C.I.A. Prediction: EU and NATO to Dissolve In 2020.

You would think that the damn CIA would have something more important to do other than to speculate and seemingly "predict" the future of Europe?!

Nonetheless, as per the article(s), the EU will dissolve and as a result, NATO would disband. The article also indicates that by 2020, India and China will be world powers. Now with the "predicted" dissolving of the EU and disbanding of NATO, I would assume that India and China would fill the void left by 'Old' Europe?

THE CIA has predicted that the European Union will break-up within 15 years unless it radically reforms its ailing welfare systems.

The report by the intelligence agency, which forecasts how the world will look in 2020, warns that Europe could be dragged into economic decline by its ageing population. It also predicts the end of Nato and post-1945 military alliances.

In a devastating indictment of EU economic prospects, the report warns: "The current EU welfare state is unsustainable and the lack of any economic revitalisation could lead to the splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the EU, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role."

It adds that the EU’s economic growth rate is dragged down by Germany and its restrictive labour laws. Reforms there - and in France and Italy to lesser extents - remain key to whether the EU as a whole can break out of its "slow-growth pattern".

Reflecting growing fears in the US that the pain of any proper reform would be too much to bear, the report adds that the experts it consulted "are dubious that the present political leadership is prepared to make even this partial break, believing a looming budgetary crisis in the next five years would be the more likely trigger for reform".

The EU is also set for a looming demographic crisis because of a drop in birth rates and increased longevity, with devastating economic consequences.

The report says: "Either European countries adapt their workforces, reform their social welfare, education and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations [chiefly from Muslim countries] or they face a period of protracted economic stasis."

CIA gives grim warning on European prospects
CIA report: EU and NATO to dissolve

Does the C.I.A. "predictions" have merit? Is what they are stating as the reasons for the dissolving of the EU and NATO of valid concern or even valid?

Thoughts and/or comments?





seekerof

[edit on 16-1-2005 by Seekerof]

Since when have the CIA been able to predict anything correctly in the long-term?

Did they predict that their involvement in Operation Ajax would result in Iran becoming the first world Islamic power?

Did they forsee that their boy Osama would go renegade and cause the worst 'terrorist' attack on US soil?

Did they forsee that their WMD claim would essentially cause their whole agency to be restructured in 2003?

Amazing that anyone would even pay attention to this sort of psy-op crap anymore.

Its funny that in that entire article, it maintains that the US will "maintain its lead", or that "X economies will surpass all western ones except the US".

I think that there are far pressing issues that need resolving within the US, before they start making predictions about what will happen to the worlds largest, most stable trading bloc and diplomatic alliance.

Jealousy and scare tactics methinks.......

I think the C.I.A. would be better spending its time looking at how the US will look in 20 years. If the level of Military spending continues as it is, and with future conflicts possible, the US will find its self in a hole it will find very difficult to climb out of. Ive said this before, the US, as wealthy as she is, does not have a bottomless pit of money. Also President Bush seems intent upon widening the war on Terror to Iran and possibly Syria. The kind of Military spending that kind of operation would take, bearing in mind that there must be a significant presence in these countries afterwards, surly cannot be sustained. Anyone expecting a speedy resolution is mistaken. I forsee a heavy US and possibly UK presence in the region for a few years to come and that kind of comitment dont come cheap.

[edit on 16-1-2005 by Janus]

Umm, yep, you both on the mark. That being said, one of my questions, for which I would love to hear your thoughts on, is: Is what they are stating as the reasons for the dissolving of the EU and NATO of valid concern or even valid?

The CIA report/predicition mentions:
* ...its ailing welfare systems
* ...could be dragged into economic decline by its ageing population.
* ...EU welfare state is unsustainable and the lack of any economic revitalisation could lead to the splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the EU, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role"
* ...the EU’s economic growth rate is dragged down by Germany and its restrictive labour laws
* ...slow-growth pattern
* ...a looming budgetary crisis in the next five years
* ...The EU is also set for a looming demographic crisis because of a drop in birth rates and increased longevity, with devastating economic consequences.
* ...Either European countries adapt their workforces, reform their social welfare, education and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations [chiefly from Muslim countries] or they face a period of protracted economic stasis

Do you think that these are valid in concern to either the current or future situation(s) in Europe today, despite the inflated value of the Euro?





seekerof

Is it fair to say the United States today is unrecognizable since September 11, 2001?

Would anyone have predicted that our country would sink so low as to not only allow torture overseas by transport, but to advocate it domestically? Would anyone have predicted our country would almost totally eviscerate the Constitution in its relevant amendments. That we would abandon everything that has made it a great nation and sink into another Viet Nam and worse, dispersing nuclear waste in high quantities over two countries. And all for nothing do we do this, since the shadow government and its tentacles into the visible government were at cause for 911?

