Climate Change Report_NEED in 6 HOURS Write 8 pages: Based on the attached report. -History of Climate Change – Demographic Trends -Economic Trends –

Climate Change Report_NEED in 6 HOURS
Write 8 pages:
Based on the attached report.
-History of Climate Change
– Demographic Trends
-Economic Trends
-Socio-Cultural Trend
-Political Trend
-Technological trends
-Physical, Environmental Trends
All of them must be related to Climate change and with examples. External sources can be used but must be cited. More focus on the attached report.

December 2000

Don't use plagiarized sources. Get Your Custom Assignment on
Climate Change Report_NEED in 6 HOURS Write 8 pages: Based on the attached report. -History of Climate Change – Demographic Trends -Economic Trends –
From as Little as $13/Page

Global Trends 2015:
A Dialogue About the Future
With Nongovernment Experts

This paper was approved for publication by the
National Foreign Intelligence Board under the author-
ity of the Director of Central Intelligence.

Prepared under the direction of the National
Intelligence Council.

NIC 2000-02

13 December 2000

From the Director of Central Intelligence

I am pleased to introduce Global Trends 2015, which takes a look at the world
over the next 15 years from the perspective of the national security policymaker.
This is not a traditional intelligence assessment, depending on classified sources
and methods. Rather, it reflects an Intelligence Community fully engaged with
outside experts in a constructive dialogue about the future. I want to encourage
this lively exchange.

From the beginning of this ambitious project in fall 1999, we intended to make
GT-2015 an unclassified assessment to be shared with the public. Experts from
academia, think-tanks and the corporate world have made major contributions,
and their reactions, along with those of other specialists who will see our work
for the first time, will strengthen our continuing analysis of the issues covered in
GT-2015. Grappling with the future is necessarily a work in progress that, I
believe, should constantly seek new insights while testing and revising old
judgments.

I hope that GT-2015 will contribute to a growing strategic dialogue in the US
Government that will help our country meet the challenges and opportunities
ahead. I look forward to your comments.

George J. Tenet

DI Design Center 377188AI 12-00

From the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council:

The National Intelligence Council (NIC), a small center of strategic thinking in the
US Intelligence Community, launched Global Trends 2015 to stimulate US policymakers
to think “beyond their inboxes.” This work expands the effort of Global Trends 2010,
published in 1997 under the leadership of my predecessor, Professor Richard Cooper
of Harvard.

We identify global “drivers” and estimate their impact on the world over the next
15 yearsdemography and natural resources, technology, globalization and governance,
likely conflicts and prospects for international cooperation, and the role of the United
States. The judgments flow from our best efforts to produce a comprehensive picture
of the world in 2015. Analysis will help senior leaders better cope with, for example,
the uncertainties involved with the decline of Russia, the emergence of China, or the
political, economic and societal dynamics in the Middle East.

Global Trends 2015 should be seen as a work-in-progress, a flexible framework for
thinking about the future that we will update and revise as conditions evolve. As such,
we are pleased to share it with the public, confident that the feedback we receive will
improve our understanding of the issues we treat. We welcome comments on all aspects
of this study.

Global Trends 2015 is not a traditional intelligence product based on classic intelligence
sources, methods and procedures. The National Intelligence Council gave overall
direction to the year-long effort, assisted by colleagues from other intelligence agencies
and offices. We sought out and drew heavily on experts outside the Intelligence
Community to help us both identify the key drivers and assess their impact worldwide.
Ultimately, however, the conclusions are our responsibility.

The NICs Vice Chairman, Ellen Laipson, and I want to acknowledge the special
contributions of several individuals. Enid Schoettle, my special adviser on the NIC, was
a principal drafter and coordinator, and she was ably assisted by retired diplomat Richard
Smith. The DCI Environmental and Societal Issues Center, led by Paul Frandano, made
extensive, invaluable contributions. John Phillips, Chief Scientist of CIA, Directorate
of Science and Technology, offered helpful suggestions. Tom Fingar of the State
Departments Bureau of Intelligence and Research made important inputs, as did
Ken Knight and Pat Neary of the Defense Intelligence Agency. All the regional and
functional National Intelligence Officers (NIOs)identified at the back page of this
publicationcontributed sections and provided insights in their areas of expertise.
In the final stages of preparing the full text, Enid Schoettle and NIOs Stuart A. Cohen
(with his crack staff), David F. Gordon, and Barry F. Lowenkron performed the critical
service of integrating substantive comments and judgments.

