Washington briefing: U.S. study: China, India, Russia to dominate headlines in next decade

by Emil Sanamyan

Published: Thursday January 29, 2009

Cover of "Global Trends" released by the National Intelligence Council.

Washington - U.S. global influence will diminish and that of China and India will increase in the next decade and half, according to a study prepared by the National Intelligence Council, an in-house think tank of the U.S. intelligence community.

Predictions made in the report, "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," released last November, see the world moving away from post-Cold War dominance by the United States to what political scientists have described as a multipolar or nonpolar world.

The report also underscores importance of Russia and Iran as major exporters of fossil energy, particularly natural gas, and in case of Russia also coal.

While none of the Caucasus states was mentioned individually, the Caucasus region was mentioned four times (three times as a source of conflicts and once as an energy corridor) and Caspian energy was mentioned twice.

Below is a table showing the number of times sixteen select countries are mentioned in the report, along with size of their economies.

See report at http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf