National Intelligence Council Research Articles

Strategic Uncertainty, the Third Offset, and the US Grand Strategy

ABSTRACT: This article demonstrates the usefulness of rethinking our understanding of uncertainty and how that might affect the course of the Department of Defense's Third Offset Strategy and US grand strategy in general. In the foreword to the 2015 national military strategy, General Martin E. Dempsey, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff unequivocally states: Today's global security environment is the most unpredictable I have seen in 40 years of service. (1) This bold statement fits the narrative of strategic discourse in Washington, DC, and other Western capitals during the past 25 years: today's international system is dominated by high uncertainty and unpredictability. (2) Despite the lip service paid to uncertainty, the Washington policy community and many academic experts have a narrow understanding of the concept. Emily Goldman describes the most common view of uncertainty in the strategic studies community well: is present when the likelihood of future events is indefinite or incalculable. (3) But is this simple definition of uncertainty really useful for guiding foreign policy strategic planning in today's highly unpredictable global environment? This article presents a more nuanced way of defining uncertainty and shows how separating different levels of uncertainty leads to more effective strategic planning. The world of business strategy consulting offers a more sophisticated understanding of uncertainty than foreign policy and national security scholarship. Borrowing from this management literature, a middle way that avoids the two extreme views dominating national security scholarship on this topic materializes. As the next paragraphs show, foreign policy experts either regard the international security environment as inscrutable and unpredictable as Chairman Dempsey does, or they believe it is much more predictable and benign than the US national security community claims. Conceptualizing different levels of uncertainty, however, offers a more useful way to plan strategically for a range of foreign policy challenges, as detailed in the second section of the article. The article defines four levels of uncertainty, along with the recommended strategy tools associated with each one of them, and then applies these new concepts to a few examples of uncertainty encountered in national security planning. To demonstrate how this framework provides the US government with a useful perspective, the article uses examples of policy and strategic uncertainties from the National Intelligence Council's Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds report, and discusses them through the prism of the four levels of uncertainty. (4) The Global Trends report, the most comprehensive and sophisticated effort of the US government to analyze long-term strategic uncertainty, showcases how some business ideas on uncertainty can improve planning for unknowns in the national security arena. The article applies this framework to the contentious debates on the Department of Defense's Third Offset Strategy and to the debates on America's grand strategic course. Before proceeding to this analysis, the article sketches the contours of the strategic studies community's current debate on uncertainty. Cult of Complexity: The Binary View of Uncertainty How do national security experts and academic students of international relations think of uncertainty? Broadly speaking, the academic and policy debates on uncertainty in the international system reveal two schools of thought, one of inscrutable uncertainty and complexity and one of overhyped threats. Most scholars and practitioners in the national security bureaucracy rely on the distinction that risks can be estimated using probabilities, while uncertainty cannot. (5) Since today's security environment is seen as increasingly complex and uncertain, it is also considered increasingly less predictable and more dangerous. …