We are particularly grateful to the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, who
encouraged us to take on this ambitious project and provided us with the necessary
assistance to bring it to fruition.

John Gannon
Chairman

NATION

A
L

IN
T

E
L
LI

GE
NCE COU

N
C

IL

NIC

DI Design Center 377189AI 12-00

(U) Note on Process

1

In undertaking this comprehensive analysis, the NIC worked actively with
a range of nongovernmental institutions and experts. We began the analysis
with two workshops focusing on drivers and alternative futures, as the
appendix describes. Subsequently, numerous specialists from academia
and the private sector contributed to every aspect of the study, from demo-
graphics to developments in science and technology, from the global arms
market to implications for the United States. Many of the judgments in this
paper derive from our efforts to distill the diverse views expressed at these
conferences or related workshops. Major conferences cosponsored by the
NIC with other government and private centers in support of Global
Trends 2015 included:

Foreign Reactions to the Revolution in Military Affairs (Georgetown
University).

Evolution of the Nation-State (University of Maryland).

Trends in Democratization (CIA and academic experts).

American Economic Power (Industry & Trade Strategies, San Fran-
cisco, CA).

Transformation of Defense Industries (International Institute for Stra-
tegic Studies, London, UK).

Alternative Futures in War and Conflict (Defense Intelligence Agency
and Naval War College, Newport, RI, and CIA).

Out of the Box and Into the Future: A Dialogue Between Warfighters
and Scientists on Far Future Warfare (Potomac Institute, Arlington,
VA).

Future Threat Technologies Symposium (MITRE Corporation,
McLean, VA).

The Global Course of the Information Revolution: Technological
Trends (RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA).

2

The Global Course of the Information Revolution: Political, Eco-
nomic, and Social Consequences (RAND Corporation, Santa Monica,
CA).

The Middle East: The Media, Information Technology, and the
Internet (The National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington,
DC).

Global Migration Trends and Their Implications for the United
States (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC).

Alternative Global Futures: 2000-2015 (Department of State/Bureau of
Intelligence and Research and CIAs Global Futures Project).

In October 2000, the draft report was discussed with outside experts,
including Richard Cooper and Joseph Nye (Harvard University), Richard
Haass (Brookings Institution), James Steinberg (Markle Foundation), and
Jessica Mathews (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). Their
comments and suggestions are incorporated in the report. Daniel Yergin
(Cambridge Energy Research Associates) reviewed and commented on the
final draft.

(U) Contents

Page

3

Note on Process 1
Overview 5
The Drivers and Trends 8
Key Uncertainties: Technology Will Alter Outcomes 13
Key Challenges to Governance: People Will Decide 17
Discussion 19
Population Trends 19

Divergent Aging Patterns 19
Movement of People 20
Health 24

Natural Resources and Environment 26
Food 26
Water 27
Energy 28
Environment 31

Science and Technology 32
Information Technology 32
Biotechnology 33
Other Technologies 33

The Global Economy 34
Dynamism and Growth 34
Unequal Growth Prospects and Distribution 35
Economic Crises and Resilience 38

National and International Governance 38
Nonstate Actors 40
Criminal Organizations and Networks 41
Changing Communal Identities and Networks 41
Overall Impacts on States 46
International Cooperation 47

Future Conflict 49
Internal Conflicts 49
Transnational Terrorism 50
Interstate Conflicts 50
Reacting to US Military Superiority 56

4

Major Regions 60
East and Southeast Asia 61
South Asia 64
Russia and Eurasia 68
Middle East and North Africa 70
Sub-Saharan Africa 71
Europe 74
Canada 76
Latin America 78

Appendix
Four Alternative Global Futures 83

5

(U) Overview
Global Trends 2015:
A Dialogue About the Future
With Nongovernment Experts

Over the past 15 months, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), in close
collaboration with US Government specialists and a wide range of experts
outside the government, has worked to identify major drivers and trends that
will shape the world of 2015.

The key drivers identified are:

(l) Demographics.

(2) Natural resources and environment.

(3) Science and technology.

(4) The global economy and globalization.

(5) National and international governance.

(6) Future conflict.

(7) The role of the United States.

In examining these drivers, several points should be kept in mind:

No single driver or trend will dominate the global future in 2015.

