US

Intelligence report says world domination over

Article published on the 2008-11-21 Latest update 2008-11-21 18:41 TU

US President-elect Barack Obama during a meeting in his transition office in Chicago
(Photo: Reuters)

The US's National Intelligence Council (NIC) declares "We can no longer call the shots alone," in a global trends report which sees China, India and Russia as rising power and predicts that the European Union will be a "hobbled giant" by 2025. The four-yearly report pools the analysis of all US intelligence agencies. It predicts uncertain times, as Barack Obama prepares to become US President.

The 121-page report, called Global Trends 2025 - a world transformed, warns that US interests will face challenges if China becomes a peer competitor with a strong military and an energy-hungry economy.

"Few countries are poised to have more impact on the world over the next 15-20 years than China," the report said. "If current trends persist, by 2025 China will have the world's second largest economy and will be a leading military power."

But it adds that China's and India's is "not guaranteed and will require overcoming high economic and social hurdles".

The European Union is likely to be "losing clout" by 2025 because of "a democracy gap" between Brussels and European people, which will prevent it translating its economic power into global influence.

The NIC foresees a fragemented world, "ramshackle" international institutions and more state control of wealth in the wake of  the current financial crisis.

And it says that "the western model of economic liberalism, democracy and secularism ... which many assumed to be inevitable, may lose its lustre - at last in the medium term."

The United States has in the recent period lost a significant part of the international and global influence that it held in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War," says Paris-based analyst Philip Golub.

Then American leaders "thought they were going to be for a very long period of time the dominant power in international relations," he told RFI.

Four years ago the report predicted "continued US dominance".