Conference PaperPDF Available

The World in 2030: Trends, Inflection Points Challenges & Opportunities

April 2020

April 2020

Conference: Arab Strategy Forum 2019
At: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Authors:

Parmenides Foundation

The paper explores eight global trends which are interacting systemically with one another to shape the evolution of the decade.

: POPULATION 60 AND OLDER: UN WORLD POPULATION TRENDS 2015-2030

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The World in 2030

Trends, Inﬂection Points

Challenges & Opportunities

2030

GLOBAL TRENDS

SYSTEM-WIDE STRESSES:

IMPACTS OF A GROWING, RAPIDLY- URBANIZING

HUMAN POPULATION ON THE EARTH SYSTEM

WEAKENING

NATIONAL

GOVERNANCE

A SHIFTING CENTRE OF

ECONOMIC GRAVITY

WEAKENING OF U.S.

POWER PROJECTION

GEOPOLITICAL

TENSIONS & CONTESTATION

OF REGIONAL SECURITY

LANDSCAPES

DISRUPTION OF

THE RULES-BASED

INTERNATIONAL

ORDER

THE FIRST

BIO-DIGITAL

TECHNOLOGICAL

REVOLUTION

SIGNIFICANT

SOCIAL

DISRUPTION



INDEX

Introduction 1

Eight trends that will shape the decade 2

1 A shifting centre of economic gravity 2

2 Weakening of U.S. power projection 8

3 Disruption of the rules-based international order 9

4 Geopolitical tensions and contestation of regional security landscapes 12

Between the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Asia 12

In the Russian ‘near abroad’ 15

In the East China and South China Seas 17

 5Therstbio-digitaltechnologicalrevolution      19

 6Signicantsocialdisruption        21

7 Weakening national governance 22

8 System-wide stresses: Impacts of a growing, rapidly-urbanizing 24

human population on the earth system

Scenarios to 2030 in the context of these trends 27

Endnotes

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

Introduction

The present international system has allowed us

to achieve economic and social progress1 through

multilateral construction of a global community,

underpinned by the UN Charter.2 Decolonization

since 1947 resulted in expansion of the inter-

national community, resulting in UN member-

ship rising to 193 states,3 an almost fourfold

increase since 1945.4 Multilateral management

of global affairs, supported by the Internation-

al Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, the

World Trade Organization and a host of UN

funds, programmes, and specialized agencies5

has enabled broad economic development.

The post-World War II international order was

initially a bipolar order centred on Washington and

Moscow. After the implosion of the USSR in1991,

the U.S. exercised hegemonic leadership of a rules-

based international order across most of the world.

But the increasing digitization of connections,

theglobalizationofthenancialsystemandthe

construction of long supply chains, progressively

weakened the state6 as the central pillar of the in-

ternationalorder.Largelyunfetteredcapitalows,

andincreasingnancialization,offshoringandthe

elimination of jobs in many advanced economies,

have posed growing challenges to national sover-

eignty and democratic accountability.7 There are

signsthatwehavereachedaninectionpoint.

The past two-and-a-half decades of the early

knowledge (or digital) era, have brought glob-

al, national and local challenges akin to those

wrought in Europe when the industrial revolution8

replaced kinship with class as the primary social

building block, and industry supplanted agriculture

and craft manufacturing as the primary means

of adding economic value. The global economy

has outstripped a global polity able to deliver

the common public goods which markets cannot

provide. Without agreement on the norms that

would underpin a new polity, we have not been

able to create one There is no sense of global

community, no true global society. The asymme-

try between the scale of the economy, society

and polity have led to weak economic gover-

nance, economic and social volatility, normative

clashes, and social and geopolitical turbulence.

The evolution of the global landscape over time

is shaped by major trends, which affect coun-

tries, regions and communities in different ways.

The landscape at the end of 2019 is marked by:

* A continuing shift in the economic centre of

gravityfromtheAtlantictotheIndo-Pacic;

and uncertainty about the global economy six

yearsaftertheendofadeeprecession;the

residual effects of the unconventional mone-

tary policies9 employed to prevent implosion of

thenancialsectorin2009,andtradeshocks

due to the U.S. Administration’s reversal of

three decades of global economic integration

throughtheprogressiveeliminationoftariffs;

* The weakening of the ability and desire of the

U.S.toanchortheinternationalsecuritysystem;

* The disruption of the rules-based interna-

tionalorderestablishedafterWorldWarII;

* Normative uncertainty about the “rules of the

game”atglobalandregionallevels;associat-

ed with contestation of key regional security

landscapes due to geopolitical tensions and

gapsintheglobalstrategicarchitecture;

* A transformative post-industrial bio-dig-

ital revolution10 that threatens estab-

lishedpatternsofworkandeducation;

* Signicantsocialdisruptionduetofrus-

trationandperceivedinequity;

* Aweakeningofnationalgovernance;and

* System-wide stresses due to the impacts of

a growing, rapidly urbanizing, human popu-

lation on the earth system, including climate,

oceansandterrestrialandmarinebiodiversity;

Each of these trends poses large challenges.

To understand their evolution over the next de-

cade and to craft an ability to manage and mit-

igate the risks they pose, we need insight into

the interplay of the factors underpinning them.

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

Eight trends that will

shape the decade

Trend One

A shifting centre of eco-

nomic gravity

This is largely due to the rise of China since

Deng Xiao Ping implemented market reforms

and opened the economy to foreign trade and

investment in 1979. China’s growth in real annu-

al GDP growth averaged 9.5 percent from 1979

through 2018, lifting some 800 million people

out of poverty and transforming the PRC into the

world’s second largest economy in real exchange

rate terms, the largest at purchasing power parity,

and the largest manufacturer and merchandise

trader, with the world’s biggest holdings of foreign

exchange reserves. China is a critically important

player in global development today and in future.11

The maturation of China’s economy had led real

GDP growth to slow from 14 percent in 2007

to 6.6 percent in 2018, projected to fall to 5.5

percent by 2024. The government has devel-

oped a new growth model focused increasingly

on private consumption, services, and innova-

tion,andlessonxedinvestmentandexports.

FIGURE 1 : CHINA’S GROWTH PATH: MARCH 1992-JUNE 2019

The further we project estimates into the future,

the higher the uncertainty becomes.With that ca-

veat, it seems probable that in 2050, the structure

of the global economy will have changed radically.

China’s economy will likely be the world’s larg-

est, comprising 20 per cent of global GDP, with

India’s the second biggest, at 15 per cent. The

U.S., by this estimate, will take third place at

12 per cent, with the 27 countries of the Euro-

pean Union – if the EU holds together –ranking

fourth at 9 per cent. The same estimate sug-

gests that the seven big emerging economies

– China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, Mexico

and Turkey – which were, in aggregate, half the

size of the G7 countries (Canada, France, Ger-

many, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and United

States of America) in 1995, and equaled them

in 2015, could be twice their size in 2040.12

FIGURE 2-1 : ESTIMATES OF RELATIVE SIZE OF NATIONAL

ECONOMIES IN 2050, PWC: THE WORLD IN 2050

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

FIGURE 2-2 : ESTIMATES OF RELATIVE SIZE OF NATIONAL

ECONOMIES IN 2050, PWC: THE WORLD IN 2050

This outcome would represent a reversion

to an earlier economic order before the in-

dustrial revolution, in which, until about

1840, Asia had always contributed the larg-

est share of global economic output.

FIGURE 3 : EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD ECONOMY: 1000-2030 CE

FORECAST The aging of the population,

deleveraging from extremely high reliance

on debt, and rebalancing GDP output from

manufacturing to services will inevitably

slow China’s growth.13 If growth averages

4.6 percent over the decade, however, Chi-

na’s global economic inuence will continue

to rise. India too, although its population is

aging more slowly, will see its growth rate

fall below 7 percent, as it consolidates s-

cally to lower its public debt ratio, rationa-

lises subsidies, and undertakes land and

labour reforms.14 The relative importance of

the G7 as a standard setting body for the

global economy will decline sharply. Ten-

sions between China and the U.S. in trade

and technology standards will, however,

constrain China’s growth as exports consti-

tuted almost 20 percent of the PRC’s GDP

in 2018, and only 12.1 percent of that of the

U.S.15

Economic prospects in the

short- to medium-term

Theglobalnancialandeconomiccrisisfrom

2008-2013arosefromsignicantglobalim-

balances,awednancialarchitecture,poor

macro-prudential oversight, and misaligned

incentivestructuresinlargenancialinstitutions.

Unconventional monetary policies (UMPs) by the

leading central banks prevented the collapse of

thenancialsystem,andsustainedalowerlevel

of global economic activity, creating a breathing

space for recovery. This came at the cost of a

sovereign crisis in the Eurozone, where further

UMPs were needed to enable borrowings by Med-

iterraneanstates,toaverttheirscalimplosion.

These unprecedented policies enabled the re-

vival of capital markets – which have seen sharp

increases since their low points in February

200916 - and created space for restructuring.

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

FIGURE 4 : NYSE COMPOSITE INDEX: YAHOO FINANCE

Fiscal,nancialandstructuralreformswereneed-

edtorestorescalbalance,reduceunemploy-

ment, and enable growth. Product and labour

market reforms and investment in infrastructure

are still required in most advanced economies.

Globalnancialmarketswerebuffetedin2018and

2019 by trade tensions and policy uncertainty, much

emanating from the U.S. Administration, leading to

a synchronized slowdown. The IMF estimates that

U.S.-China trade tensions will reduce global GDP by

0.8 percent by 2020. Growth is also being weighed

downbycountry-specicfactorsinseveralemerg-

ing market economies, and by structural forces, such

as low productivity growth and aging in advanced

economies. In October 2019, the IMF projected

global growth of 3.0 percent for the year – the low-

est since 2008–09 and 0.3 percent lower than fore-

seen in April – and 3.4 percent growth in 2020, 0.2

percent below its projection in April.17 It noted that:

“… unlike the synchronized slowdown, this recov-

ery is not broad-based and remains precarious.”18

The weak growth is due to a sharp deterioration in

manufacturing activity and global trade, with higher

tariffs and prolonged trade policy uncertainty damaging

investment and demand for capital goods. Automo-

tive production is contracting due to new emission

standards in the euro area and China. Growth in

tradeinthersthalfof2019wasonly1percent,the

weakest level since 2012. A deterioration in busi-

ness sentiment, weaker economic activity, and rising

downside risks have prompted the European Central

Bank and the Federal Reserve, among others, to ease

monetary policies. Some 70 percent of economies,

weighted by GDP, have taken an accommodative

monetary stance, accompanied by a sharp decline

in longer-term yields, with interest rates deeply neg-

ative in some major economies. Some $15 trillion

in government and corporate bonds have negative

yields,increasingnancialvulnerabilitiesamong

corporatesandnon-banknancialinstitutions.

FIGURE 5 : GOVERNMENT BONDS IN

ADVANCED ECONOMIES: WEO OCTOBER 2019

FIGURE 6 : VULNERABILITIES: CORPORATE AND NON-

BANK FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS: WEO OCTOBER 2019

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

As corporations in eight major economies - the

U.S., China, and parts of Europe – have taken on

more debt with a reduced ability to service it, an

economic slowdown half as severe as the global

nancialcrisisof2007-08,couldleadtocorporate

debt-at-risk rising to $19 trillion, almost 40 per-

cent of total corporate debt in these economies.19

FIGURE 7 : DEBT IN NON-FINANCIAL FIRMS WITH

WEAK FUNDAMENTALS: WEO OCTOBER 2019

FIGURE 8 : UNORTHODOX INVESTMENTS BY PEN-

SION FUNDS: WEO OCTOBER 2019

Likewise,vulnerabilitiesamongnon-bank-

nancial institutions are high in 80 percent of the

economies by GDP with systemically important

nancialsectors.Thisissimilartoconditionsat

theworstpointoftheglobalnancialcrisis.

Very low interest rates have prompted insurance

companies, pension funds and asset managers

to take on riskier, less liquid securities and alter-

native asset classes to generate targeted returns,

adding to the risk of contagion in falling markets.

Meanwhile the external debt of emerging and

frontiereconomiesisrisingduetocapitalows

from advanced economies with low or nega-

tive interest rates. Median external debt is now

160 percent of exports in emerging market

economies, up from 100 percent in 2008. A

sharptighteninginnancialconditionswould

make their debt service problematical.

FIGURE 9 : EXTERNAL DEBT IN EMERGING MAR-

KET ECONOMIES: WEO OCTOBER 2019

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

Equity markets seem overvalued in the

UnitedStatesandJapan.Inmajorbond

markets, credit spreads seem too com-

pressed relative to fundamentals.

FIGURE 10 : OVERVALUED EQUITIES AND COM-

PRESSED CREDIT SPREADS: WEO OCTOBER 2019

Asharptighteninginnancialconditionscould

expose these vulnerabilities. The IMF proposes

speedily addressing corporate debt-at-risk through

stricter supervisory and macroprudential over-

sight;disclosurefrominstitutionalinvestorsto

mitigate leverage and other balance-sheet mis-

matches;andprudentsovereign-debtmanage-

mentpracticesandframeworks;toavoidputting

growth at risk in emerging and frontier markets.20

Not enough has been achieved with macro-pru-

dential oversight to detect systemic risk and take

remedial action before crisis. No national or regional

regulator can model the interactions between the

nancialintermediariesinthenetwork,under-

stand investment practices across the system, and

stress-test it against extreme events.21 Credit has

been misallocated to in several markets22 and better

management of the credit cycle in needed with

integrated monetary and macro-prudential tools.