Each driver will have varying impacts in different regions and countries.

The drivers are not necessarily mutually reinforcing; in some cases, they
will work at cross-purposes.

Taken together, these drivers and trends intersect to create an integrated pic-
ture of the world of 2015, about which we can make projections with vary-
ing degrees of confidence and identify some troubling uncertainties of
strategic importance to the United States.

The Methodology Global Trends 2015 provides a flexible framework to discuss and debate the
future. The methodology is useful for our purposes, although admittedly
inexact for the social scientist. Our purpose is to rise above short-term, tac-
tical considerations and provide a longer-term, strategic perspective.

6

Judgments about demographic and natural resource trends are based prima-
rily on informed extrapolation of existing trends. In contrast, many judg-
ments about science and technology, economic growth, globalization,
governance, and the nature of conflict represent a distillation of views of
experts inside and outside the United States Government. The former are
projections about natural phenomena, about which we can have fairly high
confidence; the latter are more speculative because they are contingent upon
the decisions that societies and governments will make.

The drivers we emphasize will have staying power. Some of the trends will
persist; others will be less enduring and may change course over the time
frame we consider. The major contribution of the National Intelligence
Council (NIC), assisted by experts from the Intelligence Community, has
been to harness US Government and nongovernmental specialists to identify
drivers, to determine which ones matter most, to highlight key uncertainties,
and to integrate analysis of these trends into a national security context. The
result identifies issues for more rigorous analysis and quantification.

Revisiting Global Trends 2010: How Our Assessments Have Changed

Over the past four years, we have tested the judgments made in the
predecessor, Global Trends 2010, published in 1997. Global Trends
2010 was the centerpiece of numerous briefings, conferences, and
public addresses. Various audiences were energetic in challenging,
modifying or confirming our judgments. The lively debate that ensued
has expanded our treatment of drivers, altered some projections we
made in 1997, and matured our thinking overallwhich was the
essential purpose of this exercise.

Global Trends 2015 amplifies several drivers identified previously,
and links them more closely to the trends we now project over the next
15 years. Some of the key changes include:

Globalization has emerged as a more powerful driver. GT 2015 sees
international economic dynamicsincluding developments in the
World Trade Organizationand the spread of information technol-
ogy as having much greater influence than portrayed in GT 2010.

(continued)

7

GT 2015 assigns more significance to the importance of governance,
notably the ability of states to deal with nonstate actors, both good
and bad. GT 2015 pays attention both to the opportunities for coop-
eration between governments and private organizations and to the
growing reach of international criminal and terrorist networks.

GT 2015 includes a more careful examination of the likely role of
science and technology as a driver of global developments. In addi-
tion to the growing significance of information technology, biotech-
nology and other technologies carry much more weight in the
present assessment.

The effect of the United States as the preponderant power is intro-
duced in GT 2015. The US role as a global driver has emerged more
clearly over the past four years, particularly as many countries
debate the impact of US hegemony on their domestic and foreign
policies.

GT 2015 provides a more complete discussion of natural resources
including food, water, energy, and the environment. It discusses, for
example, the over three billion individuals who will be living in
water-stressed regions from North China to Africa and the implica-
tions for conflict. The linkage between energy availability, price, and
distribution is more thoroughly explored.

GT 2015 emphasizes interactions among the drivers. For example,
we discuss the relationship between S&T, military developments,
and the potential for conflict.

In the regional sections, GT 2015 makes projections about the
impact of the spread of information, the growing power of China,
and the declining power of Russia.

Events and trends in key states and regions over the last four years
have led us to revise some projections substantially in GT 2015.

GT 2010 did not foresee the global financial crisis of 1997-98;
GT 2015 takes account of obstacles to economic development in
East Asia, though the overall projections remain fairly optimistic.

(continued)

8

The Drivers and Trends

Demographics World population in 2015 will be 7.2 billion, up from 6.1 billion in the year
2000, and in most countries, people will live longer. Ninety-five percent of
the increase will be in developing countries, nearly all in rapidly expanding
urban areas. Where political systems are brittle, the combination of popula-
tion growth and urbanization will foster instability. Increasing lifespans will
have significantly divergent impacts.

In the advanced economiesand a growing number of emerging market
countriesdeclining birthrates and aging will combine to increase health
care and pension costs while reducing the relative size of the working
population, straining the social contract, and leaving significant shortfalls
in the size and capacity of the work force.

