GOVERNMENTS
Crime
In-home incarceration of prisoners will be in place and being tested by the year 2015. This will be a program where prisoners are expected to restrict their movements to within their house or workspace.
Prisons will be obsolete except for the most hardened criminals or repeat offenders by the year 2050. As part of the prison eradication system, new types of step-down facilities will be constructed, and a new system of behavior modification will be instituted beginning around 2016-2017.
These reconditioning programs will be addressing cause and effect, and the development of personal self-esteem, combined with new kinds of mood-altering drugs, a professional educational program, and tracked/enforced employment systems.
Human identification and tracking (HIT) systems will be in place by 2025. These systems will be reliant on human DNA codes, and will enable positive body identification, regardless of exterior changes or modifications to look, size, weight, etc.
Institutions will be established in all fifty states in support of victims of crime by the year 2030. Crime victims will become the focus instead of the criminals. Under these new systems and approaches, society at large will accept full responsibility for the victims' losses, and ensure that criminals are dealt with fairly.
The condemnation of prisoners to death row will be officially abolished in all states by the year 2022. This will be as a direct result of studies instituted around 2004. These studies will more than suggest that there is an error rate in the determination of guilt for major crime that exceeds 21 to 25 percent. This will be found to apply in at least 14 percent of the cases of those "supposed" felons who were put to death, but were never actually guilty of the crime for which they were condemned.
The only time that death will be considered an option will be in the case of multiple murders, wherein the person convicted of the crime has requested it over long-term incarceration.
Diplomacy
A fifty-first and fifty-second state will be added to the United States before the year 2050. Neither will be Puerto Rico.
The United Nations will move to a new location outside the continental United States sometime between 2025 and 2030. This new location will probably be an island (surrounded by water on all sides.)
Russia and China will have a major disagreement over border limits sometime between 2010 and 2012. This will not result in war, but will be negotiated through a third party in an effort to avoid war.
Egypt will fully re-enter the League of Arab States in 2009.
Espionage
Being a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer, there are a lot of areas I can't discuss about our own intelligence efforts because of their relevance to actual or real capabilities.
Likewise, talking about someone else's capabilities establishes a baseline for the limits or knowns regarding those capabilities, which is also a no-no.
However, since the United States government feels that using the paranormal is of no real consequence in the collection of intelligence material(s), I will confine my comments to the paranormal aspects of such intelligence gathering.
First and foremost, because the government doesn't think there is "much to this paranormal thing" doesn't make it so. There are in fact more than a few other governments who continue to pursue active programs in the paranormal. One might ask why they might be doing this.
The reason primarily lies within the same context that all other developments in history have borne out as true—to be completely innovative and succeed, you have to climb into some very unusual bathtubs, explore some very unusual places, and become immersed in some very unusual concoctions.
Within the United States there is a sort of puritanical Protestant ethic that is, and always has been, an in-your-face dissuader or minefield with regard to radical ideas and/or their development. So our government, as a system, has always positioned itself in a way that suggests that there is always a great deal of caution and conservatism being brought to the fore in what or how they might be pursuing something. This makes them look good, but almost always ends up costing us a great deal.
In spite of this attitude, by early 2006 American scientists will have their first tangible proof that psi functioning is actually occurring in the brain, and where that is happening. You can essentially think of this as a Psi Lie Detector. Hook someone up a certain way, and you will be able to tell with near 100 percent accuracy when they are reporting valid psychic information, versus inventing it.
Between 2011 and 2012, we will see biological systems being remotely affected by thought alone. This will be unique in that it will have been demonstrated on unwitting subjects, that is, subjects who do not even know they are part of the experiment. For obvious reasons, this will take place outside of the United States and, in effect, be the work of another government.
I'm not suggesting that the United States should be doing this experimentation on humans. However, I am suggesting that we should be funding it and exploring it with animals. Remote bioeffects could be the most promising medical discovery in our history; it could also be the most frightening weapon.