The EU’s future is not secure. High persistent youth

unemployment, aging populations, and underfund-

edsocialsecuritysystemsposescal,socialand

political challenges, exacerbated by migration from

north and west Africa, shifting global competitive-

ness, and long-term underinvestment in defence.

Germany, the EU’s most important economy, is in

a technical recession and faces increasing polit-

ical tensions as the Merkel era nears its end.23

Onaglobalscale,thechallengeistodenepol-

icy measures that meet the needs of economies

with divergent structural characteristics, at very

different stages of development, with different

stocks of human capital, competitive advantag-

es and institutional capacities. Capital mobility

withinanintegratednancialsystem,andherd

behaviourslikethe“searchforyield”and“ightto

safety”, leave the governments of emerging mar-

ketswithoatingexchangeratesandnocapital

controls, vulnerable to capital movements that

can disrupt national macroeconomic planning.

In both “advanced economies”, and “emerging

markets”, meanwhile, great differences in growth

projections are apparent at national levels.

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

IMF DataMapper: October 2019 24

FIGURE 11 : DIFFERENTIATED PERFORMANCE OF AES

AND EMS: IMF DATAMAPPER OCTOBER 2019

Despitethesesignicantmacroeconomicchallenges,

there are certain structural advances. Adults over the

age of 30 now comprise half the global population

and their numbers are growing, while about half the

world is now middle class or richer by current stan-

dards. When income trends are combined across

demographic segments, there are approximately 2.2

billion young and poor people and the same number

of old and rich people, while there are 1.6 billion young

and rich, and the same number of old and poor.25

FORECAST While the secular trend of the

centre of economic gravity shifting east-

wards will continue through the decade, the

combination of low growth, trade tensions

and political uncertainty, sharpened by a

decline in foreign direct investment and the

risk of exchange rate devaluations, height-

ens the risk of a signicant recession be-

fore 2030. A recession of the scale of that

between 2008-2014 would be devastating:

Global growth fell to -0.1 percent on 2009

before concerted monetary stimulus by all

G20 countries, and aggressive scal stim-

ulus in China, dragged the economy back

to modest growth. In present conditions,

monetary policy would have limited stimulus

potential due to the low and negative rates

already prevailing, and scal space is limited

due to structural vulnerabilities. Collabora-

tive action to reduce the risk of recession is

clearly needed, but present tensions, be-

tween the U.S. and China, and even the U.S.

and EU, are frustrating this.

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

Trend Two

Weakening of U.S.

power projection

In Global Trends: Paradox of Progress,26 re-

leased in January 2017, before the inauguration

of President Trump, the U.S. National Intelligence

Council (NIC) warned that rising tensions and

slowing global growth were inevitable as “…an era

of American dominance…and ”… perhaps … the

rules-based international order …” drew to a close.

The NIC drew attention to “…a divergence in values

and interests among states [that] will threaten

international security.” It warned that seeking “…

to impose order on this apparent chaos, … would

be too costly in the short run and would fail in the

long”, and counselled that ”…[a]lthough materi-

al strength will remain essential to geopolitical

and state power, the most powerful actors of

the future will draw on networks, relationships,

and information to compete and cooperate.”

ThisNICreportreectstheconsideredjudge-

ment of the national security institutions of the

United States. Until as recently as 2010, the U.S.

National Security Strategy was premised on a

prepositioned, geographically distributed force

presence, backed by rapid deployment capa-

bilityofajointU.S.eldarmyabletodeliver

overwhelming force in one major confrontation,

with another force for defensive operations in

a second major encounter, backed by a strate-

gic reserve and reinforcements capable of en-

larging both. A network of naval, army and air

force bases circled the globe enabling effective

force projection both directly and with allies.

But, as the NIC’s report indicated, by 2017,

the national security establishment had con-

cluded that efforts “…to impose order on this

apparent chaos … would be too costly in the

short run and would fail in the long.” It pre-

dicted that “…the most powerful actors of the

future will draw on networks, relationships,

and information to compete and cooperate.”

The U.S. National Security Strategy of 201027

denedU.S.securityobjectivesasstrength-

eningsecurityandresilienceathome;disrupt-

ing, dismantling, and defeating Al-Qa’ida and

itsviolentextremistafliatesinAfghanistan,

Pakistan,andaroundtheworld;reversingthe

spread of nuclear and biological weapons and

securingnuclearmaterials;advancingpeace,

security, and opportunity in the Greater Middle

East;investinginthecapacityofstrongand

capablepartners;andsecuringcyberspace.

The security pillars of the U.S. National Security

Strategy of 201728 are protecting the American

people, the homeland, and the American way

oflife;securingU.S.bordersandterritory;de-

fendingagainstWeaponsofMassDestruction;

combattingbiothreatsandpandemics;strength-

eningbordercontrolandimmigrationpolicy;

pursuingthreatstotheirsource;defeatingji-

hadistterrorists;dismantlingtransnationalcrim-

inalorganizations;keepingAmericasafeinthe

cyberera;andpromotingAmericanresilience.

Between these two responses to the global

security environment came the Obama Admin-

istrations pivot to Asia,29 a series of withdrawals

of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, adop-

tion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

(JCPoA) on Iran’s nuclear programme, and con-

tinuing signals that greater security self-reliance

by U.S. partners, especially in the greater Middle

East, was required. All this occurred against the

background of U.S. military overextension in Af-

ghanistan30 and Iraq31 between 2003 and 2007.

Since Mr Trump was inaugurated, he has ques-

tioned the utility of NATO, called on U.S. allies to

pay for their own defence, suspended and then

resumed joint military exercises with the Republic

ofKorea;andannouncedthewithdrawalofmore

U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Syria. While Mr

Trumpisananomalyinmanyrespects,hereects

a prevailing trend in the U.S. towards cutting

thecostsitincurs,andthesacricesitmakes,to

maintain global security. The declining relevance

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

for the U.S. economy of oil from the Gulf reinforc-

es this trend in the regional context, and sharply

reducesthelikelihoodofsignicantredeploy-

ment intro the region in the decade to 2030.

FORECAST The U.S. will resist assuming

new global security obligations, and con-

tain or reduce those it presently has, in the

decade ahead. This will encourage Russia

to consolidate control of its “near abroad”

while avoiding confrontation with NATO;

and to project inuence, backed by arms

sales and limited power projection into the

Levant, seeking to maintain good relations

with Iran, while building closer links with

Gulf monarchies. As its domestic economic

position will not allow it to maintain a sig-

nicant military presence in the Arab region,

or to undertake military operations beyond

the scale at which it engaged in Syria, it

will encourage regional security dialogues

to promote agreements that will boost its

inuence, while limiting the risk of con-

frontations that require it to take sides and

engage militarily. China will avoid military

engagement, support Moscow’s efforts to

broker regional agreements, and focus on

infrastructure projects through the Belt and

Road, and on strengthening its economic

ties throughout the region.

Trend Three

Disruption of the

rules-based

international order

The present rules-based international system

has allowed us to achieve unprecedented eco-

nomic and social progress32 through multilater-

al construction of an international community,

underpinned by the UN Charter, which pro-

claimed the sovereign equality of states as the

organising framework for international cooper-

ation, and charged the UN Security Council to

maintain international peace and security. This

created global order with high legitimacy.

The post-World War II international order was

initially a bipolar order centred on Washington

and Moscow, whose military allies were clus-

tered in NATO, CENTO,33 S EATO34 and ANZUS

on the “western” side, and the Warsaw Pact35

on that of the USSR.36 After 1991, and the im-

plosion of the USSR, the U.S. came to exercise

hegemonic leadership, with Canada, the coun-

tries of the European Union, Japan, the Republic

of Korea, Australia and New Zealand as its key

partners.37 This international order spread across

most of the world after the end of the Cold War.

But this rules-based international order is now

underseverestress.Thisisreectedinfrequent

stalematesintheUnitedNationsSecurityCouncil;

the long delays in amending the articles and voting

rights in the International Monetary Fund and the

World Bank Group after the G20’s call for change

toreecttheshiftineconomicpower,leading

China to launch ancillary institutions including the

New [BRICS] Development Bank, and the Asian

InfrastructureInvestmentBank;andtheincreasing

dysfunction of the World Trade Organization. The

combination of the global shift in economic power

towardstheIndo-Pacic,andgrowingchallenges

to the legitimacy of US leadership, notably during

andaftertheglobalnancialcrisisandrecession,

led authoritarian, populist and xenophobic strands

to emerge across the world, challenging both the

rules-based order and the principle of multilateralism.

Many warned that the order was weakening.38

In 2017, the Rand Corporation cautioned:

“… the degree of pressure for reform [of the order]

is accelerating faster than most observers antici-

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pated, …. Russia’s frustration with elements of the

order,specicallyWesternalliancesandactive

democracy promotion, has become intense and

hasledtooutrightconict.India,Turkey,Brazil,

and other major powers are speaking up more

urgently about …the reform of international in-

stitutions and the limits of the Western- centric,

neoliberal economic model. Most profoundly,

China is both steadily increasing its participation

andinuenceintheorder’sinstitutions—including

contributing to the United Nations peacekeeping

function and adding its currency to the Internation-

alMonetaryFund’sSpecialDrawingRightslist—

and making a hard-edged critique of the order’s

perceived inequities. At the same time, the degree

of frustration with the costs and pressures of a

globalizingorderhasrisensignicantly,especially

in the working classes of the developed world.

… Stagnating economic prospects combine with a

sense of cultures under siege to create growing re-

sentment against a perceived out-of-control global

order. … the post-war order was already under

signicantstrainbeforeTrumpwaselectedU.S.

President… from above, in the form of the geopo-

litical challenges …, and from below, in … populist

outrage at its economic and social implications.”39

C. John Ikenberry argued in 2018 that the glo-

balization of the liberal order had triggered two

sourcesofitsdemise,rstbyupendingthenor-

mative foundations of governance as more states

with diverse ideologies entered the international

system, and secondly, by vitiating its function as a

security community. In the Cold War, the liberal or-

der strengthened the capacity of western democ-

racies to pursue economic and social policies and

ensure stability. As liberal internationalism became

the platform for the wider global order after 1991,

the shared social and security purposes eroded.40

As early as 2007, at the Munich Security Con-

ference, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin crit-

icised the “unipolar world” that had emerged,

denedby“onecentreofauthority,onecentre

of force, one centre of decision-making… one

master, one sovereign.” He argued that this

was “…pernicious not only for all those with-

in this system, but also for the sovereign it-

self because it destroys itself from within.”41

Mr Putin criticised “…[u]nilateral and frequent-

ly illegitimate actions [by the United States that

have]… caused new human tragedies and created

new centres of tension… an almost uncontained

hyper use of … military force in international rela-

tions … that is plunging the world into an abyss of

permanentconicts…,[and]greaterdisdainforthe

basic principles of international law….” He contin-

ued: “I am convinced that we have reached that

decisive moment when we must seriously think

about the architecture of global security…searching

for a reasonable balance between the interests

of all participants in the international dialogue.”

TheshockoftheglobalnancialcrisisledChina,

after 2008, to conclude that an international order

premised on Western mores and U.S. primacy,

was not sustainable. As its growing economic

strengthtranslatedintopoliticalinuence,and

theChinesegovernmentbecamemorecondent

about engaging in global governance, Beijing

saw the G20 as a platform from which to ad-

vanceitsviewofabenecialworldorder.Atthe

10th G20 Summit on November 15–16, 2015,

ahead of the 11th G20 summit in Hangzhou

on 4–5 September 2016, Xi Jinping announced

China’s theme and approach for the 2016 Sum-

mit: “Build up an innovative, invigorated, inter-

connected, and inclusive world economy.” 42

This Chinese strategy comprises four elements: (1)

innovate for growth, advancing reforms and inno-

vation,deningandgraspingnewopportunitiesto

strengthenthegrowthoftheworldeconomy;(2)

improveglobaleconomicandnancialgovernanceby

enhancing the representation and voice of emerging

markets and developing countries and strengthen-

ingthecapabilityoftheeconomytomanagerisk;(3)

construct an open, interconnected world economy, by

promotinginternationaltradeandinvestment;and(4)

advance inclusive development by implementing the

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2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, eradi-

cating poverty, and realizing mutual development.43

China’s global economic strategy, supported by

the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the

New Development Bank, the Silk Road Fund

and the Belt and Road Initiative, recognises that

countries are at different phases of development

and have different strengths, and aims to align

all countries’ interests in a cooperative system to

promote inclusive and sustainable development

and enable an optimal allocation of global eco-

nomic resources, by integrating economy, society,

and environment through effective governance.

Against the background of a widely contested or-

der,MrTrumphasprovedtobeaninectionpoint.

Having broken with the consensus among other

leading states in respect of the Paris Agreement

on Climate Change,44 the Joint Comprehensive Plan

of Action on Iran’s nuclear activity,45 and in decla-

rations of the G2046 and G7,47 the U.S. President

stated his view clearly in his address to the 74th

Session of the UN General Assembly: “The future

does not belong to globalists. The future belongs

to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and

independent nations who protect their citizens,

respect their neighbors, and honor the differences

that make each country special and unique.”48

Not surprisingly, the UN Secretary-General

has taken a different view. Launching UN@75

and Beyond, a forward-looking people-driv-

en global conversation in 2019 and 2020, Mr

Guterres declared: “Our future rests on soli-

darity. We must repair broken trust. We must

reinvigorate our multilateral project. And we

must uphold dignity for one and for all.”

