Failures – exposed, reflected upon, considered

There are not many books, which have a foreword by Warren Buffet and universal acclaim from likes of Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Rupert Murdoch and even George H. W. Bush. Indeed there is only one such book that I read: “The Ten Commandments for Business Failure” by Donald Keough.

Donald Keough had an inconspicuous beginning of career in broadcasting business with WOW-TV as a game telecaster and host of daily talk called Keough‘s Coffee Counter, which was followed by a position at a regional food wholesaler Paxton and Gallagher – sponsor of his talk show.

There followed series of renamings, restructurings and acquisitions, which landed his company in The Coca-Cola Company, where he spent next 43 years of his life (1950-1993), of which as President and COO of The Coca-Cola Company during 1981-1993.

“If you wanted to invent a human personification of The Coca-Cola Company, it would be Don Keough. He was and is Mr. Coke,” as Warren Buffet, his Omaha friend of youth, wrote in the foreword of the book.

He was once asked to give a keynote speech at a large customers meeting in Miami, which had a theme “Join the Winners.” Essentially, he was asked to speak on how to be a successful business leader and how to win. He refused by telling that he could not but instead proposed to talk about how to fail and offered guarantee that anyone who followed is formula would become a highly successful loser.

His Ten Commandments for Business Failure (see below) come from subsequent refining over time of that speech, which drew on more than 60 years of corporate experience from the bottom to the top in a company whose chief product is thought to be the second most widely understood word in the world after ‘OK’!.

1. Quit taking risks

When your product/service generates enough sales or things start looking better, stop taking risks. Don’t pay attention to challenging opportunities, new markets and expansion possibilities that might put you out of your current comfort zone.

2. Be Inflexible

You know better than anyone else, to which your success is a testimony. When conditions around you change, remain inflexible because you have the winning formula already. Keep on keeping on.

3. Isolate Yourself

You should not try to find out the truth or the reality. Only ask to know what is good. Create a climate of fear, put yourself first, take all the credit, take no blame. This way you will not only not know what you don’t know, but you will develop a sense of being absolutely right.

4. Assume Infallibility

It never is your fault. We live in a complex world with so many unaccountable for and unknown parameters, and, hey, let us not forget bad luck and wrong timing.

5. Play the Game Close to the Foul Line

Illusion yourself, cherish a cult of personality, make small pillow talks and remove words “morality” and “ethics” from your vocabulary. No-one needs them.

6. Don’t Take Time to Think

Why think? We have all the computer power, AI and advanced technologies to think for us. We have better things to do. And not to forget there is all this information we have to process and digest. Thinking was an idle pass-time for 19th century philosophers.

7. Put All Your Faith in Experts and Outside Consultants

The word “expert” implies knowledge and experience. When there is a problem, you should talk to the best in the field – experts and consultants with 6-7 digit annual salaryies and deservedly so. You are only aware of and operate your business to its current extent. Experts will help you make it better, like they always do with every other business.

8. Love your Bureaucracy

Love your bureaucracy. Forms, titles, responsibilities, chain of command. It is wonderful to have those all in your company and the more the better. After all, these are results of long evolution of human thought and activity. Everything and everyone have to have their place and be solidly regulated, interlinked and monitored.

9. Send Mixed Messages

This world is so diverse and sophisticated. You should not withhold the traditional celebration or retain a reward for those who perform badly this year, ignoring for the moment the detail that their bad performance just cost a fortune to your company. Things always go out of control in this world, bad luck. It would surely be better next year.

10. Be Afraid of the Future

Only clairvoyants have an inner vision to glimpse the future. They are so rare to come by. So you should be very cautious because you never know what will happen next. Maybe a war will start and oil prizes will go up. Maybe another Katrina. Usually nothing good happens.

And his bonus 11th Commandment.

11. Lose your passion for work, for life

You made enough money and your business is doing fine. You worked hard. Now is time to play hard. Forget about work for a while, at least. Go play golf.  You work to live, not vice versa.