Techniques have already been developed for using paranormal techniques for reducing the search areas for weapons of mass destruction. These have also been demonstrated under controlled conditions, and within labs. Because research into this area has received very little interest or funding, very little is known about it, other than the fact that it can be done. Effectiveness, as a result, has ranged from as little as 20 percent to as much as 85 percent, depending on which study you might be referring to.
I predict that a government will be using remote viewing to reduce search areas for weapons of mass destruction by as much as 75 percent by the year 2008. This will be a statistically stable percentage rate, which will consistently improve a great deal over time.
By the year 2025, there will be a minimum of seven countries using gifted people for paranormal intelligence-support purposes as just one more adjunct to the use of other collection methodologies.
By the year 2035, the Central Intelligence Agency will cease to exist. Its primary reporting requirements will be assumed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Its primary responsibilities for surveillance and other clandestine overhead will be assumed by the National Reconnaissance Office. All other overseas functions will be assumed by either the National Security Agency (NSA) for matters of communication, or specific Department of Defense service agencies as regards ground, sea, or air collection. The reason for this change will rest primarily with the Agency's inability to outline and reframe their current world mission, additional and major problems with personnel, a continued loss of confidence in their ability to meet requirements, and real-world cutbacks in funding.
Ethics
Ethics will continue to degrade within our political system until specific changes are made. The first significant change will be made by 2012, with a change in how elections are funded. Special-interest groups will be forbidden to donate funds to people running for office. Tax dollars will be allocated for supporting those candidates who can muster a sufficient number of votes(probably a preset percentage of total voting population) during a preliminary or qualifying process.
Under a great deal of pressure from the citizens of America, changes will be made to Senate and congressional rules in 2022 that will make all Senators and Congress members subject to the same laws as all other federal employees, or citizens of the United States.
Law
New laws will be introduced by the late 2020s that will provide for stiffer penalties for those who bring frivolous or groundless lawsuits. These new laws will reduce the numbers of lawsuits that are currently tying up our courts. Determination of a groundless suit will be made by a jury of peers at the request of a judge. The findings by these juries can be appealed but only at the expense of the one who brought the suite in the first place. These changes in law will reduce suits by one-third in America. People who are determined to make a groundless suit will be subject to paying all court costs incurred by both parties, the cost of frivolous suit determination, as well as additional fines, dependent on their resources.
The laws governing manslaughter will be changed before 2030. As a result, people who kill other people with automobiles while drunk will begin to receive stiffer penalties. It will no longer be looked at as an avoidable accident; it will be looked at as criminally negligent. This will have a decisive effect on the operation of local or neighborhood bars, many of which will come under civil suit as a result.
By 2024, there will be mandatory sentencing in most states as well as under federal law for the commission of a crime using a firearm. The public will balk at the minimum sentencing established as too harsh, which will result in new gun laws being established and passed by 2042. In effect, by 2050, the only guns that private citizens will be allowed to possess will be “smart guns,” those that will not fire unless they are in the hands of a registered owner. Initially this will be accomplished by electronic chip embedded within the hand of the owner. Eventually the gun itself will recognize the palm print, firmness and style of the grip, as well as the body odor (pheromones) of the owner.
By 2040, there will be agreements among most member countries of the United Nations, which establishes an agreement in law. These agreements will allow for the extradition of someone from one country to another, or in the casae of disagreement between countries, to a third country, to face charges of an international matter (crime across borders). The specific crimes to which this will apply will be those that are clearly not political in nature, such as murder, grand larceny, terrorist associated crimes, and crimes that are not recognized as prejudicial to the good order of the United Nations charter.
The federal government will establish a common criminal database for the use of state and local police forces before 2020. This database will be maintained by the federal justice department, and fees will be paid by local police organizations for access and use. This will be separate from the currently existing Federal Bureau of Investigation database, which for reasons of law will not be permitted access except by specific request through a state judge.