Arguing that issues like the climate crisis, pover-

tyandinequality,protractedconict,migration

and displacement, and rapid changes in de-

mography and technology, require co-operation

across borders, sectors and generations, and bold

collective action, the Secretary-General notes

that “…multilateralism is being called into ques-

tion. Unilateralism is on the rise, as the world

becomes more multipolar but also more polar-

ized.” He argues that “[r]enewed support for

global cooperation could not be more urgent.”

With the support of member states and civil

society institutions, the United Nations will thus

coordinate dialogues around the world in 2020

on “the future we want”, and document and share

the outcomes with Member States, civil society

and partners. After the results have been present-

ed to the UN General Assembly in a High-Level

meeting on September 21, 2020, further poli-

cy discussions and actions will be launched.

FORECAST The existing order and its

institutions will be under stress throughout

the decade. The UN@75 and Beyond ini-

tiative will trigger a process of institutional

change that will transform the pillars of the

global architecture – the United Nations,

International Monetary Fund, World Bank

Group and the World Trade Organization

– and the systems of interaction between

states, and with non-state actors, with

which we have become familiar. This trans-

formation will, however, be neither linear,

nor smooth. Responsible states in the Gulf

will engage actively with their neighbours

and major powers with regional interests,

to resolve conicts and create a resilient

regional security and economic architecture

that respects national boundaries and incen-

tivises economic cooperation. The UAE and

other leading regional states will engage

actively with the United Nations in helping

to craft an emerging international system t

for purpose on the decades ahead.

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Trend Four

Geopolitical tensions and

contestation of regional

security landscapes

Global and regional

normative uncertainty

The three preceding trends – the shifting centre

of economic gravity, the weakening of U.S. power

projection and the disruption of the rules-based in-

ternational order – combine to increase uncertainty

about the “rules of the international game”. This

is apparent at all levels of interstate engagement

atthegloballevel–intheUNSecurityCouncil;in

international trade,49 especially due to the weak-

eningoftheWTO’sDisputeSettlementBody;50 in

the governance of the internet and digital commu-

nication;51instandardsforfthgenerationcellular

networktechnologyplatforms;52 in management

ofnuclearweaponsdeployment;53 and in regional

contexts, notably in contested areas where two

or more powers have divergent objectives.54

Periods of relative peace55 are characterised by

agreement on the values that constitute the pre-

vailing legitimate order, and a balance of power

that enables each state to accept that its vital

interests are adequately met. Henry Kissing-

er noted in his discussion of the Congress of

Vienna that: “A ‘legitimate’ order…achieves its

transformations through acceptance, and this

presupposes a consensus on the nature of a just

arrangement.”56 By contrast, “…a revolutionary

order, having destroyed the existing structure of

obligations, must impose its measures by force…”57

As the present is characterised neither by gen-

eral acceptance of the legitimacy of the prior

rules-based order, nor the ability, nor will, of

any power to impose order by force, this trend

of normative uncertainty will continue un-

til agreement is reached on a new order. It is

exacerbated by the weakening of many state

powersandtheemergence,andgrowinginu-

ence of non-state actors, including jihadists,58

neo-Nazis,59 and other cultural xenophobes.

Tensionsofglobalsignicance,butvaryinginten-

sity, exist in three regions – between the eastern

MediterraneanandCentralAsia;intheRussian

“near-abroad”;60 and in the East- and South China

seas. Each of these emerged from the demise, after

the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991,61 of the

bipolargeopoliticalorderearlierdenedbyNATO

and its associated treaty organisations62 anchored

by the U.S., and the Warsaw Pact, anchored by the

USSR. The transformation of the global econo-

my, and China’s rise in particular, accelerated the

trend, as Washington’s inability and willingness to

act as the global hyperpuissance63 became clear.

The trends evident in each of the three the-

atres today will continue through the decade.

Between the Eastern

Mediterranean and Central Asia

The fractured situation in the broader Middle

Eastisduetoweakstatestructures;thefailureof

poorly executed efforts to promote peace between

IsraelandthePalestinians;theIslamicrevolution

in Iran,64theriseofradicaljihadistorganizations;65

and the poorly-prepared decision of the U.S. and

its allies to displace Saddam Hussein in Iraq.66

Circumstances in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India,

Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iran

have become entwined since the early 1980s.

Western powers failed to impose their purpos-

es, and the clash of local and foreign wills has

led to misery, and the destruction of livelihoods

and critical infrastructures from Afghanistan

through Iraq and Syria, to Libya and Yemen.

After revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Lib-

ya and Syria, and a war in Lebanon since 2010,

there have been brutal proxy wars with high

civilian casualties and displacements in Syria

and Yemen, the emergence and destruction of an

Islamic State under a self-proclaimed Caliphate

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acrosstheIraq-Syriaborder;directintervention

by Russia in support of Bashar al Assad in Syria,

and limited engagement by Turkey, the U.S. and

Kurdishmilitiaswithdistinct,oftenconictual,

agendas;acontinuinginsurgencyinAfghanistan;67

militia-basedclashesinLibya;anddisplacement

of longstanding regimes in Algeria and Sudan.68

Superior foreign military force in Afghanistan

and Iraq, and popular mobilization in Tunis and

Cairo, effected regime change, but the con-

struction of stable states proved challenging,

with only Tunisia having succeeded to date,

although Egypt has been partially stabilised

under a military-backed government.69

ISIS/Da’esh

Violent extremists who blend a perversion of

Islam with anti-imperialist populism, threaten the

survival of states conceived in secular national-

ism.70 In 2013, ISIS expanded from Iraq into Syria

and established control over an area spanning

the border. In 2014, it proclaimed a “Caliphate”

and went on the rampage in both Iraq and Syr-

ia. Washington’s re-engagement in an effort to

degrade and destroy the Islamic State (ISIS) drew

the backing of Arab states and western allies,

and airstrikes against targets in Syria and Iraq,

buttressing assaults by Arab and Kurdish ground

troops, led to ISIS losing Mosul in Iraq in July

2017, and its “capital” Raqqa in Syria in Octo-

ber that year. It was driven from Hajin in eastern

Syria, on December 14, 2018, although some

5,000ISISghterswereestimatedstilltobein

villages along the Euphrates River to the south.71

ISIS has survived by shifting from semi-conven-

tional warfare to hit-and-run insurgency.72 In Iraq,

small, autonomous guerrilla units are present in

remote areas and attack rural villages. In Syria,

small ISIS bands persist across the north-east.

President Trump’s decision in October 2019 to

withdraw U.S. forces from Syria in the face of

President Erdogan’s decision to create a safe

zone in northern Syria along the Turkish border,

expelling the Kurdish SDF forces allied with the

U.S.,73 led the SDF to seek support from the Syrian

government, and created new opportunities for

ISIS74 after some prisoners were released from

detention camps as the SDF withdrew.75 Turkey

agreedtoaceaseretoallowSDFghtersto

leave the safe zone.76 A raid on an ISIS base in

Barisha by U.S. Special Forces on October 26,

lead to the death of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.77

OnlyMrAssadwillbenetintheshort-term

from the Turkish operation. U.S. credibility has

been damaged, Turkey79 will need to remain in

thezoneasYPGghtersareunlikelytoaban-

dontheirterritory;IsraelandIranhavesignalled

disquiet, and Russia was taken by surprise.78

Russia capitalised on the U.S. retreat by de-

ploying forces into the designated safe zone

to complement those of Turkey.79 China sees

Turkey as key to its Belt and Road initiative

and is ambivalent about Mr Erdogan’s action

against the Kurds in Syria Meanwhile, all the

powers are concerned by Mr Erdogan’s de-

clared interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.80

Yemen

The civil war in Yemen began in 2014 when

Houthi insurgents, with links to Iran, took control

of Sana’a, demanding lower fuel prices and a new

government. After negotiations failed, the rebels

seized the presidential palace in January 2015,

leading President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi to

resign. In March 2015, a coalition of Gulf states led

by Saudi Arabia launched air strikes against the

Houthi insurgents, with U.S. logistical and intel-

ligence support.81 In July 2016, the Houthis and

the government of former President Ali Abdullah

Saleh, ousted in 2011, formed a political council

to govern Sana’a and much of northern Yemen.

In December 2017, Saleh broke with the Houth-

is. He was killed and his forces defeated within

two days. Iranian weapons shipments to Houthi

rebels have been intercepted in the Gulf of Aden.

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FIGURE 12 : FATALITIES IN YEMEN CONFLICT: ACLED DATA

Fatalities rose sharply in 2018, notably in the sec-

ond half of the year.82 Yemen has been described

as “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis” by

the International Committee of the Red Cross.83

In September 2019, following calls by the Pope

and several European governments to end the

war, the UAE and Saudi Arabia called for an

immediate end to all military operations and,

to prepare for “constructive dialogue” to end

the crisis.84 On November 5, 2019, the govern-

ment of Yemen and southern separatists signed

anagreementtoendghtinginthesouth,in

Riyadh, in the presence of KSA Crown Prince

Mohammed bin Salman al Saud, and the Crown

Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed

al Nahyan. This achievement opens a window

to explore a wider peace agreement with the

Houthi rebels as well.85 This will require agree-

ment by Iran to cease support for the rebels in

the context of a broader regional accommodation

based on agreement on a doctrine of limits.

Iran nuclear agreement

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)86

was agreed in Vienna on July 14, 2015, between

Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, Unit-

ed Kingdom, United States, plus Germany), with

the European Union. On May 8, 2018, Mr Trump

announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from

the JCPOA and would reimpose U.S. sanctions,

although the Director of the International Atom-

icEnergyAgencyhadconrmedinMarch2018

that Iran was meeting its commitments. After the

U.S. announcement, the EU enacted a blocking

statute on August 7, 2018 to nullify US sanctions

on countries trading with Iran. In November 2018

the U.S. imposed sanctions, ostensibly to force

Iran to end its support for militant groups in the

region, and its development of ballistic missiles.

On July 1, 2019 Iran announced that it had

breached the limit on its stockpile of low-enriched

uranium.ThiswasconrmedbytheIAEA.Shortly

thereafter Tehran announced that it was increasing

its uranium enrichment beyond the limit set in the

JCPOA. Foreign Minister Zarif said that Iran would

return to its commitments if the European signa-

toriesfullledtheirobligations.SupremeLeader

Ali Khamenei thereafter announced seven condi-

tions for Europe, notably that European powers

should preserve business relations with Iranian

banks, and purchase oil despite U.S. sanctions.

This proved impossible given the dominance of

the U.S. dollar in the international trading sys-

tem and penalties threatened by the U.S. gov-

ernmentagainstrmsbreachingitssanctions.

Iran halted sales of excess enriched uranium and

heavy water to other countries one year after the

U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA. President Rou-

hani said that Iran would resume enrichment of

uranium beyond 3.67 percent if the other par-

tiescouldnotfulltheirobligations.Aseriesof

sporadic assaults on ships passing through the

Straits of Hormoz followed, culminating on a

missile and drone attack on the Saudi Aramco

oil processing facilities at Biqayq and Khurais

on September 14, 2019, While the Houthis

in Yemen claimed agency, the U.S. and Sau-

di Arabia, as well as France, Germany, and the

United Kingdom, have held Iran responsible.

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FORECAST Unless it proves possible to

end the sectarian violence in Iraq and Syria,

permitting the return of refugees from Leb-

anon, Jordan and Turkey; stop the civil war

in Yemen; reach a comprehensive agreement

ending Iran’s nuclear and missile program

and containing its regional power projec-

tion;87 contain the fragmentation of Afghan-

istan by drawing in the Taliban; and restore

the prospect of agreement on a politically

and economically viable Palestinian state

and diplomatic recognition of Israel under

the Arab Peace Plan; conditions in the re-

gion will not stabilise and the negative trend

will continue.

To achieve stability, a Collective Security

Regime, premised on a doctrine of limits

providing for non-aggression and no-in-

terference in the affairs of other states, will

need to be crafted, incorporating the states

of the Gulf, and extending over time to the

Levant and Afghanistan.88

In the Russian ‘near abroad’

In the past decade, President Putin has positioned

himself as a bastion of traditional values and order

against Western ‘liberalism’, which threatens “Rus-

sian social values”. Putin is conservative by instinct,

puritanical in character, and controlling by nature.

Putin has three foreign policy imperatives: Main-

taining Russia’s strategic nuclear parity vis-à-

vistheUSA;maintainingitsstatusasa‘great

power’ whose interests must be accommodated

geopolitically;andretainingregionalhegemony

in Russia’s near-abroad, while seeking to effect

reintegration of the former Soviet bloc under

Russian leadership. His actions in Ukraine in

2014werepreguredinGeorgiain2008.89

The three aims are interlinked: The weakening of

anyunderminestheothers;strengtheningeach

buttresses Russia’s position. On May 29, 2014,

Putin, Belarusian President Lukashenko, and

Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev signed the

founding treaty of the Eurasian Economic Union

(EEU), to convert a customs union in 2015, into

an economic union with a market of 171 million

people, a GDP of nearly $3 trillion, free movement

of goods and a single macroeconomic policy. Putin

aimed to draw in the remaining post-Soviet states,

other than the Baltics, to grow the EEU to 300 mil-

lion members with a GDP of just under $4 trillion.

TheprotestsandinsurrectioninKievin2014

reectedallthatPutindespises–vulgar pas-

sions, people power and moral relativism – and

he saw the displacement of President Viktor

Yanukovych in mass demonstrations, as a threat

to Russia. Political contestation in Ukraine re-

ectsthedistinctcultural-linguisticidentitiesof

the voters in the east, and those in the west.90

YanukovychreectedtheinterestsoftheRus-

sophile eastern Ukrainians, his opponent’s those

of those in the west, oriented towards the EU.

