The Challenges President-Elect Barack Obama Faces

Word from CNN’s Pam Benson is that the world President-Elect Barack Obama is facing is even more complicated than the pressing issues of a tanking global economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Covering National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell’s speech to an annual conference of intelligence officials and contractors, Benson reports that McConnell said “demographics, competition for natural resources and climate change will increase the potential for conflict.”

Benson continues:

“McConnell spoke of the unprecedented transfer of global wealth from West to East. By 2025, China is projected to be the second-largest economy and on its way to becoming the largest. India will grow to be the second- or third-largest economy.

‘“All of this adds up to an unstable future. ‘Given the confluence of factors from a new global international system, increasing tension over natural resources, weapons proliferation ... we predict an increased likelihood for conflict,’ McConnell concluded.

“Among the problems that aren't going away is terrorism -- an issue that did not get as much play as it initially appeared it would during the presidential campaign. McConnell said the descendants of long-established terrorist groups ‘will inherit organizational structures, the command and control processes and the training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks.’

“He said he is particularly concerned that a terrorist group will acquire and use biological agents to create casualties greater than the September 11, 2001, attacks.

‘“In addition, he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would "sow the seeds of instability and potential conflict’ in that region on a scale that could affect the entire world.

“Although the risk of a nuclear attack is ‘very low’ over the next 20 to 30 years, McConnell said, ‘That possibility is grayer in the future than it is today.’”

(McConnell will soon be giving Obama his first intelligence briefing.)

To read Benson’s article in its entirety, go here.