John Osher, a serial entrepreneur who launched several successful companies (notoriously, Cap Toys with sales of $125 million per year and sold it to Hasbro Inc.  in 1997 ), came up with an informal list of “16 Mistakes Start-Ups Make” – since expanded to 17 – where he put every blunder and error he made during his entrepreneurial career. Ever since, this list has been used in Harvard  Business School case studies and in many business publications. He also used the list in 1999 – he wanted to build a company and product  deprived of all his previous blunders – when he started SpinBrush, $5 electric toothbrush (hitherto costing circa $80), which he sold to P&G for $475 million in 2001. Below is his “17 mistakes start-ups make” list:

1. Failing to spend enough time researching the business idea to see if it’s viable.
2. Miscalculating market size, timing, ease of entry and potential market share.
3. Underestimating financial requirements and timing.
4. Overprojecting sales volume and timing.
5. Making cost projections that are too low.
6. Hiring too many people and spending too much on offices and facilities.
7. Lacking a contingency plan for a shortfall in expectations.
8. Bringing in unnecessary partners.
9. Hiring for convenience rather than skill requirements.
10. Neglecting to manage the entire company as a whole.
11. Accepting that it’s “not possible” too easily rather than finding a way.
12. Focusing too much on sales volume and company size rather than profit.
13. Seeking confirmation of your actions rather than seeking the truth.
14. Lacking simplicity in your vision.
15. Lacking clarity of your long-term aim and business purpose.
16. Lacking focus and identity.
17. Lacking an exit strategy.

And finally, one of the commenters on this article, Trevas from eBookGuru, suggested an essential mistake which causes many (which have inexperienced founders) of  startups fail (and is not explicitly present among the 17 mistakes above).

18.   Lack of commitment to see the idea through.

It has been some time since I last wrote about personal failures. I stumbed accidentially on “I am sorry” poem-list of utterances by men who fail to be noticed, appreciated and loved by women. Men, as it usually is when serious feelings are invovled, are quite perseverant and tolerant, but even then they might become disillusioned. Many women come to an eventual realization of what they really were looking for or cared about. However, it is too late…Below find that poem-list of common I am sorry-s (my own formatting)

I’m sorry
that I bought you roses
to tell you that i like you

I’m sorry
That I was raised with respect
not to sleep with you when you were drunk

I’m sorry
That my body’s not ripped enough
to “satisfy” your wants

I’m sorry
that I open your car door,
and pull out your chair like I was raised

I’m sorry
That I’m not cute enough
to be “your guy”

I’m sorry
That I am actually nice;
not a jerk

I’m sorry
I don’t have a huge bank account
to buy you expensive things

I’m sorry
I like to spend quality nights at home
cuddling with you, instead of at a club

I’m sorry
I would rather make love to you then just screw you
like some random guy.

I’m sorry
That I am always the one you need to talk to,
but never good enough to date

I’m sorry
That I always held your hair back when you threw up,and didn’t get mad at you for puking in my car, but when we went out you went home with another guy

I’m sorry
That I am there to pick you up at 4am when your new man hit you and dropped you off in the middle of nowhere, but not good enough to listen to me when I need a friend

I’m sorry
If I start not being there because it hurts being used as a door mat, only to be thrown to the side when the new jerk comes around

I’m sorry
If I don’t answer my phone anymore when you call, to listen to you cry for hours, instead of getting a couple hours of sleep before work

I’m sorry
that you can’t realize.. I’ve been the one all along.

I’m sorry
If you read this and know somebody like this but don’t care

But most of all

I’m sorry
For not being sorry anymore

I’m sorry
That you can’t accept me for who I am

I’m sorry
I can never do anything right, and nothing that I do is good enough to make it in your world.

I’m sorry
I caught your boyfriend with another girl and told you about it, I thought that was what friends were for…

I’m sorry
That I told you I loved you and actually meant it.

I’m sorry
That I talked to you for nine hours on Thanksgiving when your boyfriend was threatening you instead of spending time with my family.

I’m Sorry
That I cared

I’m sorry
that I listen to you at night talking about how you wish you could have done something different.

The author concludes:

Ladies always complain and gripe to their friends that there is never any good guys out there, and they always end up with assholes who mistreat them. Well ladies next time you’re complaining, maybe look up to see who you’re complaining to, maybe that special someone is right there hanging on your every word as usual, screaming in his head “Why won’t you give me a chance?”
Because the person you are usually searching for is right by you.

Below is a selected list of entrepreneurial mistakes, originally posted on The Toilet Entrepreneur, which I liked most.

1. Too Much Office Space

I made the mistake of getting more office space than I really needed.
It cost me too much money, which of course came from my pocket. I was way too caught up in the ego of having a nice space. These days, I am into virtual businesses and telecommuting–why waste money on rent?

