Over the next generation, Europe will be buffeted by waves
of transformation. The reaction to the economic crisis, the
rapid empowerment of individuals thanks to the growth
of information technology, the reality of climate change,
the diffusion of power across the globe, and demographic
changes will all shape the continent’s future.
The National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030:
Alternative Worlds report, released last December
explores many of these trends in detail, some already
much in evidence. Ongoing uncertainty about the longterm
health of the European Union (EU) has caused the
people of many member states to look inward, stirring old
nationalisms and regional division and jeopardizing a long
transition toward global institutions as mechanisms for
problem solving.
We are approaching an inflection point that could lead
to a future of economic and political volatility and zerosum
behavior of inward-looking nationalisms; a more
collaborative rules-based world marked by cooperative
efforts at global problem-solving; or perhaps most likely,
some hybrid featuring elements of both.
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