DIGGING DEEPER LXIII: 2025 -- A world transformed?

Details

On Mon. evening, Dec. 1, UFPPC's book discussion group will examine the just-released report of the National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025 — A World Transformed.[1]  --  This 120-page document is available on the NIC’s web site and is the fourth such report by the U.S. government — but the first to anticipates that it is likely that in the foreseeable future that U.S. power will decline to the point that U.S. forces will no longer be able to act unilaterally in the world.  --  Digging Deeper meets Mondays from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mandolin Café (3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma)....

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WHAT:  Digging Deeper LXIII: 2025 -- A World Transformed?
WHO:  Led by Mark Jensen
WHEN:  Monday, December 1, 2008 -- 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
WHERE:  Mandolin Café, 3923 South 12th St., Tacoma, WA 98405

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United for Peace
of Pierce County
Study Circle:
December 1, 2008
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www.ufppc.org
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UFPPC study circle

DIGGING DEEPER LXIII: 2025 -- A world transformed?

On Dec. 1, Digging Deeper will examine Global Trends 2025—A World Transformed, published on November 20, 2008, by the National Intelligence Council (NIC). This 120-page document available on the NIC’s web site is the fourth installment in an effort to produce between Election Day and Inauguration Day reports identifying key trends and likely developments that will influence events around the world during the next ten to fifteen years. Each edition of Global Trends has drawn on larger and more diverse communities of experts. The first attempt, in 1996, drew primarily on U.S. intelligence agencies. The second, in 2000, turned to groups of non-USG but still mostly American-dominated groups. The third attempt, Global Trends 2020, was published in 2004, and convened six seminars of non-American specialists from five continents. Global Trends 2025 used the Internet to share drafts with participants around the world, and is thus the most collaborative of the series, drawing on the thinking of hundreds of people.

The NIC was formed in 1979. Its mission is to provide midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the U.S. national security state’s “intelligence community” by producing National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) and other documents like this one. The NIC reports to the director of national intelligence (currently John McConnell), responds to questions from policymakers, and acts as a bridge to academia and the private sector. It aspires to produce analytical judgments that are independent of current U.S. policy. Remarkably, *Global Trends 2025* anticipates that by 2025 U.S. power will probably decline to the point that U.S. forces will no longer be able to act unilaterally in the world.

Among those collaborating in producing Global Trends 2025 were SRI International (originally founded by Stanford University in 1946 as the Stanford Research Institute but since 1977 a fully independent non-profit) and PFC Energy (a global consulting firm), as well as members of many of the think tanks that have proliferated since Lewis F. Powell Jr. laid out in a confidential August 23, 1971, memorandum to leaders of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce a strategy to change the public’s thinking about the role of corporations in society by influencing education and the media in ways favorable to business. Others among those involved in producing Global Trends 2025: the Evian Group, Global Business Network, the Brookings Institute, the Wilson Center, the American Enterprise Institute, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and Toffler Associates.

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Since July 2004, United for Peace of Pierce County (www.ufppc.org) has been conducting “Digging Deeper,” a Monday-evening book discussion group, often in the form of a study circle. Topics have included peak oil, climate change, the corporation, torture, Iran, U.S.-Iran relations, the writings of Robert Baer, Islam, American immigration policy, Barack Obama and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Saul Alinsky’s life and writings, war and human nature, parallels between the U.S. and ancient Rome, the sustainability revolution, and the debt crisis, as well as abiding themes of war, peace, politics, and social change. Occasionally, the group has spent several weeks reading longer works, like Daniel Yergin’s The Prize or Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation.

DIGGING DEEPER meets every Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mandolin Café, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, WA.

Participation is free and all who are interested are welcome. For more information contact Mark Jensen (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).