In some developing countries, these same trends will combine to expand
the size of the working population and reduce the youth bulgeincreas-
ing the potential for economic growth and political stability.

As described in GT 2010, there is still substantial uncertainty
regarding whether China can cope with internal political and eco-
nomic trends. GT 2015 highlights even greater uncertainty over the
direction of Beijings regional policies.

Many of the global trends continue to remain negative for the societ-
ies and regimes in the Middle East. GT 2015 projects at best a cold
peace between Israel and its adversaries and sees prospects for
potentially destabilizing social changes due to adverse effects of glo-
balization and insufficient attention to reform. The spike in oil reve-
nues reinforces the assessment of GT 2010 about the rising demand
for OPEC oil; these revenues are not likely to be directed primarily
at core human resources and social needs.

Projections for Sub-Saharan Africa are even more dire than in
GT 2010 because of the spread of AIDS and the continuing prospects
for humanitarian crises, political instability, and military conflicts.

Revisiting Global Trends 2010: How Our Assessments Have Changed
(continued)

9

Natural Resources
and Environment

Overall food production will be adequate to feed the worlds growing popu-
lation, but poor infrastructure and distribution, political instability, and
chronic poverty will lead to malnourishment in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The potential for famine will persist in countries with repressive govern-
ment policies or internal conflicts. Despite a 50 percent increase in global
energy demand, energy resources will be sufficient to meet demand; the lat-
est estimates suggest that 80 percent of the worlds available oil and 95 per-
cent of its gas remain underground.

Although the Persian Gulf region will remain the worlds largest single
source of oil, the global energy market is likely to encompass two rela-
tively distinct patterns of regional distribution: one serving consumers
(including the United States) from Atlantic Basin reserves; and the other
meeting the needs of primarily Asian customers (increasingly China and
India) from Persian Gulf supplies and, to a lesser extent, the Caspian
region and Central Asia.

In contrast to food and energy, water scarcities and allocation will pose
significant challenges to governments in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan
Africa, South Asia, and northern China. Regional tensions over water will
be heightened by 2015.

Science and
Technology

Fifteen years ago, few predicted the profound impact of the revolution in
information technology. Looking ahead another 15 years, the world will
encounter more quantum leaps in information technology (IT) and in other
areas of science and technology. The continuing diffusion of information
technology and new applications of biotechnology will be at the crest of the
wave. IT will be the major building block for international commerce and
for empowering nonstate actors. Most experts agree that the IT revolution
represents the most significant global transformation since the Industrial
Revolution beginning in the mid-eighteenth century.

The integrationor fusionof continuing revolutions in information
technology, biotechnology, materials science, and nanotechnology will
generate a dramatic increase in investment in technology, which will fur-
ther stimulate innovation within the more advanced countries.

Older technologies will continue lateral sidewise development into new
markets and applications through 2015, benefiting US allies and adversar-
ies around the world who are interested in acquiring early generation bal-
listic missile and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technologies.

Biotechnology will drive medical breakthroughs that will enable the
worlds wealthiest people to improve their health and increase their lon-
gevity dramatically. At the same time, genetically modified crops will
offer the potential to improve nutrition among the worlds one billion mal-
nourished people.

10

Breakthroughs in materials technology will generate widely available
products that are multi-functional, environmentally safe, longer lasting,
and easily adapted to particular consumer requirements.

Disaffected states, terrorists, proliferators, narcotraffickers, and organized
criminals will take advantage of the new high-speed information environ-
ment and other advances in technology to integrate their illegal activities
and compound their threat to stability and security around the world.

The Global Economy
and Globalization

The networked global economy will be driven by rapid and largely unre-
stricted flows of information, ideas, cultural values, capital, goods and ser-
vices, and people: that is, globalization. This globalized economy will be a
net contributor to increased political stability in the world in 2015, although
its reach and benefits will not be universal. In contrast to the Industrial Rev-
olution, the process of globalization is more compressed. Its evolution will
be rocky, marked by chronic financial volatility and a widening economic
divide.

The global economy, overall, will return to the high levels of growth
reached in the 1960s and early 1970s. Economic growth will be driven by
political pressures for higher living standards, improved economic poli-
cies, rising foreign trade and investment, the diffusion of information
technologies, and an increasingly dynamic private sector. Potential brakes
on the global economysuch as a sustained financial crisis or prolonged
disruption of energy suppliescould undo this optimistic projection.