ГЛОБАЛЬНЫЙ ПРОГНОЗ НАЦИОНАЛЬНОГО СОВЕТА ПО РАЗВЕДКЕ США

The paper gives an analysis of the background, main trends, scenarios and factors of the long-term development of the world till 2030 which are exposed in forecasts of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in its report of 2012. A comparison of these forecasts with reality for recent years is given. The lack of a series of important events and tendencies in the world development is found in this report. Sometimes authors consider that fact as a forecast error in other cases as an attempt to place the USA and the consequences of their activity in a good light. Methodology of long-term forecasting of NIC is close to foresight. First of all the authors are interested in estimation of new role of the USA in changing World. They have constructed two global indexes of state power: one to estimate relative diplomatic power, the other to estimate relative material power. Forecasts were obtained with imitation computer model “International Futures” which included 6 relative dynamic sub-models with more than 2000 indicators on 70 states and regions of the world. It allowed consider different scenarios of development. Special part of the report was devoted to revolutionary technologies and economic growth. Many conclusions on demographic, urbanization trends, economic growth, shortage of water etc. are realistic. Weights of Russia, China, Japan in world economy are diminishing. China will leave behind the USA economically until 2030. Crisis of Eurozone and its disintegration are discussed in the report. Really, the consequences of “Color revolutions” and “Arabian spring” in which the USA undoubtedly took part are not estimated properly. The role of the USA in many cases as a factor of peace and development is overestimated. Thesis about “damping of Islamic terrorism” is not true. Problem of Ukraine isn’t even mentioned. Crisis of Eurozone with millions refugees is underestimated. Non-controllable Islamic migration into Europe was not predicted. Disintegration of 15 countries is pointed out as possible. However, this list doesn’t contain the Great Britain, Canada and other countries. As it is known, 29 American states want to leave the USA peacefully. Anti-Russian sanctions and Russian counter-sanctions, new groups BRICS, TIKKS are not taken into account. Consequences of shale revolution were mistaken. New integration and disintegration processes are going. Divergence of forecasts and reality is inevitable. In some cases it is due to quick changes of the world and in others due to subjective point of view of the forecaster.

China's Regional and Global Role Under the 'Fifth Generation' of Leaders

The fifth generation of leaders (s)elected by the XVIII congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012 takes the helm of the Party and the People’s Republic of China at a time of structural transformation of the international system. Having long advocated a departure from the “unipolar moment”, central authorities in Beijing now understand the trend towards a multi-polar world as having become “irreversible”. With time, and especially after the 2008 financial crisis, this reading has gained broader traction, and now the World Bank’s baseline modeling of the future of the international economy concurs, as does the National Intelligence Council, whose Global Trends 2030 report projects a posthegemonic order where “power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world.

Improving the communication of uncertainty in climate science and intelligence analysis

Public policymakers routinely receive and communicate information characterized by uncertainty. Decisions based on such information can have important consequences, so it is imperative that uncertainties are communicated effectively. Many organizations have developed dictionaries, or lexicons , that contain specific language (e.g., very likely , almost certain ) to express uncertainty. But these lexicons vary greatly and only a few have been empirically tested. We have developed evidence-based methods to standardize the language of uncertainty so that it has clear meaning understood by all parties in a given communication. We tested these methods in two policy-relevant domains: climate science and intelligence analysis. In both, evidence-based lexicons were better understood than those now used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Intelligence Council, and the U.K. Defence Intelligence. A well-established behavioral science method for eliciting the terms’ full meaning was especially effective for deriving such lexicons.

On the effect of natural resources on interstate war

Many analysts expect that a decline in natural resources and a rise in resource demand will increase the risk of interstate war in the coming decades. Other researchers reject this expectation. Empirical examinations are mostly qualitative case studies, and the few statistical models center primarily on waters. We argue changing resource levels can provide either an incentive or a disincentive for countries to go to war. The net effects by resource are empirical issues. We offer statistical models for a large sample, including several types of renewable and non-renewable resources, and other variables. We find that resource changes impact interstate war, and the magnitude of their impacts is on par with that of non-resource forces, and the effects of one time resource changes linger. The paper examines implications for the coming decades in light of the United States’ National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030 outlook.

Globalization and Land-Use Prospects for Agrarian Enterprises

Globalization and Land-Use Prospects for Agrarian Enterprises

The Provocative GT-2030 Report

The important Global Trends report of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) orchestrates four “Megatrends,” six problem-area “Game-Changers,” eight “Black Swan” wild cards, and four “Alternative World” scenarios. An abstract of this framework for thinking about the future is provided here, followed by critical comments on “black swan downsizing” of the all-important climate change threat, and other NIC problems of selective perception and distorted priorities.

A Broader Framework to Help the National Intelligence Council

This article offers fifteen Global Challenges as an alternative framework for understanding global change, finds the technology considerations very weak, points out the relative absence of Latin America and insufficient attention given to India in the report, and notes that it uses scenarios more as discussion topics than as stories with sequences of cause and effect links illustrating decisions. Nevertheless, the report does contain much food for thought.

