US Involvement in Middle East for Oil will be a key factor of instability.
I see in 10 years USA will not be economicaly significant.

posted June 16, 2007

In my opinion "instability" is not by essence something negative but can also have a positive sense.

Perfect stability, in fact, whether within an organization, a country or even at international level, often results from the fact that the largest power (being the army, industrialised countries or a political faction) dictates its will to others....The situation is then quite stable as there are no confrontation at all!
In the years to come, and as other superpowers will arise, we will all, by definition, be living in a very unstable world; sooner or later (look at what some countries in latin and south america start doing with regards to IMF!), China, India, Russia, Brazil and other "big" nations will ask for "their say" and the right to think and choose a different path from Western nations. That will be the true challenge, one that could either brings the world community down or "everybody to the next level".

So unstability is in that way and to me very positive because it does challenge the status quo and require all countries to move forward and try to cooperate.

In that respect, I believe that the role played by international bodies such as UN will be KEY; for from their success will depend a "fairer stability" or an unstability that will lead to numerous regional conflicts.

posted June 16, 2007

I am going to go for a huge general concept, rather than current and near future situations.
The greatest risk to humanity, are the social human patterns of "taking ever greater control". This includes regulations and abandoned science and technology due to risk, and ever smaller risks at that. It also comes into play as countries give up/take away freedoms and civil liberties, in my opinion, this includes the war on drugs right along side the problematic aspects of the war on terror. It is a significant part of geopolitics, and not just Europe and the US, China is playing hard to control its resource feeds, to dominate them.
It come up in life styles and choices, with myths like work hard, go to more school, get certified, go into management, seek control over your life .
Part of what is interesting about this, is that so much of the activity appears to be aimed toward stability, but when there are many players, and lots of small restrictions, the results tend toward loss of adaptability and instability. (sometimes lead by dark ages)

I would suggest, that in the midterm time frame, we might see much worse than just bombs and security forces, technology to create total control, partitions to protect resources are just over the horizon, and totalitarian security states with modern computers and monitoring will be unlike those of the past dependent on humans for information and data sorting.

posted June 16, 2007

I think most instability segues from ignorance, from all sides of the geopolitical fence. It is also reinforced by zealotry (read extremism) of all faiths, whether religious or pseudo-scientific.

For example I cannot understand why the voters of the US constantly demand intellectual mediocrity from their elected leaders. It's almost as if they totally distrust highly intelligent people, i.e. those people who are absolutely necessary to lead a nation. Almost everywhere else nations appreciate intellect in their leaders. But in the US it seems that the Good ol' boy thing works better. (Who really IS in charge?)

This lack of intellect or indeed ignorance amongst our leaders is one of the reasons we are involved in matters that we haven't a clue how to fix. (Read democracy at the point of a gun)

The mainstream media also bears a huge responsibility for ignorance among the general populace. I think of them (the media) now as no more than Viagra salespeople. It's the dumbing down of society to the lowest common denominator so that we can all be pigeon holed as scientifically as possible in order that our consuming traits can be categorized more efficiently.
Sorry I'm proselytizing now.

posted June 16, 2007

I'm going to disagree with the previous answers. I think the greatest source of instability in the next 50 years is going to be climate change and it's associated secondary effects.

People have build infrastructure, economies, and patterns of life around the world as it is now. But, the world is changing. There is gradual increase in ocean levels (predicted to become much worse), some areas are stricken with serious drought, hurricanes are becoming more intense, on average, and global temperatures are generally rising. You can find reports of all of the above in both scientific literature and the popular media.

We've already seen some effects, as drought has contributed to starvation and civil war in places like Somalia and Darfur. In the US, one need look no farther than New Oreleans -- a city that has changed dramatically. It's smaller, and mush of it's former black and even middle class white population dispersed across the country. I can even hear the cries of Florida homeowners facing higher insurance rates from 8,000 miles away.

Globally, some of the effects we are like to see include:

* Disruptions in food production patterns. Certain crops will no longer be consistently viable in locations where they have traditionally been grown. This could result in higher food proices (and decreased disposable income) in developed countries, and outright starvation in less-developed countries, particularly in Africa.

* Rising water levels coupled with more severe storms are going to make coastal areas much more prone to natural disaster. New Oreleans was a special case, but cities like Miami and Galveston, which are fully or partly built on barrier islands are especially vunerable. Many coastal cities world-wide are going to have problems with flooding and water damage. Most of Bangladesh may become basically uninhabitable because of salt intrustion into the water table, or just plain flooding. All those people ware going to have to either die, or go somewhere else. Nobody wants that many poorly educated permanant refugees, so there's likely to be violent conflicts. The situation in the Pacific Islands is even worse, with some whole countries likely to basically cease to exist as landmasses.

