TBR News April 3, 2017

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. May 3, 2017: “Defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has emerged into the public view with a statement that she was certain to be elected to the Oval Office but, shock and horror, the evil FBI chief released a statement just before the election that his Bureau was continuing their investigation of Ms. Clinton’s improper emailing.

This was because her ‘close associates’ husband’ (or beard), a child pornography contributor who had been forced to resign from Congress because of his rank behavior, had had his computer contents examined and there was a direct connection to the Clinton people.

Also, Ms. Clinton said that ‘the Russians’ had released the Podesta documents which further damaged her campaign.

But these documents were released via Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

Does Ms. Clinton mean to imply that WikiLeans and Assange are Russian assets?

If so, she did not develop this aspect.

Ms. Clinton lost the election because the public voted for the other candidate.

Bad losers get little sympathy.”

Table of Contents

• Where to Go with Turkey
• Merkel calls Russia an ‘important partner’
• Why Do North Koreans Hate Us? One Reason — They Remember the Korean War.
• NSA collected over 151mn phone records in 2016 despite surveillance law changes
• Russia, FBI chief part of election defeat: Hillary Clinton
• Erdogan to meet Putin amid strain in Turkish-Russian relations
• SECRECY NEWS
• Report of the National Intelligence Council

 Where to Go with Turkey

Erdogan’s electoral fraud must be challenged

May 2, 2017

by Philip Giraldi

The Unz Review

The dizzying spiral of incompetent military and political interventions carried out by Washington in the Middle East suggests strongly that the best U.S. foreign policy would be one that is essentially inert. One only has to look at the inherent contradictions in what appears to be the Trump Administration policy towards Syria to understand how the United States has somehow gone down a path that leads nowhere. Last week, NATO member and nominal U.S. ally Turkey bombed Kurdish militiamen operating against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Iraq is an American ally and one group of Kurds that suffered twenty fatalities was being advised by U.S. special forces. The Kurds, who are reported to be the most effective soldiers in the American supported pushback against ISIS, are described by the Turkish government as terrorists. No Americans were killed in the Turkish bombing but that was more a matter of luck than any benign intention on the part of the Turks.

Turkish and American policies are largely out of sync because they have different goals. The Trump campaign’s stated Middle Eastern policy, which has already been modified, was to destroy ISIS without any further entanglement in the region. Turkey’s objective has been from the beginning to forestall any creation of an independent Kurdish state near its border that might serve as a haven for what it describes as terrorism from the PKK and other related groups. All other interests are secondary and it has cooperated with ISIS as well as with al-Ansar when it has felt that to be desirable.

Both Washington and Ankara do now agree that it is necessary to replace the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which, if anything, exemplifies the essential unreality of what the two nations are seeking to accomplish. Washington has, in doing so, inserted itself more deeply into the Syrian quagmire while at the same time seeking to hobble the most effective force against ISIS, which is the Syrian military. And, as collateral damage, it has harmed, possibly beyond repair, the relationship with Russia.

Turkey, for its part, would wind up with a Syria that will lack a strong central government and will produce the devolution into tribal and religio-ethnic units that will undoubtedly include a Kurdish self-rule region similar to that which has developed in neighboring Iraq. Both Washington and Ankara have therefore come down on a policy alignment that cannot be successful without major direct intervention and retention of ground troops along the lines of Afghanistan that will wind up creating even greater problems as the entire situation unravels.

Turkey is undeniably a major player in the Middle East. With a large and relatively well-educated population and a diversified industrial base, it possesses a powerful and well-equipped army. It would be considered important in any reckoning, but it also benefits from geography as a bridge between Europe and Asia, between the Muslim and Christian worlds. For the United States and Western Europe there is another dimension as Turkey is also part of NATO, a treaty that has as Article 5 a key mandate compelling all alliance members to come to the aid of any one member that is attacked. It is referred to as “collective defense.”

Article 5 is particularly important as Turkey has already tried to stage a false flag attack on the part of Syria as well as a shoot-down of a Russian warplane to draw the NATO alliance in on its war to bring down al-Assad. Incredibly, in the false flag attempt on a shrine in Syria guarded by Turkish soldiers, Erdogan and his security chief were willing to kill their own troops to accomplish that end. Erdogan has also threatened to invade and occupy parts of neighboring Iraq and Syria to “protect Turks.” Turkey also has supported ISIS when it suited its government to do so and has reportedly been a supplier of sarin gas to rebels inside Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent margin of victory in a referendum that will grant him near dictatorial powers was razor thin. It was run under a national state of emergency controlled by Erdogan, who worked relentlessly to heighten both xenophobia and the fears of the voters over terrorism. The actual result was nevertheless obtained through nationwide organized fraud, with policemen and local officials standing inside polling stations and demanding that voters mark their ballots in front of them to insure “yes” votes. Even some Kurdish parts of Turkey apparently and mysteriously wound up with large numbers of votes for Erdogan, the man who has called them terrorists and waged a bloody campaign of repression in the country’s southeast. The Stockholm Center for Freedom noted “widespread and systematic election fraud, violent incidents and scandalous steps taken by the biased Supreme Board of Elections.” Germany has called for an inquiry into the allegations of election fraud.

European observers noted critically that in the lead-up to the voting the Turkish public was subjected to an unrelenting barrage of propaganda supporting Erdogan, a reflection of the fact that the potential opposition media had either been shut down or cowed into submission. Opposition rallies were banned and opposition demonstrators were beaten and arrested. When the German and Dutch governments refused to allow Turkish government officials to hold massive rallies of expatriate Turks in their countries, Erdogan called them Nazis, vowed revenge, and threatened to unleash terrorism in Europe.

The first foreign leader to call Erdogan and congratulate him on his win was President Donald Trump and it is also reported that Erdogan will be making a state visit to Washington later this month. Instead of a warm welcome, the United States government should be taking steps to boot Turkey out of NATO and minimize various aspects of its relationship with Ankara.

Erdogan has deliberately and cynically destroyed democracy in Turkey. In the aftermath of the recent referendum he immediately moved to arrest even more citizens who have criticized him and to fire nearly 4,000 more government employees, referring to them as traitors. He is an autocrat who might even better be described as a megalomaniac driven to promote policies that are both self-serving and erratic that rely on incendiary populist appeals to maintain power. He heads an increasingly corrupt regime and has ruthlessly sacrificed his own people to his own ambition while opening the door to a new wave of terror within Turkey itself.

Erdogan has done much of this by exploiting an apparent coup against him in July 2016, which he might have known about in advance. The coup plotters, drawn from the military, appear to have been appalled by the domestic and international violence unleashed by Erdogan, calling themselves a “peace at home council.” Erdogan took advantage of the coup by staging mass arrests and granting to himself emergency powers, an authority that has since been extended and which he still exploits.

Erdogan has been jailing journalists for the past four years on charges of treason and has made it a crime to criticize himself. Thirty journalists from the opposition newspaper Zaman are now facing life in prison sentencing from courts that will do whatever the president wants and there have also been demands from Erdogan to reinstate the death penalty for “traitors.” Turkish citizens who demonstrate against his grandiose building projects are called “terrorists” before being arrested, beaten and shot. He has fired judges and policemen who have tried to investigate various crimes connected to large scale corruption involving his immediate family and key supporters. He has fired and jailed elected and appointed government officials, including parliamentarians. He has promoted his own particular strict brand of Islam and has introduced Islamic legislation in violation of the Turkish constitution, built new mosques and religious schools and shut down much secular education. The new government approved curriculum in schools is to be based on religion and relies on teachers approved for their piety.

Since July, Erdogan has rounded up and arrested more than 160,000 Turks, including 47,000 who have been sent to prison. Many suffered from the misfortunate of appearing on an “enemies” list, which clearly was prepared and ready before the coup. Some of those arrested are being tortured to produce confessions implicating others. More than 140,000 other Turks have lost their jobs in purges at universities, hospitals, schools and military bases. Turkish Consulates and Embassies abroad have been ordered by Ankara to compile lists of local Turks who might be considered “disloyal” to the president. Owning the wrong kind of book or having attended a suspect school has been enough to ruin someone’s life and, at one point, even possessing a dollar bill was considered a sign that one was part of a conspiracy. Some have compared today’s Turkey to an “open air prison.”