What the QDR Ought to Say about Landpower

ABSTRACT: The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) will have been completed as of this writing, but will not yet have been published. Facing new strategic priorities and mounting fiscal pressures, it is anticipated that capacity or size of American landpower will be substantially reduced: Army's end strength could be decremented to a post-World War II low of just 420,000 to 450,000 soldiers. This article considers implications of such reductions. ********** The US Department of Defense (DOD) faces numerous challenges today as it updates US defense strategy in light of a dynamic security environment and significant resource constraints. The QDR affords landpower strategists an excellent opportunity to step back and think about future. As former Pentagon strategist Shawn Brimley wrote, With wars ending, budgets declining, technology proliferating, and other powers rising, a real of opportunity to reshape US defense strategy has opened for first time since end of Cold War. (1) However, that window also brings with it great risk. Documents like National Intelligence Council's 2030 report or Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Operating Environment suggest United States must have balanced and versatile forces able to accomplish a wide variety of missions. Urgency is needed to create greater Joint adaptability and versatility to cope with uncertainty and complexity. Although niche capabilities will still be needed, a balanced force design is basis for adaptation and operational flexibility. Landpower and Joint Force 2020 Landpower's role in 21st century was studied by a task force commissioned by US Army, US Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command. This effort produced a concept paper delineating what landpower brings to fight, and emphasizes achieving influence in human domain and winning clash of wills inherent in human conflict. (2) It argues, persuasively, that the importance of conflict prevention and ability to shape conditions in regions to maintain stability through actions highly focused on human factors is also rising in significance. (3) The interplay of human and moral factors in war is something Clausewitz stressed, but which modern strategists might deemphasize or inadvertently overlook. (4) The role of landpower is questioned in some quarters: it is equated to protracted counterinsurgency tasks and portrayed as expensive. Some critics think of Arm), and Marines solely in terms of current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hope to opt out of such messianic missions and nation-building tasks. But after a decade of irregular war, contributions made by Army, Marines, and Special Operations Forces (SOF) should not be narrowly defined by last decade or exaggerated concerns about endless wars. American landpower capabilities have been broadened and deepened by a decade of sacrifice and adaptation. The tremendous learning curve and combat experience of last decade has produced a very flexible force, and United States must retain best of that leadership, experience, and lessons. We should not seek to refight last war, nor should we recoil from a ruthlessly realistic appreciation for world as it is rather than what we hope it may become. As noted by Major General H. R. McMaster: ... in Afghanistan and Iraq, planning did not account for adaptability and initiatives by enemy. American forces, deployed initially in insufficient numbers to keep pace with evolution of those conflicts, struggled to maintain security. The lesson: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, like all wars, were contests of will that unleashed dynamics that made future events impossible to predict. Fortunately, American forces adapted. (5) The US military has not yet studied or drawn adequate lessons about factors that facilitated this adaptation. …

Beyond the NIC Quadrennial Reports

This report certainly has its limitations—some of which are discretionary, and others attributable to the unique fact that it is a product of the U.S. intelligence community. I will give particular attention to this aspect because it is part of the National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) “DNA,” rather than a reflection of managerial preference. My main point, however, has less to do with any faults in the report itself, but rather with faults in the way it is applied to policy: something that is far more the responsibility of “consumers” in the policy world than of “producers” in the Intelligence Community (IC). The U.S. government badly needs a systematic process for applying foresight to long-range policy, and in my opinion, the NIC’s 2030 edition qualifies as a major source of input to that process. I certainly do not have it in mind that the NIC foresight process should become the sole such source of foresight for an integrated policy process but as part of a blended feedstock. As for how to accomplish such a blend, given the many possible sources, I will also have some observations.

