A new world order by 2030

It is not a prediction, but rather a close look at trends that are expected to shape the world in the coming two decades and the players who are going to affect and be affected by these changes. That was a gist of a new report released last month by the US National Intelligence Council and titled: Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds.
High on these trends taking place in today’s world, which will have their impact in the future, is the growing tendency to empower the individual through expanding middle class. This is being achieved with poverty reducing programs, spreading cheap, effective technologies, growing urbanization — where 60 percent of world population, is expected to grow from 7.1 billion to 8.3 billion by 2030, will be living in cities. And the urbanization will be coupled with growing migration within and across the states.
The migration will be fueled by the aging trend especially in the Western, industrialized countries where more and more are crossing the median age of 45 years.
In addition this migration and urbanization will fuel more demand for more goods and services and water, food, energy supplies and prices are expected to be under huge strain.
Moreover, the period under review is also expected to witness a clear economic shift as the United States, Europe and Japan’s share in the world economy is slated to drop from 56 percent to below 50 percent in the two decades to come. That trend will not only reverse a rising graph of the West that has been in the making for more than two centuries, or since 1750 in particular, but will also introduce clearly the emergence of Asia as a leading economic power in terms of more production and younger population.
In addition growing programs of poverty reduction, expanding middle class and use of cheap, powerful technology will lead in part to growing migration trends with each county and across states. That in itself and coupled with growing population and urbanization will put pressure on water, food and energy and impact supplies and prices.
With these trends, the question to ask is whether governments and institutions will be able to manage such changes or be overwhelmed by them. Conflicts especially in the Middle East and Africa are expected to attract more attention given the abundance in resources in these regions to provide food and energy in particular. The Middle East is undergoing huge changes in terms of its politico-social and economic setup. And the urgent question is whether these regions will be able to manage these conflicts, or at least contain them or they will spill over to pose regional and may be world dangers.
That raises the question about what kind of a world order will emerge in the coming couple of decades and what kind of new world, the new players — mainly China and India — will be looking for. According to the report, it is unlikely that there will be a revisionist view like going back to what Nazi German or Imperial Japan had advocated in terms of shaping new relationships.
Rather this empowerment of societies at both levels of individuals and states will give more emphasis to people and societies more than to governments and their institutions.
In addition, the United States, which has been the dominant force on world stage for more than half a century is moving into some kind of isolation, where its emphasis will be more on its domestic affairs trying to overcome decades of political and economic overspending.
This on one hand will give developing countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa more room to maneuver than if there is pressure from outside that sometimes clash with their cultural and social backgrounds.
But the globalization and the growing need to address scarcity issues or at least growing demand for food, water and energy resources will put more pressures on governments in the region on two levels: How to manage the resources they own and how to how to meet the needs of their growing societies in the future bearing in mind that they are very young societies, which will be an ongoing challenge.

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