Christian, atheist, Jew, American, Iranian, Black, White, Red, Yellow, or so on. In other words, a common saying is fitting to this subject : there is good and bad in everyone.

But to say that there is good and bad in everyone is not necessarily a matter of me dismissing, in knee-jerk fashion, the ideas of people who criticize the foreign policy of the United States, along with other major powers, as being neo-colonialist.

I regard as credible at least some of the claims that the policies of the United States , along with the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, are a form of neo-colonialism. But I have a lot of work to do in terms of what I plan to do about it in my daily life. My guess is that some of what I can do is make different choices as a prospective buyer of consumer goods and as a citizen and member of society.Beyond that lies the fog. (If I were not officially a citizen, I imagine that I would be able to play a part in addressing these matters.)


But to get back to the subject of the United States, at some point in the future, no longer being a super-power, I reject our national narrative that involves us thinking of ourselves as liberators and as generally, the good guys of history. That perspective, to me, is too much of a simplistic, cartoon-like, or Hollywood- style conception of the world.

But like I have said in other essays, I intend to not make the mistake of rejecting blind or overly-simplified patriotism, only to trade it in for a dislike for my own country that is similarly based on simplistic thinking. The United States is not perfect, of course, but, based on my knowledge, rising powers such as China and India don’t seem inclined to be any better. I don't intend to embrace the idea that somehow Western culture is instrinsically bad when compared with other macro-cultures. That would be going from one extreme to the other. There is no shortage of bad things to list off when it comes to various non-Western cultures.

This is something that would apply when I think of China or India, in terms of the political and economic systems, their foreign policies, and their status in terms of human rights and environmental issues. In the final analysis we human beins commit all sorts of forms of 'man's inhumanity to man'.

So, I am not waiting around, eager for my own country to no longer be a superpower, expecting some other superpower to usher in a better era. But I wouldn’t be indignantly surprised by, or attribute solely to ungratefulness and jealousy, the fact that some people in the world welcome the decline of US power.

I am not going to be naïve about, or oblivious to what our CIA does or other aspects of our foreign policy. I try to not buy into simplistic explanations for why some people in various parts of the world hate those in charge of the US government or, for that matter, hate all Americans.

The explanation that involves thinking that THEY who hate US are religious fanatics and maniacs who are jealous of our wealth and freedom is, in my opinion, not the whole story.

But being realistic about how our nation’s foreign policy and about how our way of life affects people in other parts of the world, does not mean that, for example, I think that our nation shouldn’t defend itself from terrorists and other enemies.

And it doesn’t mean I think our nation should have a foreign policy that, so to speak, walks on eggshells, in fear of what this or that nation or group may think or do in response.

An analogy comes to mind: I can have a psychological, sociological, and historical understanding of how someone’s life experiences may have shaped her or his life, yet be at peace with my conscience if I kill or otherwise harm that person if he or she is, for example, violently intruding upon my home with the apparent intention of seriously harming me or my loved ones.

In other words, I can avoid hating the intruder and I can have an understanding of how her or his life experiences made a life of violent crime more likely for her or him, yet be at peace with my conscience after harming or killing that person out of self-defense or out of protecting a loved one.

So, I advocate being realistic and honest with ourselves about what may motivate our nation’s enemies while I also advocate that our nation do what it must to defend itself.

One, though not the only thing, that an American can do to be a good patriot would be to at least question the idea that our foreign policy is based on us being the good guys, fighting for democracy and freedom in places such as Iraq or Afghanistan.

My guess is that if the US public is more realistic about our nation’s role in the world, we may, as members of this society, cause our leaders to craft foreign policy that is more in tune to the long-term interests of our nation. Given that no empire in history has lasted forever, to state the obvious, why, then, should facing that reality be regarded as unpatriotic?

My motivation for trying to bend my mind around the idea of living in a world in which the United States is no longer a super-power does not come from my dislike for my own country.In fact, patriotism, as I understand the term, motivates me.

I am being patriotic in the sense that my own well-being is linked to the well-being of various people within this nation and to the communities that comprise it. Those are ties that, likely, I couldn’t cut even if I wanted to. They are ingrained subconsciously, for lack of a better way of expressing myself.

Of course, my allegiance to the United States does not necessarily mean that I disregard the rest of the world, just as my loyalty to friends or family doesn’t mean that I disregard everybody else.

But I am a member of this society. I want our foreign policy to jibe with reality.
I would think it's reasonable to say that limits to the scope and duration of our nation's superpower status likely exist, if history is to be any sort of reference.