The social media are being shut down or censored and both emails and phone calls are being monitored by the formidably effective Turkish Military Intelligence Service (MIT). Demonstrators brave enough to go against Erdogan are treated as enemies of the state, some being arrested in the middle of the night, and the once powerful Turkish military is being turned into a version of an Islamic militia with its leaders owing both their positions and loyalty to the president.

The Stalinist-style purge list includes a large part of Turkey’s educated elite and is being driven by both class and the rural-urban divide, with Erdogan’s own rock solid political support coming from the deeply religious but poorly educated Anatolians. Ironically, in terms of European and American interests, it is the more cosmopolitan Turks who are most supportive of western values and democracy and it is they who will suffer most. In the recent referendum, all the major cities in Turkey voted against Erdogan while the rural countryside went solidly for him. Throw in the fraud and it was enough for the “new Sultan” to declare victory.

I am a great admirer of the Turkish people and it is unfortunately true that quite ordinary Turks will inevitably be the ones who will pay the price most in the “new Turkey” of Erdogan. U.S. interests relating to an increasingly demanding and abrasive Turkey are largely limited to the use of Incirlik Airbase to bomb Syria. Against that, Turkey offers little or nothing to the effort to eliminate terrorist groups from the region as it is more interested in killing Kurds than Sunni radicals, with whom it has enjoyed friendly relations. It is time to cut back on the tie that binds both at NATO in Brussels and in Washington unless political prisoners are released and basic rights are restored. Erdogan has become a loose cannon on deck, a short-term asset in permitting access to an airbase, but a major liability in almost every other respect. As democracy vanishes in Ankara it is time to get back to basics. Washington should respect the right of every country to select the kind of government it wants and it should maintain friendly relations whenever possible, but that doesn’t mean we Americans have to provide our seal of approval on the process.

Merkel calls Russia an ‘important partner’

May 2, 2017

by Friederike Heine and Peter Spinella,

Associated Press

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has promoted ties with Russia during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

“Russia is naturally an important partner,” Merkel told Putin at the start of their talks in the southern Russian city of Sochi.

It was Merkel’s second visit to Russia since that country incited outcry in the West by annexing neighbouring Ukraine’s Crimea region three years ago. Sochi and Crimea are both on the Black Sea.

Putin welcomed Merkel to Sochi, saying he would like their talks to focus on the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.

Putin also thanked Merkel for the opportunity to discuss preparations for the Group of 20 summit to take place in July in the German city of Hamburg.

Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said ahead of the meeting that disagreements over Ukraine have been “burdening the relationship” between Germany and Russia.

Merkel plans to meet the leaders of all the G20 countries ahead of the summit, which is hosted this year by Germany and scheduled to take place over July 7-8.

Relations between Germany and Russia have been tense following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which Ukraine and Western powers, including Germany, consider occupied territory.

Why Do North Koreans Hate Us? One Reason — They Remember the Korean War.

May 3 2017

by Mehdi Hasan

The Intercept

“WHY DO they hate us?”

It’s a question that has bewildered Americans again and again in the wake of 9/11, in reference to the Arab and Muslim worlds. These days, however, it’s a question increasingly asked about the reclusive North Koreans.

Let’s be clear: there is no doubt that the citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) both fear and loathe the United States. Paranoia, resentment and a crude anti-Americanism have been nurtured inside the Hermit Kingdom for decades. Children are taught to hate Americans in school while adults mark a “Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism Month” every year (it’s in June, in case you were wondering).

North Korean officials make wild threats against the United States while the regime, led by the brutal and sadistic Kim Jong-un, pumps out fake news in the form of self-serving propaganda, on an industrial scale. In the DPRK, anti-American hatred is a commodity never in short supply.

“The hate, though,” as long-time North Korea watcher Blaine Harden observed in the Washington Post, “ is not all manufactured.” Some of it, he wrote, “is rooted in a fact-based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers and the United States blithely forgets.”

Forgets as in the “forgotten war.” Yes, the Korean War. Remember that? The one wedged between World War II and the Vietnam War? The first “hot” war of the Cold War, which took place between 1950 and 1953, and which has since been conveniently airbrushed from most discussions and debates about the “crazy” and “insane” regime in Pyongyang? Forgotten despite the fact that this particular war isn’t even over — it was halted by an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty — and despite the fact that the conflict saw the United States engage in numerous war crimes which, perhaps unsurprisingly, continue to shape the way North Koreans view the United States, even if the residents of the United States remain blissfully ignorant of their country’s belligerent past.

For the record, it was the North Koreans, and not the Americans or their South Korean allies, who started the war in June 1950, when they crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded the south. Nevertheless, “What hardly any Americans know or remember,” University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings writes in his book “The Korean War: A History,” “is that we carpet-bombed the north for three years with next to no concern for civilian casualties.”

How many Americans, for example, are aware of the fact that U.S. planes dropped on the Korean peninsula more bombs — 635,000 tons — and napalm — 32,557 tons — than during the entire Pacific campaign against the Japanese during World War II?

How many Americans know that “over a period of three years or so,” to quote Air Force General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, “we killed off … 20 percent of the population”?

Twenty. Percent. For a point of comparison, the Nazis exterminated 20 percent of Poland’s pre-World War II population. According to LeMay, “We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea.”

Every. Town. More than three million civilians are believed to have been killed in the fighting, the vast majority of them in the north.

How many Americans are familiar with the statements of Secretary of State Dean Rusk or Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas? Rusk, who was a State Department official in charge of Far Eastern affairs during the Korean War, would later admit that the United States bombed “every brick that was standing on top of another, everything that moved.” American pilots, he noted, “were just bombing the heck out of North Korea.”

Douglas visited Korea in the summer of 1952 and was stunned by the “misery, disease, pain and suffering, starvation” that had been “compounded” by air strikes. U.S. warplanes, having run out of military targets, had bombed farms, dams, factories and hospitals. “I had seen the war-battered cities of Europe,” the Supreme Court justice confessed, “but I had not seen devastation until I had seen Korea.”

How many Americans have ever come across General Douglas MacArthur’s unhinged plan to win the war against North Korea in just 10 days? MacArthur, who led the United Nations Command during the conflict, wanted to drop “between 30 and 50 atomic bombs … strung across the neck of Manchuria” that would have “spread behind us … a belt of radioactive cobalt.”

How many Americans have heard of the No Gun Ri massacre, in July 1950, in which hundreds of Koreans were killed by U.S. warplanes and members of the 7th U.S. Cavalry regiment as they huddled under a bridge? Details of the massacre emerged in 1999, when the Associated Press interviewed dozens of retired U.S. military personnel. “The hell with all those people,” one American veteran recalled his captain as saying. “Let’s get rid of all of them.”

How many Americans are taught in school about the Bodo League massacre of tens of thousands of suspected communists on the orders of the U.S.-backed South Korean strongman, President Syngman Rhee, in the summer of 1950? Eyewitness accounts suggest “jeeploads” of U.S. military officers were present and “supervised the butchery.”

Millions of ordinary Americans may suffer from a toxic combination of ignorance and amnesia, but the victims of U.S. coups, invasions and bombing campaigns across the globe tend not to. Ask the Iraqis or the Iranians, ask the Cubans or the Chileans. And, yes, ask the North Koreans.

For the residents of the DPRK, writes Columbia University historian Charles Armstrong in his book “Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950–1992,” “the American air war left a deep and lasting impression” and “more than any other single factor, gave North Koreans a collective sense of anxiety and fear of outside threats, that would continue long after the war’s end.”

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not pretending that Kim’s violent and totalitarian regime would be any less violent or totalitarian today had the U.S. not carpet-bombed North Korea almost 70 years ago. Nor am I expecting Donald Trump, of all presidents, to offer a formal apology to Pyongyang on behalf of the U.S. government for the U.S. war crimes of 1950 through 1953.

