nmap
09-11-2008, 15:41
The transcript of Dr. Fingar's speech seemed interesting, particularly from page 20-27.
Some highlights:
A second is that the U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will
be much diminished over this period of time. That the truly anomalous situation that has existed
since World War II we vivified after the demise of the Soviet Union of the overwhelming
dominance that the United States has enjoyed in the international system in military, political,
economic, and arguably, cultural arenas is eroding and will erode at an accelerating pace
with the partial exception of military. But part of the argument here is that by 15 years from now, the
military dimension will remain the most preeminent will be the least significant – or much less
significant than it is now. Part of the – nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional
force. Deterrence – nuclear deterrence will work. So the nature of international competition and
challenges to cyber threat to cite one. It was just not susceptible to massive conventional
military power. There was a sort of a – it poses a situation choices of how do we invest our
national security dollars.
That is going to happen. Or we can begin to do now is prepare to mitigate those impacts. Now,
what are those impacts? Water shortages. As far as I know, there is no disagreement about the
projection of strains in water in particular regions. Regions that include the already unstable
Middle East, that include China – that the projections of continued 10 percent growth for China
and all that that means. Ignore the fact that it has severe water problems now. And they get
much, much worse by 2015 or 2020. Why does it matter? Orders of magnitude in a North China
plain that is running out of water because they are depleting the underground aquifers through
millions of tube wells drilled in the 1960s, produces the food for 400 million people.
Think about the difficulty of scrounging up in the international system the food for 17 or 18
million North Koreans, for a few tens of millions on the Horn of Africa. Any number – any
activity put down in the Chinese context, you have got one hell of a problem. And that is going
to happen. This isn’t in the maybe category. This is in the for-real category. Climate change,
we concluded, is not by itself going to bring down any governments. It is not going to lead to
wars.
But two things are pretty certain – that the already stressed and strained and flailing and flailing
governments and states – this well could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. A little bit
more severe water shortage, a little bit more severe food shortage, more people beginning to
migrate, economic migrants looking within and across – within countries and across borders for
better opportunities and better substance.
Another element of this that is in the damn near immutable is demography. And my colleagues
who are demographers are really quite confident that the range of variation is very small. And
what this tells us is over the next 15 years, the West, Europe, in particular, Russia, and the
honorary West, Japan, and, oh, by the way, China, which isn’t in the West, have very, very
significant aging of their populations. It is happening in Europe and Japan, Spain, Italy, in
particular very, very rapidly, way below replacement levels. China’s decades of one-child policy
begins to kick in. And by 2015, 2025, you are looking at a dependency ratio of young
productive people to seniors. It begins to approach one to three. That is a pretty heavy burden
on economic growth. How do the Europeans sustain the social safety net? Put people in the
military if they don’t have enough folks to go into the workplace to generate? Normal answer –
migration, immigration. Where is it going to come from? Oh, yeah, the ill-educated, the sick,
the poor, the benighted.
It's all interesting, in my opinion - and it may give some insights about the nature and character of future U.S. policy.
(Yes, I know - climate change is controversial. The interesting point here is that a policy maker seems to suggest where government policy is headed.)
Here's a LINK (http://www.dni.gov/speeches/20080904_speech.pdf)
Some highlights:
A second is that the U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will
be much diminished over this period of time. That the truly anomalous situation that has existed
since World War II we vivified after the demise of the Soviet Union of the overwhelming
dominance that the United States has enjoyed in the international system in military, political,
economic, and arguably, cultural arenas is eroding and will erode at an accelerating pace
with the partial exception of military. But part of the argument here is that by 15 years from now, the
military dimension will remain the most preeminent will be the least significant – or much less
significant than it is now. Part of the – nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional
force. Deterrence – nuclear deterrence will work. So the nature of international competition and
challenges to cyber threat to cite one. It was just not susceptible to massive conventional
military power. There was a sort of a – it poses a situation choices of how do we invest our
national security dollars.
That is going to happen. Or we can begin to do now is prepare to mitigate those impacts. Now,
what are those impacts? Water shortages. As far as I know, there is no disagreement about the
projection of strains in water in particular regions. Regions that include the already unstable
Middle East, that include China – that the projections of continued 10 percent growth for China
and all that that means. Ignore the fact that it has severe water problems now. And they get
much, much worse by 2015 or 2020. Why does it matter? Orders of magnitude in a North China
plain that is running out of water because they are depleting the underground aquifers through
millions of tube wells drilled in the 1960s, produces the food for 400 million people.
Think about the difficulty of scrounging up in the international system the food for 17 or 18
million North Koreans, for a few tens of millions on the Horn of Africa. Any number – any
activity put down in the Chinese context, you have got one hell of a problem. And that is going
to happen. This isn’t in the maybe category. This is in the for-real category. Climate change,
we concluded, is not by itself going to bring down any governments. It is not going to lead to
wars.
But two things are pretty certain – that the already stressed and strained and flailing and flailing
governments and states – this well could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. A little bit
more severe water shortage, a little bit more severe food shortage, more people beginning to
migrate, economic migrants looking within and across – within countries and across borders for
better opportunities and better substance.
Another element of this that is in the damn near immutable is demography. And my colleagues
who are demographers are really quite confident that the range of variation is very small. And
what this tells us is over the next 15 years, the West, Europe, in particular, Russia, and the
honorary West, Japan, and, oh, by the way, China, which isn’t in the West, have very, very
significant aging of their populations. It is happening in Europe and Japan, Spain, Italy, in
particular very, very rapidly, way below replacement levels. China’s decades of one-child policy
begins to kick in. And by 2015, 2025, you are looking at a dependency ratio of young
productive people to seniors. It begins to approach one to three. That is a pretty heavy burden
on economic growth. How do the Europeans sustain the social safety net? Put people in the
military if they don’t have enough folks to go into the workplace to generate? Normal answer –
migration, immigration. Where is it going to come from? Oh, yeah, the ill-educated, the sick,
the poor, the benighted.
It's all interesting, in my opinion - and it may give some insights about the nature and character of future U.S. policy.
(Yes, I know - climate change is controversial. The interesting point here is that a policy maker seems to suggest where government policy is headed.)
Here's a LINK (http://www.dni.gov/speeches/20080904_speech.pdf)