My hunch is that the people of our nation will be better off, all else being the same, if we face these limits realistically. Going down the path of trying to preserve our superpower status at all costs doesn’t make sense, given that what we refer to when we speak of our country and our world leadership has value only in so far as it is instrumental to our well-being. Our nation-state doesn't , in my opinion, exist for it's own sake. It's value comes from its usefulness for meeting the needs of its people.

In other words, our nation-state is a tool for promoting the well-being of the members of our society. That goal, at least to some extent, is not necessarily at odds with promoting the well-being of the people of some other societies.

The 21st Century may involve some new or retro geopolitical entities that replace nation-states, in at least some cases. For example, if Peak Oil and other energy constraints lead to having a different type of economic and political system, governments may not be in the forms that they are now in.

But to stick to the topic of what can happen to a nation-state that loses its empire, let's consider societies such as those of the UK, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Austria. Please comment if you disagree, but, to my knowledge, those nations have retained a relatively high quality of life, after losing their empires.

People throughout history have gone to great lengths to build and maintain their empires, including efforts to impede the emergence of, or destroy, what they perceived to be enemy empires.

But the historical fact remains that not only has no empire lasted forever, but things often don’t go as planned. Factors, at least partly not attributable to human intentions have contributed to the rise and decline of empires. The historical role that weather, climate, and germs have played are a good example.

Further, aside from those factors just mentioned, nations and the relations between them are so complex that our decisions may lead to unintended and unforeseen consequences. Further human activities on a macro scale shape political outcomes such as the rise and fall of empires, but to a significant degree, this occurs in a cumulative sense. In other words, no person or group of persons has so much control over events that he or she or they can plan and carry out the rise or fall of a great political power.

I am definitely not saying that we should throw up our hands and leave the fate of our country to chance. Being visionary is not only acceptable, but it may be a requirement for good decision-making. But being visionary about our foreign policy should be based on having a firm grasp of reality, as opposed to trying to run away from that reality. And, to say it again, the reality that history seems to present to us is that no empire or super-power lasts forever. People may go to great lengths to try to escape this reality thinking " if only we return to our core values" or "if only we innovate enough" or "maybe if we persecute and kill off enough people we purge our empire of this cancer which is sapping our political might..."

Here is a humble suggestion: let’s be as clear-headed as we can about facing reality, while being as visionary as we can be about promoting our sense of collective self-interest in light of that reality.

At least to some extent, US world domination, or world leadership, whichever term you prefer, emerged due to factors that didn't involve any person or group(s) of persons planning it out, per se.

Likewise, at least to some extent, the decline of US superpower status, whether sudden or gradual, and whether chaotic or orderly, likely will result from factors that no one-neither our greatest patriots nor our worst enemies--is planning out.

At least one person, a writer of the publication, Asia Times, W. Joseph Stroupe thinks that Americans and much of the people of the rest of the world may benefit if the United States willingly shares its power with other nations. He wrote that other nations are likely to oppose the US violently if our nation seeks, with desperation, to prolong its global hegemony.

Assuming that our nation doesn't somehow defy what has seemed to be historical reality, when the American empire unravels, I suggest that we, as a nation, focus on making this society a good one to live in, instead of trying to find people to blame.

People on the political left may want to accuse politicians and corporate America for allowing corporate greed to trump national interest. Please comment if you have any ideas about how people on the political right may want to place blame, in the midst of some type of unraveling of the superpower status of the United States.

One guess would be that people on the political right may blame environmentalists. This guess is based on me thinking that maybe during the next, say, 10-15 years, our government will actually enact policies aimed at addressing climate change and other environmental issues.

Then, after that, according to this scenario, political and environmental factors, such as Peak Oil, may cause a world wide economic crash. In the midst of that crash, it may seem to some people that the environmentalist policies themselves caused the crash and thereby ruined the US economy and caused the losses to US global power.

If there is some sort of major, world-wide economic and political collapse in the years ahead, my opinion regarding its causes would be as follows: the crash would result from people all over the world waiting too long and doing too little to address ecological and social issues.

I would disagree with the idea that environmentalist public policies would be the cause of a world-wide economic and political crash, and I would disagree with the idea that environmentalist public policies themselves would cause the unraveling of the power of the United States.

In the midst of a dramatic decline in US power, perhaps combined with some sort of world- wide economic and political collapse, I imagine that some people may combine that anti-environmentalist perspective with a general view that other progressive pursuits, such as rights for gays and lesbians, are also to blame for the 'downfall of America'.