But the fact is that inside North Korea, according to leading Korea scholar Kathryn Weathersby, “it is still the 1950s … and the conflict with South Korea and the United States is still going on. People in the North feel backed into a corner and threatened.”

If another Korean war, a potentially nuclear war, is to be avoided and if, as the Czech-born novelist Milan Kundera famously wrote, “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” then ordinary Americans can no longer afford to forget the death, destruction and debilitating legacy of the original Korean War.

NSA collected over 151mn phone records in 2016 despite surveillance law changes

May 3, 2017

RT

The NSA collected over 151 million phone records from Americans last year, while having warrants for only 42 terrorist suspects, an annual report shows. In 2015, the agency’s snooping powers were cut following Edward Snowden’s revelations.

The new transparency report revealing the agency’s haul was released Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The records include communicational “metadata,” showing who contacted whom, but not what they said. The amount of collected data is still lower compared to previous years, when the National Security Agency (NSA) collected “billions of records per day,” according to a 2014 report.

The 151 million records, however, do not represent the actual number of phone calls or people who had their data collected, the report explained, because this volume includes multiple calls made to or from the same phone numbers. Apart from that, a single phone call logged by two phone companies counted as two records.

The number, however, is still significant, since the NSA only obtained warrants through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for only 42 terrorist suspects in 2016, along with a number of suspects left over from 2015, according to the new report. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the FISC or FISA court, oversees requests for surveillance warrants from law enforcement agencies involving suspects in the US.

The NSA can provide the collected data, which involves the “US persons” (USP) to other security and intelligence agencies. In 2016, according to the report, the number of “unmasked” USP identities was “much lower,” compared to the previous year.

The names of 1,934 USPs were “unmasked” in intelligence reports last year in response to specific requests, compared with 2,232 in 2015. The identities of 1,200 USPs were originally revealed in the requested reports. The transparency report, however, did not identify which agencies requested the names or on what grounds.

The agency provides the true identity of the masked person only if an official requesting it has a legitimate “need to know,” according to the transparency report.

“NSA is allowed to unmask the identity for the specific requesting recipient only where specific additional controls are in place to preclude its further dissemination and additional approval has been provided by a designated NSA official,” the report reads.

The “unmasking” mechanism might be the key to determining the source of media leaks damaging to the Trump administration, as some media reports indicated that then-President Barack Obama’s aides requested the disclosure of the names of Trump’s election team members.

The agency disclosed even more information than required by law, the report said, stating the intelligence community was “committed to sharing as much information as possible with the public without jeopardizing mission capabilities.”

This quest for “transparency” largely came as a result of Edward Snowden’s revelations, who disclosed the NSA’s secret operation to gather information on American citizens and residents. The bulk collections previously authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act were banned in 2015 under the bipartisan USA Freedom Act.

“This year’s report continues our trajectory toward greater transparency, providing additional statistics beyond what is required by law,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence spokesman Timothy Barrett said, according to Reuters.

Russia, FBI chief part of election defeat: Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has laid bare who she holds responsible for her electoral defeat against President Donald Trump. “I was on the way to winning” until WikiLeaks and the FBI undermined her campaign, she said.

April 2, 2017

DW

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has blamed part of her electoral defeat last November on misogyny, Russian interference and FBI director James Comey in her most extensive remarks since the divisive 2016 presidential election.

Speaking at an annual luncheon for the Women for Women International charity in New York on Tuesday, Clinton said she took “absolute personal responsibility” for a series of campaign mistakes that contributed to her loss.

Despite garnering 2.8 million votes more than her rival, she lost the US presidential election to Donald Trump, who won more votes in the Electoral College.

Less than two weeks before the election, Comey sent a letter to US lawmakers saying the FBI was reopening a probe into a personal email server used by Clinton during her tenure as the US top diplomat from 2009 to 2013.

However, two days before the election on November 8, he presented another letter saying the bureau had not changed its conclusions offered in July, in which Comey announced there was no basis for prosecution.

“I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off,” Clinton said.

Intervening events’

On Russia’s interference in the election, federal agencies including the CIA and National Security Agency concluded that Moscow-backed entities had hacked Democratic Party institutions in a bid to boost Trump’s chances at victory. US intelligence also claimed that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had “ordered” their targeted involvement in the election.

Emails obtained during various cyberattacks on Democratic Party targets were eventually published by whistleblowing group WikiLeaks, which US authorities have branded as a “hostile intelligence service.”

“I was the candidate, I was the person who was on the ballot. I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had,” Clinton said. “The reasons why I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days.”

Clinton’s 2016 presidential election campaign marked her second go at the White House, after failing to win the Democratic Party’s endorsement against former President Barack Obama in 2008.

Erdogan to meet Putin amid strain in Turkish-Russian relations

Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan are meeting for the second time in as many months. They may have eased tensions after Turkey shot down a Russian military jet, but their relationship has still not fully recovered.

April 3, 2017

by Mikhail Bushuev

DW

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for bilateral talks on Wednesday in the Black Sea coastal city of Sochi; they last met on March 10 in Moscow.

Economic ties between the two countries had long been on a positive track until, as Putin put it, Turkey “stabbed Russia in the back” by shooting down a Russian fighter jet over the Turkish-Syrian border in November 2015. The Turkish leader initially said nothing, but eventually apologized for the incident a few months later in an effort to normalize relations with Moscow. Nonetheless, the once warm friendship has yet to completely recover.

‘A few tomatoes’

Erdogan’s visit to Moscow in early March did not deliver the hoped-for results: the lifting of an embargo on the export of tomatoes to Russia.

“They’re not going to get away with this with a few tomatoes,” said Putin after the jet was shot down.

Turkish vegetable exporters did suffer under the embargo; tomatoes had traditionally formed a large part of their shipments to Russia.

Russia has since loosened its restrictions on Turkish food exporters. Imports of citrus fruit, cabbage, cloves, stone fruits and onions are permitted again. But the embargo is still partly in place, banning the import of Turkish cucumbers, apples and pears. Turkish farmers say that the volume of agricultural exports is just 15 percent of what it was before the sanctions were introduced.

But Ankara wasn’t prepared to just sit back and accept the sanctions. Russia also lost an important trading partner for agricultural goods after Turkey raised import tariffs, affecting Russian exports of corn, beans and sunflower oil. The tariffs hike ranged anywhere from 9 to 130 percent, effectively closing Turkey as a market for certain Russian products.

And Moscow felt the pinch: After Egypt, Turkey is its second-biggest importer of Russian grain and sunflower oil. A report on the Russian economy in April estimated that Ankara’s actions cost Moscow some $1.5 billion (1.4 billion euros).

Assad’s future a sticking point

But while normalizing trade relations seems like a relatively easy task, the war in Syria is much more complicated. Turkey and Russia, who have deployed military operations on the ground in the country, have different ideas about what Syria’s post-conflict future should look like – most notably when it comes to the fate of President Bashar al-Assad.

Since the start of the war, Ankara has taken the view that Assad should step down as quickly as possible to clear the path for an inner-Syrian reconciliation. “As long as Assad is in power, there can be no solution for Syria,” Erdogan said recently during an interview with Reuters news agency.

Russia stresses that it is not holding onto Assad. Erdogan says he has discussed the problem with Putin, who assured him that he is not acting as Assad’s counsel. But in reality, Russia is keeping the Syrian leader in power and helping him to fight his armed opponents. Officially, Moscow sees no alternative to its course in Syria.

“Assad is the legitimate leader of the country, his army is fighting the rebels who control large parts of the republic,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press spokesman, said recently. In Putin’s view, Russia is supporting the fight against terrorism, including the so-called “Islamic State,” which is why it would be absurd to insist that the Kremlin refrain from supporting Assad.

SECRECY NEWS

From the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

Volume 2017, Issue No. 32

May 3, 2017

DOD: SECRECY MUST YIELD TO INTERNAL OVERSIGHT

Congressional oversight of intelligence often involves disputes over congressional access to intelligence information, records and personnel. But when it comes to internal Pentagon oversight, even the most tightly held intelligence programs are required to cooperate without reservation, a new DoD directive says.

