Long-Term Trend Projections and Alternative Scenarios, Part Two

Yesterday, we considered an example of long-term futurology developed by the Project on National Security Reform(PNSR). The nine scenarios selected from Alternative National Security Futures (2008-2060) speculate about our possible futures in three successive stages – 2020, 2040 and 2060.  Two of the most dramatic scenarios, set in 2020, describe a major biological attack that affects half of the world’s population and an asymmetric and undeclared war between the U.S. and another nuclear-armed great power, in this case China.  The more distant scenarios include a competition for high-value resources on the moon and the widespread application of nanotechnology to conventional warfare.  Today, we continue our look at long-term forecasting with two additional studies, the 2008 report Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, produced by the US National Intelligence Council, and the recent African Futures 2050: The Next 40 Years, produced by the South African Institute for Security Studies.  It is not unfair to say that the first report reflects a rather conservative approach to global change, while the second demonstrates that even a sober approach to long-term forecasting can lead to predictions that are genuinely innovative and original.

Global Trends 2025 believes that the international system will become genuinely multipolar in the coming years.  Although multipolar systems tend to be prone to conflict, the report argues that by 2025 the world will most likely resemble the 19^th century, with its familiar arms races, territorial expansionism and military rivalries. This system-wide evolution, however, will not represent a simple return to the past. On the contrary, multiple actors and competing sources of political identity will make for an international order that is far more dynamic and complex than the one that led to the death of five tottering empires in 1914-1918.

More specifically, the report echoes other forecasts (see CSS’s Strategic Trends 2011) in predicting a redistribution of wealth and economic power “roughly from West to East” with “no other countries projected to rise to the level of China, India or Russia” or “match their individual global clout.”  Complementing this trend will be the sustained political pressures caused by economic growth and a growing competition over strategic resources, to include energy, water and food.  In terms of energy, viable technological alternatives to hydrocarbons may exist by 2025, but it is questionable if the incentives to adopt them on a wide enough scale will exist by then. In turn, terrorism, though less widespread than now, will become more technologically sophisticated and dangerous.  The use by terrorists groups of advanced tactical weapons will become more common and the availability of biological, radiological and chemical weapons will grow.  In fact, the chances of a hostile nuclear detonation, terrorist or otherwise, “though remaining very low,” will nevertheless increase.   

Unsurprisingly, the report further suggests that the big losers of 2025 will be Europe and Japan, where ageing populations and inadequate immigration policies will continue to undercut economic growth and capabilities.  In the U.S., where birth rates are higher, the effect will be less severe and will most likely be offset by immigration.  Continued bad governance and counter-productive populism will also keep Latin America lagging behind other parts of the world in 2025. Sub-Saharan Africa may become more geopolitically significant, but will nevertheless remain economically vulnerable, politically unstable, and conflict-ridden.  Indeed, increased global demand for African resources will serve only to entrench corrupt and weak governments and delay much-needed market and political reform.

The above projection for the future of Africa appears to have a degree of consensus. (For more, please see our previous strategic forecasting reading lists). The South African Institute for Security Studies is not, however, part of this herd. In its African Futures 2050: The Next 40 Years, it promotes the idea that Africa could be on the brink of an economic renaissance.  According to the data sets used by African Futures, the rate of economic growth in Africa climbed steadily from just over 1 percent in 1991 to more than 5 percent in 1999 and then improved to 4-6 percent per annum in the 2000s.  Better things are yet to come, however. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of African countries (at purchasing power parity) could rise from almost $3 trillion today to as much as $13.4 trillion by 2050.  (By comparison, the projected GDP of Europe in 2050 is expected to be approximately $20 trillion.)

Three countries will most likely account for this rise – Nigeria, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Each of these economies is growing by more than 5 percent annually and will continue to do so, primarily because basic industries will continue to expand and the size of their productivity-enhancing populations will grow from a total of 320 million to over 640 million people by 2050.  Additionally, there are the added benefits of natural resources and strategic minerals. As the economist Paul Collier has written, the value per square kilometer of known mineral and energy deposits in Africa is currently less than a quarter of the figure for the well-explored countries of the OECD.  Unless Africa’s natural resources prove to be poor when compared to Europe and North America, which is highly unlikely, “massive future discoveries” of oil, gold, chromium and platinum are virtually “inevitable” in the long-term.  Finally, by 2050 we will see a wholesale diversification of African economies towards the manufacturing and service sectors.  As China, Vietnam, Indonesia and India eventually move up the production value chain, Africa will become the world’s new destination for cheap labor.

In the specific case of South Africa, which is currently the largest economy on the continent and arguably the most important sub-Saharan state, its per capita GDP is expected to grow to more than $25,000 by 2050. Impressive as that may seem, it will be outstripped by Egypt as Africa’s largest economy by 2014, which in turn will be outdone by Nigeria in 2026. These statistics then tell us an additional story.  Although continental hegemony is a very distant prospect for any of these powers, even by 2050, the aggregate capabilities they represent could well make Africa an important geopolitical player in its own right.  

African Futures closes by admitting the obvious – Africa will continue to have its problems.  Chronic food insecurity, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases, high degrees of infant mortality, poor infrastructure, weak governance, general corruption, war and exploitation are just a few of the familiar curses the continent is still struggling with.  Much progress will have to be made against these and other challenges before any talk of an African economic renaissance can be seriously entertained.  Moreover, generalized good news stories may be hazardous to a future forecaster’s health when we consider that Equatorial Guinea has a per capita GDP of $20,000 and Burundi $200. But these challenges should not allow us to treat Africa as a mere source of commodities, an endlessly needy zone for humanitarian action, or an object of international intervention (to halt the spread of instability).  As the African Futures report indicates, too many forecasters are already guilty of that sin.

Recommended Reading

external page “Africa: Will the Continent Break Through,” in Juggernaut: How the Rise of Developing Countries Is Reshaping the World Economy; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011

external page The Futures Report 2011 ; Global Futures and Foresight, 2011

external page World Order in 2050 ; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010

external page Will the Global Crisis Lead to Global Transformations?; external page Grinin, Leonid ; external page Korotayev, Andrey: Journal of Globalization Studies, 2010

external page The Global Future and Its Policy Implications: Views from Leading Thinkers of Five Continents; Atlantic Council of the United States, 2009

external page The Global Future and Its Policy Implications: The Views from Johannesburg, Lagos and Cairo;Atlantic Council of the United States, 2009

Global Risks 2008 ; World Economic Forum, 2008

Strategic Challenges ; Institute for National Strategic Studies, 2008

Emerging Threats in the 21st Century - Strategic Foresight and Warning; Center for Security Studies, 2007

The World in 2030: Regional Trends ; Il Centro Militare di Studi Strategici, 2007

external page Global Demography: Face, Force and Future ; World Demographic Association, 2006

Global Futures and Implications for US Basing ; Atlantic Council of the United States, 2005

Globalization and Future Architectures: Mapping the Global Future 2020 Project; Chatham House, 2005

Mapping the Global Future ; National Intelligence Council, 2004

In case you have missed any of our previous content on Forecasting in the Real World, you can catch up here on: The external page Short-Term, the   Mid-Term and the Long-Term(part one) Outlook