Interview with Mathew Burrows/ YOICHI FUNABASHI, Editor in Chief: 'Population bomb' in poor nations could spark conflicts, instability

Editor's note: This is the first installment of an interview series that appeared in the vernacular Asahi Shimbun under the title "Brave, grave new world."

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The report 'Global Trends 2025' foresees rapid change in an international society led by the West and new challenges, including a population explosion, climate change, the energy crisis, nuclear proliferation and the emergence of China and India.

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Question: Your report "Global Trends 2025," which was issued in November 2008 by the U.S. National Intelligence Council, talks about a new "population bomb," and about how the world population is growing, declining and diversifying at the same time.

What will be the most salient features of that "population bomb" over the next 15 or 20 years, and how will they affect the world political order?

Answer: Probably the biggest point to make on demography is that you actually have vectors going in different directions, and you're in a period in which you have, increasingly, aging populations and population growth beginning to slow down.

However, you have a number of countries that are continuing to have fairly high birthrates, and there are about 26 of them. These are the ones that also tend to be very unstable, that we worry about conflict in them.

And in countries like Nigeria or Pakistan, the population over a 15- or 20-year period will be increasing by 40 percent to 50 percent.

If Afghanistan continues with its same high birthrate, by 2050, they could be up to 300 million.

So it's a spectacular growth and something that concerns us, because, in many ways, that sort of growth should yield a demographic bonus if you are able to employ and if you are at the point of economic takeoff.

But obviously, we have worries that that's not going to be the case. And we know historically and we know through a lot of academic work that those high populations, high youthful populations, oftentimes translate into civil conflict and greater risk of civil conflict, instability, which can spill out to a whole region, not just within those countries.

Everything is happening in different ways. And with Japan, you have the opposite and that is, actually, declining population, and also one that's aging.

And there the challenge is: How do you make up for a declining work force and remain economically vibrant?

I think Japan will be a test case for that. In a sense, technologically you're very advanced. You're very aware of what's happening, there's a lot of experiments with robotics, and in many ways you will be leading the charge.

Europe is also aging very fast.

The U.S. less so, but the U.S. has similar problems, and we're seeing it today. The summit on health and other issues connected with the growing deficit is how you continue to maintain the same growth levels, the same revenues, with a declining work force, and a work force that is eventually going to retire over the next five years.

We have the potential (in the United States) because we have lots of immigrants still coming, of maintaining a certain level of our work force population.

Europe, I think, has a bigger problem. And Russia has the biggest problem. They have the issue of high mortality rates for men in their 50s and 60s, so you have not only a diminishing birthrate, but you also have a lot of people that are dying early because of a bad health-care system and bad health practices.

That is very hard to turn around very quickly. So they're looking at spectacular drops.

Q: Africa's population surpassed 1 billion recently. And sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase its population perhaps by 350 million between 2009 and 2025, according to your report.

What implications would a huge population increase in sub-Saharan Africa have on Africa's future place in the world?

A: There are worries about more conflict and instability, particularly in countries like Congo. Nigeria is another one. On climate change, we can see over the next 15 or 20 years, Africa is probably the place that you're going to begin to see the real impact.

So not only do you have increasing populations in these places, but your agricultural base and the potential are going to be changing. But what we worry about is lots of migration out of places that can no longer support a growing population.

Sudan is a case where you have conflict that falls along ethnic lines, but it's been triggered by a conflict over dwindling resources. So that is the worst-case scenario.

While a food crisis is not inevitable, it's something that we need to work on now if we want to avoid it.

Water security is very much linked with the food crisis. There are ways around this, and a lot of it is involved with technology.

It also means developing frameworks so some of this change can happen peacefully.

In terms of urbanization, because a lot of people are moving into urban areas, building infrastructure there that can support them and also providing employment will be necessary.

Small is no longer beautiful

Q: Throughout the 1990s, when very dynamic globalization was under way, there emerged the perception that small is beautiful.

