Predicting Europe

The current cartoon jihad has merely brought to a head many of the major issues that have so bedeviled any predictions regarding Europe’s near and medium term future. Longer term predictions are somewhat easier, given that the current demographic data now supports a view that has all but sealed its fate – one that Ehrlich influenced alarmists from earlier decades would find all but unimaginable.

Nonetheless, it is the more pressing concerns of the day, and the tomorrow to follow, which naturally dominate our interest. For this, we refer readers to the excellent unclassified study and supporting papers conducted by the National Intelligence Council for the 2020 Project on Mapping The Global Future. (The European supporting series may be found here.)

For all its innovation in fostering outreach through its Dialogue with Experts – for which its staffers should be given much credit - one wonders however how much the distributed collaborative analysis made possible by new technologies and new relationships may outpace the NIC effort; particularly on longer term grand strategic predictions which do not need to rely upon classified information but merely require the right thinkers fed by the right research.