Regions, countries, and groups feeling left behind will face deepening
economic stagnation, political instability, and cultural alienation. They
will foster political, ethnic, ideological, and religious extremism, along
with the violence that often accompanies it. They will force the United
States and other developed countries to remain focused on old-world
challenges while concentrating on the implications of new-world tech-
nologies at the same time.

National and
International
Governance

States will continue to be the dominant players on the world stage, but gov-
ernments will have less and less control over flows of information, technol-
ogy, diseases, migrants, arms, and financial transactions, whether licit or
illicit, across their borders. Nonstate actors ranging from business firms to
nonprofit organizations will play increasingly larger roles in both national
and international affairs. The quality of governance, both nationally and
internationally, will substantially determine how well states and societies
cope with these global forces.

States with competent governance, including the United States, will adapt
government structures to a dramatically changed global environment
making them better able to engage with a more interconnected world. The

11

responsibilities of once semiautonomous government agencies increas-
ingly will intersect because of the transnational nature of national security
priorities and because of the clear requirement for interdisciplinary policy
responses. Shaping the complex, fast-moving world of 2015 will require
reshaping traditional government structures.

Effective governance will increasingly be determined by the ability and
agility to form partnerships to exploit increased information flows, new
technologies, migration, and the influence of nonstate actors. Most but not
all countries that succeed will be representative democracies.

States with ineffective and incompetent governance not only will fail to
benefit from globalization, but in some instances will spawn conflicts at
home and abroad, ensuring an even wider gap between regional winners
and losers than exists today.

Globalization will increase the transparency of government decision-mak-
ing, complicating the ability of authoritarian regimes to maintain control,
but also complicating the traditional deliberative processes of democracies.
Increasing migration will create influential diasporas, affecting policies,
politics and even national identity in many countries. Globalization also
will create increasing demands for international cooperation on transna-
tional issues, but the response of both states and international organizations
will fall short in 2015.

Future Conflict The United States will maintain a strong technological edge in IT-driven
battlefield awareness and in precision-guided weaponry in 2015. The
United States will face three types of threats:

Asymmetric threats in which state and nonstate adversaries avoid direct
engagements with the US military but devise strategies, tactics, and weap-
onssome improved by sidewise technologyto minimize US
strengths and exploit perceived weaknesses;

Strategic WMD threats, including nuclear missile threats, in which (bar-
ring significant political or economic changes) Russia, China, most likely
North Korea, probably Iran, and possibly Iraq have the capability to strike
the United States, and the potential for unconventional delivery of WMD
by both states or nonstate actors also will grow; and

Regional military threats in which a few countries maintain large
military forces with a mix of Cold War and post-Cold War concepts and
technologies.

12

The risk of war among developed countries will be low. The international
community will continue, however, to face conflicts around the world, rang-
ing from relatively frequent small-scale internal upheavals to less frequent
regional interstate wars. The potential for conflict will arise from rivalries in
Asia, ranging from India-Pakistan to China-Taiwan, as well as among the
antagonists in the Middle East. Their potential lethality will grow, driven by
the availability of WMD, longer-range missile delivery systems and other
technologies.

Internal conflicts stemming from religious, ethnic, economic or political
disputes will remain at current levels or even increase in number. The
United Nations and regional organizations will be called upon to manage
such conflicts because major statesstressed by domestic concerns, per-
ceived risk of failure, lack of political will, or tight resourceswill mini-
mize their direct involvement.

Export control regimes and sanctions will be less effective because of the
diffusion of technology, porous borders, defense industry consolidations,
and reliance upon foreign markets to maintain profitability. Arms and weap-
ons technology transfers will be more difficult to control.

Prospects will grow that more sophisticated weaponry, including weapons
of mass destructionindigenously produced or externally acquiredwill
get into the hands of state and nonstate belligerents, some hostile to the
United States. The likelihood will increase over this period that WMD
will be used either against the United States or its forces, facilities, and
interests overseas.

Role of the United
States

The United States will continue to be a major force in the world community.
US global economic, technological, military, and diplomatic influence will
be unparalleled among nations as well as regional and international organi-
zations in 2015. This power not only will ensure Americas preeminence,
but also will cast the United States as a key driver of the international
system.