Kathryn Korostoff, President, Sage Research

9. Not Getting Money Up Front

The biggest mistake I made as an entrepreneur is not to get money up front. I become a bill-collector, not a businessperson as a result and spend needless amounts of time following up on money owed.

Dr. Linda Seger, Script Consultant (since 1981), Seminar Leader, Author

13. Not Prepared With Clear Deliverables

Not having clear deliverables in writing before beginning a project.  As a result there was a lot of ambiguity and my client and I had very different points of view.  In the end, it was just a case of having different expectations.  We ended up parting ways and neither party was happy.

Danielle Luffey, Managing Partner, DVA Brand Communications

14. No Separation Agreement

Three of us went into business together and formed an LLC.  However, when creative differences caused us to go our separate ways the lawyers made out to the tune of over six figures between us.  And, friendships were ruined!  Always have a prenuptial for the unexpected.

Mark Smith, Founder, iKids Play (the next generation of the business)

22. Making Too Many Promises

I made too many commitments to appear in front of live audiences and had to re-negotiate where I would appear live to present my workshops or keynote  It was the “thrill” of being booked to speak that caused me to mis-judge how much I could accomplish in a month.

Amy Dorn Kopelan, Co-Creator of The Guru Nation

24. Trying To Get Rich Quick

My two biggest entrepreneurial mistakes were trying to get rich quick and not creating a business that helps others. When you chase money, the quality of your product or service suffers. And creating a venture that doesn’t help others is a selfish pursuit.

Andrew Galasetti, Founder & Editor, Lyved.com

25. Thinking You’re A “Special Case”

Even though I taught business plan classes for those seeking funding, I thought that I didn’t need on.  Finally creating one .. using the One Page Business Plan ® program really helped my business.

Maria Marsala CBC, Chief Strategy Officer, Informational Speaker, Author www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com

26. Trying To Do Everything

I tried to do everything myself instead of hiring help. For example: I wrote features, did the layouts, updated the mailing list, did the bookkeeping, updated the website, etc. I was spread too thin and wasn’t doing any of it well. It would have been worth the money it cost to hire help in order to have the extra time to meet my publishing deadlines.

Cindi Leeman, Editor/Publisher for WALK Magazine

28. Not Being Clear With Your Companies Name

I designed my business name using my last name thinking it was clever.  Huntingtax when my last name is Huntington.  I didn’t consider the fact that new clients or even clients who don’t know my last name would wonder what in the hell Huntingtax meant or was.  Clients always just say or use Huntington tax accounting or Huntington accounting instead of my actual business name “Huntingtax Accounting Services”.

Kristi Huntington, Owner, Huntingtax Accounting Services, Inc.

29. Underestimating The Companies Growth

When I began a previous start-up, I underestimated the company’s growth and had to move four times before I finally leased too much space.

Blake Squires, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Findaway, makers of Playaway®

30. Working Without A Signed Contract

Hungry to grow my consulting business, I agreed to work without a signed contract for what promised to be a long-term relationship. The client worked me to death –far beyond my retainer hours limit and then dropped me as soon as his big project was done. What a bargain for him. What a lesson for me.

Joyce Wilden, President, Buzz Biz Public Relations

31. Investing Too Much On Self-Promotion

Investing too much money on self-promotion. When I started my agency, I went out and spent a ton of money on mailers, I did custom photography and invested the time to design and print a beautiful piece, but in the end it directed recipients to my website, which really didn’t have anything substantial on it at the time to get clients interested. In hindsight, creating a much simpler mailer, would have been so much smarter and would have gotten me the same results.

Jordan Mauriello, Founder & Creative Director of moreYELLOW

Apart from the loss of life of 1000 Palestinians and 13 Israelis and the vast destruction after 19 days of aerial bombardment, the Israeli invasion of Gaza has seemingly failed to achieve its strategic objectives, chief among which was to stop rocket fire from Hamas. The Palestinian resistance still seems to be quite functional – there is still rocket fire. So, what has been gained? Hamas has withstood the ferocious Israeli assault without knuckling under or making any concessions.

For Israel, the military campaign has been a public relations disaster. Photos on the internet of bloodied and dismembered children rushed off to make-shift hospitals or wrapped in their funereal shrouds has generated unprecedented sympathy for the plight of Palestinians. Israel has come across as a bully condemned by many international bodies including Red Cross and Human Rights Council. On top of that, Jerusalem Post reported that Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu had written a letter to PM Olmert informing him that “all civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot….Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.”