The mission of this CIA report is to destroy workers rights and progress in Europe, so it will pose no comparative threat to the current destruction of human rights, and workers benefits in the United States.

Go back to sleep now, have a beer, some nachos, and watch football.

[edit on 16-1-2005 by SkipShipman]

But couldnt most of what was stated in the report also apply to the US Seekerof? ( exept of course the welfare system )
We do have an ageing population and also in the UK there will be a short fall in the state pentions because of Governmental shortsightedness. The welfare system is a burden and yes i believe we will be in a very difficult possition in 20 years time. I dont think that the EU will break up though and also i think that NATO is comming to the end of its usefull life. But without having the C.I.A's crystal ball i couldnt be 100% sure what will happen. But if the C.I.A. knows this then im sure Europes economists know it as well.

* ...its ailing welfare systems

Ailing what now? Damn site better than anywhere else in the world, and free to everyone, not just those who can afford it. Its paid for by taxation, and at present, the UK alone is running a budget surplus.

* ...could be dragged into economic decline by its ageing population.

The Government has already outlined several measures to counter this, including, expanding and encouraging private pension schemes and raising the age of retirement, as people can generally work longer if they want/have too due to better healthcare.

...EU welfare state is unsustainable and the lack of any economic revitalisation could lead to the splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the EU, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role"

You are going to have to be more specific about what this statement is alluding too. All economies in the EU are growing, and out of the top ten world economies, at least 5 of them are European.

* ...the EU’s economic growth rate is dragged down by Germany and its restrictive labour laws

What exactly is this statement alluding too as well? So the germans get paid holiday, paid sick, and you cant sack someone on the spot for no reason...oh damn, we don't do things like uber-capitalist america? Shame.......

* ...slow-growth pattern

Or....Steady, stable and sustainable growth....

* ...a looming budgetary crisis in the next five years

Really?? News to us!! I thought they might be talking about the US and its grossly overweight military spending there!

* ...The EU is also set for a looming demographic crisis because of a drop in birth rates and increased longevity, with devastating economic consequences.

Devastating how? People live longer, work longer, and spend more. In fact, in the UK, the "Grey Pound" accounts for more than half of all consumer spending as they have paid off all mortgages etc and have time to enjoy life.

* ...Either European countries adapt their workforces, reform their social welfare, education and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations [chiefly from Muslim countries] or they face a period of protracted economic stasis

Explain what is wrong, and I can answer. A blanket statement saying reform or perish does not really mean anything, especially when said by the CIA.

Just because we don't screw our people over, like in the US, doesn't mean we are doomed to failure. Get an effing grip!

Do you think that these are valid in concern to either the current or future situation(s) in Europe today, despite the inflated value of the Euro?

No, not one iota. Whilst some reform and tweaking will be needed to make sure that the systems keep ticking over, they are not on the brink of collapse in anyway shape or form. Any vist too or knowledge of Europe would not make you blindly believe the drivel that is in this report.

Overvalued Euro? I think you'll find that it was the US dollar that was overvalued, and is now begining its freefall. If China unpegs the Yuang from the Dollar (which it is thinking about), then you can watch your dollar slide, and watch the Euro rise.

As stated, I think the US should pay more attention to what is going on in its own backyard, before lecturing us about the "inadequacies" of our welfare systems.

EDIT for crappy spelling

[edit on 16/1/05 by stumason]

Hello?
Earth to Janus, and others....
The topic is:
C.I.A. Prediction: EU and NATO to Dissolve In 2020

This is not about the U.S., k?
I asked two very easy to understand questions while also admitting that the damn CIA could spending their time in a more constructive manner than spending it on "predicting" the collapse of Europe.

The trees and bushes are the items described by the CIA as to the dissolving of the EU and NATO, not the US. Lets stop beating around the trees and bushes, maybe?



seekerof

stumason,
Thank you for responding.
I'm glad things are so lovely on your side of the ocean in the UK.
Btw, is Britain/UK part of the EU?
If so, which I think they are, is what is good in Britain/UK the same in Germany, France, etc?

As for more specifics, stumason. Sorry, but those that I outlined came straight from the article(s).



seekerof

[edit on 16-1-2005 by Seekerof]

C'mon Seekerof if you read my last post i did try to answer some of your questions, unfortunatly im not an economist. . As for my comment that the report could apply to the US you could substitute US for any other modern Country in the western world. The C.I.A. could just have easily substituted the EU in the title for alot of countries, it wont just be the EU up a creek in 20 years.

