"The global gloom makes the international political system feel like a patient that is still struggling to recover from a severe illness which began with the financial crisis of 2008. If there are no further bad shocks, recovery should proceed gradually and the worst political symptoms may fade. The patient is vulnerable, however. Another severe shock, such as a major terrorist attack or a serious economic downturn, could spell real trouble."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c523a45a-a973-11e5-955c-1e1d6de94879.html#axzz3veU6Mh3U

I just LUV The Financial Times Limited

For half a century, we've been told that the Middle East was the fuse for WW3.  If we're squabbling over peak oil, I agree. If, OTOH, we move away from oil to alternate energy I could make a case that the ME becomes just another trouble spot.

Radical religion --Islam and/or Christian-- has become the wild card, though.

Africa and the Middle East are in for a very hard time.  The political boundaries there make no sense, ethnically, politically, culturally, nor by tribal, clan or religious sectarian standards.  They have to Balkanize and that won't be pretty.  The longer the Super powers and great powers try to, unnaturally, keep these failed states together the longer we will prolong the conflict.  They have to find their own way.  Radical religion is mainly a symptom of these underlying problems rather than a cause.

QuoteIf, OTOH, we move away from oil to alternate energy

I was just thinking this the other day. If we had stayed aggressive about efficiency and alternative energy after the 1972 price shocks (we *got* aggressive, we just didn't *stay* aggressive when prices fell again), we wouldn't even be talking about Iraq, Al Qaeda and ISIS. They would be like the warring factions in the Congo - completely off the radar of Americans except the ones super interested in foreign policy.

As it stands now, you have exactly summarized the question: will it boil over before or after we transition off oil?

QuoteThe political boundaries there make no sense,

We easily forget that the political boundaries of Europe only make sense through time and because of the "invention of tradition"
See The Invention of Tradition, Eric Hobsbawm
http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/regional-and-world-history-general-interest/invention-tradition-2

In 1792, when they did surveys in France, only 15 of 85 departements were majority French speaking. In 1900, the primary identity of someone from Bretagne was Breton, not French. France became "France" through a program of aggressive cultural imperialism by the central government against the rest of the country.
See Peasants into Frenchman, by Eugen Weber - http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=3200

And Germany is an amalgam of principalities and free cities that spoke a related set of dialects. But if you think about how a German cannot understand a Swiss German generally, that gives a sense of the language diversity in what we now think of as a unified culture.

Meanwhile, if you follow Hans Rosling's work, he argues that no area of the world is advancing as fast as Africa. It's just starting from so far behind, it's hard to see.

QuoteThere are huge differences between the countries in Africa. It's misleading to treat them as one and the same. For example: life expectancy in Cape Verde is 22 years longer than in Swaziland yet both are African countries. Botswana is one of the top 13 achievers in the world when it comes to sustained economic growth. It has been democratic and peaceful ever since independence. And it is also an African country. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the most tragic economic disasters in the world, plagued by despots and war ever since its independence. Millions have died since the Second Congo War broke out in 1998. It is the poorest country in the world. And the DR Congo is also an African country.

Hans Rosling interview, "Africa is not a country"
http://africa-is-not-a-country.we-magazine.net/

Of course, the Africa population bomb will be a challenge for us all. When Africa goes from 9% of the worlds population in 1950 to a projected 39% by 2100 and the standard of living rises there, we have a huge planetary sustainability issue.
http://www.techinsider.io/africas-population-explosion-will-change-humanity-2015-8

>Europe

That is exactly my point.  It took hundreds of years of war and trial and error for Europe to forge a "nation state" model that has eventually brought more peace to the "tribes" of Europe than anyone ever thought possible.  The thing is Europe, or parts of Europe, managed to do this many decades before their neighbors in Africa and the Middle East.  The process is still ongoing and to their credit many European countries have found peaceful means to reorder their boundaries (ie. the peaceful divorce of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  The current question of Belgian unity now that there is no external threat from much larger neighbors.)  Africa and ME are just starting a process that that Europe has largely gotten out of the way a century or two ago.

The Enlightenment comes into play here, which at least provides those nations that have embraced it most with a framework of democracy.

World Challenges:

1. Reordering the boundaries of the old Soviet Empire.
2. Reordering the colonial boundaries in ME and Africa
3. The role of multi-national corporations eroding or usurping the power of democratic nation states
4. Rising sea levels and climate change
5. The future of the EU: will it be a trading zone or the United States of Europe?

(Ack I'm getting depressed and we haven't even got to Asia.)

>alternative energy

I say do it.  The sooner we get over our addiction to oil the better for us and the less we have to meddle in the ME.

>I say do it

Maybe we just did.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/544981/tax-credit-extension-gives-solar-industry-a-new-boom/

Just in (in Danish only) - but we opened Scandinavia's largest solar power grid recently.

61 MW - Enough to feed 30,000 homes with electricity:
http://ing.dk/artikel/skandinaviens-stoerste-solcellepark-paa-61-mw-aabnet-ved-kalundborg-181224

>did

Good news.  I would have wanted something longer than 5 years but it is a minor miracle to get anything out of Washington these days.

>Danish

All the wind turbines coming through the Port of Indiana on Lake Michigan have been built in Denmark.  Solar is just getting started locally.

>wind turbines

That's good to know Brad. At least we do something rather well.. these are they guys: https://www.vestas.com/

>the whole world is on edge

Brave New War
A new form of conflict emerged in 2015—from the Islamic State to the South China Sea

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/war-2015-china-russia-isis/422085/

>>South China Sea

Now *that* really worries me.

QuoteIt took hundreds of years of war and trial and error for Europe to forge a "nation state" model that has eventually brought more peace to the "tribes" of Europe than anyone ever thought possible.

Being a sixteenth-century historian, I tend to take a long view of things. So yes, I agree fundamentally that we won't see this go away next year. It will take time for things to settle down and we could see borders drawn and redrawn as in Europe.

However, the "takeoff" in Europe (when Europe in general went from a backwater to an actual world power), corresponds to perhaps the most intense period of "tribal" warring in Europe (15-18th centuries). It seems a continent can grow in the presence of war, though obviously not ideal. Given where Africa is starting from, though...

And then on the other hand I don't think we should exaggerate the "more peace... than anyone ever thought possible." This "peaceful" moment we've been living in our lifetimes has included trail war between the Irish and the British, the Serbs and Croats, the Ukranians and the Russians, and probably others I'm forgetting. Meanwhile, on the eve of WWI, there was a spate of books saying how war in Europe was no longer possible.

And yet, if you look at where Europe was in terms of standard of living just before WWI and say 10 years after WWII, the difference is massive in spite of those events.

So despite the problems and the tribes and the kleptocracies and so on, I think Africa in 50 years will consist of a handful of relatively stable, wealthy countries and some places that are still completely screwed up. Sort of like Europe, but more so.

In any case... I don't know jack about the future (or Africa, ha!) so all of the above is just... looking for a polite term for it and not finding one ;-)