Thus, the Senior Intelligence Oversight Official is supposed to have “complete and unrestricted access to all information concerning DoD intelligence and intelligence-related activities regardless of classification or compartmentalization, including intelligence special access programs.”

Intelligence agency heads are instructed to provide internal overseers with “access to any employee and with all information necessary to perform their oversight responsibilities, including information protected by special access programs, alternative compensatory control measures, or other security compartmentalization.”

The procedures for internal oversight of DoD intelligence activities were formalized in a new directive that was published last week. See Intelligence Oversight, DoD Directive 5148.13, April 26, 2017.

“Any allegation questioning the legality or propriety of DoD intelligence and intelligence-related activities” will be reviewed by a Department of Defense intelligence oversight official and reported on a quarterly basis to higher authorities, the directive said.

Meanwhile, intelligence agency heads are told to “take no adverse action” against DoD personnel or contractors who report what they reasonably believe to be a “questionable intelligence activity,” i.e. an intelligence activity that is inconsistent with law or policy, or any other “highly sensitive matter” that would “call into question the propriety of intelligence activities.”

From a distance, it is unclear how well the system of internal DoD oversight of classified intelligence programs is working. But in principle, it should bolster and help to inform the larger infrastructure of intelligence oversight.

“Appropriate senior leaders and policymakers within the Executive Branch and congressional defense and intelligence committees must be notified of events that may erode public trust in the conduct of DoD intelligence activities,” the directive said.

THE NET NEUTRALITY DEBATE, & MORE FROM CRS

Net neutrality, or unfettered and non-discriminatory access to the Internet, is the subject of current litigation, regulation and legislation. Background to the issue is presented in a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service. See The Net Neutrality Debate: Access to Broadband Networks, May 1, 2017.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

The Office of the Parliamentarian in the House and Senate, updated May 2, 2017

Patent Boxes: A Primer, May 1, 2017

The Financial CHOICE Act (H.R. 10) and the Dodd-Frank Act, CRS Insight, May 1, 2017

Executive Order for Review of National Monuments, CRS Insight, May 1, 2017

Report of the National Intelligence Council

Executive Summary

At no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such a state of flux. The end of the Cold War shifted the tectonic plates, but the repercussions from these momentous events are still unfolding. Emerging powers in Asia, retrenchment in Eurasia, a roiling Middle East, and transatlantic divisions are among the issues that have only come to a head in recent years. The very magnitude and speed of change resulting from a globalizing world—apart from its precise character—will be a defining feature of the world out to 2020. Other significant characteristics include: the rise of new powers, new challenges to governance, and a more pervasive sense of insecurity, including terrorism.

As we map the future, the prospects for increasing global prosperity and the limited likelihood of great power conflict provide an overall favorable environment for coping with what are otherwise daunting challenges. The role of the United States will be an important variable in how the world is shaped, influencing the path that states and nonstate actors choose to follow.

New Global Players

The likely emergence of China and India, as well as others, as new major global players—similar to the advent of a united Germany in the 19 th century and a powerful United States in the early 20 th century—will transform the geopolitical landscape, with impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries. In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the “American Century,” the 21 st century may be seen as the time when Asia, led by China and India, comes into its own. A combination of sustained high economic growth, expanding military capabilities, and large populations will be at the root of the expected rapid rise in economic and political power for both countries.

• Most forecasts indicate that by 2020 China’s gross national product (GNP) will exceed that of individual Western economic powers except for the United States. India’s GNP will have overtaken or be on the threshold of overtaking European economies.
• Because of the sheer size of China’s and India’s populations—projected by the US Census Bureau to be 1.4 billion and almost 1.3 billion respectively by 2020—their standard of living need not approach Western levels for these countries to become important economic powers.

Barring an abrupt reversal of the process of globalization or any major upheavals in these countries, the rise of these new powers is a virtual certainty. Yet how China and India exercise their growing power and whether they relate cooperatively or competitively to other powers in the international system are key uncertainties. The economies of other developing countries, such as Brazil, could surpass all but the largest European countries by 2020; Indonesia’s economy could also approach the economies of individual European countries by 2020.

By most measures—market size, single currency, highly skilled work force, stable democratic governments, and unified trade bloc—an enlarged Europe will be able to increase its weight on the international scene. Europe’s strength could be in providing a model of global and regional governance to the rising powers. But aging populations and shrinking work forces in most countries will have an important impact on the continent. Either European countries adapt their work forces, reform their social welfare, education, and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations (chiefly from Muslim countries), or they face a period of protracted economic stasis. Japan faces a similar aging crisis that could crimp its longer run economic recovery, but it also will be challenged to evaluate its regional status and role. Tokyo may have to choose between “balancing” against or “bandwagoning” with China. Meanwhile, the crisis over North Korea is likely to come to a head sometime over the next 15 years. Asians’ lingering resentments and concerns over Korean unification and cross-Taiwan Strait tensions point to a complicated process for achieving regional equilibrium. Russia has the potential to enhance its international role with others due to its position as a major oil and gas exporter. However, Russia faces a severe demographic crisis resulting from low birth rates, poor medical care, and a potentially explosive AIDS situation. To the south, it borders an unstable region in the Caucasus and Central Asia, the effects of which—Muslim extremism, terrorism, and endemic conflict—are likely to continue spilling over into Russia. While these social and political factors limit the extent to which Russia can be a major global player, Moscow is likely to be an important partner both for the established powers, the United States and Europe, and for the rising powers of China and India.

With these and other new global actors, how we mentally map the world in 2020 will change radically. The “arriviste” powers—China, India, and perhaps others such as Brazil and Indonesia—have the potential to render obsolete the old categories of East and West, North and South, aligned and nonaligned, developed and developing. Traditional geographic groupings will increasingly lose salience in international relations. A state-bound world and a world of mega-cities, linked by flows of telecommunications, trade and finance, will co-exist. Competition for allegiances will be more open, less fixed than in the past.

Impact of Globalization

We see globalization—growing interconnectedness reflected in the expanded flows of information, technology, capital, goods, services, and people throughout the world—as an overarching “mega-trend,” a force so ubiquitous that it will substantially shape all the other major trends in the world of 2020. But the future of globalization is not fixed; states and nonstate actors—including both private companies and NGOs—will struggle to shape its contours. Some aspects of globalization—such as the growing global interconnectedness stemming from the information technology (IT) revolution— almost certainly will be irreversible. Yet it is also possible, although unlikely, that the process of globalization could be slowed or even stopped, just as the era of globalization.11 inthe late 19 th and early 20 th centuries was reversed by catastrophic war and global depression.

Barring such a turn of events, the world economy is likely to continue growing impressively: by 2020, it is projected to be about 80 percent larger than it was in 2000, and average per capita income will be roughly 50 percent higher. Of course, there will be cyclical ups and downs and periodic financial or other crises, but this basic growth trajectory has powerful momentum behind it. Most countries around the world, both developed and developing, will benefit from gains in the world economy. By having the fastest-growing consumer markets, more firms becoming world-class multinationals, and greater S&T stature, Asia looks set to displace Western countries as the focus for international economic dynamism—provided Asia’s rapid economic growth continues.

Yet the benefits of globalization won’t be global. Rising powers will see exploiting the opportunities afforded by the emerging global marketplace as the best way to assert their great power status on the world stage. In contrast, some now in the “First World” may see the closing gap with China, India, and others as evidence of a relative decline, even though the older powers are likely to remain global leaders out to 2020. The United States, too, will see its relative power position eroded, though it will remain in 2020 the most important single country across all the dimensions of power. Those left behind in the developing world may resent China and India’s rise, especially if they feel squeezed by their growing dominance in key sectors of the global marketplace. And large pockets of poverty will persist even in “winner” countries.

