I thought some folks here would enjoy reading this excellent article by Herb Meyer.
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Herb Meyer served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. In these positions, he managed production of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimates and other top-secret projections for the President and his national security advisers. Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union'scollapse, for which he later was awarded the U.S. National
Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the intelligence community's
highest honor.
Prior to his service with the U.S. Government, Herb Meyer was an associate editor of Fortune, where he was among the magazines top international specialists.
He is author of several books, including Real-World Intelligence, The War Against Progress, and Hard Thinking. And with his wife, Jill, he is co-author of How to Write, a handbook used widely at colleges throughout the world.
Mr. Meyers articles and essays on politics, and about our countrs intelligence service in the wake of 9/11, have been published in The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, and Policy Review. He is a frequent guest on leading television news programs.
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WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON?
A GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING FOR
CEO's by HERBERT MEYER
FOUR MAJOR TRANSFORMATIONS
Currently, there are four major transformations that are shaping
political, economic and world events. These transformations have
profound implications for American business owners, our culture and
our way of life.
1. The War in Iraq There are three major monotheistic religions in the
world: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In the 16th century, Judaism
and Christianity reconciled with the modern world. The rabbis, priests
and scholars found a way to settle up and pave the way forward.
Religion remained at the center of life, church and state became
separate. Rule of law, idea of economic liberty, individual rights,
human rights - all these are defining points of modern Western
civilization. These concepts started with the Greeks but didn't take
off until the 15th and 16th century when Judaism and Christianity
found a way to reconcile with the modern world. When that happened, it
unleashed the scientific revolution and the greatest outpouring of
art, literature and music the world has ever known.
Islam, which developed in the 7th century, counts millions of Moslems
around the world who are normal people. However, there is a radical
streak within Islam. When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks
Western civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the
7th century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the
Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates of
Vienna. It was in Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam and
Western civilization took place. The West won and went forward. Islam
lost and went backward. Interestingly, the date of that battle was
September 11. Since them, Islam has not found a way to reconcile with
the modern world.
Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by
radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things.
First, units of our armed forces are in 30 countries around the world
hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very
little publicity. Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan
and Iraq. These are covered relentlessly by the media. People can
argue about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the
underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove
the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. Our hope is
that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward
into the 21st century. That's what our involvement in Iraq and
Afghanistan is all about.
The lesson of 9/11 is that we live in a world where a small number of
people can kill a large number of people very quickly. They can use
airplanes, bombs, anthrax, chemical weapons or dirty bombs. Even with
a first-rate intelligence service (which the U.S. does not have), you
can't stop every attack. That means our tolerance for political
horseplay has dropped to zero. No longer will we play games with
terrorists or weapons of mass destructions.
Most of the instability and horseplay is coming from the Middle East.
That's why we have thought that if we could knock out the radicals and
give the moderates a chance to hold power, they might find a way to
reconcile Islam with the modern world. So when looking at Afghanistan
or Iraq, it's important to look for any signs that they are
modernizing. For example, women being brought into the work force and
colleges in Afghanistan is good. The Iraqis stumbling toward a
constitution is good. People can argue about what the U.S. is doing
and how we're doing it, but anything that suggests Islam is finding
its way forward is good.
2. The Emergence of China In the last 20 years, China has moved 250
million people from the farms and villages into the cities. Their plan
is to move another 300 million in the next 20 years. When you put that
many people into the cities, you have to find work for them. That's
why China is addicted to manufacturing; they have to put all the
relocated people to work. When we decide to manufacture something in
the U.S., it's based on market needs and the opportunity to make a
profit. In China, they make the decision because they want the jobs,
which is a very different calculation.
While China is addicted to manufacturing, Americans are addicted to
low prices. As a result, a unique kind of economic co-dependency has
developed between the two countries. If we ever stop buying from
China, they will explode politically. If China stops selling to us,
our economy will take a huge hit because prices will jump. We are
subsidizing their economic development; they are subsidizing our
economic growth.
Because of their huge growth in manufacturing, China is hungry for raw
materials, which drives prices up worldwide. China is also thirsty for
oil, which is one reason oil is now at $60 a barrel. By 2020, China
will produce more cars than the U.S. China is also buying its way into
the oil infrastructure around the world. They are doing it in the open
market and paying fair market prices, but millions of barrels of oil
that would have gone to the U.S. are now going to China. China's quest
to assure it has the oil it needs to fuel its economy is a major
factor in world politics and economics. We have our Navy fleets
protecting the sea lines, specifically the ability to get the tankers
through. It won't be long before the Chinese have an aircraft carrier
sitting in the Persian Gulf as well. The question is, will their
aircraft carrier be pointing in the same direction as ours or against
us?