Emerging Challenges to Global Governance in 21st Century

Global governance—the collective management of common problems at the international level—is at a critical juncture. Although global governance has been a relative success since its development after the Second World War, the growing number of issues on the international agenda, and their complexity, is outpacing the ability of international organizations and national governments to cope. Power shifts are also complicating global governance. If global governance structures and processes do not keep up with the changes in the balance of power in the international system, they run the risk of becoming irrelevant. Emerging powers are suspicious of current institutional arrangements, which appear to favor established powers. Without adequate frameworks to bring order to an international system in flux, disorder could prevail, fueling greater instability. The mix of old and new challenges generates new requirements for collective problem-solving: more international cooperation and innovative approaches.The United States’ National Intelligence Council (NIC) and the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) have recently projected the long-term prospects for global governance by the mid-21st century. Two important documents have emerged out of this exercise. One is Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The other is The New Global Puzzle. What World for the EU in 2025? DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n8p622

The US National Intelligence Council on Alternative Global Futures in 2030

The US National Intelligence Council on Alternative Global Futures in 2030

Towards Europe 2035 - In Search of the Archimedean Screw: FOCUS in Perspective

Approaches and results from the FOCUS project centred on the planning of security research in the 2035 time frame to support foresighted EU security missions. In a follow-up, they could be carried further to help provide a framework for analyzing long-term trends and dynamic interactions in a global environment undergoing tectonic changes, reaching beyond the FOCUS mission to explore new contexts of civil security research in support of possible future EU mission scenarios. European developments are in large part driven by challenging global developments, reaching beyond external risks and threats to which the EU needs to respond. This article thus explores the complementarity of the FOCUS framework and the concurrent fifth NIC Report “Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds” of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) in search of a framework for assessing the impact of global dynamics on the inner dynamics of global players, with the EU as a special case.

The John Holmes Memorial Lecture: Global Governance in a Copernican World

FOR ALL THE DIPPING POLITICAL SCIENCE DOES INTO SUCH DISCIPLINES AS economics, physics, and sociology our theory and metaphors, it is (as Carl Sagan no doubt would have agreed) astronomy that provides the best conceptualization of the twenty-first-century international system. The Cold War system of the second half of the twentieth century was a lot like the ancient philosopher-astronomer Ptolemy's theory of the universe. For Ptolemy, the earth was at the center with the other planets, indeed all the other celestial bodies, revolving around it. And so too was the United States at the center of the Cold War world. It was the wielder of power, the economic engine, the bastion of free world ideology. When the Cold War ended with the demise and defeat of the Soviet Union, US centrality seemed even more defining; it was the sole surviving superpower. The US economy was driving globalization. Democracy was spreading all over. The world seemed even more Ptolemaic. Not anymore. The twenty-first-century world is more like the theory of the universe developed in the early sixteenth century by the Polish astronomer-cosmologist Nicolaus Copernicus, who posited that the earth was not at the center, that the was, and that the earth had its own orbit around the sun, and other planets had their own orbits around the not the earth. So too in the twenty-first century, the United States is not at the center. It has its own orbit. Other planets (countries) also have their own sources of influence, their own national interests, their own identities, and their own domestic politics. This Copernican world is evident geopolitically with other powers rising (China), recovering (Russia), seeking to reinvigorate (European Union), emerging (e.g., India, Brazil, and Turkey), and engendering their own revolutions (e.g., Tunisia and Egypt). It is evident economically with globalization having the United States' own National Intelligence Council assessed as a of a 'Made in the USA' character. It is evident ideologically amidst my colleague Steve Weber and I have called the marketplace of ideas. It is evident culturally as with the comment by a New York art dealer after an auction dominated by newly moneyed non-Western collectors that for the first time in nearly two hundred years the Western world doesn't make the decisions about our future. (1) What is less clear, though, is the is in our version of a Copernican world, keeping planets (countries) from crashing into each other. It is not the United Nations: it helps, but only partially. It is not just having a more multilateralist president of the United States. Indeed, the what is the sun question is fundamental to global governance. This article, drawn from my 2011 John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture at the annual meeting of the Academic Council of the United Nations System, has two main objectives: develop this Copernican model theoretically and draw out some of its principal policy implications from a global governance perspective. Theoretical Bases of the Copernican World The Copernican world model has three comparative theoretical advantages. First, it picks up on the diffusion and dilution of power that realists underestimate and that makes the twenty-first-century international system less than hegemony, whether of the persistent US version or the prospective Chinese one Second, it gets at the greater contestation of systemic ordering principles than liberal institutionalist theories acknowledge. Third, it brings the state back in, checking against too-exclusive focuses on global architecture and other systemic-level factors in ways consistent with the crucial role states still must play in the multidimensionality of global governance. Diffusion and Dilution of Power One of the most seductive deceptions of the George W. Bush years was that, once he was gone, the United States would regain its global reputation and place of leadership and all would be well. …