The greatest benefits of globalization will accrue to countries and groups that can access and adopt new technologies. Indeed, a nation’s level of technological achievement generally will be defined in terms of its investment in integrating and applying the new, globally available technologies—whether the technologies are acquired through a country’s own basic research or from technology leaders. The growing two-way flow of high-tech brain power between the developing world and the West, the increasing size of the information computer-literate work force in some developing countries, and efforts by global corporations to diversify their high-tech operations will foster the spread of new technologies. High-tech breakthroughs—such as in genetically modified organisms and increased food production—could provide a safety net eliminating the threat of starvation and ameliorating basic quality of life issues for poor countries. But the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” will widen unless the “have-not” countries pursue policies that support application of new technologies— such as good governance, universal education, and market reforms. Those countries that pursue such policies could leapfrog stages of development, skipping over phases that other high-tech leaders such as the United States and Europe had to traverse in order to advance. China and India are well positioned to become technology leaders, and even the poorest countries will be able to leverage prolific, cheap technologies to fuel—although at a slower rate—their own development..

• The expected next revolution in high technology involving the convergence of nano-, bio-, information and materials technology could further bolster China and India’s prospects. Both countries are investing in basic research in these fields and are well placed to be leaders in a number of key fields. Europe risks slipping behind Asia in some of these technologies. The United States is still in a position to retain its overall lead, although it must increasingly compete with Asia to retain its edge and may lose significant ground in some sectors.

More firms will become global, and those operating in the global arena will be more diverse, both in size and origin, more Asian and less Western in orientation. Such corporations, encompassing the current, large multinationals, will be increasingly outside the control of any one state and will be key agents of change in dispersing technology widely, further integrating the world economy, and promoting economic progress in the developing world. Their ranks will include a growing number based in such countries as China, India, or Brazil. While North America, Japan, and Europe might collectively continue to dominate international political and financial institutions, globalization will take on an increasingly non-Western character. By 2020, globalization could be equated in the popular mind with a rising Asia, replacing its current association with Americanization.

An expanding global economy will increase demand for many raw materials, such as oil. Total energy consumed probably will rise by about 50 percent in the next two decades compared to a 34 percent expansion from 1980-2000, with a greater share provided by petroleum. Most experts assess that with substantial investment in new capacity, overall energy supplies will be sufficient to meet global demands. But on the supply side, many of the areas—the Caspian Sea, Venezuela, and West Africa—that are being counted on to provide increased output involve substantial political or economic risk. Traditional suppliers in the Middle East are also increasingly unstable. Thus sharper demand-driven competition for resources, perhaps accompanied by a major disruption of oil supplies, is among the key uncertainties.

• China, India, and other developing countries’ growing energy needs suggest a growing preoccupation with energy, shaping their foreign policies.
• For Europe, an increasing preference for natural gas may reinforce regional relationships—such as with Russia or North Africa—given the interdependence of pipeline delivery.

New Challenges to Governance

The nation-state will continue to be the dominant unit of the global order, but economic globalization and the dispersion of technologies, especially information technologies, will place enormous new strains on governments. Growing connectivity will be accompanied by the proliferation of virtual communities of interest, complicating the ability of states to govern. The Internet in particular will spur.13 the creation of even more global movements, which may emerge as a robust force in international affairs.

Part of the pressure on governance will come from new forms of identity politics centered on religious convictions. In a rapidly globalizing world experiencing population shifts, religious identities provide followers with a ready-made community that serves as a “social safety net” in times of need—particularly important to migrants. In particular, political Islam will have a significant global impact leading to 2020, rallying disparate ethnic and national groups and perhaps even creating an authority that transcends national boundaries. A combination of factors—youth bulges in many Arab states, poor economic prospects, the influence of religious education, and the Islamization of such institutions as trade unions, nongovernmental organizations, and political parties—will ensure that political Islam remains a major force.

• Outside the Middle East, political Islam will continue to appeal to Muslim migrants who are attracted to the more prosperous West for employment opportunities but do not feel at home in what they perceive as an alien and hostile culture. Regimes that were able to manage the challenges of the 1990s could be overwhelmed by those of 2020. Contradictory forces will be at work: authoritarian regimes will face new pressures to democratize, but fragile new democracies may lack the adaptive capacity to survive and develop.

The so-called “third wave” of democratization may be partially reversed by 2020—particularly among the states of the former Soviet Union and in Southeast Asia, some of which never really embraced democracy. Yet democratization and greater pluralism could gain ground in key Middle Eastern countries which thus far have been excluded from the process by repressive regimes.

With migration on the increase in several places around the world—from North Africa and the Middle East into Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean into the United States, and increasingly from Southeast Asia into the northern regions—more countries will be multi-ethnic and will face the challenge of integrating migrants into their societies while respecting their ethnic and religious identities.

Chinese leaders will face a dilemma over how much to accommodate pluralistic pressures to relax political controls or risk a popular backlash if they do not. Beijing may pursue an “Asian way of democracy,” which could involve elections at the local level and a consultative mechanism on the national level, perhaps with the Communist Party retaining control over the central government.

With the international system itself undergoing profound flux, some of the institutions that are charged with managing global problems may be overwhelmed by them. Regionally based institutions will be particularly challenged to meet the complex transnational threats posed by terrorism, organized crime, and WMD proliferation. Such post-World War II creations as the United Nations and the.14 international financial institutions risk sliding into obsolescence unless they adjust to the profound changes taking place in the global system, including the rise of new powers.

Pervasive Insecurity

We foresee a more pervasive sense of insecurity—which may be as much based on psychological perceptions as physical threats—by 2020. Even as most of the world gets richer, globalization will profoundly shake up the status quo—generating enormous economic, cultural, and consequently political convulsions. With the gradual integration of China, India, and other emerging countries into the global economy, hundreds of millions of working-age adults will become available for employment in what is evolving into a more integrated world labor market.

• This enormous work force—a growing portion of which will be well educated—will be an attractive, competitive source of low-cost labor at the same time that technological innovation is expanding the range of globally mobile occupations.
• The transition will not be painless and will hit the middle classes of the developed world in particular, bringing more rapid job turnover and requiring professional retooling. Outsourcing on a large scale would strengthen the anti-globalization movement. Where these pressures lead will depend on how political leaders respond, how flexible labor markets become, and whether overall economic growth is sufficiently robust to absorb a growing number of displaced workers. Weak governments, lagging economies, religious extremism, and youth bulges will align to create a perfect storm for internal conflict in certain regions. The number of internal conflicts is down significantly since the late 1980s and early 1990s when the breakup of the Soviet Union and Communist regimes in Central Europe allowed suppressed ethnic and nationalistic strife to flare. Although a leveling off point has been reached where we can expect fewer such conflicts than during the last decade, the continued prevalence of troubled and institutionally weak states means that such conflicts will continue to occur.

Some internal conflicts, particularly those that involve ethnic groups straddling national boundaries, risk escalating into regional conflicts. At their most extreme, internal conflicts can result in failing or failed states, with expanses of territory and populations devoid of effective governmental control. Such territories can become sanctuaries for transnational terrorists (such as al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan) or for criminals and drug cartels (such as in Colombia).

The likelihood of great power conflict escalating into total war in the next 15 years is lower than at any time in the past century, unlike during previous centuries when local conflicts sparked world wars. The rigidities of alliance systems before World War I and during the interwar period, as well as the two-bloc standoff during the Cold War, virtually assured that small conflicts would be quickly generalized. The growing dependence on global financial and trade networks will help deter interstate.15 conflict but does not eliminate the possibility. Should conflict occur that involved one or more of the great powers, the consequences would be significant. The absence of effective conflict resolution mechanisms in some regions, the rise of nationalism in some states, and the raw emotions and tensions on both sides of some issues—for example, the Taiwan Strait or India/Pakistan issues—could lead to miscalculation. Moreover, advances in modern weaponry—longer ranges, precision delivery, and more destructive conventional munitions—create circumstances encouraging the preemptive use of military force.

