Preamble
Ten years may be a long time – or not at all. Imagine yourself in 2034, ten years from now. You can say it will be like the last decade – a few bumps in the road, but everything more or less the same. But it may not be so. There are many reasons why it could be much better or dramatically worse, and in fact, history is full of extreme scenarios that no one imagined ten years earlier.
Portugal 2034 is a series of two articles in which I share what Portugal could be like in ten years, in these two extremes: the dream and the nightmare. Today, the series ends with Nightmare. I reiterate my special thanks to Joana Petiz and Jornal NOVO for their continued encouragement and to Alvin Lee and his memorable band, Ten Years After (1967 – 1975), which did not last the promised ten years but which inspired and accompanied me during text preparation (especially Positive Vibrations).
Read part I here
Part II: The nightmare
It is 2032. China conquered Taiwan and, in alliance with North Korea, jointly took over South Korea and advanced on Japan – Shikoku and Kyushu have been under the control of the Asian alliance for two years and the invasion is being prepared from Tokyo. To the West, the countries of the former USSR are being taken over one after another by the Red Army, encouraged by the surrender of Ukraine in 2026 and commanded by an old and sick Putin determined to bequeath to his successor the great Soviet empire of 80 years ago.
In 2028, the Islamic State had been reborn, with much greater power thanks to funds from increasingly strong European Islamic communities, Muslim countries already integrated into Daesh (Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Sudan…) and the House of Saud . Islamic parties launch major terrorist attacks in the Western world, on the scale of December 11, and take power in France, Spain and Belgium, in alliances with the extreme right, together stimulating waves of uncontrolled immigration from Africa to Europe. The disintegration of the EU is inevitable and each of the countries that preserve their autonomy and the Western way of life prepares their defenses, but they know that their fate will be the same.
Until 2031, the USA and NATO tried to stay out of any of the war fronts, opened by the Russians and Chinese, and the tensions in Europe, limiting themselves to the innocuous protests that have been their trademark for many decades: barking very loud but not biting. But when, on his deathbed, Putin gives the final orders to attack Poland and Alaska almost at the same time, Pearl Harbor sentiments are reborn and the United States throws itself into force on both fronts – in Europe, NATO defends Poland, invades and occupies Slovakia and Belarus to restore balance in the new Iron Curtain; and in Alaska, the United States decimates the invaders and enters Russian territory. They destroy all the cities in their path and advance thousands of kilometers, conquering all of Russian Arctic territory up to the Lena River and a few hundred kilometers from the border with the Chinese province of Harbin. In view of the US troops so close, the Japanese government reinforces its appeals for help and a US armada sets sail from the occupied port of Okhotsk towards Honshu and the capital, Tokyo. The US president, a former military man inspired by Patton, and the late Putin’s successor, his bodyguard, Viktor Zolotov, do not speak to each other and the old Xi Jinping’s attempts to try to mediate talks to at least stop the American advance on Russian soil and avoiding confrontation with the Americans in Japan do not work.
Businessman, manager and consultant
Read the full article in the edition of NOVO which is on newsstands this Saturday, March 29th
