Manufacturing industries rebound as technology slows. Pollution makes Mexico City largely uninhabitable. Trade and political rivalry between the old allies grows. NATO withers away. The European Union is enlarged, but becomes unstable, paralyzed by regulation and bureaucracy.
Members begin to decamp, led by Britain.
Scotland declares independence. Speakers of Basque, Catalan, Breton, and Provencal demand the same. Corsica from France. EU citizens rebel against the diktat of distant Eurocrats in Brussels. Much of Eastern Europe becomes a de facto German colony.