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03.08.2009

FORMATION OF THE FUTURE

   

Gagik Harutyunyan

Gagik_Harutyunyan (medium) Divination has always been one of those issues, which exited humanity. Almost in all the societies we know, oracles had special status and were held in high estimation. Back to the second millennium B.C. the prophetic priestess of Apollo in Delphi were known in the Ancient world for their gift of divination and before taking any initiative the kings and the warlords necessarily visited the temple. A part of “Delphic divinations” preserved and the analysis, carried out in present days evidence that the most part of the prophecies (41%) proved known realities, 32% were the orders-instructions, (i.e. do this or that step), 22% were the direction-taboos, 3% - wrong divinations, while only 2% of the divinations came true. As we can see the probability of the divinations is 5%, while only half of it came true.

Despite such unsatisfactory results the tradition of turning to the oracles has preserved up to present days. And today there are many figures, businessmen and common people who regularly turn to various oracles and fork out trying to find out what is going to happen to them in the near and distant future. According to the experts this phenomenon is determined by the fact that some people are inclined to see in the dim formulations of the oracles real facts and developments of our life and this make them believe different “prophecies”. In special literature such effects are called after the psychologists Barnum, Rosenthal and Gotorn who opened and studied those phenomena.

“Deplphi” technology. In our times the divinations became more coordinated and this sphere received scientific name – futurology. At first futurologists were mainly writers and philosophers whose divinations were the child of their intuition and fancies. It should be accepted that a part of such divinations not only broadened the outlook of their contemporaries but it had also been used in the future. But futurology turned into scientific-experimental method only in the second half of the last century (1953) when the employees of American “think tank” RAND Gordon and Helmer elaborated the technologies of forecast, which was called “Delphi” after the place name of the Apollo temple. The essence of that method is as follows: the successively adjustable questioning of the experts on the possible future developments of the problem studied are carried out in several steps. The answers and the assessments they get are compared and processed in special ways.

Undoubtedly, to carry out “Delphi” method the adherence of many preliminary conditions is necessary (e.g. anonymity of the experts, the usage of the results of the previous stage survey by the experts and etc). But the main factor of coarse is the presence of highly-qualified expert resource and the culture of its purposeful usage. Today there are at least 10-15 methods of forecasting, which are set on logical and ideological base of “Delphi”, being widely used in a number of countries: with their help the estimates of the future in political, economic, scientific, technical and other spheres are given.

Let us mention that the number of the forecasts of the global character has increased recently. For example, the work “The Next 100 Years” by George Friedman, the head of the well-known STRATFOR organization, has been published recently. But in our opinion the pride of place on the “forecast market” must be given to the document published at the end of 2008 by the USINFCOM “The Joint Operating Environment–JOE” where the specialists from the Pentagon tried to forecast the military and political situation on our planet in a quarter of a century.

Philosophy of “Pentagon”. It is remarkable that American military experts begin their analysis from the consideration of the experience of the past and some philosophical issues. According to them the notion of the war and peace, which were formed by Sun Tzi (6th century B.C.) and in the 19th century by Carl von Clausewitz, have not changed fundamentally till now. It is remarkable that the formula of the victory is seen by the American strategists just like Sun Tzi in the cognitive plane, i.e. they often make the reference to the Chinese classic: “If you know yourself and know your enemy, then you will always win. If you know yourself but do not know your enemy then you will have both victories and defeats. If you know neither yourself and nor your enemy then each your battle is fraught with defeat”.

One has also to agree with the statement, which you can find in that document, that today’s political leaders realize and understand the fast changes rather late and their perceptions of the future are frequently attempt to shift the everyday realities to the future through extrapolation. The authors of JOE approach this problem self-critically and point out the mistakes, which were made by the American military and political leadership in a consequence of wrong perception even of the near future.

American strategists attach special concern to the factor of political will of the authorities, which presence adds great perspectives even to the countries, which possess restricted resources.

