Prospects and Visions for the 21st Century

The world will probably witness historic changes during the beginning.  Improved communication and increased trade among nations will continue to ad to international interdependence.  Our global village will become even smaller. 

Democracy will spread around the world.  It will become more peaceful, as many nations will begin shifting their foreign policy focus away from potential conflicts with one another and toward greater cooperation.  Leaders in the Middle East will make great strides in bringing peace to their region. 

Their will appear even more international organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, where the countries will debate global concerns.  Most of the problems that will immerge, like political, environmental, and cultural, will require great cooperation among countries.  Many domestic issues will shift to the global scale. 

There might be a threat of nuclear war.  Although the United States and Russia signed several arms control agreements during and after the Cold War, each country still has between 6,000 and 8,000 nuclear devices.  Few other countries claim to have nuclear weapons as well. 

NATO and main industrialized countries will play a major role in peacekeeping and resolving regional criseses.  Multinational peacekeeping will be a valuable tool in containing regional conflicts before they escalate, or in preventing tem altogether.  Peacekeeping mission of these countries will be a compromise between invasion and complete inaction. 

Concerning peace, terrorism will be one of the largest security threats in the twenty-first century.  The CIA predicts that terrorists like Osam bin Laden may use “catastrophic terrorism” in the future.  Catastrophic terrorism involves the use of the deadliest biological, chemical, or even nuclear weapons.  More and more civilian emergency personnel should be trained to respond to terrorist attacks. 

National security will be one of the main priorities in the twenty-first century.  The governments should organize their defense forces to ensure security.  The defense budgets will probably be increased to pay for the development of new high-tech equipment. 

There will be more democratic countries.  As democracy will spread, so too will core democratic values such as human dignity and equality.  There will appear more international agreements in an effort to secure the fundamental rights of every human being.  There still some nations that continue brutal human rights violations.  Recent years have produced genocide by ethic and tribal leaders in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Indonesia and political executions in Myanmar and China.  Hopefully in the future all this problems will be resolved in the future and all the problems will respect the individual rights of their people. 

America will remain the most influential country in the world.  American leaders have always believed that the global spread of democracy is in the best interests of the United States.  Thus, throughout much of the twentieth century they have promoted democracy overseas.  They have supported fair and free elections in other countries because such elections are beneficial to U.S. national interests, such as security and trade.  Together with democracy spreads American culture. 

With spread of democracy, democratic nations often share American ideals.  In general, is very good.  Elected officials tend to permit more individual freedoms, such as freedom of expression and religion.  As these ideas take root in more countries, American way of life is more secure.  Therefore, it is important for U.S. officials to continue to support and promote democracy in the future.  Custom essays & term papers