Small countries like Singapore, Ireland, Israel, Estonia and Finland are clearly much more agile and much better at adapting to globalization.

Would I be wrong in saying that an era will come where the perception that big is powerful will gain ground over the next 15 or 20 years?

A: No, I think you're essentially right.

I'm not negative about Singapore or other small countries.

But I do think you're right, in the sense that big countries, because they have big markets, and you have the exploding middle classes in those countries, that they will have an enormous impact on what sort of technologies will be developed because of the marketplace.

The kind of challenges and the extent to which we can really meet those challenges will depend on what the larger countries do.

Q: We have been witnessing a growing new middle class, particularly in emerging economies, and their numbers will increase phenomenally in the next 15 or 20 years.

Could you elaborate further on the implications of the growing middle class, particularly in emerging countries, on the global order and power balance?

A: Overall, I think it's a good thing. I think a lot of those middle class values are going to serve us well. I think this is particularly the case of China, where an authoritarian government is going to have an increasingly more difficult time maintaining its position and monopoly of power because of a growing middle class.

But looking back in history, when middle classes feel that they bump up against a lack of opportunities, a lack of outlet for their energies and creativity, that tends to end in a bad outcome.

China could encounter that particularly once its growth rate begins to decline from 8-10 percent.

They also have a demographic issue coming up. They have a declining work force and the proportion begins to come down in 2020 to 2025.

China will have a much more difficult economic situation and one in which the (Communist) Party's legitimacy, because it's based now upon continuing growth and continuing employment, is going to face difficulties. I don't think anybody really knows how that works out, including the Communist Party.

I mean, they would like to be a Singapore. But it's not clear that they can, on such a large scale, be able to accommodate all these opposing forces within their society.

Q: In your report, you are more cautious of the future trend of globalization. Do you feel that globalization could really be reversible or will globalization continue to take hold?

A: In earlier periods of globalization, it ended in World War I and the Depression.

Unlike that period, we now have this communication revolution and we've seen that, even in the very poor countries, that they can use the cellphone. That's the case in Africa, for example.

They were stymied before by having to lay telephone lines and now they've leaped forward.

The communication revolution is going to continue to revolutionize the political scene domestically and internationally.

But what I think there's legitimate worry about is free trade. Worries, too, about more regionalization, particularly in Asia, that could run counter to global institutions.

Q: In your report, you boldly predict that the alternative development model, like China's, is now more appealing to many parts of the world, and that state capitalism could attract more attention and even be shared by many other societies as a new model of development.

Is your conclusion based on the recent economic crisis that started in September 2008?

A: We wrote most of the report before the financial crisis. I do think the financial crisis has boosted the attractiveness and appeal. Having strong government at the forefront of your economic modernization program, historically there have been a lot of cases (in which) that has been beneficial--Taiwan, South Korea, Germany in the 19th century.

If you look at a comparison of India and China, China does very well on infrastructure. India doesn't do as well. (Partly) because of the political system and the federal system, it's very hard for the states to cooperate with one another.

I think China is being a role model there, and the United States, Europe, Japan now are being a deterrent.

Q: Will we be seeing more emerging powers, like China, India and Brazil, trying to exert their influence in the coming years? Do you think they are going to frame a global order beyond their anti-West rhetoric or anti-West dimension?

A: I don't see the emerging powers trying to establish a new world order in part because I don't see them as interested in anything more than continuing their own development.

And I think one of the things that is very key is that these countries are still going to remain poor in a per capita sense for a long time.

As a result, I think the focus will continue to be on these development problems.

Now, that's not necessarily good news.

While Western capabilities are relatively declining, the emerging powers haven't really raised their sights above their own countries.

The question is how can you meet these new challenges.

There's always the chance for conflict. We have a scenario in the report about the "budding conflict" between China and India over what is perceived to be efforts by the other to deny it access to oil and energy in the Persian Gulf.

There is always the possibility for those sorts of miscalculations.

