A look into the future, the world in 2025

Excerpts from a series entitled, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World”:

• Al Qaeda could soon be on the decline, having alienated Muslim supporters with indiscriminate killing and inattention to the practical problems of poverty, unemployment and education.
• By 2025, the U.S. will find itself as one of a number of important actors on the world stage playing a prominent role in global events but not a decisive one as in the past.
• The global shift from West to East in terms of wealth and economic power will be without precedent in modern history. Of a projected population increase of 1.2 billion worldwide by 2025, Western countries would account for only 3 percent.
• The world will be riven by increased conflict over scarce food and water supplies and threatened by so-called rogue states and terrorists, widening gaps between rich and poor and an uneven impact of global warming.
• The chance of the use of nuclear weapons, while remaining very low, would rise in the next two decades as nuclear technology spreads.
• Russia’s emergence as a world power will be clouded by persistent corruption and lagging investment in its critical energy industry.
• A government in Eastern Europe could be effectively taken over and run by organized crime.