Military
The military will combine its special operations units from all services into a Joint Service Strategic Operations Task Force (JSS-OTF) by 2040. Aside from removing special operations missions from the political control of a specific service, this means the following will probably take place:
1) All special unit trained personnel who have been trained in Field Craft, Jungle, Mountain, Winter, Desert, Seal, Airborne, Ranger, Special Forces, Commando, Delta Group, or Special Operations will be consolidated under a single command.
2) The Navy will be responsible for all training in naval warfare, the Army for special unit ground tactics, and the Air Force will assume all survival training requirements (winter, desert, jungle).
3) The commander of JSS-OTF will operate directly under the Secretary of Defense and be on call to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the National Security Council.
4) All decisions to utilize members of this unit as a reactionary tool will be made at the discretion of the President.
5) The unit will be separately funded.
By the year 2050, the U.S. Navy will see an increase of 22 percent in size and budget. The Air Force will see a reduction of 20 percent in aircraft as well as personnel. The Army will see a near 30 percent reduction in personnel and heavy armaments (tracked guns, tanks, and ground support aircraft.)The only areas that will see increases within the Army will be a new generation of intelligent helicopters, which in effect will make tanks and heavy guns near obsolete.
By the year 2008, Libya will possess nuclear mass spectrographs, operating in underground facilities, that are capable of producing a minimum of 1.5 ounces of weapons-grade enriched U-235 per day.
Multinational agreements will be made by the year 2020 that will permit shared defensive weapons development between the United States and its allies. This will permit cross-pollination of new ideas, developments, and shared resources—permanently wedding the U.S. and some of its allies to a shared defensive posture.
The immediate effect will be a significant reduction in defensive costs across the board for all participant nations—about 35 to 40 percent. Future weapons development will only take place where a peaceful or nonweapons application can be demonstrated for that same development.
By the year 2060, the United States armed forces—Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines—will be reduced by half. However, it will be twice as effective in responding with the appropriate amount of aggression.
A long-range "Death Ray" (probably a Chemical Oxygen-Iodine Laser, or COXILLA) will be operational by the year 2010. It will be capable of frying hardened military targets at ranges exceeding 25 miles, and will be track- or wheel-mounted in a vehicle, or possibly hard-mounted inside a large cargo plane. (Note: A weapon similar to this was just recently disclosed to the public with a request for permission to test it against a satellite. The original prediction was submitted in manuscript form in August 1997.)
American and European infantry will be carrying "Death Ray" rifles by the year 2015, that will have a range in excess of 500 meters. They will not operate in the sense that a ray gun operates, but will be a combination of at least three new and current technologies. (Note: A patent was issued a month ago for what is essentially a "Star Trek Phaser."
It operates by sending a variable electrical burst down a specifically constructed beam of light that has been designed and constructed to carry the electrical charge. Set on low it will paralyze the intended target; set on high, it supposedly can kill. At present, one needs a Jeep to cart around the power supply. The above prediction was also submitted in manuscript form during August of 1997).
The U.S. infantry will be wearing a lightweight, woven body armor by the year 2020. Consisting of three layers of cloth with a special weave, it will be capable of stopping a 7.62mm NATO rifle round. Since the fiber used to make this material will be a blend of new carbon-based ceramic-silicon and polymers, it will not only protect the soldier against projectiles and shrapnel, but also against fire (heat up to 1000°F for about a minute to a minute and a half.) This added benefit will not be lost on tankers.
A new helmet liner will be molded from the same material, with a full drop-down visor that will protect the face, head, and neck areas against metal fragments and bullets, as well as flames.
By 2030, the U.S. military will be wearing camouflage that mirrors the surroundings via a weak electrical current. It will also have the capacity to change from completely opaque to completely translucent, from white to black, or varying mixtures of these colors. These suits will be excessively expensive until about 2050, when they will become available to other than special operations personnel.
