When people imagine the future, they split between utopia and apocalypse: gleaming green cities or collapse and extinction. But if you look closely at the psychology of today’s leaders — what they fear, what they reward, what choices they’re making — the trajectory is clearer.

It’s not extinction, not paradise. It’s a world of fortresses.

What our leaders are really doing

Europe’s rearmament cycle.

In 2025 the European Commission launched SAFE, a €150 billion loan program for defence procurement[¹] — part of a wider plan expected to mobilise ~€800 billion in additional spending across members[²]. In September, France proposed a 50% cap on UK-made components in SAFE projects[³], widely read by diplomats as protectionist.

U.S. defence record, fossil hedging.

The U.S. House passed an ~$893 billion FY2025 defence bill — nominally a record[⁴]. At the same time, significant fossil supports persist: Gulf of Mexico lease sales continue under the 2024–2029 OCS program[⁵], and construction on Alaska’s Willow oil project advanced through winter 2024–2025[⁶]. Globally, fossil subsidies remain immense — $620 billion in explicit consumer subsidies in 2023 (IEA)[⁷] and ~$7 trillion including underpriced externalities in 2022 (IMF)[⁸].

China & India’s dual track.

Coal keeps expanding: China approved ~25 GW new capacity in H1 2025[⁹]; India commissioned 5.1 GW in H1 2025 and has ~92 GW proposed[¹⁰]. Yet renewables are surging: China’s combined wind+solar capacity overtook coal in early 2025[¹¹], while India added a record 22 GW of renewables in H1 2025[¹²]. Fossil for stability, clean for optics and long-term cost.

Borders harden.

On Jan 20, 2025, the U.S. administration issued executive actions tightening asylum and enforcement[¹³]; reporting shows resumed family separations during mass-deportation drives[¹⁴]. In Europe, the Migration & Asylum Pact (phasing into 2026) emphasizes faster returns and stronger border controls[¹⁵]; Schengen rules continue to allow temporary internal border checks[¹⁶].

Surveillance becomes infrastructure.

Police deployments of live facial recognition and predictive policing pilots are expanding in the UK and EU[¹⁷]. Biometric identity systems are spreading in civilian domains, from airports to financial transactions[¹⁸]. Normalization comes under the banner of “public safety.”

Narrative control deepens.

Hungary advanced 2025 bills targeting foreign-funded media and NGOs under a “sovereignty protection” regime[¹⁹]. In China, March 2025 regulations mandated AI-content labeling and expanded digital ID requirements, effective September[²⁰].

The psychology behind the choices

Why these moves? Because leaders everywhere are still operating under ancient survival logics:

• Short-termism: survival is measured in election cycles and quarterly earnings.
• Fear as legitimacy: migrants, enemies, dissenters — fear binds populations to power.
• Control reflex: when systems shake, order is prized over freedom.
• Narrative management: perception is easier to control than chaotic reality.

These are the same instincts that helped fragile apes survive predators. The difference now is that we run nuclear arsenals, global supply chains, and fossil-fuel economies with those same reflexes.

The future this creates

Unless psychology and incentives shift, the next 50 years are shaping into a stratified planet.

Inside the walls:

• Wealthy nations and elite cities build resilience bubbles: cooling centers, seawalls, renewable grids, desalination, vertical farms.
• Surveillance and rationing normalize. Inequality hardens.
• Daily life is constrained but functional — fewer luxuries, less freedom, more order.

Outside the walls:

• Crops fail, infrastructure buckles, and states falter in climate frontlines.
• Migration surges but borders stay locked.
• Conflict over water and land grows.
• Global governance fragments into rival blocs.

Humanity doesn’t vanish — but it survives in unequal worlds: fortresses and sacrifice zones.

The paradox of authoritarian “stability”

Fortresses will be sold as stability. Leaders will point to chaos outside the walls as proof that only strong hands can protect. But every euro, dollar, or yuan poured into control and exclusion is a euro, dollar, or yuan not invested in adaptation or ecological repair. Fortresses preserve systems of power, not the planetary systems that sustain them.

The brutal truth

• Most people do not want radical change.
• Leaders are rewarded for control, not long-term planetary health.
• Cooperation at scale is technically possible but politically improbable.
• The most likely future is a “fortress world” descent: resilience for some, instability for many.

Extinction is unlikely. Collapse, division, and authoritarian climate security are the probable baseline.

References

[¹] European Commission, SAFE instrument explainer (2025).

[²] Reuters, “EU aims for €800bn rearmament drive” (Mar 2025).

[³] The Guardian, “France proposes ceiling on UK components in €150bn EU defence fund” (17 Sept 2025).

[⁴] U.S. House Armed Services Committee, FY2025 NDAA roll call & topline (Sept 2025).

[⁵] BOEM, “2024–2029 National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program.”

[⁶] ConocoPhillips Willow Project construction updates, Anchorage Daily News (2024–25).

[⁷] IEA, “Fossil Fuel Subsidy Tracker” (2023).

[⁸] IMF, “Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large” (Aug 2023).

[⁹] Ember, “China coal approvals H1 2025” (July 2025).

[¹⁰] Reuters, “India coal buildout data H1 2025.”

[¹¹] Carbon Brief, “China’s wind+solar capacity overtakes coal” (Feb 2025).

[¹²] S&P Global, “India renewable additions hit record in H1 2025.”

[¹³] U.S. Federal Register, Executive Orders on immigration (Jan 20, 2025).

[¹⁴] New York Times / ProPublica, reporting on resumed family separations (2025).

[¹⁵] European Council, “Migration & Asylum Pact” (adopted 2024; phased 2025–26).

[¹⁶] European Commission, Schengen governance updates (2025).

[¹⁷] UK Home Office, “Live facial recognition deployments” (2025); EU Parliament briefing on predictive policing pilots (2025).

[¹⁸] Biometric Update, “CLEAR/Fidelity partnership expands biometric ID” (2025).

[¹⁹] Human Rights Watch, “Hungary’s 2025 sovereignty protection bill” (July 2025).

[²⁰] Cyberspace Administration of China, AI content labeling & digital ID rules (March 2025; effective Sept 1, 2025).