topics:  | politics | international | future | econ

Speculation on which regions might gain dominion in the global village by the
turn of the century and beyond. In assessing what the future may hold for
latter-day superpowers and their challengers, Attali (a longtime advisor to
French President Mitterand, and President of the European Bank for
Reconstruction & Development, an institution created to help Soviet
satellites adjust to capitalism) offers two main scenarios. In one, the
so-called Pacific sphere (an area, anchored in Tokyo, that encompasses not
only developed and developing states in East Asia but also all nations in the
Americas) emerges victorious in the ongoing struggle for supremacy. In the
other, the Continent's common-market countries prevail. Unless they mend
their improvident ways, the author predicts, the US and USSR will continue to
suffer both absolute and comparative decline since economic rather than
military might will determine the winners of this high-stakes game. Such
trouble spots as Africa, China, India, and the Middle East are not even in
the running, he asserts, though they retain a boundless potential for
destabilizing mischief. As the competition for geopolitical ascendancy
intensifies, Attali predicts, prosperous, privileged elites will have the
means to roam the earth in pursuit of personal fulfillment and/or corporate
profit while hordes of have-nots barely subsist in crowded backwaters. In the
brave new millennial world dimly foreseen by the author, the planet as well
as huddled masses will be ranked among the biggest losers if humanity does
not halt its depredation of the environment. In similar small-is-beautiful
vein, Attali argues against taking bioscience and other advanced technologies
too far. For all their flash and filigree, the author's provocative, albeit
carefully hedged, prophecies can be described most charitably as rooted in
flights of fancy, not systematic analysis. In brief, then, a
quasi-apocalyptic vision that's neither conclusive nor convincing. - Kirkus
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