Soldiers of a ranger unit of the German armed forces Bundeswehr explore an area during the informative educational practice "Land Operation Exercise 2017" at the military training area in Munster, northern Germany, on October 13, 2017 | Patrik Stollarz/AFP via Getty Images German military study: EU collapse conceivable worst case The Western order could fall apart by 2040, according to an internal Bundeswehr report.

The German military considers the disintegration of the European Union and the West over the next few decades a possibility, according to an internal report seen by Der Spiegel.

The 102-page "Strategic Perspective 2040" report — adopted in late February and kept under wraps since then — outlines six scenarios for how social trends and international conflicts are likely to play out and influence German security, the weekly magazine reported Saturday.

It includes a worst-case scenario in which the EU unravels and Germany is forced into a "reactive mode." In this projection, the international order falls apart after "decades of instability," value systems lose their influence and globalization grinds to a halt.

"EU enlargement has been largely abandoned, other states have left the community, Europe has lost its global competitiveness," the report reads, according to Der Spiegel. “The increasingly disorderly, sometimes chaotic and conflict-prone world has dramatically changed the security environment of Germany and Europe."

In another scenario — "West versus East" — a handful of Eastern EU states freeze European integration while others join the eastern bloc. The "multipolar competition" scenario sees extremism on the rise and several EU partners moving toward the Russian political model.

The document makes no prognosis and states that it considers all scenarios, which were developed by researchers at the Federal Armed Forces Planning Office, "plausible by 2040."

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