Perhaps Janus.
You make a valid point.
Methinks the CIA has way tooo much time on their hands, but then again, with Mr. Goss taking names and kicking behind, perhaps these type "predictions" will come to an end. Seems like time wasted to me.
*shrugs shoulders*

I do really wonder at the validity of this report and what it predicts with the reasons it mentions though....

Thanks for responding.




seekerof

You are going to have to be more specific about what this statement is alluding too. All economies in the EU are growing, and out of the top ten world economies, at least 5 of them are European.

They're all growing? Yea, just barely. Germany's economy has shrunk a few times in the past year. None of the European economies are growing at any acceptable levels but around 2.

What exactly is this statement alluding too as well? So the germans get paid holiday, paid sick, and you cant sack someone on the spot for no reason...oh damn, we don't do things like uber-capitalist america? Shame.......

Your own workers seem unhappy with the German labor laws. Something is going to have to give, or the unemployment rates will keep soaring. Workers can't get all the benefits they do, while getting huge benefit packages. You can't possibly compete in the world market.

Or....Steady, stable and sustainable growth....

You have increasing unemployment (its already at over 10%...), and virtually no growth in your economy. You consider less then a percent of growth steady and stable?

America has been keeping up 4% growth for how long now?

Really?? News to us!! I thought they might be talking about the US and its grossly overweight military spending there!

Germany, and most of the EU, has a larger deficit than America. America has kept up greater military spending then we currently do for decades through the Cold War, and it never caused problems.

If there's a problem with the American economy, its worse in Europe. Europeans on here should start taking a long look at their own economies before talking about America's debt.

Overvalued Euro? I think you'll find that it was the US dollar that was overvalued, and is now begining its freefall. If China unpegs the Yuang from the Dollar (which it is thinking about), then you can watch your dollar slide, and watch the Euro rise.

The dollar's fall helps the American economy in many ways, and directly harms the EU economy.

No problem Sometimes i have trouble putting across what i mean, plus i have word blindness that is as frustrating as hell, id give my right arm for a spell checker for firefox.

Edit: Reply to Seekerof.

[edit on 16-1-2005 by Janus]

Thought I'd post this simple graph made at nationmaster.com.

Top 20 Nations: External Debt

Definition: Total public and private debt owed to non-residents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services.

1. United States $862 billion (1995 est.)
2. Brazil $222.4 billion (2002)
3. Australia $176.8 billion (yearend 2002 est.)
4. Argentina $155 billion (2001 est.)
5. Russia $153.5 billion (yearend 2002)
6. Mexico $150 billion (2000 est.)
7. China $149.4 billion (2002 est.)
8. Korea, South $135.2 billion (yearend 2002 est.)
9. Indonesia $131 billion (2002 est.)
10. Iraq $120 billion (2002 est.)
11. Turkey $118.3 billion (Yearend 2001)
12. India $100.6 billion (2001 est.)
13. Spain $90 billion (1993 est.)
14. Sweden $66.5 billion (1994)
15. Poland $64 billion (2002)
16. Greece $63.4 billion (2002 est.)
17. Thailand $62.5 billion (2002 est.)
18. Philippines $60.3 billion (2002)
19. Hong Kong $49.5 billion (2002 est.)
20. Malaysia $47.5 billion (2002 est.)
21. Israel $42.8 billion (2001 est.)
22. Chile $40.4 billion (2002)
23. Colombia $38.4 billion (2002 est.)
24. Venezuela $38.2 billion (2000)
25. New Zealand $33 billion (2002 est.)


Want more? Iraq War Cost 102 Billion Through September: Pentagon

Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. spent $102 billion through Sept. 30 on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, with costs averaging $4.8 billion a month, the Pentagon comptroller's office said today.

The Pentagon spent $3.1 billion in September, the smallest amount since the $2.7 billion spent in November 2003, according to the comptroller. Bush administration officials in February may seek as much as $70 billion in additional Iraq funding in a request separate from the fiscal 2006 defense budget.

As John Perkins says in his recent book, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman",

"Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring - to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we've been very successful. We've built the largest empire in the history of the world ... primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that ... I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late '60s by the National Security Agency, the nation's largest and least understood spy organization ... and then [it] send[s] us to work for private consulting companies, engineering firms, construction companies, so that if we were caught, there would be no connection with the government ...

I became its chief economist. I ended up having 50 people working for me. But my real job was deal-making. It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan - let's say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador - and this country would then have to give 90% of that loan back to a US company, or US companies ... a Halliburton or a Bechtel ... A country today like Ecuador owes over 50% of its national budget just to pay down its debt. And it really can't do it. So we literally have them over a barrel. So when we want more oil, we go to Ecuador and say, "Look, you're not able to repay your debts, therefore give your oil companies your Amazon rain [forests], which are filled with oil." And today we're going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests, forcing Ecuador to give them to us because they've accumulated all this debt ... [We work] very, very closely with the World Bank. The World Bank provides most of the money that's used by economic hit men, it and the IMF."

