These guys are expecting monolithic single-party states to be the winners.

Just like the aftermath of the Great Depression. No doubt some glib-tongued demagogue will take control, with the open support of the workers, while working for the money men, and the next thing you know, they'll be invaded Poland.

Quite clearly the NIC know nothing. I thought everyone knew that the world ends in 2012.

Bring on the United States of Earth and be done with it, All these nation states squabbling over rescources and power... surely given the past history of this species if we continue down this path extinction or at least total disaster awaits :D, Think of all the planets we could colonize and all the alien species we could enslave ! a United World is the way forward, where did war get anyone ? And before anyone gives the same bs line that war is crucial to research and devlopement all i can say is Newton and Einstien wern't on DARPA payrolls....

I for one welcome our Terran masters if only they'd stop infighting.

Signed X3NU

The US economy will be going strong during the remainder of the decade as consumer-driven spending and trickle-down economics will guarantee a continuous high living standard for all American Citizens snugly embedded in the welfare-warfare state.

Continuous technology-driven innovation will propel this trend and large-scale economical or political upheavals are not to be expected. Food, energy or raw material scarcities are unlikely to have significant impact.

We shall refine these linear predictions after querying various think-tanks of lesser intelligences. Thank you for your patience.

[Wagnerian Music which makes you change the channel]

As if. First of all, the US has never really had much understanding of the European setup, something that has been a stumbling block for them for many years now.

Second, this is at odds with another prediction made recently which said that the US and Europe domination will eventually give way to such economies as China and India.

US Intelligence? Not this time!

Britain isn't even mentioned in the report. Does that mean we don't survive until 2025 or we're too insignificant by then? Perhaps we're just a province of Europe under the leadership of President Blair by then?

more like 2009

It's amazing how slow they are, the EU is already bigger than the US in population and GDP never mind having an effective and trained competent military. Playing armies is over and has been for some time, yet another concept the yanks just can't seem to get. No matter how many children shoot each other the yanks do love thuggish violence as a mode of expression.

It came as a shock to realise the US is funding the destabilisation of the EU. The libertas[sic] criminal organisation is funded by the NED to impede the passage of legislation in the EU (eg the recent Irish referendum). Of course forewarned is forearmed but it does show how low and underhanded their failed system is.

As the easy money dries up in the states and the EU research and Development grants come online for 2010 the age old braindrain will be halted. The US education joke will continue to produce corrupt CEOs and lawyers but nothing else. The EU will remain a centre of excellence while the US and China duke it out for the manufacturing and assembly work. No prizes for guessing the winner of that battle.

I enjoy a good sf novel as much as the next guy. This is all conjecture.

In the future, gm crops will cause bluebottles to grow to the size of labradors. All personal vehicles will run on bio-diesel made from the rendered remains of the obese. Their exhaust will smell like chips fried in dripping. Chesse will have been banned, especially really good cheese, on account of it's addictive properties. We will all live in giant snail shells, left by the giant snails who keep the roads clean.

I will have had my brain uploaded to every single then-current Nintendo hand held device and my avatar will admonish the youth with the opinion that they need to listen to some "proper" music - like a bit of Satanic Metal - as well as remembering that there used to be pens in the "Post Office" - whatever that was.

Well, my vision of the future is just as plausible.

The single greatest threat to the US's hold on global power has to be the EU. The US, Japan and China are all intrinsically limited by their deeply nationalistic cultural baggage - the US and Japan cannot get any bigger than they are now, and China will also find its economic limit in a few decades. The EU, though, faces no geographical limits, there is no real practical reason why the single market idea cannot expand to include first Turkey, then Russia, Pakistan, India, the North of Africa travelling downwards and eventually even to the East and Israel, Iraq and any of the other Middle-East nations that have become democratic. It is possible to imagine, a few hundred years down the line, a pan-continental single currency uniting war-torn regions of the world, lifting a billion people out of poverty and creating a diverse but co-operating multinational state containing a third of the world's population. If the European nations can learn to live together, then anyone can.

Eventually, the US will need to either start its own single market covering the Americas, or become a member of the European one. The long term choice for America is to either surrender its independence or surrender its global influence. The Credit Crunch has highlighted the fact that it is impossible to be independent in the global economy, and the EU single market concept has so many benefits over the current patchwork quilt version of the global economy that it would be foolish not to either join it or emulate it.

"NIC's report concludes the European Union will maintain its economic clout in 2025, but internal bickering and competing national agendas will leave the EU a "hobbled giant" unable to translate its position into global influence."

So how is this different to today?

My prediction for the future is that America will, very soon, elect a black man as Pres... wait a second!

Hmmmm, I guess the NIC have read Asimov's "Foundation" then. :-)

Seán pretty much sums it up. The US came out of WWII with a huge lead over the world economically. Americans has this attitude that only they know how to make economic growth and that the rest of the world is dooming themselves by giving medical care and an education to their citizens. Well since the war the EU economic growth has surpassed US growth. For those of you even considering arguing against that fact just compare GDP in 1950 and 2006 of EU and US. Same goes for Japan, although recently (25 years)they have adopted US style personel goals and stuck now.

The report is just another US intelligence report driven by politcs not reality.

As a Brit, I see our influence dwindling because our politicians are prostitutes and our dumbed down youth are all drunk all the time and got their straight As too easy.

The EU is an unaccountable and undemocratic joke built on balsawood foundations. We should test the European Parliament and Commision properties on a regular basis for cocaine residue just to let the public know what fuels Euro-technocrats.

The US has the most diverse culture in the world and is so competitive that they will always be the brains pushing the world forward. They will always be the ones innovating and challenging our perceptions of what is possible. It's a shame the useful idiots on the American Left don't allow their great country to prove what it can do for humanity, nature and beyond.

China and India will simply be big markets for consumption and tourism, at the moment they don't innovate and don't quite respect the concept of intellectual property, which stifles innovation further because who is going to invent anything if they feel they'll be ripped off and left in the dust?

The tone of the comments so far suggests we're all a bit underwhelmed by this American report, in which there is (strangely) no mention of our Special Relationship. In 2025 I'll be in my 70s and (with any luck) retired but still competent, although unable to run for it in the case of civil collapse.

British population will still be 60MP, world up to 8GP (that’s Megapeople and Gigapeople). Proportion of foreigners taking our jobs will be up though, even if their families have been here for a century, so we’ll have to work hard to keep Parliament and government full of the Right Sort.

We'll have closer integration into the EU, like in using Euros but not (Heaven forfend) driving on the right, using our bio/wind/leccy/solar-powered vehicles.

The report was correct in suggesting that the EU (if it can get its collective act together) will look askance at attempts by the USA to pacify the Middle East by selling arms to some of the countries and waving big sticks at others, because the Middle East is a helluva lot closer to us than to US.

The EU defence forces will pile up at the Balkans for that reason. The UK’s days as the US’s biggest aircraft carrier may be curtailed by that EU integration, so we’ll have amalgamated all the regiments into a super Queen’s Royal Highlanders Buffs Rifles Foot Dragoons Regiment, or ‘British Army’ as some may abbreviate it.

Rising sea-levels will have put paid to the Netherlands and East Anglia but my house is at an elevation of 8m so I’ll be OK.

The London Stock Exchange will still be there helping to move the world’s money around and creaming off some of it, but the EU may have tried by then to integrate it into somewhere ‘central’ like Paris which already has its Bourse as if anyone had ever heard of that.

More poor people will become economic migrants, and hot dry areas will provide climate migrants, so the ‘youth-bulge’ countries may help set us up by coming here for both reasons. I’ll rent out the spare bedroom.

Oil-related products will rationed by the UK and most other governments for ‘essential services’ like the blue-light services and trips to Glyndebourne. I’ll not be driving by then so that’s alright. Maybe we’ll be able to buy microwave energy from Libya as well as gas from Russia. Even though Scotland might have killed off all its eagles and kites to build windmills, these will provide a bit.

