I have had the opportunity to hear presentations by Erik Peterson - Senior Vice President , Center for Strategic and International Studies at NFPA functions. Twice, I have been very impressed.
At the 2009 NFPA Annual Conference, Mr. Peterson, spoke of our changing world and presented his views on "Seven Futures." The seven different regions that he spoke of were 1) Latin America and the Caribbean, 2) Europe, 3) The Middle East and North Africa, 4) Sub-Saharan Africa, 5) Russia/Eurasia, 6) South Asia, and 7) East Asia & South East Asia.
He gave some very interesting background information on each region followed by some scenarios and how they might play out between now and 2025. Taking into consideration factors like population trends, natural resources, governance, and world postioning, the presentation shed a lot of light on how the future might play out. Out world is changing and each region has an effect on all of the others.
A couple of the key take aways for me were first, that the United States will remain the single most powerful country in the world although less dominant. Secondly, the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India, and China have all now fallen into a downturn that affects the entire world economy. The way that Mr. Peterson put it, we are in a global economic pause.
