From Eli Lake, the Washington Times:  In the past four years, Russia’s intelligence services have stepped up a campaign of intimidation and dirty tricks against U.S. officials and diplomats in Russia and the countries that used to form the Soviet Union.

On Monday, September 20, the Atlantic Council, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC), the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), and Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN) held an event for the public release and discussion of the joint U.S.-E.U. report Global Governance 2025.

In its latest report entitled Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, the National Intelligence Council has made various predictions about the continuing and changing influence of globalization around the world. It is argued that “as some countries become more invested in their economic well-being, incentives toward geopolitical stability could increase.” This is positive.

The National Intelligence Council’s “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” report considers likely scenarios for nearly all strategic global issues, including nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and climate change.  Climate change in particular is an issue that we will be faced with on a daily basis two decades from now.

The National Intelligence Council’s "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," released on November 20, poses a fascinating variety of alternate futures. 

Speaking to the Atlantic Council last Thursday, CIA director Michael Hayden declared that, "although Al-Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks, it remains a determined and adaptive enemy" and vowed that, while the American people have grown naturally complacent about the threat, he and his colleagues remain vigilant every day, motivated by the fact that the country "never faced an enemy so committed to our destruction."

One of the more provocative projections in the NIC's "Global Trends 2025" report is a prediction of the end of U.S. dominance in world affairs.