After Yanukovych had rejected an Association

and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with

the European Union on November 21, 2013, all

thesetensionsaredup.EUandRussianFor-

eign Ministers brokered an agreement, between

Yanukovych and opposition leaders, on Febru-

ary 20-21, 2014 providing for a national unity

government and presidential elections by the

end of the year, Presidents Obama and Putin

agreed on the need to stop violence, implement

the agreement, and stabilise the economy.

Angry protesters rejected the agreement,

however, introduced an impeachment bill and

promptedYanukovychtoee.Putinwasap-

palled.Heacted,rsttosecuretheCrimeaon

which Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol is

based;andthentoarmparamilitarygroupsin

the East to confront Kiev91 blaming the tensions

on NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe.92

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Under pressure from the U.S. and EU, Mr Putin

agreed to respect the outcome of elections in Ukraine

in May. Petro Poroshenko93 won 54.70 percent of the

vote. When Putin ordered Russian troops away from

the border Poroshenko attempted to recapture Do-

netsk airport from the separatists and signed a Com-

prehensive Free Trade Arrangement with the EU.94

Theconicthasdraggedonforveyears,de-

spite OSCE mediation, western sanctions and

Russia’s expulsion from the G8.95 While the

Ukrainian government announced construction

of a wall along the 2,295 km border at a cost

of $520 million, incursions have continued.

After Russia seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels

in November 2018 off the coast of Crimea96 in-

citing protests outside the Russian embassy in

Ukraine, martial law was imposed for 30-days

from November 26. All Russian men between 16

and 60 were banned from entering Ukraine to

prevent Russia from forming “private” armies”.

Ukrainians elected a new president, Volodymyr

Zelensky, a television comedy actor, in April 2019.97

Mr Zelensky engaged with both Mr Putin to enable

an exchange of prisoners, and Mr Trump, to secure

political and military support for Ukraine’s cause.

Russia and the U.S.: The INF Treaty

The relationship between Russia, the US and

the European Union is essential to stability in

Europe,andinuencescircumstancesinthe

MENAregion,wherecertainconictscannotbe

resolved without the cooperation of all perma-

nent members of the UN Security Council.98

Tensions have been exacerbated by U.S. withdrawal.

from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF)

Treaty, concluded in 1987 by Presidents Reagan

and Gorbachev, which led to the elimination of 2,692

U.S. and Soviet missiles from Europe,99 and led to

agreements to cut strategic nuclear arsenals and

eliminate thousands of tactical nuclear weapons.

In 2014, the U.S. alleged a Russian INF treaty

violation. Tensions grew in 2017 when Rus-

sia deployed a ground-launched cruise mis-

sile, 9M729, capable of traveling in the range of

500-5,500 km prohibited by the INF treaty.

The U.S. administration developed a strategic

response to pressure Russia to comply, but in

October 2018, President Trump announced that

the U.S. would withdraw from the treaty. On Feb-

ruary. 2, 2019, the U.S. administration formally

announced suspension of the INF Treaty and its

intention to withdraw in six months if Russia did

not eliminate the 9M729 missile. On August. 2, U.S.

Secretary of State Pompeo declared that Rus-

sia was still in “material breach of the treaty” and

announced the United States’ formal withdrawal.100

FORECAST Mr Putin has shown that he is

prepared to accept economic pain for Russia

to pursue his strategic objectives. Russia’s

GDP contracted by 2,3 percent in 2015,

before recovering between 2016 and 2018,

when it grew by 2.3 percent. No change is

likely in this trend in the decade ahead. Re-

constituting a constructive relationship be-

tween Washington, Europe and Moscow will

demand both principled policy and realpo-

litik. Despite his weak strategic hand, Putin

has shown that he will hew to his principles,

and this must inform the calculus of engage-

ment for the remainder of the decade.

Putin will leave the presidency in 2024 at

the end of his second consecutive term

if he does not seek and secure amend-

ment of the constitution. If he does step

down, informed speculation suggests that

he will engineer the succession of Gener-

al of the Army Sergey Shoygu, who has

served as Minister of Defence since No-

vember 6, 2012.101 Shoygu shares Pu-

tin’s worldview, and a policy continuity is

likely for the remainder of the decade.

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In the East China and

South China Seas

China is a continental power with a coastline that

once stretched from the Sea of Japan to the Gulf

of Tonkin. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Yuan

Emperors launched expeditions against Japan and

Java, while seven remarkable voyages of explora-

tion from South East Asia to East Africa followed

in the Ming Dynasty between 1405 and 1433.102

Faced with regional challenges in the 1430s,

China refocused internally. Only in the 19th

century did the Qing emperor order a new na-

val program. After the fall of the Qing dynasty

in 1912, the Kuomintang sought to bring all of

China under its control in 1928, but domestic

revolts and the Japanese occupation of Man-

churialedtoitscollapseandighttoTaiwan

in 1949, after its defeat by the Communists.

Efforts to remake Chinese society in an agrar-

ian Communist mode through the Great Leap

Forward and the Cultural Revolution led to

disaster. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping introduced

radical economic reforms, and announced that

China would secure its domestic position, deal

calmly with foreign affairs, hide its capabilities,

and bide its time. These tenets are still core to

China’s foreign policy, but the environment has

changed, and the PRC has taken a more ac-

tivestance.Inthepastveyears,Beijinghas

begun to shape the region in its interests.

This began with the creation of the Shanghai Co-

operation Organization, in June 2001, comprising

China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan

and Uzbekistan, later drawing in Mongolia, Iran,

India and Pakistan. Faced with the need to main-

tain growth and address the welfare gap between

the eastern coastal cities and its under-developed

western and northern regions, China opened

a railway from Yunnan through Vietnam, Laos

and Thailand, to Singapore, in February 2013.

Lacking a western seaboard, it constructed an

800km gas pipeline from Kunming to the Bay of

Bengal, as well as an oil pipeline was opened, and

rail and road links from the western and south-

ern provinces to the sea, to shift growth from

investment to consumption, while opening new

low-cost manufacturing regions, as industry in

the east moved up the cost-and-value chain.

Having displaced Japan (GDP $5.22trn - 2019)

from the second largest national GDP rank, and

in the face of a U.S.(GDP $21.48trn - 2019)

pivot to Asia in 2012, China (GDP$14.17trn

- 2019)103 began to act as a regional pow-

er in the South China and East China Seas.

Japan and China have a long-standing dispute over

the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.

The dispute escalated in September 2012, but nei-

ther side wished to use force, and both took steps

to avert a crisis. The formal handshake of Xi Jin-

ping and Shinzo Abe at the APEC Summit in Bei-

jing on November 10, 2014, reduced tensions.104

In December 2013, after China declared an

air-defence zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea

over the disputed islands, Japan published

itsrstNationalSecurityStrategycommit-

ting it to strengthen its military capabilities105

inamilitarybuild-upoverveyears.106

The U.S. responded to the Chinese ADIZ by

yingaircraftthroughitwithoutnotica-

tion but did not demand that Beijing with-

draw the zone. The Japanese government

drew closer to Washington and Prime Min-

ister Abe rallied South East Asian leaders.

An armed clash between China and Japan in the

East China Sea would threaten the regional eco-

nomic, political and strategic balance. If the U.S.

were not to engage in support of Japan, Tokyo’s

military self-restraint and non-nuclear weapons’

status would come into question. To mitigate

theserisks,ChinajoinedPacicsheries-protec-

tionandcoastguardexercises;andtheU.S.has

acted to demonstrate U.S. commitment to Japan.

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FIGURE 13-1 : TERRITORIAL DISPUTES IN THE EAST

CHINA AND SOUTH CHINA SEAS: BBC NEWS

FIGURE 13-2 : TERRITORIAL DISPUTES IN THE EAST

CHINA AND SOUTH CHINA SEAS: BBC NEWS

The nine-dash line demarcates China’s maritime

claims in the South China Sea. It replaced the

eleven-dash line, drawn in 1947 by the Kuomint-

ang government after the Japanese occupation.

The line became the foundation of China’s mod-

ern sea claims and was adopted in 1949 by the

government of the People’s Republic. In 1953,

Beijing eliminated two dashes to accommodate

Vietnam, creating the nine-dash line. In 2013, it

added a tenth dash to the east of Taiwan island

asapartofitsofcialclaimtosovereignty.107

China’s intent was to use its naval and air capa-

bilities to control the islands within the nine-dash

line, but the Philippines instituted legal action to

block this. In July 2016, an arbitral tribunal un-

der the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

ruled that China had no legal basis to “histor-

ic rights” within the nine-dash line. The ruling

was rejected by both Beijing and Taipei.108

In the aftermath, fearing that the U.S. pivot to

Asia-Pacic109 might isolate it, Beijing sought to

defuse tensions by seeking an Asian security mecha-

nism in which it can play a leading role. This involves

incipient strategic partnerships to preclude hostile

alliances, collaborating with India, Japan and the

Republic of Korea in counter-piracy and naval ex-

changes. India and Japan, however, also consolidated

their bilateral partnership with accords on maritime

security, counterterrorism, and counter-piracy.

FORECAST China will continue to press

its claims in both the East China and South

China Seas, but will do so with care, to

avoid triggering a military confrontation.

North Korea

The nuclear ambitions and missile programs

of the Democratic People’s Republic of [North]

Korea have caused concern for over a de-

cade. The U.S. government and those of Japan,

[South] Korea, China and Russia have engaged

Pyongyang in “six-party talks” seeking to halt

North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Despite this, Pyongyang conducted nucle-

ar tests in 2006 and 2009, as well as missile

tests, also launching a satellite into space. The

North Korean Navy sank a South Korean cor-

vette in March 2010. In November 2010, the

twosidesexchangedartilleryre.Between

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19084 and 30 November 2017, the DPRK car-

ried out 117 tests of strategic missiles, over 80

of which after Kim Jong-un came to power.

China has been pivotal in dealing with Pyongyang,

balancing a desire to prevent the collapse of the

regime–whichwouldleadtoaoodofrefugees

across its border – with its commitment to con-

tain nuclear proliferation, Since 2014, President

Xi Jinping has worked with Seoul to upgrade

bilateral relations, conclude a bilateral free trade

agreement, and develop a “strategic cooperative

partnership for development …[and]… regional

peace, Asia’s revitalization and global prosper-

ity”, with a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

U.S. President Trump’s personal engagement with

Kim Jong-un after the DPRK tested what it claimed

was a hydrogen bomb and the Hwasong-15

intercontinental ballistic missile in late 2017,

upended Washington’s traditional approach.

On March 8, 2018, the South Korean president

conveyed an invitation for a meeting from Kim

Jong-un to Mr Trump. This took place in Singa-

pore in June 2018, and the two leaders signed

a statement on security guarantees for North

Korea, peaceful relations, and the denucleariza-

tion of the Korean Peninsula. After the summit,

President Trump announced that the U.S. military

would end “provocative” joint military exercises

with South Korea and said that he wished to bring

U.S. troops back from the Korean peninsula.

The second meeting between Trump and Kim

took place in Hanoi on February 27–28, 2019, and

ended with no agreement as the leaders could

not agree on the context in which U.S. sanctions

would be lifted. Mr Trump had a third meeting

with Mr Kim at the DMZ on the Korean peninsula

on June 30, 2019 and crossed into the DPRK with

him after an informal exchange of 50 minutes.

Between May and October 2019, the DPRK

launched approximately 15 short-range bal-

listic missiles, and one intermediate-range

submarine-launched missile. In August 2019,

President Trump said that he wished to resume

talks with Kim Jong Un, dismissing concerns

that Pyongyang’s missile tests posed a region-

al threat, notably to Japan. Citing a “beautiful

letter” from Kim Jong-un expressing anger at

U.S.-South Korean joint exercises, Mr Trump

said he agreed with the North Korean leader’s

opposition to these joint exercises and hoped

to meet Mr Kim again to advance their talks.

FORECAST As Mr Trump seems intrigued

by the prospect of a “deal” crafted person-

ally with Mr Kim, efforts to advance this are

likely for the remainder of his term of ofce.

If he is replaced in the presidency in 2021,

his successor will take a more conventional

approach to negotiations with Pyongyang.

In either case, if Seoul continues on its pres-

ent course, and if relations between Wash-

ington and Beijing stabilise, encouraging

the PRC to collaborate in achieving a mu-

tually-benecial outcome, an agreement on

cessation of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons

and missile programs, and declaration of a

formal end to the Korean war, are possible

within the decade.110 This will require care-

ful coordination with Japan, whose security

considerations will need to be fully accom-

modated.111

Trend Five

The rst bio-digital tech-

nological revolution

Rapid advances in technology, notably ICT, have

equipped economic actors and citizens with

new tools in the past two decades to identify

and pursue economic opportunities – analys-

ing economic trends and market opportunities,

creating new businesses with low barriers to

entry,transferringnancialassets,andcollab-

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orating with widely-dispersed partners. Tech-

nological advancement and economic policy

have increased returns to capital and technology

ownership, and reduced those to labour, wid-

ening economic disparity in almost all advanced

economies, and weakening social cohesion.

The convergence of new chips, sensors, big data,

[deep] machine learning and quantum comput-

ing112 is enabling instruments that can perform

work that humans cannot, or would prefer not

to,do;andassumetasksthathumanscanonly

performlessefcientlythanthenewsystems.

The worlds of blue-and while-collar work, as

well as education and training, are being trans-

formed as new technologies disrupt utility models

intransportandenergy,longsupplychains;and

business systems in manufacturing and services.