Winners and Losers in the Middle East

New Perspectives QuarterlyVolume 29, Issue 1 p. 61-63 Winners and Losers in the Middle East GRAHAM E. FULLER, GRAHAM E. FULLER Former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. His most recent book is A World Without Islam.Search for more papers by this author GRAHAM E. FULLER, GRAHAM E. FULLER Former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. His most recent book is A World Without Islam.Search for more papers by this author First published: 27 January 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5842.2012.01298.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume29, Issue1Winter 2012Pages 61-63 RelatedInformation

China and the United Nations: The Stakeholder Spectrum

In December 2009, representatives of 192 nations—not to mention thousands of journalists, activists, and business executives—assembled in Copenhagen for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Un...

Forecasting the Future: Impact of Societal Trends on the Professions and ASHA

Forecasting the Future: Impact of Societal Trends on the Professions and ASHA

The Emergent Security Threats Reshaping China's Rise

A steady stream of research and analysis over the last two decades has flowed from the near consensus in the U.S. foreign policy community that, in the words of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, ‘‘few countries are poised to have more impact on the world over the next 15-20 years than China.’’ 1 Yet many of these efforts to foretell China’s future behavior have paid disproportionate attention to divining Beijing’s ‘‘strategic intentions.’’ This approach offers only limited insight into the factors that will ultimately determine how China pursues its interests and exerts global influence. It profoundly overestimates the importance of present intentions as a guide to future behavior, and severely underestimates the constraints that China’s security environment will place upon Beijing’s decisionmakers. Gaining a handle on the likely trajectories of China’s rise will instead require a deeper understanding of the emergent threats to which Beijing will be forced to respond, regardless of its own designs. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) policies of privileging economic growth and noninterference are engendering a new set of potential security threats that include: 1) international terrorism; 2) foreign instability and state failure overseas; and 3) overtly anti-Chinese regimes. The result will be a refashioning of China’s foreign policy agenda beyond its traditional security concerns. Beijing is undoubtedly amassing the means to exert influence in international politics, but regardless of its strategic intentions today, its rapidly evolving threat environment will play a decisive role in determining how China brings these resources to bear. Confronted with