3. Shifting Demographics of Western Civilization Most countries in the
Western world have stopped breeding. For a civilization obsessed with
sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a steady population requires a
birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands
at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement.
In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there
are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain
are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population
declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the
economy.
When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have
to import them. The European countries are currently importing
Moslems. Today, the Moslems comprise 10 percent of France and Germany,
and the percentage is rising rapidly because they have higher
birthrates. However, the Moslem populations are not being integrated
into the cultures of their host countries, which is a political
catastrophe. One reason Germany and France don't support the Iraq war
is they fear their Moslem populations will explode on them. By 2020,
more than half of all births in the Netherlands will be non-European.
The huge design flaw in the post-modern secular state is that you need
a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The
Europeans simply don't wish to have children, so they are dying.
In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3 . As a result, Japan will lose up to 60
million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very
different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead,
they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2000 schools,
and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also
aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at
least 70 years old. Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy
with those demographics.
Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world's major economic
engines, aren't merely in recession, they're shutting down. This will
have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning
to happen. Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct
correlation between abandonment of traditional religious society and a
drop in birth rate, and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant.
The second reason is economic. When the birthrate drops below
replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to support
more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller
group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage
and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward spiral only
gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the traditions they
formerly held in regards to having families and raising children.
The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an
increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by
ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the
Hispanic birth rate is 2.7 . In the U.S., the baby boomers are
starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the elder
dependency ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is
not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.
Western civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive
society understands-you need kids to have a healthy society. Children
are huge consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That's how
a society works, but the post-modern secular state seems to have
forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had
been the same as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security
or Medicare problems.
The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society
creates a middle class and women move into the work force, birth rates
drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living.
The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic
development. After World War II, the U.S. instituted a $600 tax credit
per child. The idea was to enable mom and dad to have four children
without being troubled by taxes. This led to a baby boom of 22 million
kids, which was a huge consumer market that turned into a huge tax
base. However, to match that incentive in today's dollars would cost
$12,000 per child.
China and India do not have declining populations. However, in both
countries, there is a preference for boys over girls, and we now have
the technology to know which is which before they are born. In China
and India, many families are aborting the girls. As a result, in each
of these countries there are 70 million boys growing up who will never
find wives. When left alone, nature produces 103 boys for every 100
girls. In some provinces, however, the ratio is 128 boys to every 100
girls.
The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will
be smaller than that of Yemen. Russia has one-sixth of the earth's
land surface and much of its oil. You can't control that much area
with such a small population. Immediately to the south, you have China
with 70 million unmarried men are a real potential nightmare scenario
for Russia.
4. Restructuring of American Business The fourth major transformation
involves a fundamental restructuring of American business. Today's
business environment is very complex and competitive. To succeed, you
have to be the best, which means having the highest quality and lowest
cost. Whatever your price point, you must have the best quality and
lowest price. To be the best, you have to concentrate on one thing.
You can't be all things to all people and be the best.
A generation ago, IBM used to make every part of their computer. Now
Intel makes the chips, Microsoft makes the software, and someone else
makes the modems, hard drives, monitors, etc. IBM even out sources
their call center. Because IBM has all these companies supplying goods
and services cheaper and better than they could do it themselves, they
can make a better computer at a lower cost. This is called a
fracturing of business. When one company can make a better product by
relying on others to perform functions the business used to do itself,
it creates a complex pyramid of companies that serve and support each
other.
This fracturing of American business is now in its second generation.
The companies who supply IBM are now doing the same thing, out
sourcing many of their core services and production process. As a
result, they can make cheaper, better products. Over time, this
pyramid continues to get bigger and bigger. Just when you think it
can't fracture again, it does. Even very small businesses can have a
large pyramid of corporate entities that perform many of its important
functions. One aspect of this trend is that companies end up with
fewer employees and more independent contractors.
This trend has also created two new words in business. integrator and
complementor. At the top of the pyramid, IBM is the integrator. As you
go down the pyramid, Microsoft, Intel and the other companies that
support IBM are the complementors. However, each of the complementors
is itself an integrator for the complementors underneath it. This has
several implications, the first of which is that we are now getting
false readings on the economy. People who used to be employees are now
independent contractors launching their own businesses. There are many
people working whose work is not listed as a job. As a result, the
economy is perking along better than the numbers are telling us.
Outsourcing also confused the numbers. Suppose a company like General
Motors decides to outsource all its employee cafeteria functions to
Marriott (which it did). It lays off hundreds of cafeteria workers,
who then get hired right back by Marriott. The only thing that has
changed is that these people work for Marriott rather than GM. Yet,
the headlines will scream that America has lost more manufacturing
jobs. All that really happened is that these workers are now
reclassified as service workers. So the old way of counting jobs
contributes to false economic readings. As yet, we haven't figured out
how to make the numbers catch up with the changing realities of the
business world.