As early as 2014, Erik Brynjolfsson and An-

drew McAfee,113 argued that the technolog-

ical changes that had been building over

twodecadeshadreachedaninectionpoint

that would accelerate exponentially, rad-

ically changing the global economy.

The social and economic landscape is being trans-

formedbyrobotics;three-dimensionalprinting

that will shift production from geographically-dis-

tributedfactoryoorstolocalenvironments,and

maycollapsesomeglobalsupplychains;driverless

electric vehicles, some operating experimentally

inthreedimensions;newenergysourcesdis-

ruptingelectricityutilities;andwidespreaduseof

composite materials instead of metals. Many new

opportunities in substitution, optimization, and

virtualization are available to agile companies.114

Thecontinuedaccelerationofefciencyincom-

puting capabilities and new technological disrup-

tions makes social dislocation inevitable, however,

due to continuous shifts in employment demand.

The interface between greater computing capacity

and big data will transform white-collar employ-

ment, potentially displacing all routine elements

inmarketresearch,accountingandauditservices;

legaldiscoveryandprecedentsearch;andmed-

icine. The half-life of medical [and much other

scientic]knowledge115 is shrinking continuously.

We risk a lost generation in many sub-Saharan

African (SSA) and MENA countries, which have

the youngest and fastest-growing societies: Due

totwindecitsineducation–inaccesstoschool

and the quality of learning in school – a sustained

youth unemployment crisis is looming in Afri-

ca: Over 30 million primary-age children, and a

further20millionadolescents,arenotinschool;

only one-third progress to secondary school and

sixpercenttouniversity;38percentofthose

between 20 and 25 years of age have less than

four years of education, and the quality of teach-

ing and learning is generally poor. Conditions are

worse in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan

The mid-20th century educational model will

become unsustainable. No-one will be able to

acquire the knowledge and skills needed for a

lifetime of gainful employment or entrepreneurial

endeavour, in 25 years after birth. Education and

skills training will have to be modularized to enable

continuous learning and reskilling, permitting hori-

zontal and diagonal, as well as vertical, migration.

Digital knowledge and skills training will com-

plement institutional provision in classrooms,

but access – and attainment – will be uneven,

as far higher levels of personal motivation are

needed for effective digital learning, unless

newneuro-scienticinsightsprovidemeans

to engage learners in ways akin to play.

The challenge of technology governance is sharp-

ened by the high number of socio-technological

systems emerging from unprecedented research

pipelines.116 The putative regulatory requirements

for innovations in nano-technology, neuro-tech-

nology and cogno-technology, and from interfaces

between them that test the frontiers of transhu-

manism,117 are largely untested and quite different

from those applied to ICT, and even bio-technolo-

gy, in the past. The ethical and economic consider-

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ationsinneurocognitivetechnologiesaredifcult

to balance, and technology convergence poses

challenges from health regulation to military ethics.

Signicantdisruptionmayresultfromunsustain-

able asynchrony118 between fast emerging techno-

logical capabilities and the development of norma-

tive frameworks and policies in societies affected

by them. Technologies are embedded in socio-eco-

nomic and socio-political systems: Each technolog-

ical change produces both expected and unex-

pected trajectories. The governance of technology

is social policy, an effort to balance economic,

political and social welfare, and as we seek to

guide and constrain technological change, technol-

ogies reshape our sense of what policy should be.

FORECAST This trend will accelerate

throughout the decade, and beyond, as

technologies mature, combine and are

deployed. The U.S. and China will compete

across the whole technological landscape

posing challenges to governance of key

areas from internet protocols though stan-

dards for mobile communication platforms,

to human enhancement. Other technolog-

ically advanced states from Japan, though

Germany, France and Britain, to Singapore

and Israel will consolidate niche positions

of different scales. Cyberwarfare in both

defensive and offensive guises will increase,

posing serious challenges in the absence

of rules of engagement and escalation

protocols. Different societies are likely to

adopt different cultural perspectives on

the adoption and development of certain

technologies, notably those at the interface

between bio-technology, nanotechnology,

neuro-technology and cogno-technology.

Trend Six

Signicant

social disruption

The progressive and near-universal adoption of

free-market systems in the past 50 years enabled

aglobalindustrialandnancialsystemthatgreatly

increased domestic productivity, prosperity and

international trade and investment. The power

ofmostnationalgovernmentstoinuencethe

welfare of their citizens was appreciably reduced,

however,andcounter-cyclicalscalstimulus

policies have fallen into disfavour. Liberalisation

ofcapitalowsforinvestment(andspeculation)

and the reduction of trade union power led to

relocation of manufacturing and service facilities to

low-cost, high productivity locations, and trans-

formed the structure of many national economies.

Thomas Pikketty attracted attention in 2013

and 2014 with the thesis that when the rate

of return on capital is greater than the rate

of economic growth over the long term, a

high concentration of wealth results.119

FIGURE 15 : U. S. INCOME INEQUALITY: THOMAS PIK-

KETTY, CAPITAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY [2014]

He and others, notably Richard Wilkinson and

Kate Pickett,120 have argued convincingly that

this unequal distribution of wealth causes social

and economic instability.121 Wilkinson and Pick-

ett demonstrated that high measures of income

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inequality are strongly correlated with social

pathology in all societies, while greater equality

of income correlates with better social indicators.

The data they analysed cover physical and mental

health, educational performance, child well-be-

ing, trust and community life and social mobility,

teenage births, obesity, drug abuse, violence

and imprisonment. Interestingly, even the privi-

leged in unequal societies suffer higher pathol-

ogies than their peers in more equal societies.

FIGURE 16 : CORRELATION: HEALTH AND INEQUALI-

TY WILKINSON AND PICKETT: THE SPIRIT LEVEL

It thus comes as no surprise that high relative

inequality of wealth and income is correlated

with social instability, or that economic shocks

exacerbate the tensions that occasion upris-

ings. Since the beginning of the decade, from

about the middle of the global economic crisis

and recession, we have seen demonstrations,

protests, and riots across the world, from Rio

de Janeiro and Santiago, to Johannesburg and

Hong Kong,122 and from New York to Paris and

London,123 to Tunis, Cairo Baghdad, Beirut, and

Islamabad.124 While the individual circumstances

giving rise to each outburst vary, certain fea-

tures are common to all: A sense of inequitable

deprivation, or relative disadvantage, occasioned

by the policies of governments that have led to

privilege for a few at the expense of the many.

Many social forces, some religious or narrowly

sectarian, some secular, socialist, populist, or xe-

nophobic, have emerged, as so often over previ-

ous centuries, to mobilise the anger and anguish

of ordinary citizens. Some are social activists

aiming to improve socio-economic conditions,

rightperceivedwrongs,andimprovesociety;

others are disciplined, radical anarchists or other

extremists seeking to destroy existing institu-

tions, to build a new utopia from the rubble. A

few successful populists achieve legitimacy by

manipulating reality symbolically, locating social

grievancesinanarrativewithwell-denedpro-

tagonists, antagonists, and a need for interven-

tion. Populist campaigners always claim to be on

the side of light against the forces of darkness.

FORECAST As we move further into an

era in which normative certainty is weaken-

ing, power is diffused and contested, and a

technological revolution is sweeping across

the world privileging those equipped to

exploit it at the expense of others less for-

tunate, all societies will need exceptional in-

stitutional exibility and high levels of social

cohesion to manage the disruptions that this

will effect. The trend is exorable across the

decade and well-intentioned governments

and civil society will need to join hands and

minds to meet the challenge.

Trend Seven

Weakening

national governance

The secular geo-economic shifts and geopolitical

stresses discussed earlier, have contributed to a

decline in state sovereignty, power and authority

in the past two decades, leading to weakened

trust in governments and other institutions. The

sense of personal and institutional responsibility,

and the acceptance of accountability to citizens

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and stakeholders that underpins institutional

legitimacy, have been weakened by globalisa-

tion and extensive reliance on market mecha-

nisms to advance welfare and development.

Social media and other ICTs provide access to

information, often without context, and prompt

the illusion of expertise, encouraging engagement

withlessreectionthanisneededforconstruc-

tive contributions. Twitter and Facebook privilege

emotion and expression but discourage analysis.

We have weakened the authority of represen-

tative political systems, without clarifying how

to improve them. The implications are unclear.

Present-day democratic constitutions provide for

representative government through the election of

personsforxedtermstoimplementtheirelec-

toral promises,125 but several generations of young

citizens have become used to crowdsourcing infor-

mation, solutions and funding to implement them

using digital media and have little tolerance for the

far-slower tempo of political life. The social media

campaigns that underpin mass street protests

are also transforming politics: Governments, and

the political class, are resisting, while protesters

are taking to the streets in growing numbers.126

Few who use social media understand the tension

between making information about their personal

locations, views and actions digitally available to

Internet service providers,127 while denying this

information to governments.128 In a world of violent

extremism and terrorism, and increasing collabora-

tion between terrorist groups and organized crime

syndicatesinthetrafckingofweapons,drugsand

people, and cyberthreat,129 national intelligence

and law enforcement services will inevitably mine

the data that citizens and visitors make available

through digital communications, to search for

patterns that may disclose plans for life-threat-

ening attacks, or serious criminal violations.

Meanwhile efforts by foreign governments to

manipulate electoral outcomes abroad are emerg-

ing as the ‘new normal’ in interstate relations.130

But these new technologies have not strengthened

the ability of national governments to promote the

interests of their citizens, or to deliver on campaign

promises in timeframes that seem natural to digital

natives. Civic disaffection, political polarization

and populism have thus led many to defect from

voting or participating in political life. Governance

suffers and trust declines. These tensions at the

national level exacerbate the problems of collec-

tive action on transnational challenges, further

weakening the rules-based international order.

Meanwhile, forced migration has become a cause

celebre for political nationalists in Europe and the

U.S. While the workforces of advanced economies

inEuropeandnorthAmericaareaging,andbenet

from selective immigration of young skilled work-

ersfromyoungersocieties,oodsofdesperatemi-

grantseeingturmoilintheLevant,andNorthand

West Africa, have been drowned, turned away,

or held in reception centres in southern Europe.

Hungary, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Unit-

ed Kingdom and the United States have suf-

fered social tensions and political protests in the

past decade. Meanwhile, states in the Levant131

like Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and others

in Africa, like South Africa,132 bear unreason-

able burdens due to forced displacement from

neighbours into their national territories. Xe-

nophobia has become a potent political card.

Sharper polarization of communities, often

between privileged urbanites and those “left

behind” occupationally and economically out-

sideofourishingcentres,andharsherpolitical

discourse, are becoming widespread.133 As the

productivitygapbetweenrmsatthepro-

ductivityfrontierandlaggardrmsbecomes

more marked,134 as the technological revolu-

tion progresses, this is likely to worsen.

Meanwhile, as personal and communal identity

isredenedunderthepressureoftheseforc-

es,ssuresinestablishedpolitiesarewidening.

Secessionist movements135 in Scotland – espe-

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

cially after Brexit – and in Catalonia in Spain,

reectcontestedidentitiesnotwhollydissimilar

to those that split Slovakia from the Czech Re-

public, Eritrea from Ethiopia, South Sudan from

Sudan, and that reconstituted Bosnia-Herze-

govina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia

and Slovenia as separate states after the col-

lapse of Yugoslavia. Social media are provid-

ing nationalists with new tools to circumvent

the state while engaging in nation-building.

FORECAST This trend will continue

throughout the decade, and even authoritar-

ian states will not be exempt. China’s recent

experience in Hong Kong is an instructive

example of the limitations facing all govern-

ments. The demonstrations have led Beijing

to press for application of Article 23 of the

Basic Law, providing that the territory “…

shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any

act of treason, secession, sedition and sub-

version” against the Chinese government.

The Hong Kong Chief Executive is, however,

wary of using Article 23, and declaration

of a state of emergency is likely sharply to

exacerbate the protests. The relationships

between rulers and citizens is already far

less vertical and more horizontal. Trust is

no longer a given and will increasingly have

to be earned. This will increase pressures

towards greater unilateralism, as govern-

ments seek to defend their perquisites and

address the needs of their citizens. In a

highly connected world, unilateral policies

formulated in competition or confrontation

between governments are, however, unlikely

to achieve sustainably positive outcomes.

Trend Eight

System-wide stresses:

Impacts of a growing, rapid-

ly urbanizing human popu-

lation on the earth system

The world population, at the median projection,

will grow to about 8.5 billion people by 2030.136

Asiawillbehometoabout4.9billionpeople;

Africa1.68billion;Europe734million;Latin

AmericaandtheCaribbean721million;North

America 396 million, and Oceania’47 million.

Urban populationswillincreasesignicantly,

by639millionto2,752billioninAsia;by298.5

millionto770.1millioninAfrica;by92.3million

to595.1inLatinAmericaandtheCaribbean;

by 39 million to 339.8 million in North Amer-

ica;by19.9millionto567milliononEurope;

and by 5.8 million to 33.7 million in Oceania.137

Working age populations (15-64 years) will

fallsignicantlyasapercentageoftotalpopu-

lationsinEurope,NorthAmericaandOceania;

modestly in Asia and Latin America and the

Caribbean,andwillrisesignicantlyinAfrica.138

FIGURE 17 : POPULATION 15-64: UN WORLD

POPULATION TRENDS 2015-2030

The percentage of persons aged 60 and older will

rise in all these communities, fastest in Europe and

North America, and much more slowly in Africa.139

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

FIGURE 18 : POPULATION 60 AND OLDER: UN

WORLD POPULATION TRENDS 2015-2030

This growth, notably in urban populations in Asia

and Africa, and working age populations in Afri-

ca and the Middle East, will create extraordinary

opportunities for human welfare, business and

investment. Almost all new growth potential is

in these emerging and developing economies.

