US supremacy is over, says report

Barack Obama is inheriting a country which can "no longer call the shots alone", according to a stark new report by US's leading intelligence organisation, the National Intelligence Council (NIC). The NIC produces its global trends review every four years, and the latest version predicts an increasingly multipolar world where the US has less and less influence.

The NIC says the advance of Western-style democracy is no longer assured, and that some states are in danger of being "taken over and run by criminal networks".

By 2025, says the report, the EU will be a "hobbled giant", facing a world where conflict over scarce resources in on the rise, middle-eastern nuclear proliferation continues and there may even be nuclear war.

The report concludes that: "The multiplicity of influential actors and distrust of vast power means less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships."