RE: [sfconsim-l] More future history questions

textfilter: chose text/plain from a multipart/alternative

Lots of good idea, lets comments on a few :

1.	 China could very possibly lapse into turmoil, even civil war,
that
has happened before, but some of its part would still have a lot of
political, economic and military power at their disposal, so instead of
a
single superpower, you would end up for a while with several local
power,
powerful enough to keep some of their neighbour occupied (including
Japan).
If it able to pass through its current socio-economy challenge
successfully,
it will be a superpower.

2.	 Japan has many more years of demographic reduction in front of
them, and still too many peoples remembers WWII atrocities.  So dont
expect
them to ally two closely (or even annexe) anyone too soon.  Since China
is a
threat, and will stay that way until it collapse, I expect Japan and
Korea
to come increase the rank of the ASEAN, especially if the US are
obligated
to shrink their military too much.

3.	 India, while somewhat landlocked by the Himalaya, is a local
power
and could grow more powerful, particularly if China and Russia fall
down,
India could try to take a piece for itself, particularly in south Asia;

4.	 Russia is presently at the crossroad, it could fall completely,
it
could stay in its current state of affair for a while or it could pass
through its own Spring Revolution.  Russia has an huge capability to
recover
and survive, what theyve done in WWII is an example and I wouldnt write
them off as easily, especially since they have been a power for the last
two
century, which is more than the US by the way;

5.	 The Arab Springs are going to continue, al-Assad is the next
and
more will follow after him.  Turkey is positioning itself to be an
example
to those Arab nations successfully completing their revolution.  Turkey
being excluded from the EU, would most likely start their own
socio-economy
union with fellow Arabs and even Persians, if they can get their own
revolution (not unlikely with the new economic sanction).

6.	 The European Union is heading for a rough time, my view is that
EU
will shrink a bit (going back to the Europe of the 12 or 15) but they
will
be obligated to increase integration and collaboration if they are to
pass
through the crisis.  In the end, I would cast my vote on a smaller but
more
capable and dynamic EU.  What happen with the excluded nations is open
to
discussion.

7.	 America  its a superpower and its will stay that way but the
current political situation is not making me optimistic.  I believe
rough
time will come to the US (politically, economically, etc) and could very
well lose a lot of international prestige and influence, with a period
more
focused on internal affair.  Close ally like Canada, Britain and
Australia
could be the key the US resurgence, with a kind of union of English
speaking
powers.

8.	 South America is also on the verge of economic and social
power:
Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentine, Chile, are all growing at an
increased
rate and a follow on to the Mercosur union could have quite a bit of
clout.

9.	 Africa well that could be the most dramatic improvement we
could
see in the coming future.  What Im seeing in Somalia, where African
Union,
helped by Kenyan and Ethiopian are actually putting some order in this
lawless country.  With the support of South Africa, USA and Israel, and
with
the huge treasure chess of natural resource at their disposal, an
African
Union could become a true political, economic and military power.



Overall, I see a future in which roughly tens
unions/alliances/federations/super nations are developing parallel to
each
other, with lots of friction and secret dealing between them,
progressing in
a king of cold way between tens super nations.	No one extending two
much by
fear of being confronted by another power.  With every one having nukes,
space infrastructures and weapons, large professional army and huge and
powerful economy at their disposal, the geopolitical game will be much
more
complex.  Isolated nations would have to be close ally to those
geopolitical
blocks or fall prey to their machinations.



Whats not compounded in this discussion are the consequences of the
global
warning: access to polar region for resources exploitations and
reduction of
lowland area forcing millions if not billions to move.	Also, the
technological revolution are also going to change a lot of thing and if
the
Singularity doesnt happen, it will still revolutionize our life and the
geopolitical arena.



Laurent



De : sfconsim-l@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sfconsim-l@yahoogroups.com] De
la
part de beth.fulton@csiro.au
Envoy : 14 janvier 2012 23:05
 : sfconsim-l@yahoogroups.com; gzg@firedrake.org
Objet : [sfconsim-l] More future history questions





G'day,

For work I recently read the book "The Next 100 Years" by George
Friedman.
I'm not sure I really agree with some of his logic, but the last few
chapters made for an interesting sci-fi short story read.

So I'll do a quick summary here (sorry if this counts as spoilers) and I
wouldn't mind getting your opinion on how feasible it all seems.

I won't bother going through all the economic ups and downs he predicts,
suffice it to say that by 2035-2040 US is still the worlds major
superpower,
its paying migrants to come to the country to pad out a contracting
workforce that even robotics can't compensate for and the jihadist
movements
are basically old history. oh and an attempt by Russia to regain past
glory
failed and they're a worse basket case than ever.

So Russia's collapse leaves some wiggle room on its borders. He writes
off
China as not having enough cohesion and India as hemmed in by geography
and
instead proposes

1) Japan gets power by first economically allying with productive
coastal
regions of China and them militarily going after the Pacific rim areas
of
Russia. He goes through how they build up their military etc to prepare,
but
basically the crux is 500 mile radius from Japan gets you from Shanghai
to
Vladivostok so they don't need a super huge military to pull it off.

