The Elephant, the Rhino, the Fly, and the Bird: A Metaphorical Geopolitical Scenario for the Mid-21st Century

Characters and Representations

Elephant (United States): A wise, aged but slow-moving superpower with immense mass, institutional memory, and military-industrial inertia. Its size makes it powerful but also vulnerable to small distractions.

Rhino (China): Young, bold, increasingly assertive, and charging ahead with unstoppable momentum in economics, technology, and global influence. Not as agile as a tiger, but relentless and tough-skinned.

Fly (Iran): Small and irritating, with limited capacity to hurt directly, but expert in distraction, provocation, and survival. Buzzes around, exploiting chaos and tiredness.

Bird (Israel): Small but surgical, precise, and capable of lethal strikes. It can catch and neutralize some threats but lacks the range to clean the entire sky.

 
Scenario Development: "The Great Distraction"

 
Act I: The Strategic Confrontation

The Elephant sees the Rhino as the primary competitor for space, food (markets), and dominance over the savanna (global order). The Rhino is young, calculating, and no longer willing to play by the rules the Elephant established. A long-term confrontation is inevitable—economically, technologically, and militarily in proxy zones like Africa, Southeast Asia, and cyberspace.

But just as the Elephant begins focusing its bulk and resources toward containing the Rhino’s rise (e.g., via economic sanctions, strategic alliances like AUKUS, and Indo-Pacific military posture), the Fly appears.

 
Act II: The Sting of Distraction

The Fly (Iran) doesn't have the mass to take down the Elephant, but it knows where to bite: proxy militias, asymmetric cyber warfare, oil market disruption, and ideological agitation. Its strategy is not to win—but to distract the Elephant from the Rhino.

The Elephant swats and shakes, but the Fly is nimble and elusive. It survives on minimal resources and thrives in chaos, often hiding behind the ears and near the eyes of the Elephant—right where it hurts and where it’s hardest to strike.

 
Act III: The Bird Strikes

Enter the Bird (Israel). Fast, agile, and hyper-alert, the Bird is evolutionary specialized to spot and neutralize Flies in the region. The Bird hunts flies on behalf of the Elephant, but it has limited capacity: it can neutralize a few, not eradicate the swarm. Too many flies buzzing at once—Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, cyberattacks, etc.—and even the Bird becomes overwhelmed.

Moreover, some flies are too deep or too entangled in civilian spaces for the Bird to strike without causing backlash, raising the cost of every peck.

 
Act IV: The Elephant’s Dilemma

Now the Elephant is conflicted: if it spends too much time swatting the Fly, it loses ground to the Rhino, which continues to gain strength in the background. But if it ignores the Fly, the irritation escalates into infection—destabilizing allies, draining resources, and eroding deterrence credibility.

The Fly, knowing its time may be limited, buzzes louder, even provokes the Bird, hoping to trigger an overreaction that will drag the Elephant into a broader conflict—a swampy distraction that would benefit the Rhino most.

 
Strategic Implications

U.S. Grand Strategy: Must prioritize the main challenge (China) while managing Iran through indirect means (alliances, cyber defenses, economic containment) and avoid being dragged into a full-scale Mideast quagmire.

China’s Role: Quietly benefits from the chaos. The longer the Elephant is distracted by the Fly, the more space the Rhino has to mature and reposition.

Iran’s Calculus: Its survival depends on staying relevant. It doesn't need to win—just remain indispensable in every crisis.

Israel’s Constraint: Tactical superiority is not strategic sufficiency. It needs regional normalization, technology edge, and U.S. support, but it cannot neutralize the Fly alone.

 
Possible Future Outcomes

Scenario A: The Elephant Swats Both

The U.S. builds a multilateral coalition, suppresses Iran decisively while containing China.
Risk: overextension, internal political fatigue.


Scenario B: Strategic Patience

The U.S. deprioritizes the Fly, empowering regional actors and AI-driven surveillance to contain it, while pivoting entirely toward China.
Risk: Iranian escalation or nuclear breakout.


Scenario C: The Rhino and the Fly Align

China and Iran form deeper strategic ties, combining mass and distraction in hybrid warfare.
Result: the Elephant faces a two-front strategic trap.


Scenario D: The Bird Evolves

Israel expands regional alliances (e.g., Abraham Accords 2.0) and tech superiority to take on a bigger share of fly-hunting with surgical precision.
Result: regional stabilization with limited U.S. involvement.