Global economy in the future. According to the Pentagon experts, in the next 25 years the global economy will grow more than 2 times, and not only today’s economic giants will have GPR over $100 billion1 but also Bangladesh, Pakistan, Philippines and Vietnam. Those countries will aspire to take the leading military and political roles in their regions and to shape round themselves appropriate entities. Anyway the US with its $21 trillion GDP will be the leader in economy but by this performance China ($16 trillion), which will become the main competitor of the US in the future as well, will approach it. Other countries cede those powers (Japan - $7 trillion, India - $6 trillion, Germany and Mexico - $4 trillion and etc.).

It is underlined in the document that if there are no necessary measures taken then in the near future the energy crisis can be expected. Today it looks like the oil production in the world has some technological limit – 110 million barrels per day – but already in 2012 there will be demand of 186 million barrels and it is not clear yet how this problem will be solved.

But the humanity is threatened not only by the energy problems. According to JOE in 2030 the water shortage will threaten to 3 billion people, and real “water famine” awaits the Middle East and Northern Africa. It is remarkable that the reservoir storages built by Turkey on Tigris and Euphrates will cause serious problems between this country and Iraq and Syria, which in its turn may cause military actions.

 

Innovative struggle and information war. The Pentagon experts accept that the US loose its exclusively monopoly political and economic stances but they are sure that this power will dominate in the sphere of innovations as it was before. It is especially mentioned that in the wars of future fantasy and intellect will be the guarantee of successes and those wars can be qualified as a struggle for the “minds and spirits” of the people. The JOE experts are unconditionally confirmed that information is “strategic weapon”, and they proceed from the provision that “the perception of what is going on means more that what is really going on”.

It is remarkable in this context that military department is seriously anxious about the fact that in the American institutes of higher education the elements of decay can be observed and now they cede in their level to, e.g. Indian or Chinese universities. According to JOE authors American scientific and educational sphere needs improvement and reforms2.

Some conclusions. It is necessary to mention that the forecast of the authoritative organizations issued for recent 10-20 years (e.g. the US National Intelligence Council – NIC, the World Bank and JOE) influence the decision making mechanisms in different countries in definite ways. Further to the said the “authoritative forecasts” became a peculiar factor of information and psychological influence as they also influence the international community. The complex of those circumstances is obviously reflected on the ongoing developments, directs them and, thus, at some extent, forms the future according to the prognoses made (remember the order-instructions of prophetic priestess of Apollo).

At the same time “authoritative forecasts” are a result of the collective work of the high class specialists and they contain useful information not only for their leaders but also for the others. In this regard, in our opinion, the philosophy of JOE authors and, particularly, their approaches to the sphere of knowledge and the issues of cognition are rather instructive.

In the aforementioned context it would worth quoting the formula by Sun Tzi: “If you know yourself and know your enemy, then you will always win. If you know yourself but do not know your enemy then you will have both victories and defeats. If you know neither yourself and nor your enemy then each your battle is fraught with defeat”. This is rather topical for Armenian society as well. Being de-facto a combatant we have rather obscure ideas about Azerbaijan and their society. Here we do not speak about military potential of that country. It should be well known to our militaries. It is enough to mention that few people speak Azerbaijani language; we have rather obscure idea of their culture, ethno-psychology of that people and etc. The situation is almost the same with our other neighbours. But the most important is that we do not have enough knowledge about the Armeniancy, i.e. about us. The research works in the Armenian studies mainly concern material culture (which is also of great importance), and there are incomparably less social and psychological researches concerning the humanities and social sphere. It can be stated that the self-knowledge is the most actual and at the same time least studied sphere.

1The calculations in the document are made according to “before-crisis” dollar rate

2Here the term is also important. “Բարեփոխումներ” (this word is a wrong Armenian translation of the word “reform” (modification, alternation); there is no sense of “improvement”) sometimes can disorganize the systems, which may be not so brilliantly worked, but which at least worked.


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