Britain will still be making whisky for export and growing some food and wood for itself, but we’ll not need many cars and the windmills come from Denmark, so, little manufacturing, but much think-tanking in the Services Industries.

Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet.

The US is weird in this regard. I don't see any European Intelligence organisation producing reports saying the US will be bankrupt and floundering in 2025.

Frankly, I think this is some kind of a political spin story by Eurosceptics of some sort aimed to destabilise. Or, possibly aimed at Irish Lisbon treaty voters.

Please filter your press releases in future!

And this is the same week that they're talking about buying the US's largest car manufacturers with spare change...

Current affairs isn't really my strong point. WOuld you go into more detail about Libertas, or provide some links?

Thanks.

So, the US intelligence is suggesting that 2025 will be the moment to conquier the EU.

Yeah well, I am a South African and I reported on the change over from apartheid to democracy in my country in 1990 tp 1994 and US intelligence then predicted that without a doubt this cannot happen without a race war. The race war never happened of course.

Didn't they also say Sadam has weapons of mass destruction?

I sometimes wonder if thet don't make the mistake of just taking it for granted that everybody thinks and reacts like them on and to matters.

Is this the same bunch that gave us Gulf War II, that reality show subtitled "hunt the invisible nay non existent WMD", if so I would treat the content with the contempt it deserves.

Efros

Paris cos she knows intelligence when she sees it, she, like US intelligence, just doesn't see it in the bathroom mirror.

internal bickering and competing national agendas will leave the EU a "hobbled giant" unable to translate its position into global influence.

Ahh come on - what are we looking at here? Some fat white guy populated comittee in the US say's blah blah about the EU lets get some facts ...

The EU is already the richest single unified economic trading block on Earth.

Each and every EU member country voted to join and can leave at any time (more that can be said of your States)

The Chinese are Communist but beating you at your own game - and I trade with them regularly

Look fucknuts US committee - Our social welfare model stops me from killing a doctor for his wallet because I needed medical treatment. (think about it for a minute)

You (NIC) may think that we (The EU) are a bunch of disparate, bickering, fading nations but we are not - Vikings, Danes, Saxons, Angles, Picts even the French - we may War amongst ourselves on occasion but don't ever think that the UK and Germany are two separate nations - We are all NORTHMEN and when attacked from outside we are ONE NATION

VfV

Its the event horizon thingy -- in companies that I've worked at its typically 6 weeks. Anything due in less than 6 weeks is needed 'right now' -- panic, please. Anything due after that doesn't need to be worred about.

2025 fits the event horizon... its far enough out that it doesn't make any difference to day to day policy but close enough to sound realistic.

The whole tone of the bits of report in the article ( I couldn't be bothered to download and read 8Mb) sound like Republican wishful thinking. Also, the conclusions of all of the items mentioned are not exactly world shaking in their scope, in fact it almost gives the impression that on Thursday morning somebody was told `That report has to be on my desk Friday afternoon.´ so it was.

One of the things the States dreads is the possibility of Europe forming a working Federal Europe, if it wanted to Europe could wipe the floor with the US in terms of economics and innovation. Europe's biggest problem nowadays is it's shortage of natural resources but that is part of the reason why we are allowing the likes of Romania and Bulgaria and others to join the EC..... Now, Russia still has lots of trees, oil, and stuff in the ground... Hmmm

'......cutbacks in health and retirement benefits, "which most states have not begun to implement or even to contemplate."'

Other topical news. Apparently one of the reasons the Yanks' motor industry is in the crapper is because every car leaving the factory gates comes with a $2000 markup to pay the (unreformed) pension funds.

Sounds like they should sack the futurologists and hire a few navel-gazers.

The US fails to realise that they have a big problem with there economy, which will hit them very soon. They still have a big reliance on heavy industry.