When Abstract Visions of the Futures Collide in Physical Space: A Case Study in Futures Studies

In the discipline of futures studies, preferred visions of the future often remain abstract—elaborate expressions of national aspirations, policy roadmaps, or ideological dreams. Yet occasionally, these imagined futures break through the boundaries of discourse and collide violently in the physical world, leading to devastating consequences. A striking case in point is the tragic unraveling of Iran’s Vision 2025 amid the outbreak of the Iran–Israel war in June 2025—a confrontation that starkly illustrates the friction between clashing futures.

Adopted in 2005 under a religiously driven leadership, Iran’s Vision 2025 laid out an ambitious roadmap: to become “a developed country that ranks first economically, scientifically and technologically in the region of Southwest Asia… with constructive and effective international interactions.” This was not merely a developmental blueprint but a symbolic assertion of Iran’s place in the regional and global order—a vision informed by Islamism values, anti-Western attitude, and aspirations for scientific leadership.

However, on June 13, 2025, the abstractions of this future were pierced by missiles and fire. Israel launched a surprise offensive against Iran, targeting its military and nuclear infrastructure. Less than ten days later, the United States—long aligned with Israeli strategic interests—escalated the conflict by striking three key Iranian nuclear sites. What was once a vision of regional leadership had become a battlefield. Vision 2025, as articulated two decades prior, was not merely delayed or challenged; it was decisively shattered in the material realm. This sequence of events is an undeniable instance of what can happen when competing abstract visions—each loaded with historical grievances, ideological fervor, and strategic anxieties—collide.

This breakdown serves as a warning to all foresight practitioners and policymakers: visions are not neutral. They are strategic. They are political. And they are often in tension with one another. The 2025 war exemplifies the danger of ignoring such tensions, assuming that visions can unfold linearly without resistance or conflict from other actors whose preferred futures may be fundamentally incompatible.

To systematically analyze such dynamics, the Alternative Planetary Futures Institute (Ap-Fi), a Washington DC-based think tank, has published a foresight-oriented report titled The Middle East and the United States: Scenarios for the Medium-Term Future until 2030. This study recommends cross-comparing the preferred futures of regional actors—including Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey—and external powers such as the United States and China. The methodology encourages researchers to map not only aspirations but also the strategic behavior likely to emerge when visions come into contact—cooperative or confrontational.

Ap-Fi’s scenario work proposes that rather than asking only “What is our preferred future?”, leaders and analysts must ask: “Whose future are we in conflict with?” In the Middle East, the convergence or collision of visions—whether economic (e.g., Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030), ideological (e.g., Iran’s theocratic leadership), or strategic (e.g., Israel’s military doctrine)—shapes the region’s trajectory far more than the content of any single vision.

Looking beyond present and the Middle East, a looming question arises in the near future: what happens when the American and Chinese visions of the future collide as described in the book Planetary Foresight and Ethics? With the U.S. championing a rules-based international order and China promoting a system with socialist modernization characteristics, the next major global flashpoint may arise not just from territorial disputes or military missteps, but from an irreconcilable clash between two vastly different conceptions of the future.

This is why future visioning must evolve. It must move from isolated idealism to comparative strategy. From internal policy documents to geopolitical foresight frameworks. And from static images to dynamic conflict anticipation.

In closing, the Iran–Israel war of 2025 is more than a tragic geopolitical escalation. It is a foresight lesson in real time: visions are powerful, but they are not insulated. When abstract dreams of the future are projected onto the same physical and political space without coordination or empathy, collision is not just possible—it is inevitable. Futures studies must be ready to anticipate, map, and mediate these collisions, if peace is to remain more than just a vision.

The Unified Shift of Asia: Civilizational Futures in an Age of Reckoning

By Victor V. Motti*

In our age of accelerating uncertainty and planetary transition, traditional paradigms of geopolitical forecasting are faltering. In response, I have spent the past decade developing new system dynamics and civilizational narratives that grapple with the deeper tides shaping humanity’s long-term future. These are explored in my books Alternative Planetary Futures and Planetary Foresight and Ethics, both now available in paperback.

One such narrative is the concept of the Unified Shift of Asia (USA). The acronym is a deliberate pun—layered, provocative, and open to multiple interpretations. It is less a prediction than an invitation to explore divergent pathways for human civilization.

 
Three Futures for "USA"

First, the most linear and perhaps hubristic interpretation suggests the universalization of Western civilization. In this view, the liberal-capitalist order—under the current USA—triumphs globally. The entire planet becomes, in effect, a large-scale extension of the post-WWII Atlantic model. Dissenting powers like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are either absorbed or rendered obsolete.

Second, a mirrored scenario unfolds. The geopolitical weight of Asia grows as the American order declines. The next "USA" may in fact be an emergent Unified Shift of Asia—a multipolar alliance led by China, Russia, or a broader pan-Asian union. The planet, once Westernized, begins to Asiatize.

Third, a more exotic possibility emerges. As outlined in the article Asia’s Exotic Futures in the Far beyond the Present (Journal of Futures Studies), Western civilization may choose exodus over confrontation—migrating to orbital colonies or terraformed outposts beyond Earth through the initiatives by Elon Musk. With the West retreating to the stars, the Earth becomes a contested and revitalized stage for civilizational resurgence from Africa, Asia, and the Global South.

Each of these futures is plausible. None are guaranteed. But all demand we rethink the assumptions baked into current policymaking, especially the idea that the future will be a mere continuation of Western leadership.

 
The Return of the Third Power

In Planetary Foresight and Ethics, I examine a recurring pattern in macrohistory: the rise of a third civilizational power, or super state, when two dominant ones exhaust themselves in conflict. When Rome and Persia collapsed, Islamic expansion surged. When Europe tore itself apart in two World Wars, the United States ascended. Today, we may be witnessing the early stages of a similar structural shift.

If the ongoing cold—and potentially warm—confrontation between the USA and the China-Russia axis escalates, all parties could find themselves weakened. Even limited deployment of Weapons of Mass Destruction, such as the military grade virus leak of 2020 (claiming over 7 million lives), may accelerate this decline. The emergent "third power" in this scenario may well be Indian civilization, perhaps in alliance with a rising Africa—together forming a new cultural bloc centered on spiritual pluralism, demographic momentum, and strategic nonalignment.

 
The Real Existential Threat: Ideological Colonialism

While many futurists point to climate change, nuclear war, or runaway AI as existential risks, I remain skeptical. These challenges are real, but they are also manageable through coordinated human effort and technological progress.

Instead, the true civilizational threat may come from a more ancient and insidious source: ideological colonialism cloaked in modern tactics. In particular, a resurgent Islamism poses a unique danger to pluralistic democracies, especially in Europe. Exploiting liberal norms, protected speech, and demographic advantage, radical Islamist movements present a totalizing worldview that refuses coexistence. Their primary target is the Western order; their secondary, the progressive left that unwittingly enables them.

This faith based ideological movement is arguably more destructive than capitalism, communism, or socialism ever were, because it fuses absolute faith with absolute politics—aiming not for reform but for annihilation of the unbeliever.

 
A Vision of Strategic Alliance: The Post-Islamic Axis

Amid this backdrop, a surprising alliance might emerge by 2040: Israel, post-Islamic Iran, and India. Though vastly different in history and temperament, these three actors share a deep and lived opposition to militant Islamism. Israelis are already on the frontlines. Iranian dissidents are fighting against an occupying theocracy. And India is navigating the tension of a plural society strained by Islamist separatism.

Such a triad could form the nucleus of a civilizational counteroffensive—not just military, but cultural and technological—pushing back against ideological colonization in regions from Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Levant to the Iranian plateau, Indian subcontinent and North Africa.

 
Toward a New Reconquista

An improbable yet plausible scenario emerges: a neo-Reconquista. This is a rescue operation for civilization itself, from the grip of ideologies that seek to erase creative complexity and co-evolution.

The ruins of the American, Chinese, and Russian empires may serve as fertile ground for this transformation. The world order that emerges may not be liberal or autocratic, capitalist or socialist—but something entirely new, rooted in planetary foresight and planetary consciousness.

* Victor V. Motti is the author of Planetary Foresight and Ethics

A Struggle for Good on a Planetary Scale

By Thomas Lombardo, PhD

Member of the ApFi Scientific Council

A few days ago I emailed to colleagues and friends the following short statement:

As you probably are doing as well, I am watching coverage of the horrendous and immensely depressing events occurring in our world. I am not simply saying the events in Ukraine, since although it is at the center of this cyclone of moral catastrophe, what is happening in this one country reflects the mentality of our current human planetary reality—the state of our “modern” civilization. And the evil and carnage being inflicted on this brave country is having a deep impact on the world as a whole. The ugliness, depravity, and tragic destructiveness permeates outward, invading and infecting all of our conscious minds. Although there is a pervasive and intense global counter-reaction to the stupidity and evil of the attack on Ukraine, at some point in our evolution perhaps we will collectively realize that “enough is enough,” and we will create a way to stop such horrible realities from gestating and occurring within human society.

In this statement I emphasize that the Russian invasion and attack on Ukraine is not simply a regional catastrophe but rather a planetary problem requiring a planetary solution.

It is the collective reality of humanity—the nations, cultures, organizations, businesses, and general population—that has afforded and allowed this horrendous event to materialize and occur. Of course, there is a cluster of individuals in Russia, led by one individual, who is fundamentally responsible for the Ukraine invasion, but we have fed (through trade and economic transactions), tolerated, and watched this monster grow, as we busied and occupied ourselves with other concerns.

The effects of this war—the psychological, social, and economic-physical impact—is worldwide. It has become an emotional trauma experienced across the globe, and the multi-faceted stress and upheaval will in all probability intensify and worsen in both the short- and long-term future. The disaster is rippling out across humanity, infecting the entire earth.

I have asked myself—and people I know have mirrored and reinforced this perplexity and frustration—why the world as a whole (for example, the United Nations) seems impotent at stopping this disaster. People in Ukraine keep getting killed every day, and towns keep getting decimated, and yet the best we seem able to do in response is to talk, debate, condemn, and impose sanctions. Of course, we are sending immense humanitarian aid to help the millions of refugees, and we are supplying the Ukrainians with weapons and military resources, but the bully is still bloodying women and children in front of the eyes of the world, and tragically and shamefully we cannot muster the planetary force, courage, and wherewithal to stop the bully from continuing his assault.

A friend of mine pointed out that such disasters—of humanity’s inhumanity against itself—occur across the globe and have occurred throughout human history. This fact, though, only makes the current disaster so much worse; it is not an anomaly, but a repeated occurrence. It is a destructive and horrendous pattern of behavior that keeps happening.

When I reread my original statement, I realized that it was highly emotionally charged. We can, through various media and information sources, access the relevant up-to-date facts pertaining to this event; we can listen to or read various analyses and probabilistic projections and scenarios about where the whole thing could be heading; and we can ponder the reasons and causes behind the invasion and think about what it all means, but these are all cognitive approaches to the invasion.

Of course it is important to understand, but what is really striking about this event and its local and planetary impact is the intense emotional response to it. This event is generating an incredible amount of human stress, hatred, fear, terror, anxiety, despair, depression, love and compassion, anger, and even visceral nausea.

A big part of the meaning of this event is embodied in our emotional response, and a big part of what will move events in the future will be human emotions. The remarkable planetary outcry around the event is shaking the world. One cannot understand this event or understand where it will lead without taking into account the emotional dimension of this reality.

Another point of emphasis in my original short statement has to do with ethics. I described the invasion as an evil action. Although our national and global consciousness, and its numerous and varied expressions in our media, is permeated with multiple and often conflicting perspectives on reality and what is morally right and wrong, it seems that the invasion is unequivocally an evil act. Although we might hesitate to use the word “evil” to describe either human individuals or their actions, I believe that such an attitude is naive.

We have witnessed evil throughout human history. We need to acknowledge that this invasion and those who support it are embodiments of evil. We could say that the war is a political war, one of democracy versus authoritarianism, but responsible self-determination versus forceful subjugation of individuals, as political philosophies and practices, is fundamentally an ethical issue.

Of course, the Russian government and media present an alternative narrative of what is occurring in Ukraine and the reasons and causes behind it, attempting to justify their actions. But it clearly appears that this alternative interpretation is grounded in numerous falsehoods. It is an ethical and political position built on lies. As such, it is not ethical, for truth is foundational to any credible ethics. It is clear that the war in Ukraine is a struggle for good on a planetary scale against the threat of evil on a planetary scale.

Part of a planetary ethics should be a rejection of the forceful and violent subjugation of individuals or nations, as well as a universally practiced conscientious support of what is true. But a planetary ethics needs to embody other important values as part of a holistic vision of human well-being. Of special note, individual and collective human well-being must transcend a purely economic/materialistic vision of the good life.

In this regard, watching the news on major TV networks, I have been repeatedly struck by the regular intrusion of commercials that are shallow and self-indulgent marketing ploys endeavoring to identify the “good life” as one found in the endless consumption of the advertiser’s products. The world might be falling apart, but luxury cars, techno-enhanced office chairs, cruises, cheeseburgers, deodorants, and drugs galore still get hammered into our consciousness—a perpetual trivial sea of pleasures and distractions.

Especially at this point in time such bread and circuses seems totally oblivious to what deeply matters in life; it all seems ridiculous if not obscene. A good deal of our ethical failings at a global level is a consequence of prioritizing money, profit, and riches and the power it brings over a life of psychological and social well being for all of humanity. It is imperative that we establish a positive and effective ethical system for humanity at a planetary level which takes precedence in human affairs. The Russian invasion indicates that such a planetary ethical consciousness has not yet emerged worldwide.

When is enough going to be enough?