Besides, it deserves a consideration that Israel’s economy has been on a downturn and started feeling consequences of the global economic recession. It has been ordering closure of chemical and other plants, some of them producing military-related materials and equipment.

Hamas chief Meshaal knows well that Israel doesn’t want to reoccupy Gaza. He also knows that DM Ehud Barak doesn’t want to be bogged down when elections roll around in few weeks – current advance of Israeli forces to suburbs of Gaza city is mostly due to increasing pressure from the PM Ehud Olmert who wants to put an end to what he sees as military capacity of Hamas. Initially, Israel was hoping to rout Hamas quickly and install Abbas’s PA security guards at the Rafah crossing, but now they’ve hit a glitch and the battle is starting to look like a quagmire, with Israelis increasingly reluctant to go deep into the city in fear of incurring significant casualties and where artillery and air force will only be able to have very limited operations.

And let us not forget the cost of Gaza war, estimated to be around NIS 2.4 billion (620 million USD) two weeks ago, 1.3% (a huge number considering the time length) of the annual GDP estimate of NIS 186 billion in 2007. And this was before the major callup for reservists and advance into the suburbs of Gaza.

And still as of yesterday there were reportedly 25 mortars and rockets fired into into southern Israel.

What about Obama’s administration in matters related to the Middle East? A report in the IHT says that the people who are most likely to play significant roles on the Middle East in the Obama administration are “Dennis Ross (the veteran Clinton administration Mideast peace envoy who may now extend his brief to Iran); Jim Steinberg (as deputy secretary of state); Dan Kurtzer (the former U.S. ambassador to Israel); Dan Shapiro (a longtime aide to Obama); and Martin Indyk (another former ambassador to Israel who is close to the incoming secretary of state, Hillary Clinton).” The only difference between this group of pro-Israel hawks and the Bush claque is that they are more adept at creating the illusion of a “peace process.” Other than that, the differences are negligible.

And there are already reports that Israel is going to receive an unusually large weapons shipment from the US. Is this a sign of a weakening military capacity of Israeli military, a strain on their budget or a resolution to proceed with military campaign until the complete eradication of Hamas?

And what about Hamas itself? In name of protection of its own people, as it loudly claims, it brought not only the wrath of Israeli air force but the entire might of Israeli artillery and ground forces deep into the Gaza city. Perhaps the Israeli allegations of Hamas fighters intentionally using innocent civilians as cover are exaggerated, but BBC’s Gaza correspondent and many other eyewitness accounts tell of Hamas fighters launching RPGs and bombs on Israelis from rooftops of densely populated buildings and from nearby hospitals, without reflection of possible Israeli retaliation and casualties entailed. Israelis claim to only fire on those who fire on them. If a grenade is thrown at them from around a corner of an inhabited building, they fire on the building…

Israel is the bully and the aggressor but no finger points at Hamas’s own “losing” tactic which brings nothing but death and havoc upon its own people, without themselves coming even close to their aspired goals, leaving for the moment aside the morality, righteousness and other aspects thereof.

And Meshaal? A coward hidding in Damascus…Afraid to come out of his safe-house (whom Mossad attempted to assassinate some 12 years ago), he is only as good as a violent but short wind, which blows and passes without any longterm consequences. He talks, only…

It is perhaps time that someone, a Palestinian in particular, pointed a finger at Hamas and questionned their goals and most importantly their means of achieving them.

Anyhow, as one Israeli settler leader recently argued during a conversation with a visiting American peace activist that ‘if it was right to commit genocide during Biblical time, why can’t it be right to commit genocide now. Has God changed his mind,’ the settler wondered sarcastically.”

China, China, China… All global issues of concern as well as hopes and aspirations for “next big thing” find themselves to one extent or another expressed, influenced by or influencing this country.

Environmental awareness has been steadily gaining prominence ever since we have started exploring the outer space, and thus gaining a bird’s eye view of our planet. With this increasing awareness we came to realize that human intervention in the natural cycles of our planet in such a way as to tip the balance. Henceforth,  with the dawn of New Age and emergence of theories such as Gaia, and glaring affect of (human activity emitted) greenhouse gazes (and subsequent effect of global warming causing gradual increase in average temperatures) on the homeostasis of our planet, we are more than ever before aware of the environment we live in.