Current nuclear weapons states will continue to improve the survivability of their deterrent forces and almost certainly will improve the reliability, accuracy, and lethality of their delivery systems as well as develop capabilities to penetrate missile defenses. The open demonstration of nuclear capabilities by any state would further discredit the current nonproliferation regime, cause a possible shift in the balance of power, and increase the risk of conflicts escalating into nuclear ones. Countries without nuclear weapons—especially in the Middle East and Northeast Asia—might decide to seek them as it becomes clear that their neighbors and regional rivals are doing so. Moreover, the assistance of proliferators will reduce the time required for additional countries to develop nuclear weapons

Transmuting International Terrorism

The key factors that spawned international terrorism show no signs of abating over the next15 years. Facilitated by global communications, the revival of Muslim identity will create a framework for the spread of radical Islamic ideology inside and outside the Middle East, including Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Western Europe, where religious identity has traditionally not been as strong. This revival has been accompanied by a deepening solidarity among Muslims caught up in national or regional separatist struggles, such as Palestine, Chechnya, Iraq, Kashmir, Mindanao, and southern Thailand, and has emerged in response to government repression, corruption, and ineffectiveness. Informal networks of charitable foundations, and other mechanisms will continue to proliferate and be exploited by radical elements; alienation among unemployed youths will swell the ranks of those vulnerable to terrorist recruitment.

We expect that by 2020 al-Qa’ida will be superceded by similarly inspired Islamic extremist groups, and there is a substantial risk that broad Islamic movements akin to al-Qa’ida will merge with local separatist movements. Information technology, allowing for instant connectivity, communication, and learning, will enable the terrorist threat to become increasingly decentralized, evolving into an eclectic array of groups, cells, and individuals that do not need a stationary headquarters to plan and carry out operations. Training materials, targeting guidance, weapons know-how, and fund-raising will become virtual (i.e., online).

Terrorist attacks will continue to primarily employ conventional weapons, incorporating new twists and constantly adapting to counterterrorist efforts. Terrorists probably will be most original not in the technologies or weapons they use but rather in their operational concepts—i.e., the scope, design, or support arrangements for attacks.

Strong terrorist interest in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons increases the risk of a major terrorist attack involving WMD. Our greatest concern is that terrorists might acquire biological agents or, less likely, a nuclear device, either of which could cause mass casualties. Bioterrorism appears particularly suited to the smaller, better-informed groups. We also expect that terrorists will attempt cyber attacks to disrupt critical information networks and, even more likely, to cause physical damage to information systems.

Possible Futures

In this era of great flux, we see several ways in which major global changes could take shape in the next 15 years, from seriously challenging the nation-state system to establishing a more robust and inclusive globalization. In the body of this paper we develop these concepts in four fictional scenarios which were extrapolated from the key trends we discuss in this report. These scenarios are not meant as actual forecasts, but they describe possible worlds upon whose threshold we may be entering, depending on how trends interweave and play out:

• Davos World provides an illustration of how robust economic growth, led by China and India, over the next 15 years could reshape the globalization process—giving it a more non-Western face and transforming the political playing field as well.
• Pax Americana takes a look at how US predominance may survive the radical changes to the global political landscape and serve to fashion a new and inclusive global order.
• A New Caliphate provides an example of how a global movement fueled by radical religious identity politics could constitute a challenge to Western norms and values as the foundation of the global system.
• Cycle of Fear provides an example of how concerns about proliferation might increase to the point that large-scale intrusive security measures are taken to prevent outbreaks of deadly attacks, possibly introducing an Orwellian world.

Of course, these scenarios illustrate just a few of the possible futures that may develop over the next 15 years, but the wide range of possibilities we can imagine suggests that this period will be characterized by increased flux, particularly in contrast to the relative stasis of the Cold War era. The scenarios are not mutually exclusive: we may see two or three of these scenarios unfold in some combination or a wide range of other scenarios..

Policy Implications

The role of the United States will be an important shaper of the international order in 2020. Washington may be increasingly confronted with the challenge of managing—at an acceptable cost to itself—relations with Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and others absent a single overarching threat on which to build consensus. Although the challenges ahead will be daunting, the United States will retain enormous advantages, playing a pivotal role across the broad range of issues—economic, technological, political, and military—that no other state will match by 2020. Some trends we probably can bank on include dramatically altered alliances and relationships with Europe and Asia, both of which formed the bedrock of US power in the post-World War II period. The EU, rather than NATO, will increasingly become the primary institution for Europe, and the role which Europeans shape for themselves on the world stage is most likely to be projected through it. Dealing with the US-Asia relationship may arguably be more challenging for Washington because of the greater flux resulting from the rise of two world-class economic and political giants yet to be fully integrated into the international order. Where US-Asia relations lead will result as much or more from what the Asians work out among themselves as any action by Washington. One could envisage a range of possibilities from the US enhancing its role as balancer between contending forces to Washington being seen as increasingly irrelevant.

The US economy will become more vulnerable to fluctuations in the fortunes of others as global commercial networking deepens. US dependence on foreign oil supplies also makes it more vulnerable as the competition for secure access grows and the risks of supply side disruptions increase.

While no single country looks within striking distance of rivaling US military power by 2020, more countries will be in a position to make the United States pay a heavy price for any military action they oppose. The possession of chemical, biological, and/or nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea and the possible acquisition of such weapons by others by 2020 also increase the potential cost of any military action by the US against them or their allies.

The success of the US-led counterterrorism campaign will hinge on the capabilities and resolve of individual countries to fight terrorism on their own soil. Counterterrorism efforts in the years ahead—against a more diverse set of terrorists who are connected more by ideology than by geography—will be a more elusive challenge than focusing on a centralized organization such as al-Qa’ida. A counterterrorism strategy that approaches the problem on multiple fronts offers the greatest chance of containing—and ultimately reducing—the terrorist threat. The development of more open political systems and representation, broader economic opportunities, and empowerment of Muslim reformers would be viewed positively by the broad Muslim communities who do not support the radical agenda of Islamic extremists..18 Even if the numbers of extremists dwindle, however, the terrorist threat is likely to remain. The rapid dispersion of biological and other lethal forms of technology increases the potential for an individual not affiliated with any terrorist group to be able to wreak widespread loss of life. Despite likely high-tech breakthroughs that will make it easier to track and detect terrorists at work, the attacker will have an easier job than the defender because the defender must prepare against a large array of possibilities. The United States probably will continue to be called on to help manage such conflicts as Palestine, North Korea, Taiwan, and Kashmir to ensure they do not get out of hand if a peace settlement cannot be reached. However, the scenarios and trends we analyze in the paper suggest the possibility of harnessing the power of the new players in contributing to global security and relieving the US of some of the burden.

Over the next 15 years the increasing centrality of ethical issues, old and new, have the potential to divide worldwide publics and challenge US leadership. These issues include the environment and climate change, privacy, cloning and biotechnology, human rights, international law regulating conflict, and the role of multilateral institutions. The United States increasingly will have to battle world public opinion, which has dramatically shifted since the end of the Cold War. Some of the current anti-Americanism is likely to lessen as globalization takes on more of a non-Western face. At the same time, the younger generation of leaders—unlike during the post-World War II period—has no personal recollection of the United States as its “liberator” and is more likely to diverge with Washington’s thinking on a range of issues. In helping to map out the global future, the United States will have many opportunities to extend its advantages, particularly in shaping a new international order that integrates disparate regions and reconciles divergent interests..

Introduction

The international order is in the midst of profound change: at no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such a state of flux as they have during the past decade. As a result, the world of 2020 will differ markedly from the world of 2004, and in the intervening years the United States will face major international challenges that differ significantly from those we face today. The very magnitude and speed of change resulting from a globalizing world—regardless of its precise character—will be a defining feature of the world out to 2020. Other significant characteristics include:

• The contradictions of globalization.
• Rising powers: the changing geopolitical landscape.
• New challenges to governance.
• A more pervasive sense of insecurity. As with previous upheavals, the seeds of major change have been laid in the trends apparent today. Underlying the broad characteristics listed above are a number of specific trends that overlap and play off each other:
• The expanding global economy.
• The accelerating pace of scientific change and the dispersion of dual-use technologies.
• Lingering social inequalities.
• Emerging powers.
• The global aging phenomenon.
• Halting democratization.
• A spreading radical Islamic ideology.
• The potential for catastrophic terrorism.
• The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
• Increased pressures on international institutions.

