Where Will You Be in 2030, America?

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Uncertainty over how the U.S. willevolve over the next two decades makes its behavior a top “game-changer” of the international order. So say the authors of“Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds,” the latest quadrennialfuture-gazing exercise by the National Intelligence Council.

The difficulty of predicting how a politically polarizedU.S. will respond to the stiff domestic tests it faces is justone of six game-changers in this best guess by the intelligencecommunity about the near-term world. These variables are playingout in a world inexorably shaped by four “megatrends”:individual empowerment driven by technology, health-careadvances and a growing middle class; the rise of a multipolarorder shaped increasingly by networks and coalitions; shiftingdemographics, including accelerated urbanization; and anintensifying struggle for food, water and energy.