We develop four overarching, global scenarios that feature transformation, collapse, discipline, and continued growth outcomes. These global scenarios do not represent the most probable or likely outcomes—rather, the report harnesses emerging weak signals from environmental scanning analysis (that likely seem improbable today) and weaves them into the possible futures of a post-COVID world.
Global Future #1 (Transformation) – 2035 “From Bio-hegemony to Bio Supremacy:” The new “Great Powers” are those states that have achieved superior levels of bio-resiliency vis-à-vis their peer competitors. National bio-data stockpiles, coupled with a new blend of capabilities in artificial intelligence, satellite-based imagery, and unprecedented global connectivity, have raised the premium on fielding networked military forces. Those states that possess bio-resiliency, along with the capability to instantly make information ubiquitous across their security apparatuses, dominate the new competition.
Global Future #2 (Systemic Collapse) – 2035 “The New Warring States Period:” Scholars label the 2030s as the new “warring states” period—referring both to the ancient Chinese conflict era as well as the outbreak of the 21st century’s first continental-scale civil war in China. This marks China’s second civil war in less than 100 years. The most dramatic factor contributing to this new, global instability is the legitimacy crisis wrought by COVID-19. Additionally, a second legitimacy crisis emerges around the “truth narrative” itself. Industrial scale science and medicine—which had doubled life expectancy and nearly ensured food security in the 20th century—are now widely seen as tools for societal manipulation.
Global Future #3 (Discipline) – 2035 “Authoritarian Regionalism:” Severe strains on social order have driven both liberal and authoritarian regimes alike towards highly centralized and restrictive measures. Surveillance regimes are no longer voluntary. Access to basic necessities requires consent and cooperation with real-time bio-surveillance as well as unannounced health checks at home or work. National militaries, and in particular national air forces, often find themselves replacing commercial supply chains and even the oversight of production and local distribution of goods to prevent riots and hoarding.
Global Future #4 (Continued Growth) – 2035 “Endemic Disruption:” States with the capability to maintain data profiles of their populations and the populations of competitors can map and predict the intensity and timeline of each new disease outbreak. This capability has resulted in a kind of stochastic hegemony. While the disease’s mutation cannot be predicted, once an outbreak begins, states with stochastic hegemony can determine when the populations and the armed forces of their competitors will be disrupted and how long they will be vulnerable to attack. The curse and high ground of this ‘rhythmic readiness’ has created instability and enabled territorial incursions, as states know they have a locked in advantage for weeks or even months. The U.S. Air Force benefits significantly from the necessity of a new offset strategy to limit the reliance on troop levels. Less civilian air traffic and greater access to the skies is limited by the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and long term, low-orbit surveillance systems.
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2035 – The new “Great Powers” are those states that have achieved superior levels of bio-resiliency vis-à-vis their peer competitors.
Dynamic changes in immunity and genetic variability have transformed the way we manage and protect both intellectual and human capital. During the previous decade (2020-2030), national security has come to be re-defined as a continuous maintenance of national bio-data stockpiles—this is now as important as projecting military power. Developments such as real-time contact tracing, genetic profiling, pattern-of-life analysis for contagion, and AI-enhanced heuristics enable this new reality.
A new security threshold has also been crossed—many in the biosynthesis industry now argue that the human ecosystem can be programmed, not just predicted. Anticipatory and engineered health platforms are the new norm, powered by advances in CRISPR technology, real-time body/population simulations, and the computing power of quantum processors. More importantly, underlying medical conditions that contribute to morbidity can now be modified. Retroviral biomedia enables us to copy and paste existing immunities in national populations within a period of weeks or months—rather than years and/or decades. Genetic and metabolic population management as well as strategic communications are now facilitated via continental-scale infrastructures across human-machine interfaces. Some societal groups—for religious or ideological reasons—refuse to be part of the human bio-security network. But fatality rates among those without access to health informatics and immunity modulation are comparable to Europe during the Middle Ages.
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2035 – Scholars label the 2030s as the new “warring states” period—referring both to the ancient Chinese conflict era as well as the outbreak of the 21st century’s first continental-scale civil war in China. This marks China’s second civil war in less than 100 years.
China was the first global power that dramatically failed to fulfill domestic expectations for public health, resource management, and improving its citizens’ quality of life. Xi Jinping’s “Neo-Confucianist” model, which aimed to re-define the CCP as the defender of Chinese national identity, could not bridge intense societal divisions. The economic disparities between China’s exploding urban economies and the abject poverty of ethnic minority, migrant, and agricultural populations became more than the CCP and PLA could manage—particularly as COVID-19 returned on multiple occasions.
The “Chinese Dream” of the 2020s has turned into a global nightmare. China’s strategic centerpiece—the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—now exists in name only. Instead of extending all the way to Europe (as originally envisioned), the BRI cannot even connect Beijing to Shanghai. Major infrastructure projects underwritten by Chinese state-owned enterprises have ground to a halt in over 90 countries, contributing to a series of major economic recessions.
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2035 – Severe strains on social order have driven both liberal and authoritarian regimes alike towards highly centralized and restrictive measures. Surveillance regimes are no longer voluntary. Access to basic necessities requires consent and cooperation with real-time bio-surveillance as well as unannounced health checks at home or work.
During the 2020s and early 2030s, COVID-19’s lethality fluctuated from one percent to five percent. Additional flash outbreaks of toxic shock syndrome among children and teenagers saw national health systems, governments, and societies teeter on the verge of collapse. Communities initially careened from total lock down to insurrection in an effort to use quarantining for containment. Each lockdown promised a vaccine in exchange for sacrificing a life outside. But as the virus became fully airborne, contact tracing efforts could not keep up with the sheer rate of outbreaks. The lack of cooperation from national populations led to the adoption of increasingly authoritarian measures.
Contagion levels and an inability to treat the now highly lethal disease have all but halted international travel. International commerce is intensely politicized and strict economic nationalism is the political consensus. Political parties, as they still exist, are defined by how caustically they seek retaliation and resource competition.
The loss of both international trade regimes and global economic interdependence has contributed to isolationist and belligerently expansionist foreign policies around the planet. The hallmark, post-1945 international organizations have long been forgotten and with them any semblance of pre-existing alliance systems. Regional plunder is a common experience of weak states and freedom of navigation is fiercely contested. Sea Lanes of Communication are heavily mined, regional and national waters are patrolled by surface and submarine drones, and air travel is less frequent as it is increasingly unreliable. Regional mercantilism with highly regulated internal movement and economic activity characterize international relations.
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2035 – States with the capability to maintain data profiles of their populations and the populations of competitors can map and predict the intensity and timeline of each new disease outbreak. This capability has resulted in a kind of stochastic hegemony.
While the disease’s mutation cannot be predicted, once an outbreak begins, states with stochastic hegemony can determine when the populations and the armed forces of their competitors will be disrupted and how long they will be vulnerable to attack. The curse and high ground of this ‘rhythmic readiness’ has created instability and enabled territorial incursions, as states know they have a locked in advantage for weeks or even months.
Since 2020, long term social distancing has been necessary to manage COVID-19 and other variants of the original outbreak. Scientists continue to work on a vaccine, claiming a breakthrough is just around the corner. Despite early optimism that warmer temperatures would slow the spread, little (if any) seasonality emerged. Fortunately, the case mortality rate of the disease has hovered between 1 and 2 percent. National policy responses now create predictable rates of spread and timelines for herd immunity after the outbreak of each new strain.
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