2) Turkey as a regional economic power pushes up into the Caucasus as
Russia
collapse and acts as the peaceful hand in the fragmenting Arab
nations/Muslim world and even moves into the Muslim areas of the Balkans
(US
and Arab world initially supports them as less objectionable, for
different
reasons, than Iran or Israel and Pakistan isn't healthy enough to step
up)

3) NATO falls apart but Poland heads up a coalition of dynamic
Slavic/eastern European and Baltic states that soak up ex-Russia's
eastern
boundary (i.e. Ukraine, Belarus etc), again with US support (western
Europe
is in financial decline due to aging populations so don't play a big
part
apparently)

4) 2030s-2040s Japan and Turkey's space presence buidls up, though is
never
as large as the US's (many nations also have commercial space traffic at
this point)

5) Polish Bloc and Turkey will end up at loggerheads (US ends up more
behind
the Poles)

6) US puts many of its military eggs in space based command and control
centres which coordinate the strike capabilities of hypersonic aircraft
that
can reach most of the world's surface (form US bases) in less than an
hour
or so

7) Americans assume no one is as good as them at tech, thinking sneaky
etc
and also that all threats will come from Earth (i.e. missiles fired at
satellites or satellites vs satellites using the kinetics that was
spoken of
on the sf-consim list the other day)

8) US doesn't like growing military (especially naval) power of Turkey
and
Japan, who in turn feel that US is trying to crush them so everyone gets
"tense"

9) No one takes nukes seriously as an option (except as a last resort)
as
they don't want the PR disaster of civilian casualties

10) Many nations build industrial/research colonies on the moon by 2040s

11) In 2050 Turkey has a "crisis" with Poland over troops in the
Balkans, a
ruse to keep the US attention there (President gets the PMs together
etc,
seems to talk them down, great kudos etc everyone goes home for the
holidays
happy). Japan does its bulk standard quarterly military drills so no one
really pays attention. The Japanese then make a "secret" first strike by
launching rocks (with rocket motors attached) from secret part of their
moon
base, initially on "random" orbits so just look like steroids so
automated
systems of US "Battlestars" ignore them and even Space tech Joe Bloggs
goes
"Hmmm meteors are a bit higher than normal but none headed for us so
ok". On
3rd day from moon launch of these rocks they go into terminal missile
burn
that redirects them at the 3 US Battlestars. This is timed for late in
the
afternoon of Thanksgiving so its hard to get the Joint Chiefs/important
people together. Battelstars put up valiant self defensive effort but
overwhelmed by more rocks. US is blind. Japanese have also got their
hypersonics airborne and hit US airfields/land command and control. In
the
final hour Japan finally tells Turkey the plan... who activate pre-made
battle plans and smash Polish facilities.

12) US did get some of their own forces airborne, and do some damage to
Japan, but not sheet loads.

13) The Japanese-Turkish coalition isn't after capitulation just
breathing
space so now push for political settlement - an agreement to all stay
out of
each other's way/areas of influence.

14) US actually freaked out by the attacks and begins ratcheting its
responses - first gets US geekforce to upload new control programs for
remaining "old" satellites which go and kill Japanese/Turkish
satellites;
mutual raiding and destruction of moon base capabiilities by the secrte
military guys inserted in each research team; the US industrial complex
rolls into action and turns out new gen aircraft (in about 2 years) and
uses
mothballed secret bases to house them (they had purposefully built these
and
kept the secret since 2030s or so just in case)

15) Meanwhile Turkey kicks Polish butt, using hypersonic aircraft as
artillery and old fashioned land based invasion. US uses its remaining
airforce to help the Poles out and push the Turks back (buying time for
a US
rebuild) - Turks also don't want to be too stretched as have to keep
Egypt
etc under control.

16) 2051-2052 Germans agree to coalition with Turkey to defeat the Poles
(they get northeast europe in return if successful) and drag in the
French
too. Britain is appalled and secretly hands its intel, airforce
resources
and airbases to the US. Turks and Germans pusg througheastern Europe
again
using power armoured troops (with robot minions so don't need huge
numbers
of human bodies). Initially the electrical grid is defended as both
sides
want ti to feed their PA. The US then reveals its last trick, which is
space
based solar power beamed down to troops via microwave (i.e. to on ground
recievers) and so the Polish scorch earth the electrical grid and
Turkish
advance grinds to a halt. On top of which Congressional budget blocks
will
mean that a 4th battlestar was built way back when but never launched
and
now it is... Japan and Turkish advances reversed (again no requirement
for
unconditional surrender, though US gets space to itself).

17) Poland will prosper, eventually reforming something vaguely like
NATO
and economically sucking up beleaguered western Europe. US feels
threatened
and now stats to back Turkey - Poles feel betrayed.

18) Military funded space based electrical power will see that form of
energy take off as most economic as commercial industry doesn't have to
pay
for the infrastructure (as was the case for the interstate and early
internet/www) and you get another US boom

19) Meanwhile by 2060s-2080s Mexico has pulled itself together and is
now
the Latin economy of note, moreover through now legal migration the
Mexican
cession areas of the US are largely Latino populated (they are almost a
majority there now in 2000 so this isn't too far fetched)

20) Robotics and cheap energy means the labour force is finally not
needed
for real and skill displacement can't soak them all up (population
problems
compounded by genetic advances in health care areas). End result US
decides
to go back to limiting migration and sending home anyone on a temporary
visa
regardless of residence time. Latinos (some of whom have now been in the
US
for decades) and Mexico (who doesn't want waves of unemployed) get
upset.
Political tensions in Mexico City and amongst Latino representatives in
Washington, small scale radicalisation in the "borderlands" sees some
strikes on federal facilities. President tries to federalise the
national
guard along the Mexican border to protect federal installations. The
Latino
governors tell him to go jump (and largely Latino national guard in
those
areas support the governors). Radical strikes continue so Congress
agrees to
allow US army in down there, Mexican army is moved to the border in
response. Mexican and US Presidents meet to parly with the Mexican
President
effectively speaking for the Latinos in the Mexican cession areas as
well as
Mexico itself. 

21) Change to Mexican constitution allows for diaspora to vote.

22) Mexico ramps up military forces

23) US army could probably take out the Mexican army (ok likely for sure
could) but it couldn't pacify the borderlands... the world holds its
breath
to see whether the borders are formally redrawn.

Like I said interesting, but how plausible is it?

Beth

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