Another implication of this massive restructuring is that because
companies are getting rid of units and people that used to work for
them, the entity is smaller. As the companies get smaller and more
efficient, revenues are going down but profits are going up. As a
result, the old notion that revenues are up and we're doing great
isn't always the case anymore.
Companies are getting smaller but are becoming more efficient and
profitable in the process.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE FOUR TRANSFORMATIONS
1. The War in Iraq In some ways, the war is going very well.
Afghanistan and Iraq have the beginnings of a modern government, which
is a huge step forward. The Saudis are starting to talk about some
good things, while Egypt and Lebanon are beginning to move in a good
direction.
A series of revolutions have taken place in countries like Ukraine and
Georgia. There will be more of these revolutions for an interesting
reason. In every revolution, there comes a point where the dictator
turns to the general and says, Fire into the crowd. If the general
fires into the crowd, it stops the revolution. If the general says No,
the revolution continues. Increasingly, the generals are saying No
because their kids are in the crowd.
Thanks to TV and the Internet, the average 18 year old outside the
U.S. is very savvy about what is going on in the world, especially in
terms of popular culture. There is a huge global consciousness, and
young people around the world want to be a part of it. It is
increasingly apparent to them that the miserable government where they
live is the only thing standing in their way. More and more, it is the
well-educated kids, the children of the generals and the elite, who
are leading the revolutions.
At the same time, not all is well with the war. The level of violence
in Iraq is much worse and doesn't appear to be improving. It's
possible that we're asking too much of Islam all at one time. We're
trying to jolt them from the 7th century to the 21st century all at
once, which may be further than they can go. They might make it and
they might not. Nobody knows for sure. The point is, we don't know how
the war will turn out. Anyone who says they know is just guessing.
The real place to watch is Iran. If they actually obtain nuclear
weapons it will be a terrible situation. There are two ways to deal
with it. The first is a military strike, which will be very difficult.
The Iranians have dispersed their nuclear development facilities and
put them underground. The U.S. has nuclear weapons that can go under
the earth and take out those facilities, but we don't want to do that.
The other way is to separate the radical mullahs from the government,
which is the most likely course of action.
Seventy percent of the Iranian population is under 30. They are Moslem
but not Arab. They are mostly pro-Western. Many experts think the U.S.
should have dealt with Iran before going to war with Iraq. The problem
isn't so much the weapons, it's the people who control them. If I ran
has a moderate government, the weapons become less of a concern.
We don't know if we will win the war in Iraq. We could lose or win.
What we're looking for is any indicator that Islam is moving into the
21st century and stabilizing.
2. China It may be that pushing 500 million people from farms and
villages into cities is too much too soon. Although it gets almost no
publicity, China is experiencing hundreds of demonstrations around the
country, which is unprecedented. These are not students in Tiananmen
Square. These are average citizens who are angry with the government
for building chemical plants and polluting the water they drink and
the air they breathe.
The Chinese are a smart and industrious people. They may be able to
pull it off and become a very successful economic and military
superpower. If so, we will have to learn to live with it. If they want
to share the responsibility of keeping the world's oil lanes open,
that's a good thing. They currently have eight new nuclear electric
power generators under way and 45 on the books to build. Soon, they
will leave the U.S. way behind in their ability to generate nuclear
power.
What can go wrong with China? For one, you can't move 550 million
people into the cities without major problems. Two, China really wants
Taiwan, not so much for economic reasons, they just want it. The
Chinese know that their system of communism can't survive much longer
in the 21st century. The last thing they want to do before they morph
into some sort of more capitalistic government is to take over Taiwan.
We may wake up one morning and find they have launched an attack on
Taiwan. If so, it will be a mess, both economically and militarily.
The U.S. has committed to the military defense of Taiwan. If China
attacks Taiwan, will we really go to war against them? If the Chinese
generals believe the answer is no, they may attack. If we don't defend
Taiwan, every treaty the U.S. has will be worthless. Hopefully, China
won't do anything stupid.
3. Demographics Europe and Japan are dying because their populations
are aging and shrinking. These trends can be reversed if the young
people start breeding. However, the birth rates in these areas are so
low it will take two generations to turn things around. No economic
model exists that permits 50 years to turn things around. Some
countries are beginning to offer incentives for people to have bigger
families. For example, Italy is offering tax breaks for having
children. However, it's a lifestyle issue versus a tiny amount of
money. Europeans aren't willing to give up their comfortable
lifestyles in order to have more children.
In general, everyone in Europe just wants it to last a while longer.