China has been at the forefront of global economic and industrial boom witnessed by the 20th century. Its economic and industrial expansion and impact it had on global economy, politics and climate cannot be overstated. Especially in matters of (negative) environmental impact, China stands above others by being considered the world’s bigger polluter recently overtaking the US. CFR has a comprehensive summary of issues, which contribute to environmental crisis not only in China but, due to its sheer size and energy-related policies, have a huge environmental impact around the world.

China’s heady economic growth continued to blossom in 2007, with the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) hitting 11.4 percent. This booming economy, however, has come alongside an environmental crisis. Sixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities are in China. To many, Beijing’s pledge to host a “Green Olympics” in the summer of 2008 signaled the country’s willingness to address its environmental problems. Experts say the Chinese government has made serious efforts to clean up and achieved many of the bid commitments. However, an environmentally sustainable growth rate remains a serious challenge for the country.

What are some of China’s major environmental challenges?

Water. China suffers from the twin problems of water shortage and water pollution. About one-third of China’s population lacks access to clean drinking water. Its per-capita water supply falls at around a quarter of the global average. Some 70 percent of the country’s rivers and lakes are polluted, with roughly two hundred million tons of sewage and industrial waste pouring into Chinese waterways in 2004. As part of its effort to harness the nation’s water supply, China has a large dam-building program with over twenty-five thousand dams nationwide–more than any other nation. The dam projects are not only a high cost in terms of money, but also in farmland loss, ecological damage, and forced migration of millions of people, says the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Jennifer L. Turner, director of its China Environment Forum, in a report for the Jamestown Foundation.

Land. Desertification in China leads to the loss of about 5,800 square miles of grasslands every year, an area roughly the size of Connecticut. The Worldwatch Institute, an environmental watchdog and research organization, reports that excessive farm cultivation, particularly overgrazing, is one of the leading causes of desertification. The cultivation stems from a policy followed from the 1950s to the early 1980s that encouraged farmers to settle in grasslands. As the deforestation grows, so do the number of sandstorms; a hundred were expected between 2000 and 2009, more than a fourfold increase over the previous decade. Desertification also contributes to China’s air pollution problems, with increasing dust causing a third of China’s air pollution.

Greenhouse gases. In 2008, China surpassed the United States as the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases by volume. (On a per capita basis, however, Americans emit five times as much greenhouse gas as Chinese.) The increase in China’s emissions is primarily due to the country’s reliance on coal, which accounts for over two-thirds of its energy consumption. It contributes to sulfur dioxide emissions causing acid rain, which falls on over 30 percent of the country.

Population and development. China’s inhabitants number more than 1.3 billion. The country’s growing economic prosperity and rapid development mean increasing urbanization, consumerism, and pollution. One example of this can be seen in car production: As Kelly Sims Gallagher notes in her book, China Shifts Gears, China produced 42,000 passenger cars in 1990. By 2004, the number hit one million, with sixteen million cars on China’s roads. By 2000, motor vehicles were the leading cause of China’s urban air pollution, though China adheres to stricter mileage standards than the United States.

What has China done to improve the situation? Read here..

It is not yet clear as to how the recent economic recession will affect this equation.

The most important prerequisite of social stability and economic development in a country or region is political stability and good governance. In times of strives, conflicts and wars, the only priority for the society and its people is a day-to-day survival and struggle for achievement of piece. Every other matter has a lesser priority… Maslow’s Pyramid, that is.

“What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”  – Henry David Thoreau

While the immediate reaction and focus of any potentially conflict-rich situation is leave aside other concerns besides security and peace, it must be nonetheless stressed that such situations result mostly from social, cultural, economic or plain human-nature specific reasons. Greed, egoism, arrogance, self-indulgence. These are human traits common to individuals. What is not common and desirable is when they mould into a group-think and become directed towards an end at the detriment of moral values and traditions of a society.

History is a witness to a great number of wars that have started as a result of scarcity of resources. Water, land and natural resources attracted greedy and powerful in their quest for self-fulfillment and enrichment like magnet attract metal. Wars ensued; innocent people died; lands were plundered.