As we survey the next 15 years, the role of the United States will be an important variable in how the world is shaped, influencing the path that states and nonstate actors choose to follow. In addition to the pivotal role of the United States, international bodies including international organizations, multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and others can mitigate distinctly negative trends, such as greater insecurity, and advance positive trends

The Contradictions of Globalization

Whereas in Global Trends 2015 we viewed globalization—growing interconnectedness reflected in the expanded flows of information, technology, capital, goods, services, and people throughout the world—as among an array of key drivers, we now view it more as a “mega-trend”—a force so ubiquitous that it will substantially shape all of the other major trends in the world of 2020.

“[By 2020] globalization is likely to take on much more of a ‘non-Western’ face…”

The reach of globalization was substantially broadened during the last 20 years by Chinese and Indian economic liberalization, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the worldwide information technology revolution. Through the next 15 years, it will sustain world economic growth, raise world living standards, and substantially deepen global interdependence. At the same time, it will profoundly shake up the status quo almost everywhere—generating enormous economic, cultural, and consequently political convulsions.

Certain aspects of globalization, such as the growing global inter-connectedness stemming from the information technology revolution, are likely to be irreversible. Real-time communication, which has transformed politics almost everywhere, is a phenomenon that even repressive governments would find difficult to expunge.

• It will be difficult, too, to turn off the phenomenon of entrenched economic interdependence, although the pace of global economic expansion may ebb and flow. Interdependence has widened the effective reach of multinational business, enabling smaller firms as well as large multinationals to market across borders and bringing heretofore non-traded services into the international arena.

Yet the process of globalization, powerful as it is, could be substantially slowed or even reversed, just as the era of globalization in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries was reversed by catastrophic war and global depression. Some features that we associate with the globalization of the 1990s—such as economic and political liberalization—are prone to “fits and starts” and probably will depend on progress in multilateral negotiations, improvements in national governance, and the reduction of conflicts. The freer flow of people across national borders will continue to face social and political obstacles even when there is a pressing need for migrant workers.

“India and China probably will be among the economic heavyweights or ‘haves.’’

An Expanding and Integrating Global Economy

The world economy is projected to be about 80 percent larger in 2020 than it was in 2000 and average per capita income to be roughly 50 percent higher. Large parts of the world will enjoy unprecedented prosperity, and a numerically large middle class will be created for the first time in some formerly poor countries. The social structures in

What Could Derail Globalization?

The process of globalization, powerful as it is, could be substantially slowed or even stopped. Short of a major global conflict, which we regard as improbable, another large-scale development that we believe could stop globalization would be a pandemic. However, other catastrophic developments, such as terrorist attacks, could slow its speed.

Some experts believe it is only a matter of time before a new pandemic appears, such as the 1918–1919 influenza virus that killed an estimated 20 million worldwide. Such a pandemic in megacities of the developing world with poor health-care systems—in Sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, Bangladesh or Pakistan—would be devastating and could spread rapidly throughout the world. Globalization would be endangered if the death toll rose into the millions in several major countries and the spread of the disease put a halt to global travel and trade during an extended period, prompting governments to expend enormous resources on overwhelmed health sectors. On the positive side of the ledger, the response to SARS showed that international surveillance and control mechanisms are becoming more adept at containing diseases, and new developments in biotechnologies hold the promise of continued improvement.

A slow-down could result from a pervasive sense of economic and physical insecurity that led governments to put controls on the flow of capital, goods, people, and technology that stalled economic growth. Such a situation could come about in response to terrorist attacks killing tens or even hundreds of thousands in several US cities or in Europe or to widespread cyber attacks on information technology. Border controls and restrictions on technology exchanges would increase economic transaction costs and hinder innovation and economic growth. Other developments that could stimulate similar restrictive policies include a popular backlash against globalization prompted, perhaps, by white collar rejection of outsourcing in the wealthy countries and/or resistance in poor countries whose peoples saw themselves as victims of globalization. those developing countries will be transformed as growth creates a greater middle class. Over a long time frame, there is the potential, so long as the expansion continues, for more traditionally poor countries to be pulled closer into the globalization circle. Most forecasts to 2020 and beyond continue to show higher annual growth for developing countries than for high-income ones. Countries such as China and India will be in a position to achieve higher economic growth than Europe and Japan, whose aging work forces may inhibit their growth. Given its enormous population— and assuming a reasonable degree of real currency appreciation—the dollar value of China’s gross national product (GNP) may be the second largest in the world by 2020. For similar reasons, the value of India’s output could match that of a large European country. The economies of other developing countries, such as Brazil and Indonesia, could surpass all but the largest European economies by 2020.

• Even with all their dynamic growth, Asia’s “giants” and others are not likely to compare qualitatively to the economies of the US or even some of the other rich countries. They will have some dynamic, world-class sectors, but more of their populations will work on farms, their capital stocks will be less sophisticated, and their financial systems are likely to be less efficient than those of other wealthy countries.

Continued Economic Turbulence.

Sustained high-growth rates have historical precedents. China already has had about two decades of 7 percent and higher growth rates, and Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have managed in the past to achieve annual rates averaging around 10 percent for a long period. Fast-developing countries have historically suffered sudden setbacks, however, and economic turbulence is increasingly likely to spill over and upset broader international relations. Many emerging markets—such as Mexico in the mid-1990s and Asian countries in the late 1990s—suffered negative effects from the abrupt reversals of capital movements, and China and India may encounter similar problems. The scale of the potential reversals would be unprecedented, and it is unclear whether current international financial mechanisms would be in a position to forestall wider economic disruption.

“Competitive pressures will force companies based in the advanced economies to ‘outsource’ many blue- and white-collar jobs.” With the gradual integration of China, India, and other developing countries into the global economy, hundreds of millions of working-age adults will join what is becoming, through trade and investment flows, a more interrelated world labor market. World patterns of production, trade, employment, and wages will be transformed.

• This enormous work force—a growing portion of which will be well educated—will be an attractive, competitive source of low-cost labor at the same time that technological innovation is expanding the range of globally mobile occupations.
• Competition from these workers will increase job “churning,” necessitate professional retooling, and restrain wage growth in some occupations. Where these labor market pressures lead will depend on how political leaders and policymakers respond. Against the backdrop of a global economic recession, such resources could unleash widespread protectionist sentiments. As long as sufficiently robust economic growth and labor market flexibility are sustained, however, intense international competition is unlikely to cause net job “loss” in the advanced economies.
• The large number of new service sector jobs that will be created in India and elsewhere in the developing world, for example, will likely exceed the supply of workers with those specific skills in the advanced economies.
• Job turnover in advanced economies will continue to be driven more by technological change and the vicissitudes of domestic rather than international competition. Mobility and Laggards. Although the living standards of many people in developing and underdeveloped countries will rise over the next 15 years, per capita incomes in most countries will not compare to those of Western nations by 2020. There will continue to be large numbers of poor even in the rapidly emerging economies, and the proportion of those in the middle stratum is likely to be significantly less than is the case for today’s developed nations. Experts estimate it could take China another 30 years beyond 2020 for per capita incomes to reach current rates in developed economies.
• Even if, as one study estimates, China’s middle class could make up as much as 40 percent of its population by 2020—double what it is now—it would be still well below the 60 percent level for the US. And per capita income for China’s middle class would be substantially less than equivalents in the West.
• In India, there are now estimated to be some 300 million middle-income earners making $2,000-$4,000 a year. Both the number of middle earners and their income levels are likely to rise rapidly, but their incomes will continue to be substantially below averages in the US and other rich countries even by 2020.
• However, a $3,000 annual income is considered sufficient to spur car purchases in Asia; thus rapidly rising income levels for a growing middle class will combine to mean a huge consumption explosion, which is already evident.

Widening income and regional disparities will not be incompatible with a growing middle class and increasing overall wealth. In India, although much of the westand southmay have alarge middle class by 2020, a number of regions such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa will remain underdeveloped.

Moreover, countries not connected to the world economy will continue to suffer. Even the most optimistic forecasts admit that economic growth fueled by globalization will leave many countries in poverty over the next 15 years. •Scenarios developed by the World Bank indicate, for example, that Sub-Saharan Africa will be far behind even under the most optimistic scenario. The region currently has the largest share of people living on less than $1 per day.

