U.S. intelligence seeks foreign input in future study<\/p>\n
Tabassum Zakaria
\nReuters
\nLangley, Virginia<\/p>\n
The secretive U.S. intelligence community is reaching out to
\nforeign experts around the world to help identify economic and
\nsecurity trends up to the year 2020, a senior U.S. intelligence
\nofficial said.<\/p>\n
Robert Hutchings, chairman of the National Intelligence
\nCouncil, said he believed three of the biggest countries --
\nChina, India and Indonesia -- were open to significant and
\nunpredictable change during the period covered by the year-long
\nstudy.<\/p>\n
The previous report, released in 2000, looked at trends to
\n2015 and had depended mainly on U.S. input. \"As good as it was,
\n(it) was pretty much America-centric. It was the American view of
\nfuture trends. 2020 will really be a global view of future
\ntrends,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Hutchings said the centerpiece of the new study would be a
\nseries of regional conferences in Europe, Asia, Latin America,
\nSouth Africa, and, he hoped, the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\"We will invite a diverse group of regional experts to
\nconsider their own regions' future out to the year 2020,\" he said
\nin a Reuters interview this week at his office at CIA
\nheadquarters. The National Intelligence Council acts as the U.S.
\nintelligence community's think tank.<\/p>\n
Hutchings said he hoped the report would reflect the enormity
\nof changes under way. \"I would hope it would somehow convey the
\nmagnitude of the flux of the world we're dealing with,\" he said.<\/p>\n
China, India, and Indonesia are countries to watch for
\npossible significant and unpredictable change, Hutchings said.<\/p>\n
\"It's really hard to imagine China looking much the same in
\n2020,\" he said, noting that its economy was growing so fast that
\nit was radically transforming the country.<\/p>\n
\"So the question is how elastic that (China's) political
\nsystem is and how creative. A continuing economic growth of the
\nproportions we've seen in the last decade is incompatible with
\none-party rule over the course of say the years to 2020,\"
\nHutchings said.<\/p>\n
The Middle East will be different in 2020, and the hope was
\nthat a prosperous, independent Iraq would emerge and affect the
\nbroader region, but there could also be \"less hopeful scenarios,\"
\nHutchings said without giving details.<\/p>\n
The National Intelligence Council has increasingly been
\nreaching outside the spy world to network with experts from
\nbusiness, academia, and science partly due to government cutbacks
\nthat reduced U.S. expertise in areas like Africa and Latin
\nAmerica, Hutchings said.<\/p>\n
\"And frankly in a lot of the parts of the world where the
\nquestions (are that) we are addressing, the value of our secrets
\nis no longer as great as it used to be,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"The future of China is not to be uncovered by secrets or some
\nsecret cache of information in China to answer the question,\"
\nHutchings said. \"It's a mystery that we're going to unravel by
\ntalking about it with lots of people who think long and hard
\nabout China.\"<\/p>\n
The 2015 report was released in December 2000 just before
\nPresident George W. Bush was inaugurated and nine months before
\nthe Sept. 11 attacks. The new report will be released after next
\nyear's presidential election and before the inauguration.<\/p>\n
The 2015 report predicted increasingly sophisticated terrorist
\ntactics \"designed to achieve mass casualties\" and a growing
\nthreat of missile attack.<\/p>\n
\"I think we still are dealing with the changing shape of
\ninternational terrorism,\" Hutchings said. Al-Qaeda is \"more a
\ncause than an organization. It's going to be an ongoing challenge
\nto deal with this threat.\"<\/p>\n
But he said the fight against terrorism would be in better
\nshape by 2020. \"I can foresee a time in which the threat that
\nseizes us now has been much attenuated.\"<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/us-intelligence-seeks-foreign-input-in-future-study-1447899208",
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"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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