I pridict that these are going to go under, big time. Places like Detroit will become dead citys as the US finaly realises that they cannot contiue to make rubbish and expect the US consumer to support them. They are just about to hit the same problem the UK had in the 70s and 80s, making crap for to much and expecting the slogen "by American, its the right thing to do" too help.

The NOW (New World Order) mob are at it again…

They are predicting that if The EU, China, Russia and India do not merge with the USA to create the NOW… “We are all doomed Captain Mainwaring… doomed”. The powers that be, have such tiny ape-like minds that they believe that their form of “intelligence” is somehow superior to that of ordinary folk; consequently they have been milking this “tyranny of the majority” form of democracy, for all it is worth, and perhaps what this US “intelligence” organisation sees, is that the people of the EU may increasingly be seeing that it is a piece of crap.

This is just a symptom of what happens to all imperialist empires, and the USA is no exception, they will become ever more belligerent, and will continue to attempt to “democratise” the world. The USA version of democracy, also shared by the EU government, is to get everyone to vote on a regular basis, but simultaneously ensure that the vote is completely meaningless.

The EU is having trouble with this at the moment, they have until recently been of the view that sham democracy is vital to the future of Europe, but with the recent referendums in France and The Netherlands have realised that it merely retards the onset of the NOW.. They thought they had overcome this by producing the Lisbon document, which superficially says that every sperm (human right) is sacred, however when one scratches just below the surface, one finds the EU version of the NOW lurking. Then, along comes little Ireland and exercises a bit of democracy, and the powers that be, realise that even the smallest sliver of genuine democracy has to be removed from the EU. The EU council of ministers is frantically working now to eliminate this threat ever rearing its ugly head again. We don’t yet know how they are going to attempt to hoodwink the Paddy’s, but they going to attempt it soon, they see that getting their own way is vital to protect their own unproductive existence.

They have been successfully ignoring people’s votes in the other large national blocs for centuries, so no problem there.

The ONLY place where democracy is taken seriously is Switzerland, where people of all racial, religious and demographic backgrounds live peacefully side by side, and quietly control their federal government, whilst at the same time being the richest per capita in the world, even though they have nothing more than ice and rocks for natural resources. What is more, they have been doing this for more than 700 years.

For the USA and EU, this is a horrific prospect and a model which has to be downplayed at every opportunity (they are all mad… they are really boring etc. etc.), imagine the prospect of the president of the EU or USA, driving his/her own car, having to do a proper job for most of the year because the pay for being a part-time president is not enough to live on, at least to the standard which befits their lofty status, of not having any bodyguards, or horror upon horror… being told what to do by the voters!

So basically this document is just the usual shit from an ironically named organisation of a type that exists in all the large power blocs, an “intelligence” think tank ha-ha… ha-ha-ha- ha- ha…

Ha – ha – ha – bloody - ha.

The real truth is that the future of mankind lies in the smallest possible demos (perhaps a few hundred) co-operating peacefully with its neighbours, and one achieves this, by only passing up competences that cannot be managed at this smallest level. The most important competences that are not passed up, at any cost, are the ability to change the voting system, and the ability to make war.

...but a prediction that will influence future developments in your favour. Isn't that why the "oracle" wasn't entirely honest with "neo"?

Anyway, predicting the future always changes the end result, so you can never be accurate.

I must apollogise to the author of this article... I got as far as United States government intelligence and could go no further due to tears of laughter...

have you been reading my screen play?

No we must absolutely not bring on the United States of Earth, we should instead preserve our great diversity. Continual economic expansion is unsustainable so we should drop our obsession with it. There is no need to be the world's no.1 economic power, all that matters economically is our standard of living and wealth per capita. If we are afraid that our companies wont be the biggest fish and might get taken over, then introduce legislation to prevent this.

Let's also ask Alex Ferguson who he thinks is going to win the Premier League.

It has always been easier to Predict Long Range than Short Range Predictions.

I was told in 1977 at University, Long before 1989 Communist Collapse that the World is going through a Change from Two Poler World to Multi Poler world.

And much more Dangerous.