Disease, the rich-poor gap, climate change and conflicts within and among nations will pose greater challenges in coming decades, with the COVID-19 pandemic already worsening some of those problems, a US intelligence report said on Thursday.
The rivalry between China and a US-led coalition of Western nations will likely intensify, fueled by military power shifts, demographics, technology and “hardening divisions over governance models,” said Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World, produced by the US National Intelligence Council.
Regional powers and non-state actors might exert greater influence, with the likely result “a more conflict-prone and volatile geopolitical environment” and weakened international cooperation, it said.
The report by top US intelligence analysts, which is produced every four years, assessed the political, economic, societal and other trends that will likely shape the national security environment in the next 20 years.
“Our intent is to help policymakers and citizens ... prepare for an array of possible futures,” the authors wrote, adding that they make no specific predictions and included input from diverse groups, from US students to African civil society activists.
Challenges like climate change, disease, financial crises and technological disruption “are likely to manifest more frequently and intensely in almost every region and country,” producing “widespread strains on states and societies as well as shocks that could be catastrophic,” the report said.
The pandemic, which has killed more than 3 million people, marked the greatest “global disruption” since World War II, with the consequences likely to last for years, it said.
COVID-19 exposed — and sometimes widened — disparities in healthcare, raised national debts, accelerated nationalism and political polarization, deepened inequality, fueled distrust in government and highlighted failed international cooperation, it said.
In the process, the pandemic is slowing — and possibly reversing — progress in fighting poverty, disease and gender inequality.
Many problems caused by the pandemic are forecast by the report to grow by 2040.
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