By 2008, ground support helicopters will be fully stealth capable. Invisible on most radars, they will also operate almost silently at night.
By 2015, these helicopters will be so well constructed from lightweight composite armor that only a direct hit with a missile will be able to bring one down. They will possess at least eight blades and be capable of automatically shedding up to half of them when damaged, while still maintaining flight.
An automatic electromagnetic gun will be fielded sometime between 2008 and 2010. It will fire twelve to twenty rounds per minute, which is a very slow cyclic rate of fire. However, its aluminum alloy bullet, which will weigh less than a pound, will be capable of blasting a nine-inch hole through sixteen inches of steel alloy at a thousand yards. Targeted with an automatic optical laser sight, it will rarely miss its target; e.g., tanks, gun batteries, radars, trucks, aircraft, munitions dumps, bunkers, etc. It will be six feet long, weigh in the neighborhood of six hundred pounds, and be powered by an on-board (vehicular mounted) generator.
A portable and lightweight armored bunker, which is infrared and stealth protected, will be fielded in late 2013. Near-impervious to night vision equipment, heat sensors, or radar, it will be helicopter-delivered for defensive positions. To prevent use by the enemy when captured, the bunker will self-destruct unless the user resets a specific code.
By the year 2050, all U.S. weapons systems will be designed to self-destruct without a proper code entry.
By the year 2030, nonlethal weapons will be a major contributor to the battlefield. They will include a method for delivering temporary blindness to large groups, a chemical that will render runways unusable without a reaction agent (two part gasoline and diesel fuel) which won't operate an engine without an additive carried by the soldiers, glow-in-the-dark chemicals you can spray on the ground to show where someone has crossed over them, aerosols that induce a temporary nervous disorder that prevents someone from sitting still, and other things that are primarily leave-behind devices to disrupt enemy movements and reaction ability.
Politics
A small skirmish will be fought over a United States territory that wishes to become independent before the year 2040. This will result in statehood for that territory.
By the year 2030, there will be three major parties—the Democrats, the Republicans, and the American Freedom Party. Because of the changes in election laws, there will be six major parties by the 2050s.
By 2030, most voting and campaigning will be done by Internet or interactive television.
Additional buildings will be constructed within Washington, D.C., to provide for nearly twice the number of "personal assistants" to Senators and Congress members after the year 2040. The issues of government will become so complex by then, it will be a requirement.
Various cabinet members will begin to abandon their Washington, D.C. offices for other areas in the nearby suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. The first to go will be the Secretary of the Treasury; the second will be the Secretary of State. These will soon be followed by many of the foreign delegations (ambassadors and their embassies). Rising crime, a lack of space, and poor services will be to blame. The empty buildings will be reoccupied by the additional members of Congress, the Senate, and an influx of special interest groups.
Taxes
The American tax system will change dramatically before 2025. My sense is that our current system will be replaced by a value-added tax based on the utility, necessity, or luxury of items being purchased, as well as consumption. In addition, there will be an individual flat tax that will probably not exceed six percent.
Because of changes to the Social Security system, the payment of taxes will no longer be required of the individual; taxes will be paid only by the employer. Individuals will have the option of adding to this tax with voluntary donations, but only up until a specific point in time.
There will no longer be allowances for personal deductions after the year 2025. Business, on the other hand, will retain the right to deduct donations to charity, all business expenses, and overhead. The tax rate on business profit will stay fixed at 6 percent, the same as for individuals.
All business taxes will be filed electronically by the year 2025. There will be no personal tax filing required—not even on capital gains, or on profits from investments.
By 2030, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will be cut to a third of what it is today. IRS agents will require a degree in business accounting, and at least six years of field experience running tax accounts for businesses. They will have to answer directly to a civilian oversight board in their state, as well as at the federal level.
Schools
Our schools will be our single greatest focus from the present until the year 2020. Interest will grow very slowly but steadily over the next five years.