*Insects are going to have a heyday, inclusing those carrying diseases. Ever hear of Dengue Fever? You will. It's seldom fatal, but so painful it's also called "break bone fever". Malaria might once again become a threat in parts of the US. Better hope Bill Gates's money buys us a better prevention and treatment before it becomes a real problem in the developed world, with all the economic disruption that will bring.

*Some people are going to find that their living conditions are just no longer viable. It might be sudden and severe, as in New Oreleans, more more sutble, as in people moving out of parched Western towns with continouous, severe water shortages. What we see in the US is going to be nothing compared to what we'll see elsewhere, like in Durfur, Bangladesh, and elsewhere. There will be mass migrations of people. At the very least, people will be anxious and not particularly productive in the process. At worst, we'll see massive floods of refugees that nobody wants. Any generous host countries will be overwhelmed with people in severe need of health care, mental health services, education, jobs etc. Desperate people will fight and die to get to places they percieve as better. Others will fight and die to defend what little they have. The wars over real estate will undoubtedly generate even more refugees. Hopeless, homeless peoples are excellent breeding grounds for terrorist movements, which will further contribute to everyone's misery.

posted June 16, 2007

Must we pick only one ?

Long-term, global warming will cause major dislocations: changing rainfall and snowmelt patterns will alter where water is available and how much there is of it -- which is especially problematic for poor countries... Rising sea levels will displace many millions now living on the coasts; it would be naive to imagine this won't percolate into politics. It won't happen tomorrow, of course, but it's still a problem.

More immediately, disparities in wealth and education seem to be at the root of many of the world's tensions. The world is awash with weapons, a hangover from the Cold War: for decades, the superpowers armed their proxies and now wonder why so many still see the gun as the solution to any perceived insult.

How do we fix this ? I'm not sure we can, to be honest, but start with the Hippocratic Oath -- don't make a bad situation worse by, say, stirring up the Middle East.

posted June 16, 2007

Water shortages

I did my Masters Degree thesis on water shortages as a variable for causing a war. Many of the world's hotspots have water supplies that run through several countries. For example, in Israel, there are large aquifers under Gaza and the West bank. I can't recall exactly, but about 20-30 of Israel's water supply lies underneath these areas. This is probably a major reason they can't give land for peace.

During the first Gulf War, an idea was knocked around to cut off Iraq's water supply. Turkey controls the flow of the water south to Iraq and it would have taken a couple turns of a wheel to cut them off.

Just this week on NPR (National Public Radio), they had a week long issue on water shortages issues for the western USA that is going to pit state vs state over time.

Saudi Arabia has no lakes and no about 50 years of water left underground. They are highly reliant on desalination for their water. A couple little "incidents" at those plants and they are hurting.

These are just a few tidbits that I recall at the moment. If your interested, I might be able to find some of the report I wrote.

posted June 16, 2007

James,

I have three global and one local issue. They are:

1 Climate Change - already we covered by many,

2. Peak Oil - as oil reserves decline the price will increase substantially. This will not only impact on the cost of transport but in the manufacture of many goods that use oil as an input - plastics, medicines food etc etc

3 The continued rise of fundamentalism (religious, political and cultural) that focuses to greatly on differences and not enough on similarities.

Despite these I have great confidence that as a species we can overcome these challenges. They will only be catastrophic if we allow them to.

The local issue is the threat that Collingwood could win this years Grand Final. I know it is early days yet but the threat is real. The depressive effect this will have on Australia is almost as bad as some of the global problems mentioned.




The

posted June 17, 2007

According to Rumsfeld's taxonomy,

1) As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.

There are only few universal sources of instability we can all agree on--e.g. death. Usually, one's source of instability leaves another indifferent and makes other prosper. For example, a gal in Africa may think AIDS is IT, while a British pal frets about global warming. Not to mention how one may think of globalization in the US or France vs. Chindia. Usually, these situations present arbitrage opportunities.


2) We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.

We all know that everything comes to pass--even the supremacy of the US, or of the Chinese Communist Party. What we don't know is for how long the US can maintain its supremacy and what price is everyone party to the world order willing to negotiate. Accepting Chindia in the power structures (e.g. G8) could be a palliative.

