This article deals with some of the strategic prospects for 2010. As well as a survey of the geopolitical scene (European countries, European security, nuclear security, the Middle East, extra-European areas, etc.), it outlines some longer-term systemic issues (the persistence of economic fragility, globalization, discontent with the monopoly of legitimate violence, transborder issues, biosphere challenges, etc.). This perspective gives both the depth of vision and the elevated viewpoint appropriate to the strategist.
The Strategic Outlook for 2010
Forecasting is always a risky business: one must strike a balance between predictions that are sufficiently precise to be of interest, and excessively detailed prognoses that, if shown by events to be inaccurate, would bring down ridicule on their author. One of the difficulties inherent in the exercise resides in the fact that, currently, one expands on tendencies that are considered so unambiguous that they are sure to persist: one must on the one hand identify significant trends, and on the other never neglect subsurface developments that no one has yet detected. Finally, forecasting cannot anticipate the unexpected: who in Spain, prior to the Madrid train bombings in 2004, could have predicted electoral victory for the socialists?
Well aware of these possible shortcomings, this article will attempt to describe the strategic outlook for 2010, firstly from a localised geopolitical perspective and then by examining the systemic trends that should drive the strategic debate.
Geopolitical Overview
The analysis will start from a European perspective and then expand outwards to its near and more distant neighbours.
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