Eventually, by 2050, nearly all public schools, kindergarten through twelfth grade, will have new buildings, new materials, and a new curriculum. Until then, there will be a very strong movement back to privately run schools.
By 2022, the average high school curriculum will no longer be recognizable. Many of the courses presently taught in the first year of college will be taught in most high school tenth-grade classrooms.
By the year 2021, the average college education will be prohibitively expensive for anyone below the upper middle class. Over half the students attending colleges within the United States will be foreign, and here on a school visa.
Government research grants to colleges will nearly double by the year 2040, as will scholarships from supporting businesses, none of which will make it any easier for students trying to get into most of the colleges in America.
There will be drastic reductions in the number of students studying law and medicine. These professions will not be well paid or respected the way they are today. The schools of choice by 2015 will be primarily the engineering departments, followed very closely by the information/computer science areas.
One of the major Ivy League Schools in the Northeast will suffer a severe shock from an exposé that will all but destroy the reputation of the school sometime between 2019 and 2022. It will involve drugs (methamphetamine), sex for money, and wife trading among the professors—to include the dean. There is a lot of gray in the colors of this school, but I don't know if this is allegorical or not.
War
There is war brewing. Within five years, 1998 to 2003, there will be a second war in northern Iraq. It will probably be much bigger than the one in which Iraq was soundly defeated in 1991 by a coalition effort in what is now known as the Persian Gulf War.
As much as I would like to state otherwise, the world will continue to be filled with tribal disputes, large amounts of military hardware, and exotic weapons systems. There are plenty of two-bit dictators still running around who lack a conscience. Power, even power that isn't real, seems to ride the crest of their desires.
In 1986, I began talking about a great Middle Eastern war that would occur within six years. I made this prediction in numerous presentations I gave at The Monroe Institute, in Virginia. Simultaneously, I was predicting that this would only be the warmup for a more significant war that would follow, probably within nine to eleven years.
Since 1991, Saddam Hussein has been rebuilding his forces. He has modified his rockets for longer range, improved his armor, and changed his tactics significantly. Even military training within Iraq has now been restructured to address what he views as his earlier mistakes. His internal security forces have been thoroughly screened and vetted, and he is now moving inexorably toward the next confrontation. He is looking for war.
The natural question is why?
It has to do with a number of issues. Like most self-centered dictators, he has always viewed himself as the one designated by history to change the face of his world. But this isn't the only reason. It also has to do with money and power.
Few know that to the north of Iraq lies what might be the largest natural oil reserve on the face of the planet. It rests within a square that is probably 250 x 250 miles, an area presently occupied by the extreme eastern and south-eastern tip of Turkey, the northern tip of Iran, a large portion of Armenia, and the southern half of Azerbaijan. It is an area occupied by the Kurdish people, refugees from all of these countries. It is an area that is predominantly Muslim, and clearly is an area that is very unstable.
There is a belief, and probably rightly so, that whoever controls the flow of oil within the Middle East controls much of Western Europe, and many of the now disenfranchised countries previously known as the Eastern Bloc. A war, any war, will essentially bring the primary oil-producing countries in the Middle East to a standstill. The leaders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Syria know this.
Saddam Hussein also learned a number of valuable lessons from the Persian Gulf War. He now knows that aligning his forces and placing his armor, air power, missiles, and communications in fixed locations is a big mistake. He knows that waiting for an opposing military buildup is also a big mistake. He knows that Allied or NATO requirements are limited in places from which they can launch their planes, that armor is heavily affected by terrain, and that the
American and European people have a false sense of strength, as a result of what most perceived to have been an easy first victory. Most of all, he knows just how precarious the balance of power is within the region, as a result of internalized conflicts in most of the adjoining states.
A new war will probably begin with Iraq invading northwestern Iran. Ostensibly, it will do so under the guise of reacting to the actions of Kurdish rebels. (Iraqis call them terrorists.) Simultaneous to that action, Saddam will attempt to prod the Israelis to action with the use of a couple of long-range SCUDs carrying biological and chemical warfare agents. If the Israelis respond, and I've no doubt they will, so then will Syria, creating a war on two fronts.