We worry a lot about conflict in this work in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. That is an issue we see as of increasing importance.

Q: We already have seen the serious ramifications of conflicts, whether it's in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism or the combination of this new technology with radical fundamentalism and belief systems, particularly since 9/11.

Your report emphasizes the limited appeal of fundamentalism to the public, and that we will have more of a middle class emerging and more developing countries graduating from the poverty line. Are you arguing that the root cause of this conflict is poverty?

A: Well, not necessarily "poverty," but also one of opportunities. I think modernization presents a lot of cultural problems in Muslim societies.

You can think back to the religion wars in Europe and some of those same issues that were connected with what we (call) "the Reformation," of how you reconcile your own cultural affinities and traditions with a much more modern world.

As you economically develop, those are going to be thrown up and I expect that is going to continue to be a longstanding issue in a lot of Muslim societies.

But terrorists, unfortunately, really don't provide much of a solution.

A vast majority of Muslims don't want a Caliphate. They actually admire a lot of the science and economic progress that we have in the U.S. and other Western countries.

They feel stymied in their own societies for a whole host of reasons.

The other thing that the terrorists do is the casualties that their terrorist acts actually inflict on Muslims.

However, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it's going to be very hard to provide the economic opportunities that will be needed to employ all the youths and to get them into profitable areas.

Q: Please tell me more about this vision of "multipolarity without multilateralism" in your report. What does it really mean?

A: Basically, I mean the vision after the Second World War that the U.S. had, and I think was shared by your own country and by Europeans, of a liberal world order. You had at the center of that global institutions, such as the U.N. and the Bretton Woods institutions.

These institutions were a place for multilateral decision-making. Even though the U.S. did have enormous power, it also felt an obligation of working for the shared common interest with its allies and partners, and the institutions were built as a way of dealing with what were going to be global problems but making sure that other voices were heard.

It's not clear that you can easily translate that with emerging powers in these global institutions, in part because the emerging powers are not all in these global institutions. China is very well integrated, but you have India, Brazil, South Africa that are not.

Much more importantly is this theme: Do the emerging powers really want to share in the global challenges? In Copenhagen, you had the BASICs there instead of the BRICs. But really, it was a case of playing a very defensive game and not wanting to actually have to set particular goals for themselves. I think that is the critical problem.

Q: In this context, how do you see the future of the traditional U.S.-based alliance system?

A: One of the key issues is in Asia, where a much more China-dominated system looks to be growing. In some senses, the U.S. is there to balance China to an extent.

The U.S. will remain a Pacific power but I think more on the outside. And particularly, a lot of it depends on North Korea. I think the United States is the security provider, in a sense, and if you would have some sort of settlement, mutually accepted, on North Korea, the need for a U.S. role declines.

The other case, I suppose, would be Taiwan. If that is sorted out . . . again the need for the United States, I think, diminishes. I think most Asian countries still want the United States to be there as sort of a counter-balance to China, as an insurance policy.

I think, increasingly though, the day-to-day business, the region will want to take care of it themselves.

Q: I wonder if we will witness a supply-and-demand gap concerning the U.S. leadership in Asia and perhaps elsewhere. On the one hand, many countries will expect to see the United States exert and demonstrate more leadership, while the United States may not be able to provide that leadership sufficiently. Is that the case?

A: Well, I don't think it's an iron-clad inevitability. I mean, I think a lot of it actually depends on developments, as I said before, (concerning) North Korea, China, Taiwan.

So a lot of it depends on China's behavior. And again, there's a question, too, of ... what is India's role in the region?

So this won't necessarily go in a straight-line trajectory. I think the overall kind of outlook probably, in the general drift, is in that direction. But you could see kind of a zig-zag. And you could see a lot of ... scenarios where it doesn't go well.

'Game-changer' events

Q: Looking back over the past half century or so, what events do you think were really "game-changing moments?"

