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CIA predictions in the year 2000 that came true....


Guest El Chalupacabra
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Guest El Chalupacabra

IN THE YEAR 2000.....

 

 

 

....The CIA got quite a few predictions correct, according to this article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-predictions-for-2015-from-2000-2015-1#ixzz3PbEoIVOR

 

 

Back in 2000, the CIA published a 70-page report on what the world would be like in 2015.

Here were some of those predictions, according to a December 2000 story from The Telegraph.

"International affairs are increasingly determined by large and powerful organizations rather than governments." Verdict: Probably true, though it is sometimes hard to distinguish between non-state actors and state actors. Just look at the Islamic State or the possibly-not-North Korean hackers who took down Sony.

 

"Between now and 2015 terrorist tactics will become increasingly sophisticated and designed to achieve mass casualties." Verdict: Definitely true. Sadly, this prediction became true within months.

 

"Iraq and Iran [will] develop long range missiles in the near future. Iran … could be testing such weapons by as early as the coming year, and cruise missiles by 2004." Verdict: Both true and false. Iran is definitely working on an ICBM, but it won't test it till next year.

 

"The world population will grow by more than one billion, to 7.2 billion." Verdict: True.

"Energy resources will be sufficient to meet demand." Verdict: Nailed it. Companies are actually canceling plans to dig up more natural gas because oil is abundant right now.

"China's economy will grow to overtake Europe as the world's second largest but still behind the United States." Verdict: True-ish. By some measurements, China's economy is now larger than the US economy.

 

"Europe will not achieve fully the dreams of parity with the US as a shaper of the global economic system." Verdict: Correct. The report was way too bullish on the European economy, which is "going nowhere" these days.

"Aids, famine, and continuing economic and political turmoil means that populations in many [African] countries will actually fall." Verdict: False. Africa's population rose from 800 million in 2000 to 1.1 billion in 2014.

Of those points, the only one they were way off on was the last one. But had they not got a handle on the ebola outbreak, and it had spread, it could have almost been true by a different disease. Kind of eerie.

 

Going to the original 2000 article, another couple points are interesting:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1379979/This-is-the-world-in-2015.html

 

Computer technology represents "the most significant global transformation since the Industrial Revolution".

This obviously came true, but I don't know that anyone would have been surprised. You can make the prediction that tablet, smart phone/devices, and AI innovation will continue on at an exponential rate and we will see a continuation of the "the most significant global transformation since the Industrial Revolution" by 2030, and you wouldn't be wrong . I think some smart guy named Gordon E Moore might have been on to something...

 

The new survey suggests a number of alternative scenarios, none of which makes happy reading. These include a trade war between Europe and America, and an alliance between terrorist organisations to attack the West. Most alarming of all, it raises the possibility of economic stagnation, followed by America abdicating its role as the world's policeman.

Kind of depends on your political alignment if you agree here, but I think objectively speaking, it could be argued this sort of came true: the so called Great Recession (2008), followed by Obama's foreign policy (whether you agree with his approach or not he HAS made the US look weak, in my view), and as mentioned above the growth of sophistication and the alliances between Al Qaeda and ISIS seem to have panned out. But thankfully, there was no trade war between the US and the EU, unless you want to count the steel tariffs of 2002 and the Banana Wars. There is arguably one between Russia and the US&EU, but stupid on the part of the Russians, IMHO.

 

Then you have the prediction about the Russian Economy

 

 

Russia's economy will contract to barely a fifth of America's.

 

According to this site, that isn't far off. http://knoema.com/nwnfkne/world-gdp-ranking-2014-data-and-charts

The Russian economy (probably much of the blame is Putin's) could be said to be doing worse, actually.

 

Thoughts?

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With falling oil prices, Russia is going to hurt. I read that Russians were buying lots of tangible goods to prepare for inflation. I guess it would be a good time to buy rubles and sit on them for a few years.

 

Interesting article, thanks for sharing.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I agree. Russia for centuries has, on paper, should have been able to rule the world in perpetuity, based on their untapped natural resources. But they have also historically been unable to harness those resources...especially oil. In recent years, they just started getting around to organizing themselves and gaining the ability to tap their oil reserves, but much like the US, with the Saudis driving oil prices down as they have, its going to hurt those Russian oil companies and possibly drive them out of business, altogether. Probably much more so than their US oil company counterparts.

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