Three-quarters of all wars since 1945 have been within countries rather than between them, and the vast majority of these conflicts have occurred in the world’s poorest nations. Wars and other violent conflicts have killed some 40 million people since 1945, and as many people may have died as a result of civil strife since 1980 as were killed in the First World War. Although the number of internal wars peaked in the early 1990s and has been declining slowly ever since, they remain a scourge on humanity. Armed conflicts have crippled the prospect for a better life in many developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, by destroying essential infrastructure, decimating social trust, encouraging human and capital flight, exacerbating food shortages, spreading disease, and diverting precious financial resources toward military spending.

Although there is no single cause of strife or war, a growing number of scholars suggest that rapid population growth, environmental degradation, and competition over natural resources play important causal roles in many of these conflicts. Recent quantitative studies analyzing the correlates of internal and external wars from the 1950s to the present indicate that population size and population density are significant risk factors. In terms of environmental factors, recent statistical work indicates that countries highly dependent on natural resources, as well as those experiencing high rates of deforestation and soil degradation, and low per capita availability of arable land and freshwater, have higher-than-average risks of falling into turmoil. In short, many researchers now conclude that it is impossible to fully understand the patterns and dynamics of modern conflicts without considering their demographic and environmental dimensions.

The past century witnessed unprecedented population growth, economic development, and environmental stress, changes that continue to this day. From 1900 to 2000 world population grew from 1.6 billion to 6.1 billion. Since 1950 alone 3.5 billion people have been added to the planet, with 85% of this increase occurring in developing and transition countries. Worldwide population growth rates peaked in the late 1960s at around 2% a year, but the current rate of 1.2% still represents a net addition of 77 million people per year.

Such rapid demographic and economic changes over the past century have placed severe and accelerating pressures on natural resources and planetary life-support systems. The traditional Malthusian notion that exponential population growth alone drives strains on the environment has long been refuted; no serious thinkers, including neo-Malthusians, now maintain that human-induced environmental changes are a mere function of numbers. Rather, neo-Malthusians argue that the relationship between population growth and the environment is mediated by consumption habits, and by the technologies used to extract natural resources and provide goods and services.

Neo-Malthusians cite the 1969 war between El-Salvador and Honduras as a classic example of a scarcity induced conflict. The conflict became known as the Soccer War and lasted only 100 hours, during which several thousand people died on both sides. One of the main causes of this war was the scarcity of arable land. The sources of the shortage were population growth, erosion and unequal land distribution. A similar scarcity of arable land resonated in the minds of Ethiopians when their then Emperor Haile Selassie was ousted in 1974. The provisional Ethiopian government, the Dergue, failed to improve conditions resulting in large migrations of Ethiopians into a contested region on the Somali border, which in turn precipitated the Ogaden War of 1977. The scarcity of arable land was also a contributing cause of the violent dispute between Senegal and Mauritania in 1989. The conflict focused on Senegal River, which demarcated the border between the two. In this case, it was shown that the cause of land scarcity was population growth and desertification, along with lack of adequate quantities of fresh water.

Numerous signs suggest that the combined effects of unsustainable consumption, population growth, and extreme poverty are taking their toll on the environment. More natural resources have been consumed since the end of the WW2 than in all human history to that point. The consumption of nonrenewable resources has significantly increased, although it has risen at a slower rate than population and economic growth as a result of changes in technology. The global consumption of fossil fuels (which account for 77% of all energy use) in 2003 was 4.7 times the level it was in 1950.

“Many of the wars of the 20th century were about oil, but wars of the 21st century will be over water,”  – Ismail Serageldin,  Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and former World Bank Vice President

In the eyes of a future observer, what will characterize the political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa? Will the future mirror the past or, as suggested by the quote above, are significant changes on the horizon? In the past, struggles over territory, ideology, colonialism, nationalism, religion, and oil have defined the region. While it is clear that many of those sources of conflict remain salient today, future war in the Middle East and North Africa also will be increasingly influenced by economic and demographic trends that do not bode well for the region.

By 2025, world population is projected to reach eight billion. As a global figure, this number is troubling enough; however, over 90% of the projected growth will take place in developing countries in which the vast majority of the population is dependent on local renewable resources. For instance, World Bank estimates place the present annual growth rate in the Middle East and North Africa at 1.9% versus a worldwide average of 1.4%. In most of these countries, these precious renewable resources are controlled by small segments of the domestic political elite, leaving less and less to the majority of the population. As a result, if present population and economic trends continue, many future conflicts throughout the region will be directly linked to what researchers term “environmental scarcity”— the scarcity of renewable resources such as arable land, forests, and fresh water.