[Infowarrior] - World faces growing risk of war: US intelligence chief

[Richard Forno]

http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=081031180559.hq1yll01&show_article=1
  	
World faces growing risk of war: US intelligence chief 	
Oct 31 02:06 PM US/Eastern

The world faces a growing risk of conflict over the next 20 to 30  
years amid an unprecedented transfer of wealth and power from West to  
East, according to the US intelligence chief.

Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, predicted  
rising demand for scarce supplies of food and fuel, strategic  
competition over new technologies, and the spread of weapons of mass  
destruction.

"What I'm suggesting -- there's an increased potential for conflict,"  
McConnell said in a speech Thursday to intelligence professionals in  
Nashville, Tennessee.

"During the period of this assessment, out to 2025, the probability  
for conflict between nations and within nation-state entities will be  
greater," he said.

Conditions for "large casualty terrorist attacks using chemical,  
biological, or less likely, nuclear materials" also will increase  
during that period, he said.

McConnell described a multi-polar world in 2025 shaped by the rise of  
China, India and Brazil, whose economies will by then match those of  
the western industrial states.

"In terms of size, speed, and directional flow, the transfer of global  
wealth and economic power, now underway, as noted from West to East is  
without precedent in modern history," McConnell said.

Territorial expansion and military rivalries are not likely but cannot  
be ruled out, he said.

"We judge these sweeping changes will not trigger a complete breakdown  
of the current international system, but the next 20 years of  
transition to a new system are fraught with risks and many, many  
challenges," he said.

By 2025, China is likely to have the world's second largest economy  
and to have emerged as a major military power, the largest importer of  
natural resources and the largest contributor to world pollution.

"China is poised to have more impact on the world over the next 20  
years than any other country," he said.

India will have either the third or second largest economy and will  
press to become "one of the significant poles of this new world," he  
said.

Russia also will be part of that group but only if it expands and  
diversifies its economy and integrates it with the world global  
economy, he said.

"Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade,  
demographics, access to natural resources, investments and  
technological innovation. There will be a struggle to acquire  
technology advantage as the key enabler for dominance," he said.


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