The United States will continue to be identified throughout the world as the
leading proponent and beneficiary of globalization. US economic actions,
even when pursued for such domestic goals as adjusting interest rates, will
have a major global impact because of the tighter integration of global mar-
kets by 2015.

The United States will remain in the vanguard of the technological revolu-
tion from information to biotechnology and beyond.

Both allies and adversaries will factor continued US military pre-emi-
nence in their calculations of national security interests and ambitions.

13

Some statesadversaries and allieswill try at times to check what they
see as American hegemony. Although this posture will not translate into
strategic, broad-based and enduring anti-US coalitions, it will lead to tac-
tical alignments on specific policies and demands for a greater role in
international political and economic institutions.

Diplomacy will be more complicated. Washington will have greater diffi-
culty harnessing its power to achieve specific foreign policy goals: the US
Government will exercise a smaller and less powerful part of the overall
economic and cultural influence of the United States abroad.

In the absence of a clear and overriding national security threat, the
United States will have difficulty drawing on its economic prowess to
advance its foreign policy agenda. The top priority of the American pri-
vate sector, which will be central to maintaining the US economic and
technological lead, will be financial profitability, not foreign policy objec-
tives.

The United States also will have greater difficulty building coalitions to
support its policy goals, although the international community will often
turn to Washington, even if reluctantly, to lead multilateral efforts in real
and potential conflicts.

There will be increasing numbers of important actors on the world stage
to challenge and checkas well as to reinforceUS leadership: coun-
tries such as China, Russia, India, Mexico, and Brazil; regional organiza-
tions such as the European Union; and a vast array of increasingly
powerful multinational corporations and nonprofit organizations with
their own interests to defend in the world.

Key Uncertainties: Technology Will Alter Outcomes

Examining the interaction of these drivers and trends points to some major
uncertainties that will only be clarified as events occur and leaders make
policy decisions that cannot be foreseen today. We cite eight transnational
and regional issues for which the future, according to our trends analysis, is
too tough to call with any confidence or precision.

These are high-stakes, national security issues that will require con-
tinuous analysis and, in the view of our conferees, periodic policy
review in the years ahead.

14

Science and
Technology

We know that the possibility is greater than ever that the revolution in sci-
ence and technology will improve the quality of life. What we know about
this revolution is exciting. Advances in science and technology will gener-
ate dramatic breakthroughs in agriculture and health and in leap-frog appli-
cations, such as universal wireless cellular communications, which already
are networking developing countries that never had land-lines. What we do
not know about the S&T revolution, however, is staggering. We do not
know to what extent technology will benefit, or further disadvantage, disaf-
fected national populations, alienated ethnic and religious groups, or the
less developed countries. We do not know to what degree lateral or side-
wise technology will increase the threat from low technology countries
and groups. One certainty is that progression will not be linear. Another is
that as future technologies emerge, people will lack full awareness of their
wider economic, environmental, cultural, legal, and moral impactor the
continuing potential for research and development.

Advances in science and technology will pose national security challenges
of uncertain character and scale.

Increasing reliance on computer networks is making critical US infra-
structures more attractive as targets. Computer network operations today
offer new options for attacking the United States within its traditional
continental sanctuarypotentially anonymously and with selective
effects. Nevertheless, we do not know how quickly or effectively such
adversaries as terrorists or disaffected states will develop the tradecraft to
use cyber warfare tools and technology, or, in fact, whether cyber warfare
will ever evolve into a decisive combat arm.

Rapid advances and diffusion of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and the
materials sciences, moreover, will add to the capabilities of our adversar-
ies to engage in biological warfare or bio-terrorism.

Asymmetric Warfare As noted earlier, most adversaries will recognize the information advantage
and military superiority of the United States in 2015. Rather than acquiesce
to any potential US military domination, they will try to circumvent or min-
imize US strengths and exploit perceived weaknesses. IT-driven globaliza-
tion will significantly increase interaction among terrorists, narcotraffickers,
weapons proliferators, and organized criminals, who in a networked world
will have greater access to information, to technology, to finance, to sophis-
ticated deception-and-denial techniques and to each other. Such asymmetric
approacheswhether undertaken by states or nonstate actorswill become
the dominant characteristic of most threats to the US homeland. They will

15

be a defining challenge for US strategy, operations, and force development,
and they will require that strategy to maintain focus on traditional, low-
technology threats as well as

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *