The Untied States of America

Looking a half-century into the future, a maverick businessman warns that America may fall apart as a nation. He believes the U.S. can avoid this fate -- but that it will require some radical steps right now.

In 1950 the United Nations had 50 members. Today there are 191 U.N. member states. The vast majority of these new countries came from Africa, Asia and Europe. Only three countries (Surinam, Guyana and Belize) out of the 141 new ones came from the North and South American continents.

These are interesting facts to Juan Enriquez, an American businessman, bestselling author and former Harvard academic. In his new book, "The Untied States of America" (Crown, 2005), Enriquez warns of the coming disintegration of the United States and explores how that will affect the nation's status as the unparalleled superpower.

This is a challenging, controversial subject at a time in history when American power around the world appears supreme. The Soviet Union no longer stands as a military, political or economic rival now that capitalism has triumphed over communism. While America is increasingly affected by the fast economic rise of China, this challenge doesn't appear to threaten America's leadership in global politics. Americans dominate the world community today in the same way as the British did a century ago. But that comparison also contains a warning.

In the beginning of his book, Enriquez presents readers with an experiment. Imagine you're a member of the British cabinet in 1905. A world map hangs on the wall of the elegant conference room in Number 10 Downing Street delineating the greatest empire that has ever existed: an area encompassing nearly 30 million square kilometres (11.5 million square miles), 20 percent of the world's land and nearly one-quarter of the total human population. The question is: How will the world look in 50 years -- in 1955?

What would you have thought? Would Britain's territory expand? Stay the same size? Would there have been someone who could have conceived that the British Empire would completely fall apart between 1905 and 1955? That British territory would only comprise some 250,000 square kilometres (97,000 square miles) in 1955?

Imagine asking George W. Bush the same question now, in 2006. How will the United States look in 50 years? How many stars will the American flag have? Still 50? The chances of finding a prominent politician in Washington today who could imagine the disintegration of the United States seem miniscule. But readers of Enriquez's book realize it is in fact quite probable that America in 2056 will not be the same powerful country it is today. Based on a great deal of historical, financial, political and cultural data, Enriquez convincingly demonstrates that the future does not augur well for the unity of the United States.

While the title and the subject of his new book don't immediately indicate it, Enriquez is driven by his love of science. Enriquez set up the Life Sciences Project at the Harvard Business School, is chairman of Biotechonomy, a venture-capital fund specializing in biotechnology, and author of an earlier book on the same general subject, "As The Future Catches You."

That short biography explains why Enriquez was in attendance at the conference, "Celebrating a Decade of Genome Sequencing." This international summit on DNA research, genetics, biochemistry and biology took place in December at the University of California, San Diego, which heads global research in this area. Even the casual visitor quickly becomes aware that this is where the future of energy, food, health and computer science, and therefore of society itself, is generated, largely separate from politics, the media and ordinary citizens. The conference illustrates the crucial role prominent scientific research plays in a country's future success and its economic wealth. In the numerous PowerPoint presentations given by authorities in many fields, it becomes clear that technology offers enormous opportunities for the future, and that it is easy for some societies to miss the boat.