Q. Fred Tipson, US Institute of Peace: Greg, how do you factor into your judgments the stresses from demographic bulges and climate volatility and the sorts of things that must be in your new book?
A. Gregory Treverton: Yeah, we talk about that a lot in the new book. And also, they factor into all of our work all the time. And I think it is often said that demographics is destiny and the more you look out the more important it becomes. So, I think, I hope we do a good job. We certainly try hard at the NIC. We have a Strategic Futures Group and they’ve done an awful lot of good work on the implications of climate change – sort of the political and security implications of climate change – which is probably the right focus for us. Also good work on demographics as well as governance, and there are interesting cells around the government. I see some representatives here who are doing similar thinking about, you know, state instability, about youth bulges, about those things. So, there’s, I think a lot of good work. The challenge is always, you know, it’s easy to say about a particular state: well, this state is vulnerable. But policy people understandably want: Well, when is something going to happen? What’s the trigger, right? And that’s very hard. Who would have thought that a salesman in Tunisia would have had the kind of affect that that event had? So, I think we do a good job at understanding the basic dynamics. When those dynamics are going to produce an interesting change or event – that’s a real challenge.