A: I think, obviously, the Asian financial crisis was a game changer. We were preaching "the Washington consensus," and we did not understand what kind of pressures those Asian societies were under.

And the U.S. was seen as not part of the solution. China came out much better. So that, obviously, was a pivotal moment.

It's also when you had countries that decided they didn't ever want to see the IMF in their capital again to impose conditions. I don't think we understood what the longer-term implications of that were.

I think this current financial crisis is another game changer.

There could be other game changers on the technology side. We don't see it on the horizon, but that doesn't mean there isn't something there.

We don't see a "green technology" that can quickly get us out of fossil fuels.

Q: I'm wondering why you're so cautious. For instance, new batteries or electric vehicles or smart grids could really change industry.

A: And I think it will. Where we're more cautious is if it's going to happen over a 15- or 20-year period.

The worry is you have a ticking time bomb with climate change. But we don't know how much it's ticking or when it's going to explode. It could be a very long way in the future or it could be a lot closer than we know.

And our worry is that if you're going to get a technology breakthrough, in some of these technologies you need a lot of infrastructure change to accommodate it.

Q: Tell me a bit about Japan's prospects. Your report said Japan will remain a top eight economic power by 2025. But I read somewhere that in 2050, Japan's GDP, as a percent of world GDP, will be reduced to 3 percent.

That percent share would not sustain Japan in a middle-power position.

A: Well, I think it'll remain a middle power. But Japan won't have the position that it has had.

And there is a problem of a fairly quick change in what has been the Japanese position. And historically that always presents a psychological problem for a society. For example, Britain after the Second World War ... had a great psychological problem accommodating itself to a lower status. And that's part of what Japan will have to deal with.

You may actually, though, show the way on how aging societies still remain relatively vibrant. On the technology side, you have an enormous amount of prowess. You'll be a leader in the way that you can demonstrate how you reconcile this aging, lowering work force, with maintaining a very high standard of living.

And you will actually remain the wealthiest society in Asia, for a very, very long time.

Size matters and, unfortunately, China is right there and India is also. It's an issue that other countries also are going to have to deal with, just by virtue of their size. They are going to be much bigger players.

This is the irony for them and I don't think they appreciate that even where they think they are not putting any strains on the rest, they will simply because of their size.

China talks about peaceful rise, but it doesn't understand the impact it has, just by virtue of the resources it needs, the way it puts pressure on other societies and changes those societies.

Q: Is there any scenario of a "black swan" in the 2025 report?

A: I actually think there are quite a lot of "black swans," just because there is a high level of uncertainty in so many cases. So you could think of a lot of different scenarios, and that's one of the challenges, I think, for policymakers everywhere.

To name a few that I worry about, I think a nuclear incident will be a huge game changer, whether it's a nonstate actor or whether it actually is the result of a state-on-state conflict.

And you can see some very positive outcomes on that. I mean, going back to what we were talking about of multipolarity without multilateralism, that could be the basis for establishing a new world order.

We've talked about technology as a possible one and, besides the energy side, I think the one that is needed is on the food and water side. And if we don't have some breakthroughs and some implementation of food technology and so on, then we'll have increasing problems in under-developed societies.

So whether or not we have technology, I think that's going to be a game changer.

The fact that we have mass communications now, and I think there is such a thing as middle class values, ... people want openness, they want the ability, some opportunities. You'll see this even in China and others--a rule of law in accountability, government.

So 10 years from now, state capitalism could be "out the door" and we could have a totally different model. But I think it will be a part of this middle class expansion.

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A leading expert of geopolitical futurology, Mathew Burrows believes geopolitics is more important than technological innovation in determining the fate of nations. He joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1986 after receiving a Ph.D. in European history from Cambridge University in Britain. He served as an Intelligence analyst covering Western Europe and European institutions, such as the European Union. After joining the National Intelligence Council to oversee senior analysts and experts, Burrows was named counselor in 2007. He was the principal drafter of the NIC report "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World."