En bra lista som visar varför vi kommer att leva i en kaotisk värld

Denna rapport (pdf)  från United States Joint Forces Command visar hur svårt det är att planera framtiden vad gäller militär och politik. Här har man som exempel bara visat på hur allianser och stormakter skiftat per decennium under nittonhundratalet:

• 1900 If you had been a strategic analyst for the world’s leading power, you would have
  been British, looking warily at Britain’s age old enemy: France.
• 1910 You would now be allied with France, and the enemy would now be Germany
• 1920 Britain and its allies had won World War I, but now the British found themselves
  engaged in a naval race with its former allies the United States and Japan.
• 1930 For the British, naval limitation treaties were in place, the Great Depression had
  started and defense planning for the next five years assumed a “ten year” rule -- no
  war in ten years. British planners posited the main threats to the Empire as the
  Soviet Union and Japan, while Germany and Italy were either friendly or no threat.
• 1936 A British planner would now posit three great threats: Italy, Japan, and the worst, a
  resurgent Germany, while little help could be expected from the United States.
• 1940 The collapse of France in June left Britain alone in a seemingly hopeless war with
  Germany and Italy with a Japanese threat looming in the Pacific. America had
  only recently begun to scramble to rearm its military forces.
• 1950 The United States was now the world’s greatest power, the atomic age had
  dawned, and a “police action” began in June in Korea that was to kill over 36,500
  Americans, 58,000 South Koreans, nearly 3,000 Allied soldiers, 215,000 North
  Koreans, 400,000 Chinese, and 2,000,000 Korean civilians before a cease-fire
  brought an end to the fighting in 1953. The main opponent in the conflict would be
  China, America’s ally in the war against Japan.
• 1960 Politicians in the United States were focusing on a missile gap that did not exist;
  massive retaliation would soon give way to flexible response, while a small
  insurgency in South Vietnam hardly drew American attention.
• 1970 The United States was beginning to withdraw from Vietnam, its military forces in
  shambles. The Soviet Union had just crushed incipient rebellion in the Warsaw
  Pact. Détente between the Soviets and Americans had begun, while the Chinese
  were waiting in the wing to create an informal alliance with the United States.
• 1980 The Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan, while a theocratic revolution in Iran
  had overthrown the Shah’s regime. “Desert One” -- an attempt to free American
  hostages in Iran -- ended in a humiliating failure, another indication of what
  pundits were calling “the hollow force.” America was the greatest creditor nation
  the world had ever seen.
• 1990 The Soviet Union collapses. The supposedly hollow force shreds the vaunted Iraqi
  Army in less than 100 hours. The United States had become the world’s greatest
  debtor nation. No one outside of the Department of Defense has heard of the
  internet.
• 2000 Warsaw is the capital of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nation.
  Terrorism is emerging as America’s greatest threat. Biotechnology, robotics,
  nanotechnology, HD energy, etc. are advancing so fast they are beyond forecasting
• 2010 Take the above and plan accordingly! What will be the disruptions of the next 25
  years?

Hittat via Foreign Policy.