But there are challenges. Sharply rising urban pop-

ulations, higher vehicle use, greater energy gen-

eration, and the concentration of industries in and

around cities and towns, are key sources of green-

house gas emissions with today’s technologies.

Although cities occupy just over two percent of the

earth’s landmass today, they consume three-quar-

ters of the energy, and account for three-quar-

ters of global pollution. Urbanisation drives up

energy consumption: a one percent growth in

urban population increases energy consumption

by 2.2 percent. Cities tend to be 1-6 °C warm-

er than surrounding landscapes, so the growing

demands of urban production and consumption

are dangerously accelerating climate change.

By 2030 we shall have some 800 million more

peopleontheplanet;hundredsofmillionsmore

inthemiddleclass;butperhapsonethirdofthe

global population will be slum dwellers, with lim-

ited access to services, unless we act decisively.

A rising global population, living increasingly

in urban environments, with higher disposable

incomes, will consume more. The tension be-

tween a rising global population with expanding

desires, and the falling stock of groundwater,

marine life, biodiversity, crop and grazing land,

and a healthy atmosphere, is not sustainable.

Climatechange—anditsimpactontheother

partsoftheecosystem—maycreateasystem-

ic feedback loop that threatens survival. We

must align insights, policy and action to avert

this, and mitigate its effects, while we push

technological frontiers to seize opportunities.

We must de-link the economic growth needed

to eradicate poverty, provide security and sus-

tain welfare, from reliance on the incineration

andemissionofcarbon;andencouragehu-

manity to distinguish human satisfaction from

excessive production, accumulation, consump-

tionandwaste.Therstisatechnologicaland

economicchallengeofdeningenergytransition

paths;thesecondisevenmoredemanding.140

Extreme weather events around the world are

focusing attention on the need to address climate

change. There will be more emphasis on adapta-

tion(increasingooddefences,securingelectricity

provision, and improving response times) than on

mitigation, both because of the need to respond

immediately, and because the stocks of CO2e141

locked in, and the delay before mitigation takes

effect, makes adaptation more cost-effective.

The impact of change in the earth system on

human societies has been a source of concern for

millennia. Today, in the Anthropocene, aggregate

human behaviour employing new and emerging

technologies has become the primary element

destabilizing the earth system, destroying biodi-

versity, transforming nitrogen and phosphorous

cycles, and damaging oceans and the atmo-

sphere.142 Limiting this damage is imperative.143

China is addressing the need to reduce air and

water pollution in and around its cities and shift-

ing to renewable energy. The PRC now has the

world’s largest deployment of solar PV and wind

turbines,inadditiontoitscoal-redandnucle-

ar generation plants. Large-scale deployment

of renewables in China has driven costs down

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

dramatically, with generation costs by 2020

likely to be lower than any fossil fuel source.144

FIGURE 19 : STEFFEN ET ALIA, PLANETARY BOUNDAR-

IES: GUIDING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ON A CHANGING

PLANET, SCIENCE, VOL. 347, ISSUE 3223, FEB. 13, 2015

But we must act more swiftly and effectively.

The IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of

1.5˚C,145 of October 2018, warned that climate-re-

lated risks to growth, livelihoods, health, food

security, and water supply will rise from those of

the present with warming of just 1.5°C, and will

increase dramatically with 2°C of warming. Lim-

iting warming to 1.5°C requires slashing global

emissions by 45 percent below 2010 levels, by

2030. To achieve that we shall have to remove

1,000 gigatons of CO² from the atmosphere by

2100, perhaps through more terrestrial carbon

sinks, bioenergy coupled to carbon capture and

sequestration, and direct air capture, in addition

to effecting deep decarbonization of our exist-

ing energy supplies, in part by shifting rapidly

to renewables. The additional investment need-

edtolimitwarmingto1.5˚Cisabout$1tneach

year until 2050.146 New Climate Economy esti-

mates that this will both achieve the goal and

deliver$26tnineconomicbenetsby2030.147

FORECAST There will be continuing pres-

sure to reduce fossil fuel usage for energy

and change human and social behaviours to

decouple GHG emissions from development

paths, and discourage excessive production,

accumulation, consumption and waste. With-

out the introduction of high carbon pricing

and constructive social incentives to trigger

and sustain behavioural change, and the

development of energy transition paths that

will enable deep decarbonisation, we shall

not contain global warming below 1.5° by

2030. With the stock of GHG (CO²e) already

locked into the atmosphere, even signicant

reductions in new GFG ows, will be insuf-

cient to achieve the target.148 Climate-related

risks to growth, livelihoods, health, food

security, and water supply, will rise over the

decade with warming of 1.5°C, and will in-

crease dramatically on a path to 2°C:

* The decline in marine sheries with

2°C of warming, will be double that

we’ll experience at 1.5°C.

* Maize harvests will fall by over twice

as much.

* Insect ranges, including those of polli-

nators, will decline threefold.

* Sea levels will rise by a further ve

cm, putting another 10 million people

at risk.

* The number of people experiencing

extreme heat with 2°C warming, will

be double that of a rise of 1.5°C.

Limiting warming to 1.5°C requires slashing

global emissions by 45 percent below 2010

levels within the decade. Containing warming

on a trajectory to 1.5°C requires us to remove

1,000 gigatons of CO² from the atmosphere

by 2100, perhaps through more terrestrial

carbon sinks, bioenergy coupled to carbon

capture and sequestration, and direct air

capture. The additional investment needed to

do this is about $1tn each year until 2050.

THE WORLD IN 2030 TRENDS, INFLECTION POINTS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

Scenarios to 2030 in the

context of these trends

At the global level, one can sketch three

scenarios for the decade ahead:

* Islands – A G2 world in which Washington

and Beijing pursue competitive security

and mercantilist policies with little cooper-

ation.149 In this world, most other states will

suffer neglect of their interests, and be en-

couraged, and perhaps forced, into making

choices between alliances with either the

U.S.orChina.Russiawouldbenetinthe

immediate term, leveraging its relationship

with China, and extending control of its

neighbourhood, but the limits of this would

soon become clear.150 This scenario would

lead to further fragmentation of Europe (in-

cluding the EU), ASEAN, the African Union,

and Latin American regional organizations,

and would exacerbate tensions in the Mid-

dle East. Trade in goods and services and

foreign investment would be constrained,151

negatively impacting on growth, and tip-

ping the world into another deep recession,

in which [unconventional] monetary policy

instruments would be of limited value due

to low and negative interest rates, while

mostcountrieswouldhaveverylittlescal

space. Banking and corporate defaults

would multiply. The effects could be far

worse than in 2008-2014. Although the

price of renewable energy sources will have

fallen below that of fossil fuels, the deep

decarbonisation needed to avert climate

catastrophes will not be undertaken due to

the scale of prior investment in legacy en-

ergy sources, and the cost of substitution.

The world will miss its opportunity to stay

withinthewindowof1.5˚C[andpossibly

2˚C]warming.

* Archipelagos – A multipolar world in which

the European Union recovers a sense of

collective identity and common purpose,152

in which the United Kingdom shares,

and, leveraging their relations with Japan,

Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the

Europeans engage actively with Beijing,

Washington and Moscow to moderate the

most negative impacts of their competi-

tion.153 This is an unstable period, however,

as domestic tensions arising from inequality

of income and wealth, weaken the social

cohesion needed in all states to effect

essential transitions in education, employ-

ment and energy in each country, invest in

mitigation of the effects of climate change,

and deepen macroeconomic coordination.

EvenifEuropendsthewillandthewayto

play this role, this scenario will tip towards

one of the other two within the decade.

* Constructive Equilibrium – In this scenar-

io, geo-economic and geostrategic insight

prevails in both Washington and Beijing,

permittingthegovernmentstodenea

systembasedonwell-denedlimitsthat

allows them to compete and cooperate,

whileminimisingthethreatofconict.This

emerges from both rational threat appreci-

ations by the intelligence and national se-

curity establishments in each country, and

the outcome of the UN Secretary-General’s

UN@75 and Beyond initiative, which stim-

ulates national dialogues around the world

in2020tohelpdenemeanstoachievea

global partnership for a just, peaceful and

sustainable future, by addressing emerging

risks and opportunities through collective

action. Washington comes to understand

Beijing’s 4I’s approach - innovating for

growth, improving global economic and

nancialgovernance,constructinganopen,

interconnected world economy, and pro-

moting inclusive development thought the

2030 Agenda.154 Both sides learned from

thetradeconictin2018-19andrec-

ognisedthatescalatingthisconictwasnot

in their interests. They therefore collaborate

with Japan,155 India and the EU in a prudent

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GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 THE ARAB STRATEGY FORUM

WTO reform, restoring the arbitration panel

to enable dispute resolution, Mr Macron’s

initiative in favour of trust and security in

cyberspace provides a basis for collabo-

ration between the powers to protect the

integrity of the Internet, eliminate intellectu-

al property violations, improve the secu-

rity of digital products and services, and

strengthen international standards.156 These

measures permit collaborative management

of energy transitions in China, Japan, the

U.S. and elsewhere to permit deepening

decarbonisation and constructive steps to

manage strains in the global economy.

At the regional (MENA) level, the consid-

erations are very similar. Two stark alter-

native scenarios can be considered:

* Destructive Decline – In this scenario, char-

acterised by continued geopolitical compe-

tition exploiting sectarian tensions between

Arab gulf states and the Islamic Republic

ofIran(IRI),chiey,thoughnotexclusively,

though proxy forces, and including more

extensive deployment of the IRI’s Quds

Force157 it proves impossible to undertake

effective reconstruction of Libya or Syria,

which allows ISIS to regenerate in Syria

and penetrate further into Iraq. Civilian air

trafccontrolandlogisticalsystemsare

disrupted, requiring massive investments in

cybersecurity, and counterthreat capability.

The potential of these states to lead the

transition of energy systems to renewables

and deploy digital technologies in enhanc-

ingthequalityandefciencyofgovernment

services, and education and training, is

undermined. This scenario is most likely in

the context of the Islands scenario at the

global level.

* Regional Transformation – This scenario

envisages an environment transformed by

a regional collective security agreement

premised on a doctrine of limits on state

behaviour, specically non-aggression

and non-interference in the affairs of other

states. [The Russian Federation introduced

a proposal for a Helsinki-style process to

the UN on July 23, 2019.158 It was wel-

comed and endorsed by the PRC two days

later.159 On July 30, an Iranian consultant

to the UN Dialogue on Civilizations point-

ed out that IRI President Hassan Rouhani

had proposed a ten-point plan for regional

security at a meeting in Doha in 2007.160

This envisaged creation of a Gulf Security

and Cooperation Organization comprising

the six member states of the Gulf Cooper-

ation Council (GCC), Iran and Iraq in ac-

cordance with Clause 8 of Resolution 598

of the United Nations Security Council.] In

this scenario, Track Two talks in 2019/2020

eshoutthestructureofaregionalcollec-

tive security agreement imposing reciprocal

obligations of non-aggression and non-in-

terference, on all states in the Gulf, and

providing for economic and security coop-

eration in related areas. The P5+1 guaran-

tee the agreement and secure its approval

by the UN Security Council. This enables

aceasereandeffectivenegotiationsfora

peaceful transition in Yemen, and the de-

ployment of resources under UN and Arab

League supervision for the reconstruction

of Iraq and Syria, permitting the gradual re-

turn of refugees from Jordan, Lebanon and

Turkey. This scenario is most likely under

the global Constructive Evolution scenario,

and its achievement, with the coopera-

tion of the U.S., China, Russia and lead-

ing European states, would enhance the

likelihood of that global scenario emerging.

ENDNOTES

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 ENDNOTES

1. In longevity, infant, maternal and child mortality, educational attainment and aver-

age quality of life. See e.g. http://hdr.undp.org/en/data - accessed 20191016

2. https://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/ - accessed 20191029

3. https://www.un.org/en/member-states/index.html - accessed 20191016

4. 51MemberStatescomprisedtheoriginalUnitedNations,theftywhoadoptedtheChar-

ter, and Poland which was not represented at the drafting conference - https://www.un.org/

en/sections/history/history-united-nations/index.html - accessed 20191016

5. https://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/funds-programmes-special-

ized-agencies-and-others/ - accessed 20191016

6. https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-sovereign-political-entity - accessed 20191029

7. DaniRodrikpostulatedaparadox,ortrilemma,betweendeepnancialglobalization,nationalsover-

eignty and domestic democracy, in 2007, suggesting that the three could not coexist for long - https://

rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/06/the-inescapable.html - accessed 20191016

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution - accessed 20191030

9. See Roger Farmer and Pawel Zabczyk, The Theory of Unconventional Monetary Policy, NBER Work-

ing Paper 221 35, 2016 - https://www.nber.org/papers/w22135 - accessed 2-0191017

10. Policy Horizons Canada, Metascan 3, Emerging Technologies: A foresight study exploring how emerg-

ing technologies will shape the economy and society, and the challenges and opportunities they

willcreate,GovernmentofCanada,September2013-http://www.horizons.gc.ca/sites/default/les/

Publication-alt-format/pdf_version_0239_6698kb-45pages.pdf;seealsohttp: //www.brookings.

edu/search?start=1&q=Robotics#g-20/topics/ for a synopsis of recent reports on https://www.we-

forum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab - accessed 20191017

11. Congressional Research Service, China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for

the United States, Updated June 25, 2019 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33534.pdf - accessed 20191018

12. PWC, The World in 2050: The long view: how will the global economic order change by 2050?

https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/economy/the-world-in-2050.html - accessed 20191028

13. https://asiatoday.com.au/content/chinas-growth-average-46-over-next-decade-sp - accessed 20191107

14. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/imf-revises-indias-growth-pro-

jection-to-6-1-per-cent-in-2019/articleshow/71600157.cms - accessed 20191107

15. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS - accessed 20191107

16. The lowest point of the decline in the capital markets index in the advanced economies occurred in ear-

ly 2009. The Dow Jones industrial average bottomed at 7062.93, and had risen to 17828.24 by Octo-

ber 2014. The Nikkei bottomed at 7568.42 in February 2009, and had recovered to 17459.85 by 1 No-

vember 2014, with almost all of its rise occurring after 1 May 2012, after Shinzo Abe’s election.