In other words, some people, in the midst of economic trauma and the loss of US superpower status, may believe that environmentalists combined with people who've challenged 'traditional family values' have ruined our nation.

They may even believe that God is punishing our nation. Some people may interpret the loss to our quality of life as the time of trials foretold via Christian theology, signifying that the end of the world is imminent and along with it, the return of Christ.

Like in other periods of societal trauma in the 2000 years of Christianity’s history, people may commit various sorts of atrocities in the name of Christ. This is speculation, and also, Christianity, and religion in general, is not unique in the sense of being a venue for human beings to mistreat one another. Please comment on these ideas.

Even if there were grains of truth or more in terms of blaming people on the right or blaming people on the left, those types of ways of thinking about the situation would be after-the-fact approaches. In addition to being untrue, they would be based on venting our frustrations, not based on solving problems.

Instead of being afraid, and wasting our resources on desperate attempts to prevent the inevitable, and instead of being traumatized by the loss of superpower status when it happens, or when we realize that it has happened after the fact, why not try to bravely face geopolitical reality so as to make the best of the situation, and have the best quality of life we can have in our nation?

*****
Some people may say that resource constraints, such as Peak Oil, will be key issues of this new century. According to that view, societies will no longer be able to be organized at our present level of complexity; and may become smaller geographically. According to this view, the United States and other nation-states as we now know them, may not exist.

Even if the United States breaks into multiple nations, finding ways to have social organization and to have quality of life for our communities is a concern. Facing the reality about the limits to US power in order to preserve our quality of life may be important, regardless of whether resource constraints cause our nation to develop into multiple nations.

Yet, even if resource constraints cause our social organization to be more local and less complex, and, thereby, cause the United States as we now know it to cease to exist, my guess is that some sort of form of social organization will exist. The essential issue is quality of life, regardless of the types of social organization that are used.

So, in addition to saying that I am being patriotic when I advocate making plans to account for limits to US power, I think that patriotism itself has limits in terms of its value. My guess is that patriotism has value in so far as it is a way for people to have social organization so as to promote the well-being of the people that comprise the community or society.

That reminds me of the ideas of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address about “government of the people , by the people, and for the people.” I say that in the sense that our government and our nation are not things that have intrinsic value, but instead have value as a way for us to promote our well-being.

***

An idea I have is that if we, as a nation, come to terms with the apparent fact that some things are beyond our control, in terms of holding on to being a superpower, we can then get a firmer grasp on that which we can control regarding the fate of our nation.

Two ideas come to mind in terms of what the United States can have some control over. One, if we can at least bend our minds around the possibility that, at some point in the future, we may not be a superpower, building better relationships with our allies and creating new allies would seem to make sense.

That approach would differ from the approach of pursuing a unilateralist foreign policy, which emphasizes exercising our military might over cultivating what some people refer to as our nation’s ‘soft power’, that is, our nation’s economic, cultural, and diplomatic power.

Not only that, but some commentators such as W Joseph Stroupe who wrote about the decline of US power in Asia Times, think that the United States may be able to make the process of its decline in power more orderly and less chaotic if our foreign policy is less unilateralist and involves a conscious effort to share power with other nations.

My guess is that many people would disagree with the idea of seeking to share power with our geopolitical rivals or adversaries, but I venture that some people would at least consider the idea of our nation seeking to share power with our proven allies.

Another thing that our nation can do, in my opinion, is take steps in a direction away from spending our national blood and treasure on competing for Earth's dwindling and climate-damaging fuels, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, taking steps in a direction toward a comprehensive program for making our nation's way of life socially and ecologically sustainable.

Domestic and foreign policies which worsen the gap between rich and poor within and between nations are not socially sustainable, because they increase the chances of civil and international strife.

Domestic and foreign policies which ignore environmental problems, increase the risks of hardship related to, for example, the possibility of food and water shortages, power-outages, and the spread of diseases.

My guess is that ignoring environmental issues also increases the likelihood of fighting wars in a struggle for resources. Those wars may be over water or arable land, , not only petroleum.

So, in my opinion, though our nation may not have much choice in terms of the inevitability of the decline in US power, we have choices in terms of whether and how we come to terms with that historical and geopolitical reality.

We can continue to move in the direction of having a foreign policy that focuses on unilateralism, military power, while neglecting to get serious about our energy and other environmental issues.

An alternative to this would be to move in the direction of sharing power with our allies, relying less on using our military and focusing more on using our nation's diplomatic power, while getting serious about addressing our energy and other environmental issues, as if our quality of life depended upon it.