(PINR) Warning to Washington: 'Project 2020'

[nosmokes]

Power and Interest News Report (PINR)
http://www.pinr.com
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24 January 2005
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Warning to Washington: 'Project 2020'
Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
http://www.pinr.com

On January 13, the United States National Intelligence Council (N.I.C.) released the report of its "2020 Project," which is aimed at describing the possible configurations of world politics fifteen years from now. Although the report is informed neither by a coherent analysis of the balance of global power nor by a rigorous assessment of the dominant players' interests, its subtext is a sober and realistic warning to decision makers committed to a unipolar vision of the world, in which the U.S. is the arbiter of globalization through wielding preponderant military power or, at the extreme, the first global empire.
With the mission of providing "policymakers with the best unvarnished and unbiased information regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to U.S. policy," the N.I.C. reports to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.), but is independent of the C.I.A. and is charged with preparing analyses based on the findings of the entire U.S. intelligence community. Almost all of its reports -- "National Intelligence Estimates" -- are classified and concern specific policy issues. Every five years, the N.I.C. goes public with a general look at the medium-term global future.
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Geostrategy

Although the report identifies the release of a weapon of mass destruction -- particularly a major bio-terrorist attack -- as the greatest danger to global security, it does not place trends in the "war on terrorism" front and center. That position belongs to economic globalization, the only "mega-trend" named in the report. According to the Council, globalization -- "growing interconnectedness reflected in the expanded flows of information, technology, capital, goods, services, and people throughout the world" -- is"a force so ubiquitous that it will substantially shape all the other major trends in the world of 2020."
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The Reception of "Project 2020": Doubts About Iraq

Wire services around the world covered the release of "Project 2020" with brief stories outlining accurately its main conclusions. Prestige newspapers in the United States -- notably the New York Times and the Washington Post -- focused on the two paragraphs on Iraq buried in the report that suggest that the U.S. intervention there has laid the basis for providing "recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalized' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself."
At the Council's press briefing on the report, the Post's Dana Priest quoted Hutchings as saying: "At the moment Iraq is a magnet for international terrorist activity." David Low, national intelligence officer for transnational threats, added that "even in the best scenarios, there is a likelihood that jihadists not killed in Iraq will dissipate to various countries or sanctuaries." The report predicts that the al-Qaeda cadres that were forged in Afghanistan will "dissipate" and be replaced "by the dispersion of experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq."
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Conclusion

An ostensibly nonpolitical survey of "trends" with some added "policy implications," "Project 2020" is freighted with political import. Although a single geostrategy is not implied in it, the report provides the parameters in which realistic strategies can be developed and discussed. A continuation of unilateralism and a return to multilateralism are off the table because competing power centers are strong enough to render the former too costly to practice and to decline acquiescence in the latter, leaving Washington with a choice among mixtures of balancing, reconciling and abstaining.
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It is naive to believe that "Project 2020" is not part of the ongoing struggle within the U.S. government between the internationalist establishment in the C.I.A. and State Department, and the neoconservative elements in the Defense Department and White House. Nonetheless, its warnings about the consequences of neoconservative strategy are realistic and the parameters that it provides for policy in an era of eroding U.S. power are the starting points for formulating a geostrategy that serves long-term U.S. interests.
The N.I.C. sugar coated and diluted its bitter pill, but it succeeded in administering an unpalatable dose of truth to power.

complete report at http://www.pinr.com
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Report Drafted By:
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
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The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of [e-mail]. All comments should be directed to [e-mail].

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[confuddled]

1. Onward, over the cliff!

So our leaders continue to 'cherry pick' in the face of this "...unpalatable dose of truth to power."