17. IMF, World Economic Outlook, October 2019, Executive Summary - https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/

Issues/2019/10/01/world-economic-outlook-october-2019 - accessed 20191017:

“Theworldeconomyisprojectedtogrowat3.0percentin2019—asignicantdropfrom2017–18foremerging

marketanddevelopingeconomiesaswellasadvancedeconomies—beforerecoveringto3.4percentin2020.A

slightlyhighergrowthrateisprojectedfor2021–24.Thisglobalgrowthpatternreectsamajordownturnand

projected recovery in a group of emerging market economies.

By contrast, growth is expected to moderate into 2020 and beyond for a group of systemic economies compris-

ingtheUnitedStates,euroarea,China,andJapan—whichtogetheraccountforclosetohalfofglobalGDP…

The groups of emerging market economies that have driven part of the projected decline in growth in 2019 and

account for the bulk of the projected recovery in 2020 include those that have either been under severe strain

or have underperformed relative to past averages. In particular, Argentina, Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, and smaller

countriesaffectedbyconict,suchasLibyaandYemen,havebeenorcontinuetobeexperiencingverysevere

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 ENDNOTES

macroeconomic distress.

Otherlargeemergingmarketeconomies—Brazil,Mexico,Russia,andSaudiArabia,amongothers—are

projected to grow in 2019 about 1 percent or less, considerably below their historical averages. In India,

growth softened in 2019 as corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty, together with concerns

aboutthehealthofthenonbanknancialsector,weighedondemand.Thestrengtheningofgrowthin

2020 and beyond in India as well as for these two groups (which in some cases entails continued contrac-

tion, but at a less severe pace) is the driving factor behind the forecast of an eventual global pickup.”

18. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/10/01/world-eco-

nomic-outlook-october-2019 - accessed 20191017

19. op. cit. World Economic Outlook, October 2019

20. op. cit. World Economic Outlook, October 2019

21. See https://www.parmenides-foundation.org/events/workshops/workshop-on-systemic-risk-and-reg-

ulatory-market-risk-measures-on-0203062014/ , notably https://www.parmenides-foundation.

org/leadmin/redakteure/events/Workshop_Kondor_02._03.06.2014/Cleary_Financial_system-

ic_risk.Pullach_.presented_reduced_size.pdf and Jean-Claude Trichet, Systemic Risk, Lecture, Clare Col-

lege, University of Cambridge, 10 December 2009 - http://www.bis.org/review/r091217b.pdf

22. Adair Turner, Wealth, Debt, Inequality and Low Interest Rates: Four big Trends and some Implica-

tions, Cass Business School, 26 March 2014 - http://ineteconomics.org/wealth-debt-

inequality-and-low-interest-rates-four-big-trends-and-some-implications

23. https://www.ft.com/content/5aacd2c4-debf-11e9-9743-db5a370481bc - accessed 20191028

24. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEM-

DC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD - accessed 20191017

25. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/10/09/double-tipping-points-in-

2019-when-the-world-became-mostly-rich-and-largely-old/ - accessed 20191014

26. https://www.dni.gov/les/images/globalTrends/documents/GT-Main-Report.pdf–accessed20191028

27. http://nssarchive.us/national-security-strategy-2010/ - accessed 20191028

28. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Fi-

nal-12-18-2017-0905-2.pdf - accessed 20191028

29. Michael Green, The Legacy of Obama’s “Pivot” to Asia, Foreign Policy, September 3, 2016 - https://

foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/03/the-legacy-of-obamas-pivot-to-asia/ - accessed 20191028

30. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_U.S._troops_from_Afghanistan - accessed 20191028

31. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_U.S._troops_from_Iraq - accessed 20191028

32. In longevity, infant, maternal and child mortality, educational attainment and aver-

age quality of life. See e.g. http://hdr.undp.org/en/data - accessed 20191016

33. Created by the Baghdad Pact in 1955, and formally disbanded in 1979 -

https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/lw/98683.htm - accessed 20191016

34. Created in 1955 and dissolved in 1977 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South-

east_Asia_Treaty_Organization - accessed 20191016

35. https://www.nato.int/cps/us/natohq/declassied_138294.htm-accessed20191016

36. See for example https://www.cvce.eu/en/education/unit-content/-/unit/55c09dcc-a9f2-45e9-

b240-eaef64452cae/1dc7e103-8078-45e1-b8ac-2199a9be5783 - accessed 20191016

37. Theeventsbetween1989andtheendof1991denedaremarkableperiodthatbroughtfreedomtomillions

but was misunderstood by many in the West. A triumphalist sense was soon abroad. Francis Fukuyama’s

evocative The End of History and the Last Man embodied the spirit of the time. In his seminal article in National

Interest in 1989, after the events in Berlin, he argued not only that “a remarkable consensus concerning the le-

gitimacy of liberal democracy had emerged…over the past few years…[but that] liberal democracy may constitute

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 ENDNOTES

the‘endpointofmankind’sideologicalevolution’and‘thenalformofhumangovernment’.”[FrancisFukuyama,

The End of History?, The National Interest, Summer 1989]

In his longer analysis in 1992 [Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, The Free Press, Macmil-

lan, Inc., New York, 1992], he concluded that there was a Universal History, as Hegel and Marx had postulated,

and that modernization of the defensive and productive capabilities of all states was enabled and required by

“the unfolding of modern natural science”, and thus “…guarantee[d] an increasing homogenization of all human

societies regardless of their historical origins or cultural inheritances.” He concluded from the collapse of the So-

viet Union that “the logic of modern natural science would seem to dictate a universal evolution in the direction

of capitalism” and that liberal democracy represented a second component of the end state of history. Fukuyama

suggested that nationalism and religion need not be “obstacles to the establishment of successful democratic

political institutions and free-market economies”, and that while nationalism was rising in Eastern Europe and

the former Soviet Union, these tensions would subside, just as they had in Western Europe, and as European

religiousconictshad,threetofourcenturiesearlier.

Samuel Huntington argued a different thesis in The Clash of Civilizations? In the summer of 1993, and in a book

three years later. His core proposition was that “culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are

civilizations,areshapingthepattersofcohesionanddisintegrationinthepost-ColdWarworld.”Heamplied

thiswithveancillarypostulates,quotedheretoensureaccuracy:

•“Forthersttimeinhistoryglobalpoliticsisbothmultipolarandmulticivilizational;modernizationisdistinct

from Westernization and is producing neither a universal civilization… nor the Westernization of non-Western

societies.”

•“Thebalanceofpowerbetweencivilizationsisshifting:theWestisdeclininginrelativeinuence;Asiancivi-

lizationsareexpandingtheireconomic,militaryandpoliticalstrength;Islamisexplodingdemographicallywith

destabilizingconsequencesforMuslimcountriesandtheirneighbours;andnon-Westerncivilizationsgenerally

arereafrmingthevalueoftheirowncultures.”

•“Acivilization-basedworldorderisemergingsocietiessharingculturalafnitiescooperatewitheachother;ef-

fortstoshiftsocietiesfromonecivilizationtoanotherareunsuccessful;andcountriesgroupthemselvesaround

the lead or core states of their civilization.”

•“TheWest’suniversalistpretensionsincreasinglybringitintoconictwithothercivilizations,mostseriously

withIslamandChina;atthelocallevelfaultline,wars,largelybetweenMuslimsandnon-Muslims,generate

kin-country rallying, the threat of broader escalation, and hence efforts by core states to halt these wars.”

•“ThesurvivaloftheWestdependsonAmericansreafrmingtheirWesternidentityandWesternersaccept-

ing their civilization as unique, not universal, and uniting to renew and preserve it against challenges from

non-Western societies. Avoidance of a global war of civilizations depends on world leaders accepting and coop-

erating to maintain the multicivilizational character of global politics.”

Huntingtonarguedthattheconictsposingthegreatestriskofglobalinstabilitywerethosebetween“states

or groups from different civilizations.” As the West was “the hitherto dominant civilization”, the “central dis-

tinction” is between the West “and all the others, which, however, have little if anything in common among

them.” Many see this analysis as prescient in an age when Islam is represented, both by some of its follow-

ers and by those who fear its ability to inspire and structure acts of rage and assaults on settled society,

as the prime source of asymmetric threat. It also sits comfortably with the traditional realist analysis that

suggests that China’s ascendancy poses the risk of a new peer competitor challenging US dominance.

38. Sean Cleary, The End of the West? [2006] - https://www.researchgate.net/pub-

lication/281711686_The_End_of_the_West - accessed 20191029

39. Michael J. Mazarr, Astrid Stuth Cevallos, Miranda Priebe, Andrew Radin, Kathleen Reedy, ,Alexander D.

Rothenberg, Julia A. Thompson, Jordan Willcox, Measuring the Health of the Liberal International Order. Rand

Corporation, 2017 - https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1994.html - accessed 20191028

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 ENDNOTES

40. G. John Ikenberry, The end of liberal international order?, Internation-

alAffairs94:1(2018)7–23;p.7doi:10.1093/ia/iix241

41. Vladimir Putin, Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, Feb-

ruary 10, 2007 - http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034 - accessed 20190928

42. Xi Jinping speech at 10th G20 Summit - http://www.g20chn.org/English/Speech-

es/201511/t20151127_1636.html - accessed 20190928

43. Wang Wen, China’s Evolving Global Economic Governance Role, Chongyang Insti-

tute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China - https://www.futureworldfoun-

dation.org/Content/Article.aspx?ArticleID=22154 – accessed 20190928

44. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50165596 - accessed 20191029

45. https://www.csis.org/analysis/art-unraveling-deal - accessed 20191029

46. https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/g-20-declaration-isolates-trump-

on-the-climate-a-1156827.html - accessed 20191029

47. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/g7-trump-trade-communique-sum-

mit-tariffs-us-eu-climate-change-may-macron-a8391601.html - accessed 20191029

48. Seehttps://www.whitehouse.gov/briengs-statements/remarks-president-trump-74th-ses-

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49. https://www.ft.com/content/8993913e-399f-11e8-8b98-2f31af407cc8 - accessed 20191029

50. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_body_e.htm - accessed 20191029

51. https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/ - accessed 20191029

52. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G - accessed 201`91029

53. See, for example https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/trty/102360.htm and https://

www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty - accessed 20191029

54. Current examples include Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and the South China Sea.

55. ThefteendecadesaftertheconclusionofthePeaceofWestphaliain1648(cuiusregio,eiusreligio,beingthe

deningprinciple);andthealmosttendecadesaftertheCongressofVienna,areillustrativeexamplesinEurope.

56. Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of

Peace1812-1822,HoughtonMifin,ISBN395172292Sentry,p.172

57. Kissinger op. cit. p. 172

58. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihadism-accessed20191016[Nodenitionofthisneologismiswhollyadequate.]

59. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Nazism - accessed 20191016

60. Notably in Ukraine at present, but earlier in Georgia, where Moscow recognised Abkhazia and

SouthOssetiaasindependententitiesafterfourmonthsofghting,on26August2008

61. When the strategy of containment of Stalin’s USSR was implemented between the late 1940s and ear-

ly 1950’s inspired largely by George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in

1946, Britain and France largely controlled the Levant and the Gulf, most of Central Asia was part of

theSovietUnion;ChinawasintheCommunistsphere,andtheUShadsubstantialbodiesoftroops,

ships and aircraft prepositioned in Japan and along the 38th parallel in Korea. No regional security ar-

rangements between states in East Asia or the Middle East outside of CENTO were thus created.

62. CENTO, SEATO and ANZUS

63. Hubert Védrine, ten France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, coined the phrase in 1999

64. https://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution - accessed 20191029

65. The creation of the mujahidin by the KSA security services with the support of the

CIA, to confront the Soviet expeditionary force in Afghanistan in the 1970s, af-

ter the deposition of Zahir Shah, spawned Al Qaeda, and later ISIS/Da’esh.

66. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein - accessed 20191029

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 ENDNOTES

67. WithdrawalofU.S.troopswithhavesignicantconsequences.https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ar-

ticles/afghanistan/2019-10-21/what-withdrawal-afghanistan-would-look?utm_medium=newslet-

ters&utm_source=twofa&utm_content=20191025&utm_campaign=TWOFA%20102419%20War%20

Is%20Not%20Over&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week%20-%20112017 – accessed 20191025

68. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sudan/2019-06-10/what-alge-

ria-and-sudan-can-learn-egypt - accessed 20191025

69. https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/79096 - accessed 20191025

70. This is true not only in the Arab world, but in other countries with Mus-

lim majorities in South, and South East Asia, as well as Africa.

71. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-the-rise-spread-and-fall-the-islamic-state - accessed 20191017

72. https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern-mediterranean/syr-

ia/207-averting-isis-resurgence-iraq-and-syria - accessed 20191019

73. https://www.meforum.org/59655/us-ignores-refugees-syria-withdrawal-created?utm_source=Mid-

dle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=99a6900c52-MEF_Frantzman_2019_10_25_01_08&utm_me-

dium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-99a6900c52-33848605&goal=0_086cfd423c-

99a6900c52-33848605&mc_cid=99a6900c52&mc_eid=72b3b8d402 – accessed 20191925

74. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/world/middleeast/isis-syr - accessed 20191025

75. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-orders-withdrawal-of-us-forc-

es-from-northern-syria-days-after-pentagon-downplays-possibility/2019/10/13/83087baa-

edbb-11e9-b2da-606ba1ef30e3_story.html - accessed 20191017

76. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/world/middleeast/trump-turkey-invasion-syr-

ia.html?campaign_id=60&instance_id=0&segment_id=17990&user_id=e0c1c2842fb-

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77. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/27/politics/bagdhadi-inside-the-raid-timeline/index.html - accessed 20191029

78. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/10/18/russia-nds-few-fruits-to-har-

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79. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/world/europe/erdogan-putin-syria-cease-re.ht-

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80. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/middleeast/erdogan-tur-

key-nuclear-weapons-trump.html - accessed 20191024

81. https://www.cfr.org/interactive/global-conict-tracker/conict/war-yemen-accessed20191019

82. https://www.acleddata.com/2019/06/18/yemen-snapshots-2015-2019/ - accessed 20191019

83. https://www.icrc.org/en/where-we-work/middle-east/yemen/war-yemen - accessed 20191019

84. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/saudi-arabia-uae-urge-yemen-govern-

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86. Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile

of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13

years. For the next 15 years Iran would only enrich uranium up to 3.67%. Tehran likewise agreed not to build

new heavy-water facilities in the same period. Uranium-enrichment activities were limited to a single fa-

cilityusingrst-generationcentrifugesfor10years.Otherfacilitieswillbeconvertedtoavoidproliferation

risks. To monitor and verify Iran’s compliance with the agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency

hadaccesstoallIraniannuclearfacilities.Inreturnforveriablymeetingitscommitments,Iranwastore-

ceive relief from U.S., European Union, and United Nations Security Council nuclear-related sanctions.

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 ENDNOTES

87. Ali Soufan, Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s Unique Regional Strategy, CTC Sentinel, November 2018, Vol. 11,

Issue 10 https://ctc.usma.edu/qassem-soleimani-irans-unique-regional-strategy/ - accessed 20191017

88. Sean Cleary, Iran – Continuity or Recalibration: An Existential Choice, Al Arabiya (En-

glish), 29 July, 2011 - http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2011/07/29/159872.html

89. Shortly after Georgia’s declaration of independence on 9 April, 1991, months before the collapse of the So-

vietUnion,ZviadGamsakhurdia,therstPresident,assertedTbilisi’sauthorityoverAbkhaziaandSouth

Ossetia. Although he was deposed in a coup d’état, simmering disputes between local separatists and Geor-

gians erupted into inter-ethnic violence. Supported by Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia secured de facto

independence, with Tbilisi retaining control in small pockets. Almost 250 000 Georgians were massacred or

expelled from Abkhazia by separatists and North Caucasian volunteers in 1992–1993. Thousands of Geor-

giansleftSouthOssetia,whilemanyOssetianfamiliesedfromtheBorjomiregiontoRussia.AftertheRose

Revolution and Mikheil Saakashvili’s election in 2004, the government reasserted its authority in Ajaria, and

sought to do the same in South Ossetia. Relations with Russia, which supported the secessionists, were

improved in May 2005 when Moscow agreed to withdraw Russian military bases in Batumi and Akhalkala-

ki. Although this was done by December 2007, Moscow retained the Gudauta base in Abkhazia. Tensions

aredinApril2008,leadingtoasmallbutsignicantwar,inwhichRussianforcescapturedTskhinvali,

pushed back Georgian troops, and largely destroyed Georgia’s military infrastructure. South Ossetian militia

conducted ethnic cleansing against Georgians in South Ossetia Mediation by President Nicolas Sarkozy led

toaceasereagreementon12August,leadingDmitryMedvedevvedayslater,toannounceawithdraw-

al of Russian forces. Russia recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia on 26 August 2008. Tbilisi cut diplo-

matic ties with Moscow, and maintains that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are under Russian occupation.

90. Those in the east are Russian-speaking and generally aligned with Russia, while the opposite applies in the west,

91. The Crimean Oblast had been transferred within the USSR, from the Russian Soviet Socialist Repub-

lic (SSR) to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, and Ukraine’s declaration of independence in August 1991 was

seenbyMoscowasananomaly.AslongasUkrainewaswithintheRussiansphereofinuence,thelo-

cationofamajorRussiannavalbaseinCrimeawastolerable;inthefaceofastand-offbetweenKievand

MoscowandUkraine’safliationwithEurope,andperhapsNATO,itwasstrategicallyunthinkable.

92. NATO had grown from 16 to 28 members after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Czech Repub-

lic,Hungary,andPolandjoinedNATOin1999;Bulgaria,Estonia,Latvia,Lithuania,Romania,Slo-

vakia, and Slovenia entered in 2004, and Albania and Croatia became members in 2009.

93. Poroshenko started in politics with Yanukovych in 2000, crossed over to serve President Yushchen-

ko as Foreign Minister from 2009-10, and returned to Yanukovych as Minister of Trade and Econom-

ic Development in 2012. From 2007 until 2012 he headed the Council of Ukraine’s National Bank.

94. Putin failed to rally the Eurasian Union against this. At a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Com-

missiononJune23,hearguedthatEuropeangoodswouldoodtheEEUmarketsandbankruptpro-

ducers in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, but Belarus and Kazakhstan were not persuaded.

95. https://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/24/politics/obama-europe-trip/index.html - accessed

96. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46356111 - accessed 20191018

97. The annexation of Crimea by Russia and the occupation of parts of Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk

Oblast prevented around 12 percent of otherwise eligible voters from participating in the election.

98. An understanding among these parties can bring the crisis in Ukraine under control, stabilize the Eurasian

theatre,bringimmediateeconomicbenets,encourageRussiatoplayamoreconstructiveroleinefforts

to contain the crises in Syria and Iraq, and improve the prospect of success in negotiations with Iran.

99. INF-class missiles, whether nuclear-armed or conventionally armed, can strike targets deep inside Rus-

sia and in Western Europe with little warning, increasing the risk of miscalculation in a crisis.

100. https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2019-08/post-inf-treaty-crisis-background-next-steps

GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 ENDNOTES

101. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Shoygu

102. https://exploration.marinersmuseum.org/subject/zheng-he/ - accessed 20191017

103. https://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp.php - accessed 20191017

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bryo Selection for Cognitive Enhancement: Curiosity or Game-changer?, Future of Humanity Institute, Ox-

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GLOBAL TRENDS: 2030 NOVEMBER 2019 ENDNOTES

123. LondonhasseensignicantprotestsbyOccupyWallStreet,pro-andanti-Brexiteers,andExtinctionRevolution.

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125. Thereareexceptions:Referenda;recallelections;impeachment;andvotesofnocondenceinparlia-

mentarysystemsenablecitizenstoengagemoredirectlyinconstitutionally-denedcircumstances.

126. See e.g. Extinction Rebellion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_Rebellion - accessed 20191018

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TER_0_DAILY_ZZ&utm_brand=wired&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_mailing=WIR_Dai-

ly_101719&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl&utm_term=list1_p4–accessed20191018;and

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campaign=daily-dozen&cdlcid=5d127e681802c8c524325578#6a82548451e2 – accessed 20191025

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ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.

Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2019
NATURE

The promise of quantum computers is that certain computational tasks might be executed exponentially faster on a quantum processor than on a classical processor¹. A fundamental challenge is to build a high-fidelity processor capable of running quantum algorithms in an exponentially large computational space. Here we report the use of a processor with programmable superconducting qubits2,3,4,5,6,7 to create quantum states on 53 qubits, corresponding to a computational state-space of dimension 2⁵³ (about 10¹⁶). Measurements from repeated experiments sample the resulting probability distribution, which we verify using classical simulations. Our Sycamore processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of a quantum circuit a million times—our benchmarks currently indicate that the equivalent task for a state-of-the-art classical supercomputer would take approximately 10,000 years. This dramatic increase in speed compared to all known classical algorithms is an experimental realization of quantum supremacy8,9,10,11,12,13,14 for this specific computational task, heralding a much-anticipated computing paradigm.

The Theory of Unconventional Monetary Policy

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2016

This paper is about the effectiveness of qualitative easing, a form of unconventional monetary policy that changes the risk composition of the central bank balance sheet with the goal of stabilizing economic activity. We construct a general equilibrium model where agents have rational expectations and there is a complete set of financial securities, but where some agents are unable to participate in financial markets. We show that a change in the risk composition of the central bank's balance sheet will change equilibrium asset prices and we prove that, in our model, a policy in which the central bank stabilizes non-fundamental fluctuations in the stock market is Pareto improving and self-financing.

'Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet'

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2015

The planetary boundaries framework defines a safe operating space for humanity based on the intrinsic biophysical processes that regulate the stability of the Earth system. Here, we revise and update the planetary boundary framework, with a focus on the underpinning biophysical science, based on targeted input from expert research communities and on more general scientific advances over the past 5 years. Several of the boundaries now have a two-tier approach, reflecting the importance of cross-scale interactions and the regional-level heterogeneity of the processes that underpin the boundaries. Two core boundaries—climate change and biosphere integrity—have been identified, each of which has the potential on its own to drive the Earth system into a new state should they be substantially and persistently transgressed.

The end of liberal international order?

Article

Jan 2018

G. John Ikenberry

These are not happy times for liberal internationalists. No one can be sure how deep the crisis of liberal internationalism runs. However, in what follows, I argue that despite its troubles, liberal internationalism still has a future. The nature of the crisis is surprising. The threats to liberal internationalism were expected to come from rising non-western states seeking to undermine or overturn the postwar order. In the face of hostile, revisionist states, the United States and Europe were expected to stand shoulder to shoulder to protect the gains from 70 years of cooperation. But, in fact, liberal internationalism is more deeply threatened by developments within the West itself. The centrist and progressive coalitions that lay behind the postwar liberal order have weakened. Liberal democracy itself appears fragile and polarized, vulnerable to far right populism and backlash politics. In recent decades, the working and middle classes in advanced industrial democracies—the original constituencies and beneficiaries of an open and cooperative international order—have faced rising economic inequality and stagnation. Within the West, liberal internationalism is increasingly seen, not as a source of stability and solidarity among like-minded states, but as a global playing field for the wealthy and influential. Liberal internationalism has lost its connection to the pursuit of social and economic advancement within western countries.

A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22

Article

Jul 1958

Embryo Selection for Cognitive Enhancement: Curiosity or Game-changer?

Article

Feb 2014

Human capital is an important determinant of individual and aggregate economic outcomes, and a major input to scientific progress. It has been suggested that advances in genomics may open up new avenues to enhance human intellectual abilities genetically, complementing environmental interventions such as education and nutrition. One way to do this would be via embryo selection in the context of in vitro fertilization (IVF). In this article, we analyze the feasibility, timescale, and possible societal impacts of embryo selection for cognitive enhancement. We find that embryo selection, on its own, may have significant (but likely not drastic) impacts over the next 50 years, though large effects could accumulate over multiple generations. However, there is a complementary technology – stem cell-derived gametes – which has been making rapid progress and which could amplify the impact of embryo selection, enabling very large changes if successfully applied to humans.

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

Book

Jan 2009

This book, based on thirty years' research, goes an important stage beyond either of these ideas: it demonstrates that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them---the well-off as well as the poor. The remarkable data the book lays out and the measures It uses are like a spirit level which we can hold up to compare the conditions of different societies. The differences revealed, even between rich market democracies, are striking. Almost every modern social and environmental problem---ill-health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours, big prison populations---is more likely to occur in a less equal society. The Spirit Level goes to the heart of the apparent contradiction between the material success and social failings of many modern societies, but it does not simply provide a key to diagnosing our ills. It tells us how to shift the balance from self-interested 'consumerism' to a friendlier and more collaborative society. It shows a way out of the social and environmental problems which beset us and opens up a major new approach to improving the real quality of life, not just for the poor but for everyone. It is, in its conclusion, an optimistic book, which should revitalize politics and provide a new way of thinking about how we organize human communities. As the authors write, 'It falls to our generation to make one of the biggest transformations in human history. The role of this book is to point out that greater equality is the material foundation on which better social relations are built.' (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(jacket)

Emerging Technologies: A foresight study exploring how emerging technologies will shape the economy and society, and the challenges and opportunities they will create, Government of Canada

Sep 2013

Policy Horizons Canada, Metascan 3, Emerging Technologies: A foresight study exploring how emerging technologies will shape the economy and society, and the challenges and opportunities they will create, Government of Canada, September 2013 -http://www.horizons.gc.ca/sites/default/files/ Publication-alt-format/pdf_version_0239_6698kb-45pages.pdf ; see also http://www.brookings. edu/search?start=1&q=Robotics#g-20/topics/ for a synopsis of recent reports on https://www.weforum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab -accessed 20191017

China's Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States

Jun 2019

Congressional Research Service, China's Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States, Updated June 25, 2019 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33534.pdf -accessed 20191018

World in 2050: The long view: how will the global economic order change by 2050?

The Pwc

PWC, The World in 2050: The long view: how will the global economic order change by 2050? https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/economy/the-world-in-2050.html -accessed 20191028

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