Eight Futures 1

Anyone writing science fiction set in the next century has to think about three questions in international politics:

• Will China become a superpower or not?
• Will India become a superpower or not?
• Will the United States remain a superpower or not?

Three binary questions yields 2^3 = 8 possible futures, hence the title of this series of posts.

"But what about my particular hobby horse?" you may ask. Fair enough. But whether you think the real question is whether or not we'll prevent global warming, nuclear terrorism, or 5GW, any realistic answer will depend, at least in part, on which of these eight futures will come to pass. For example, if the US, China, and India are all superpowers, the factions willing and able to engage in nuclear terrorism (and the targets they would select) will be vastly different than if China and India are not superpowers and the US has been weakened by economic depression, climate change, and post-Bush-overreach isolationism. The broad outlines of the world of the 21st century and beyond will be laid down by events in these three countries in the coming decades, just as the medieval struggles between Emperor and Pope were laid down six centuries earlier by the Christianization of Rome.

The next three posts in the series will weigh the evidence on both sides of the three questions given above, as well as giving some consideration to what sort of superpower each of these three polities could be. After that, future posts in the series will explore at least some of these eight futures.