Europeans have a real talent for living. They don't want to work very
hard. The average European worker gets 400 more hours of vacation time
per year than Americans. They don't want to work and they don't want
to make any of the changes needed to revive their economies.
The summer after 9/11, France lost 15,000 people in a heat wave. In
August, the country basically shuts down when everyone goes on
vacation. That year, a severe heat wave struck and 15,000 elderly
people living in nursing homes and hospitals died. Their children
didn't even leave the beaches to come back and take care of the
bodies. Institutions had to scramble to find enough refrigeration
units to hold the bodies until people came to claim them.
This loss of life was five times bigger than 9/11 in America, yet it
didn't trigger any change in French society. When birth rates are so
low, it creates a tremendous tax burden on the young. Under those
circumstances, keeping mom and dad alive is not an attractive option.
That's why euthanasia is becoming so popular in most European
countries. The only country that doesn't permit (and even encourage)
euthanasia is Germany, because of all the baggage from World War II.
The European economy is beginning to fracture. The Euro is down.
Countries like Italy are starting to talk about pulling out of the
European Union because it is killing them. When things get bad
economically in Europe, they tend to get very nasty politically. The
canary in the mine is anti-Semitism. When it goes up, it means trouble
is coming. Current levels of anti-Semitism are higher than ever.
Germany won't launch another war, but Europe will likely get shabbier,
more dangerous and less pleasant to live in.
Japan has a birth rate of 1.3 and has no intention of bringing in
immigrants. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be 70 years
old. Property values in Japan have dropped every year for the past 14
years. The country is simply shutting down.
In the U.S. we also have an aging population. Boomers are starting to
retire at a massive rate. These retirements will have several major
impacts: Possible massive sell-off of large four-bedroom houses and a
movement to condos.
An enormous drain on the treasury. Boomers vote, and they want their
benefits, even if it means putting a crushing tax burden on their kids
to get them. Social Security will be a huge problem. As this
generation ages, it will start to drain the system. We are the only
country in the world where there are no age limits on medical
procedures.
An enormous drain on the health care system. This will also increase
the tax burden on the young, which will cause them to delay marriage
and having families, which will drive down the birth rate even
further.
Although scary, these demographics also present enormous opportunities
for products and services tailored to aging populations. There will be
tremendous demand for caring for older people, especially those who
don't need nursing homes but need some level of care. Some people will
have a business where they take care of three or four people in their
homes. The demand for that type of service and for products to
physically care for aging people will be huge.
Make sure the demographics of your business are attuned to where the
action is. For example, you don't want to be a baby food company in
Europe or Japan. Demographics are much underrated as an indicator of
where the opportunities are. Businesses need customers. Go where the
customers are.
4. Restructuring of American Business The restructuring of American
business means we are coming to the end of the age of the employer and
employee. With all this fracturing of businesses into different and
smaller units, employers can't guarantee jobs anymore because they
don't know what their companies will look like next year. Everyone is
on their way to becoming an independent contractor. The new workforce
contract will be a, "Show up at my office five days a week and do what
I want you to do, but you handle your own insurance, benefits, health
care and everything else."
Husbands and wives are becoming economic units. They take different
jobs and work different shifts depending on where they are in their
careers and families. They make tradeoffs to put together a
compensation package to take care of the family. This used to happen
only with highly educated professionals with high incomes. Now it is
happening at the level of the factory floor worker. Couples at all
levels are designing their compensation packages based on their
individual needs. The only way this can work is if everything is
portable and flexible, which requires a huge shift in the American
economy.
The U.S. is in the process of building the world's first 21st century
model economy. The only other countries doing this are U.K. and
Australia. The model is fast, flexible, highly productive and unstable
in that it is always fracturing and re-fracturing. This will increase
the economic gap between the U.S. and everybody else, especially
Europe and Japan.
At the same time, the military gap is increasing. Other than China, we
are the only country that is continuing to put money into their
military. Plus, we are the only military getting on-the-ground
military experience through our war in Iraq. We know which high-tech
weapons are working and which ones aren't. There is almost no one who
can take us on economically or militarily. There has never been a
superpower in this position before.
On the one hand, this makes the U.S. a magnet for bright and ambitious
people. It also makes us a target. We are becoming one of the last
holdouts of the traditional Judeo-Christian culture. There is no
better place in the world to be in business and raise children. The
U.S. is by far the best place to have an idea, form a business and put
it into the marketplace. We take it for granted, but it isn't as
available in other countries of the world.
Ultimately, it's an issue of culture. The only people who can hurt us
are ourselves, by losing our culture. If we give up our
Judeo-Christian culture, we become just like the Europeans. The
culture war is the whole ball game. If we lose it, there isn't another
America to pull us out
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