3) But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Here's where anyone's imagination goes wild. In addition to the usual suspects (a large asteroid will hit the planet, the oil reserves are depleted before we find alternative sources, global warming, etc.) I would add the unforeseen externalities of R&D, such as nano-X, stem-Y and younameit-Z. And here's where some science fiction writers (include today's prophets just as well) make their money.


In conclusion, absent of the crisis, there is no single source of global instability, but a myriad of them that keep testing out optimism.

Links:

• http://chircu.com

posted June 17, 2007

I'll go with the obvious hot spots.

1) Islam and the Arab world. The entire GNP of the Arab world is the same as little old Espana (Spain). Since the late Middle Ages, when they were the center of science, knowledge and learning, the Arabs have been in decline. They have been languishing ever since and have tried a number of ways to get out of it (Nationalism, Socialism, Pan-Arabism, Islam, etc). Until they figure out that some sort of Democracy is what they need, we will never hear the end of it.

2) Will the Chinese dragon expand into its new role as world power in a peaceful or warlike manner?

3) Competition and war for natural resources like oil and water.

4) I'll throw in global warming eventhough it is more of a long term threat that will probably not effect anyone alive today all that much. It will later though, of that there is almost no doubt among the worlds scientists.

Marc Witham

posted June 17, 2007

There are numerous sources of instability nowadays. The 3 that receive by far the greatest amount of media coverage these days are

a) the uncanny ability of the current US government to operate without a coherent foreign-environmental-scientific of any kind policy. The only thing my government has been successful in achieving in the last 7 years is aggravating already explosive situations. We are not and should not be the gendarme of the world. This first source of instability is temporary in nature though it will take years to correct errors made. Things will change. I love my country and look forward to the day we regain the trust of most countries and our own sense of being the good guys for all the good reasons.

b) the militant fundamentalist islamism to which Marc Witham refers. While there is I'm sure a lot of truth to the idea that western societies have had an influence on the existing situation, it is dreadfully sad for me to see that there seems to be little to no introspection in these societies. Nothing that I read in the islamic press ever suggests that at least part of the problem resides in these countries themselves. Is it really always some one else's fault: the Turks at one point, then the British, the French, the Americans, etc...? It is always saddening to read that the persons who dare bring up the idea within their own countries seem to be so quickly incarcerated, or put under house arrest or worse. Where do these "dissidents" disappear? Where are the great centers of culture, artistic and scientific learning that made the grandeur of the muslim world for some 500+ years, why did they just about cease to be long before any involvement by western societies, why were they not resurected?...I don't know and find little information on the subject in the American or European press...It's easy to say they need democracy. But then, forcing democracy the way it is done in Iraq is certainly not the right way of dealing with the problem. The right solution has got to come from the muslim world itself (otherwise other countries will be ever accused of interference and could thus become targets of terrorism). Hopefully this change will come about in a way that does not threaten the very lives of neighbors far and wide. -- This second item will continue to be a great source of instability for many years or decades to come.

c) Global warming, if unchecked and in a worse case scenario, could very well create calamitous situations around the globe. Some 60% of the world's population gets its food from very few "bread baskets" on the globe including the American midwest, the European plains and central China. Once the productivity of these centers is dramatically reduced, we should expect major upheavals around the globe. These days, it is very easy and politically expedient to point fingers to a single country - the USA - as being the "sole" source of the entire problem but that is turning a blind eye to certain realities that are not very politically correct to mention.

All of these situations create opportunities to change for the better. I think of myself as an optimistic person and dream of leaving my children a world that is better than the one I was born in. Change is inevitable as you say. In my book, change is the only constant. Sometimes though, the pain and the turmoil that it engenders are so high and tumultuous that some people are very reluctant to embrace it while others will fight to the death to prevent it from happening. Hmmm...kinda gloomy there

posted June 17, 2007

Hi James,

Taoism teaches, different combinations of Opposites breeds everything. That means everything consists of imbalance between these Opposites.
Heat vs cold fronts cause storms. Hi and low pressures cause wind. Personal imbalance causes temper. Inter-personal imbalance causes fights. Social imbalance causes riots. Eco imbalances causes mega-storms. Economical imbalance causes market crash. National imbalances cause revolutions. Global imbalances causes wars.....

I believe all instabilities are caused by imbalances of complimentary elements of the same system.