The numbers speak for themselves.

[edit on 16-1-2005 by smallpeeps]

[edit on 16-1-2005 by smallpeeps]

I have a very specific theory about why CIA has released this "prediction", and since I'm in the field of international business, I feel qualified making this statement:

US is on the verge of complete economic breakdown, and many countries have begun switching their foreign currency reserves from dollars to euros. This only further erodes the US economy, because of the interest they get on these foreign reserves as well as currency stability. In this situation, the EU poses a large threat to US economically - and if US is able to convince the public that EU is unstable, countries will stop changing their monetary reserves into Euros.

What many don't realize is that the world's economy is BASED on the US dollar, because it was considered to be an ultra-stable currency. The dollar has begun slipping, and the US economy is extremely precarious. Usually when there is a recession and the currency devaluates, exports are cheaper and the currency balances out. However, with so much international distrust of US - and the fact that US has war and civil unhappiness to deal with - it will almost certainly crash.

When the US economy crashes, the world economy crashes. Many economic and accounting measurements do not take inflation into account, because that would amke things very complicated - if the world's currencies begin slipping up en masse, accounting and economic data will cease to be reliable and then...it's just not going to be a pleasant experience.

CIA's attempt to convince the world that its currency is a better bet than the Euro is pathetic (if indeed my theory holds any truth to it). I'd hang on tight.

Definition: Total public and private debt owed to non-residents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services

Go take a look at who owes a higher percentage of their GDP in debt. The EU is ahead of us by a good amount.

Raw numbers aren't a good way to make a judgement on this:

Germany's economy is shrinking
Germany has 10.5% unemployment rate (and that's growing)
Germany has a 64% debt compared to GDP
Germany's debt is growing about 100 billion a year

www.cia.gov...

France's economy grows a whopping .5%
France has a 9.7% unemployment rate.
France has a 69% debt compared to GDP
France's debt is growing about 100 billion a year

www.cia.gov...

America's economy grew at 3% last year, a figure which will grow
America has a 5.5% unemployment rate
America has a 62% debt compared to GDP
America's debt grows about 300 billion a year

If you go do the math, our economy is growing faster, has less debt, and isn't building up debt as fast as the most powerful economies of Europe.

Now, of course, America is doing this after fighting two wars, and coming after 9/11. So, tell me, who has economic problems?

The raw numbers are meaningless since the U.S.'s economy is so much bigger than these other nations. As Disturbed Deliverer said, you have to compare as a percentage of GDP not raw debt totals.

stumason,
Thank you for responding.
I'm glad things are so lovely on your side of the ocean in the UK.
Btw, is Britain/UK part of the EU?
Is what is good in Britain/UK the same in Germany, France, etc?

As for more specifics, stumason. Sorry, but those that I outlined came straight from the article(s).



seekerof

No worries, Seeker. Apologies if I came across agressive though, having a bad night at work

Yes, things are fairly rosy over here, not excellent, but we get by

Yes, we are part of the EU, although we do not use the Euro (Yet). Across the EU, we have more or less the same labour laws, and welfare systems. They might differ slightly from country to country, but are on the whole the same thing.

(The French must lead the world on the amount of holiday those guys get though!!)

They're all growing? Yea, just barely. Germany's economy has shrunk a few times in the past year. None of the European economies are growing at any acceptable levels but around 2

Really? Funny that, seeing as our Chancellor anounced in his pre-budget report that Growth in the Uk was 3.5% and growing.

Your own workers seem unhappy with the German labor laws. Something is going to have to give, or the unemployment rates will keep soaring. Workers can't get all the benefits they do, while getting huge benefit packages. You can't possibly compete in the world market

We have the lowest unemployment figures ever recorded in the UK. End of.
We have a nice, healthy growing economy....so, no of course we can compete.

Besides, each of the EU's members main trading partners are each other.

You have increasing unemployment (its already at over 10%...), and virtually no growth in your economy. You consider less then a percent of growth steady and stable?

America has been keeping up 4% growth for how long now?

We do? Check again...... UK: Lowest Unemployment for donkeys, High growth (3.5% and climbing)

Germany, and most of the EU, has a larger deficit than America. America has kept up greater military spending then we currently do for decades through the Cold War, and it never caused problems.

If there's a problem with the American economy, its worse in Europe. Europeans on here should start taking a long look at their own economies before talking about America's debt.

We shall wait and see shall we.......