If the growing problem of abject poverty and bad governance in troubled states in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eurasia, the Middle East, and Latin America persists, these areas will become more fertile grounds for terrorism, organized crime, and pandemic disease. Forced migration also is likely to be an important dimension of any downward spiral. The international community is likely to face choices about whether, how, and at what cost to intervene.

“…the greatest benefits of globalization will accrue to countries and groups that can access and adopt new technologies.”

The Technology Revolution

The trend toward rapid, global diffusion of technology will continue, although the stepped-up technology revolution will not benefit everyone equally.

• Among the drivers of the growing availability of technology will be the growing two-way flow of high-tech brain power between developing countries and Western countries, the increasing size of the technologically literate workforce in some developing countries, and efforts by multinational corporations to diversify their high-tech operations.

New technology applications will foster dramatic improvements in human knowledge and individual well-being. Such benefits include medical breakthroughs that begin to cure or mitigate some common diseases and stretch lifespans, applications that improve food and potable water production, and expansion of wireless communications and language translation technologies that will facilitate transnational business, commercial, and even social and political relationships.

Moreover, future technology trends will be marked not only by accelerating advancements in individual technologies but also by a force-multiplying convergence of the technologies— information, biological, materials, and nanotechnologies—that have the potential to revolutionize all dimensions of life. Materials enabled with nanotechnology’s sensors and facilitated by information technology will produce myriad devices that will enhance health and alter business practices and models. Such materials will provide new knowledge about environment, improve security, and reduce privacy. Such interactions of these technology trends— coupled with agile manufacturing methods and equipment as well as energy, water, and transportation technologies—will help China’s and India’s prospects for joining the “First World.” Both countries are investing in basic research in these fields and are well placed to be leaders in a number of key fields. Europe risks slipping behind Asia in creating some of these technologies.

The United States is still in a position to retain its overall lead, although it must increasingly compete with Asia and may lose significant ground in some sectors. To Adaptive Nations Go Technology ‘s Spoils. The gulf between “haves” and “have-nots” may widen as the greatest benefits of globalization accrue to countries and groups that can access and.35 adopt new technologies. Indeed, a nation’s level of technological achievement generally will be defined in terms of its investment in integrating and applying the new, globally available technologies—whether the technologies are acquired through a country’s own basic research or from technology leaders. Nations that remain behind in adopting technologies are likely to be those that have failed to pursue policies that support application of new technologies—such as good governance, universal education, and market reforms—and not solely because they are poor.

Those that employ such policies can leapfrog stages of development, skipping over phases that other high-tech leaders such as the United States and Europe had to traverse in order to advance. China and India are well positioned to achieve such breakthroughs. Yet, even the poorest countries will be able to leverage prolific, cheap technologies to fuel—although at a slower rate—their own development.

• As nations like China and India surge forward in funding critical science and engineering education, research, and other infrastructure investments, they will make considerable strides in manufacturing and marketing a full range of technology applications— from software and pharmaceuticals to wireless sensors and smart-materials products.

Rapid technological advances outside the United States could enable other countries to set the rules for design, standards, and implementation, and for molding privacy, information security, and intellectual property rights (IPR). •Indeed, international IPR enforcement is on course for dramatic change. Countries like China and India will, because of the purchasing power of their huge markets, be able to shape the implementation of some technologies and step on the intellectual property rights of others. The attractiveness of these large markets will tempt multinational firms to overlook IPR indiscretions that only minimally affect their bottom lines. Additionally, as many of the expected advancements in technology are anticipated to be in medicine, there will be increasing pressure from a humanitarian and moral perspective to “release” the property rights “for the good of mankind.”

Nations also will face serious challenges in oversight, control, and prohibition of sensitive technologies. With the same technology, such as sensors, computing, communication, and materials, increasingly being developed for a range of applications in both everyday, commercial settings and in critical military applications the monitoring and control of the export of technological components will become more difficult. Moreover, joint ventures, globalized markets and the growing proportion of private sector capital in basic R&D will undermine nation-state efforts to keep tabs on sensitive technologies.

• Questions concerning a country’s ethical practices in the technology realm—such as with genetically modified foods, data privacy, biological material research, concealable sensors, and biometric devices—may become an increasingly important factor in international trade policy and foreign relations..

Biotechnology: Panacea and Weapon

The biotechnological revolution is at a relatively early stage, and major advances in the biological sciences coupled with information technology will continue to punctuate the 21st century. Research will continue to foster important discoveries in innovative medical and public health technologies, environmental remediation, agriculture, biodefense, and related fields.

On the positive side, biotechnology could be a “leveling” agent between developed and developing nations, spreading dramatic economic and healthcare enhancements to the neediest areas of the world.

• Possible breakthroughs in biomedicine such as an antiviral barrier will reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, helping to resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa and diminishing the potentially serious drag on economic growth in developing countries like India and China. Biotechnology research and innovations derived from continued US investments in Homeland Security—such as new therapies that might block a pathogen’s ability to enter the body—may eventually have revolutionary healthcare applications that extend beyond protecting the US from a terrorist attack.
• More developing countries probably will invest in indigenous biotechnology developments, while competitive market pressures increasingly will induce firms and research institutions to seek technically capable partners in developing countries. However, even as the dispersion of biotechnology promises a means of improving the quality of life, it also poses a major security concern. As biotechnology information becomes more widely available, the number of people who can potentially misuse such information and wreak widespread loss of life will increase. An attacker would appear to have an easier job—because of the large array of possibilities available—than the defender, who must prepare against them all. Moreover, as biotechnology advances become more ubiquitous, stopping the progress of offensive BW programs will become increasingly difficult. Over the next 10 to 20 years there is a risk that advances in biotechnology will augment not only defensive measures but also offensive biological warfare (BW) agent development and allow the creation of advanced biological agents designed to target specific systems—human, animal, or crop.

Lastly, some biotechnology techniques that may facilitate major improvements in health also will spur serious ethical and privacy concerns over such matters as comprehensive genetic profiling; stem cell research; and the possibility of discovering DNA signatures that indicate predisposition for disease, certain cognitive abilities, or anti-social behavior..

At the same time, technology will be a source of tension in 2020: from competition over creating and attracting the most critical component of technological advancement—people—to resistance among some cultural or political groups to the perceived privacy-robbing or homogenizing effects of pervasive technology.

Lingering Social Inequalities

Even with the potential for technological breakthroughs and the dispersion of new technologies, which could help reduce inequalities, significant social welfare disparities within the developing and between developing and OECD countries will remain until 2020.

Over the next 15 years, illiteracy rates of people 15 years and older will fall, according to UNESCO, but they will still be 17 times higher in poor and developing countries than those in OECD 5 countries. Moreover, illiteracy rates among women will be almost twice as high as those among men. Between 1950 and 1980 life expectancy between the more- and less-developed nations began to converge markedly; this probably will continue to be the case for many developing countries, including the most populous. However, by US Census Bureau projections, over 40 countries— including many African countries, Central Asian states, and Russia—are projected

5 The OECD, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an outgrowth of the Marshall Plan-era Organization for European Economic Cooperation, boasts 30 members from among developed and emerging-market nations and active relationships with 70 others around the world. to have a lower life expectancy in 2010 than they did in 1990.

Even if effective HIV/AIDS prevention measures are adopted in various countries, the social and economic impact of the millions already infected with the disease will play out over the next 15 years.

• The rapid rise in adult deaths caused by AIDS has left an unprecedented number of orphans in Africa. Today in some African countries one in ten children is an orphan, and the situation is certain to worsen. The debilitation and death of millions of people resulting from the AIDS pandemic will have a growing impact on the economies of the hardest-hit countries, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 20 million are believed to have died from HIV/AIDS since the early 1980s. Studies show that household incomes drop by 50 to 80 percent when key earners become infected. In “second wave” HIV/AIDS countries—Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, India, China, Brazil, Ukraine, and the Central Asian states—the disease will continue to spread beyond traditional high-risk groups into the general population. As HIV/AIDS spreads, it has the potential to derail the economic prospects of many up-and-coming economic powers..