The Iranians will not sit idle. They too will respond as an excuse to both occupy territory and to answer the Kurdish threat.
There will be additional surprises. Insurrection within Albania, Azerbaijan, and Turkey will soon follow.
Turkey, embroiled in internal conflict and concern over its southern border, will prompt Greece to attempt to secure its disputed territories along the Turkish borders to the north, and war will again break out on the island of Cyprus. Jordan and Saudi Arabia will initially attempt restraint, but their own internal situations will allow them very little latitude regarding the actions they take. They will be forced to take sides to prevent civil war within their own borders.
Western Europe, faced with immediate oil shortages, will not be long in joining the fray. Also, as a result of shortages and due to our commitments to NATO as well as to Israel, America will be forced to respond as well. The problem will then be exacerbated by the Western power's inability to land troops, equipment, and supplies within the region.
In all probability, Iran and Iraq will be allied in this war, further complicating a Western reaction to the conflict. The entire Middle East will be very unstable at the beginning of the conflict.
How long will the conflict last? My sense is that it will occupy the better part of four years, with perhaps another two years to reach a peace accord. The oil-rich area to the north will see substantial border changes, affecting Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Albania, and Azerbaijan. There will be no clear winners.
There will be penalties as a result of this war. Governments will change in Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Albania, and Azerbaijan. Western Europe will become dependent on oil supplies from the United States and Russia. The NATO alliance will suffer greatly, nearly dissolving under the pressures that will be brought to bear. Following the war, insurrection will occur in countries adjacent to the area; new alliances will be formed. The Middle East will not stabilize until the year 2030. A grim future, but in all probability an accurate one.
What can be done to prevent this from occurring?
The United States and the rest of Western Europe need to ride Saddam Hussein like a horse. Iraq needs to be scoured twice over for weapons of mass destruction. When we are absolutely sure these kinds of weapons are no longer available to him, we may be able to keep him in the box.
Between 1998 and 2003 or 2004, the United States will be faced with probably the single greatest threat humanity has ever known, the possibility that one of its enemies will attempt to use a biological weapon (BW) inside the United States.
The United States has been under an executive order declaring a national emergency since the latter part of 1994, which warns of just such an event. A biological strike on an American city is no longer imminent—it's going to happen—they just don't know when.
There are probably a minimum of twenty-seven countries that currently have and are developing stockpiles of biological weapons. Note, I am not talking about chemical weapons here, such as mustard gas, chlorine gas, or the neurological agents that might have affected our troops during the Gulf War, but highly concentrated and specifically engineered lethal strains of virus or anthrax that are nontreatable and very quick acting. Most of these designer BW agents cannot even be decontaminated from infected areas, and no one knows how long their shelf life might be.
If a BW agent is used on an American city, there is no doubt in my mind that America will retaliate with a tactical nuclear strike. Whoever uses a BW agent on us will pay dearly for it. The problem is that this may result in far worse repercussions.
If this situation does not arise by 2004, the probability of it happening will be reduced by a percentage point with each passing year thereafter.
To counter this threat, the United States Government will have secretly ratified changes to our laws that will reinstitute and permit foreign assassination as a counterterrorist tool. This has probably already been done.
A country in the Middle East will suffer a biological warfare accident, resulting in the death of nearly one hundred thousand people, and the permanent abandonment of a large city, before the year 2001.
It is likely that civil war will break out in both Yemen and Djibouti before the year 2000.
War or no war in the Middle East, there will be civil war in Saudi Arabia before the year 2002.
The United States will withdraw troops from the Korean DMZ following the signing of peace accords in the year 2000. Within one year of the removal of troops, there will be war between North and South Korea (2001-2002).
Peace
There will be no complete peace on the planet until well into the twenty-third century.