Every four years, the United States National Intelligence Council releases a report called Global Trends that attempts to forecast the threats and uncertainties that will shape the world for the next two decades. Authored by an association of professional spies with a name befitting an indie rock band—the Strategic Futures Group—the report is written to encourage the White House and its advisors to stretch their thinking toward a longer time horizon.
The 2021 edition of Global Trends, titled “A More Contested World,” focuses on the intersecting challenges facing humanity amid conditions of “expanding uncertainty.” One of the report’s main graphics features a box labelled “Eroding Human Security” surrounded by an array of menacing inputs or “drivers”: extreme weather, water misuse, sea-level rise, geoengineering, societal and government change, unequal burdens, instability, conflict, and more. Inside that besieged box, the report argues, is the future we will all inhabit unless a miracle occurs.