Managing the Global Commons

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. National Security Council, “NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” April 14, 1950, http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm. 2. U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), “Quadrennial Defense Review,” February 2010, p. 8, http://www.defense.gov/QDR/images/QDR_as_of_12Feb10_1000.pdf. 3. See International Maritime Organization, “International Shipping: Carrier of World Trade,” 2005, http://www.imo.org/includes/blastDataOnly.asp/data_id%3D18900/IntShippingFlyerfinal.pdf. 4. See Air Transport Action Group, “The Economic & Social Benefits of Air Transport,” 2008, pp. 2–9, http://www.icao.int/ATWorkshop/ATAG_SocialBenefitsAirTransport.pdf. 5. Joseph Nye, “Recovering American Leadership,” Survival 50, no. 1 (February 2008): 63. This study is also informed by A.T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1987); Barry Posen, “Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony,” International Security 28, no. 1 (Summer 2003): 5–46; Michele Flournoy and Shawn Brimley, “The Contested Commons,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 135, No. 7 (July 2009), http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/story.asp?STORY_ID=1950. 6. See National Intelligence Council, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” November 2008, http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf. 7. See DOD, “Annual Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China,” 2009, http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Power_Report_2009.pdf. 8. For an excellent summary of the rise of states with anti-access capabilities, see Andrew F. Krepinevich, “Why AirSea Battle?” February 2010, http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/PubLibrary/R.20100219.Why_AirSea_Battle/R.20100219.Why_AirSea_Battle.pdf. 9. See Fariborz Haghshenass, “Iran's Asymmetric Naval Warfare,” Policy Focus, no. 87, September 2008, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyFocus87.pdf; Nasser Karimi and Lee Keath, “Iran Begins War Games in Persian Gulf Oil Route,” Associated Press, April 22, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100422/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_war_games; Caitlin Talmadge, “Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz,” International Security 33, no. 1 (Summer 2008): 82–117; U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, “Iran's Naval Forces: From Guerilla Warfare to a Modern Naval Strategy,” Fall 2009, http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/oni/iran-navy.pdf. 10. Siobhan Gorman, Yochi Dreazen, and August Cole, “Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones,” Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html. 11. Quadrennial Defense Review, p. xiv. 12. Quadrennial Defense Review, p. 9. 13. Quadrennial Defense Review, p. iii and Michele Flournoy and Shawn Brimley, “The Contested Commons.” 14. Quadrennial Defense Review, p. vi. 15. Quadrennial Defense Review, p. 32. 16. Quadrennial Defense Review, pp. 32–33. 17. Quadrennial Defense Review, p. 33. 18. John T. Bennett, “Flournoy Defends QDR, Budget Focus on ‘High-End’ Ops,” FederalTimes.com, February 3, 2010, http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20100203/DEPARTMENTS01/2030303/0/TWITTER. 19. Michael Schumann, “How to Defeat Pirates: Success in the Strait,” Time, April 22, 2009, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1893032,00.html. 20. See Pew Charitable Trust, “Ratify Law of the Sea: U.S. National Security,” n.d., http://ratifylawofthesea.org/?page_id=17 and “Transcript of Hillary Clinton's Confirmation Hearing,” Council on Foreign Relations Essential Documents, January 13, 2009, http://www.cfr.org/publication/18225/transcript_of_hillary_clintons_confirmation_hearing.html. 21. See Timon Singh, “Space: The Final Junkyard,” EU Infrastructure, August 24, 2008, http://www.euinfrastructure.com/news/Space-The-Final-Junkyard/. 22. See Timon Singh, “Space: The Final Junkyard,” EU Infrastructure, August 24, 2008, http://www.euinfrastructure.com/news/Space-The-Final-Junkyard/. 23. See Robert D. Kaplan, “The Geography of Chinese Power,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 3 (May/June 2010): 39–40. 24. Quadrennial Defense Review, pp. 14–15. 25. Quadrennial Defense Review, pp. 34–35. 26. Remarks by Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), “Hearing of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on the Status of United States Strategic Forces,” March 16, 2010. 27. Remarks by Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), “Hearing of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on the Status of United States Strategic Forces,” March 16, 2010, pp. 37–39. 28. DOD, “Bloggers Roundtable with Michael Nacht, Assitant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs, and Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense,” February 3, 2010, http://www.dodlive.mil/files/2010/02/0203qdr-Nacht-and-Hicks.pdf. Additional informationNotes on contributorsAbraham M. DenmarkAbraham M. Denmark is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He is the coeditor and coauthor of “Contested Commons: The Future of American Power in a Multipolar World” (CNAS, January 2010). He can be followed on twitter: @AbeDenmark

Getting China and India right: Strategies for leveraging the world's fastest growing economies for global advantage

According to projections of the National Intelligence Council, a US government think tank, by 2025 China and India will have the world's second- and fourth-largest economies, respectively. The world is changing before our eyes – within the memories of many readers of this journal, these economies were known for little other than abject poverty. Today they are the largest of the “emerging market economies.” Yet to apply this term to China and India is to fail to recognize the cycles of history. These countries have been the prime generators of wealth in the world for millennia, dwarfing even the Roman Empire at its height. As recently as 1820, China and India together accounted for almost half of world output (Maddison, 2001). For China and India, their current appearance on the world economic stage is better understood as re-emergence rather than emergence.illustration Open image in new window