As I see it, the global instabilities are caused by :
1. Growing imbalance between rich and poor (Obviously, I am in the not-rich-enough category :-) )
2. Imbalance between security and the insecurity (Arm races)
3. Imbalance between power and oppression (Israel-US vs M.East)
4. Imbalance of natural resources (Oil, in particular)

If instabilities are caused by imbalances, and change is inevitable, the right move is obvious:
We should make an effort to counter all imbalances which are too grave to benefit our course. It is the world leaders's job to judge what is "too grave".
If these imbalances are not managed correctly, pressure will build up and a "mega-storm" will befall us sooner than we would expect- keep a constant pressure on a pencil and nothing happens ---- until it just breaks suddenly.
The clock is ticking, loud.

posted June 18, 2007

Just a quick personal opinion instead of an answer, James, because I believe that you have to fundamentally rethink your overarching premise that "the dangers are greater now than ever before". I don't subscribe to that at all, maybe because I am naively optimistic, or I keep reading a few too many history books, or - most likely - because I was born and lived for (too) many years in a German village of 20,000 with US Army barracks of 10,000 just up the hill, and Starfighters flying simulated attacks against our church steeple at 50 meter altitude. Some of the 17 year-old homesick kids my family had over for Christmas over the years had daily computer print-outs (the age of the mainframe had dawned - yoohoo!) to carry in their breast pockets that told them how many (dozens? hundreds?) nuclear warheads were pointing to their coordinates based on latest intelligence and probability calculations to destroy the few Pershing II they had responsibility for guarding (they were mostly MPs). No wonder they almost killed themselves in UK-style binch drinking rather than wait for the day of days...

What else could overshadow that danger of imminent overkill...? Avian Flu (see Spanish Flu's effects)? Global Warming (won't kill all of us)? Terrorism (I grew up in an age when the Red Army Faction regularly blew up Federal Reserve Chairmen, CEOs, and public figures for a few decades, and none of the many, many police men in those days could be found without their Uzi swaying in front of my nose)? Alien abductions of all mankind (ok, sorry, no comment)? Or does one of the gems of information that you have access to plot out the collision path of a super-meteor with Earth in the next few days? Only in the latter case, were I quick to agree with you, and would appreciate a quick private email...

No, I don't want to be sarcastic. In fact, I was laughing out loud sympathetically when I read your question, because it is easy to lose perspective in all the noise. But it is just simply a fact that we find ourselves in the middle of an unusually peaceful, safe, and prosperous time for the majority of the planet's population since the Iron Curtain has been blown to pieces...

Sorry, but I will have to go against the grain and probably the popular (or populist?) opinion on this one...

Carpe noctem!

Wolf

posted June 16, 2007

Perhaps another lens is to view instability as inevitable... the challenge is the management of instability. That is where true inequality rests.

posted June 16, 2007

Dear James,

My regular reading of Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman & Maurice Daud, tells me that the world is not all that cozy and hunkey dory, that we are lead to believe and that we are lead to see it through the powers that be.

Regards,

posted June 17, 2007

James, don't be dissappointed, there's nothing new, there's no new threat, there's nothing more threatening than the thing that has always been there. Its mankind who time and time again builds up to an event in which the balance seems so fragile that only chaos can come from it. But who's afraid of chaos? The 'system' as a whole can't be managed. Its from all times, ask Aristoteles.

Sleep well. The only way to overcome instabilities is to look out for them and take the opposite route.

posted June 17, 2007

The gloabal GDP is growing much faster than it has ever done before. The percentage of people who are well fed, clothed and can read and write is much higher than before. Life expectancy is much higher than before. The percentage of people losing their lives and limbs in military action is much lower than before.

It is possible that some lunatic fringe may come to power in some isolated pockets or countries, but that is not what is happening globally. Bush and Blair may explode their rusting stockpiles of conventional weapons over an alienated Iraq or Afghanistan, but that is surely not going to lead to any instability.

There is a stability in mass opinion. People are educated and aware and want a better deal for themselves. Most do not sway to the jingoism of ethnicity, culture, language or religion.

Yes as the consumption levels per capita increase, there will be strains in the supply of fresh water, oil and even clean cool air. But this will not mean that chaos will necessarily result. Shortage of anything in a free market is an opportunity for some enterprizing groups. So life will go on. Humans are creative enough to find all the answers. Of course the process of adjustment to new economic rules will throw up new sets of winners and losers, but as long as no one can monopolise the rules of play, people will accept the game and their fates.

sanjay9negi@hotmail.com

posted June 18, 2007