Adapting to the Burning World?

Design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli

A Bright and Burning Future

Over the last years, each summer, tsunamis of fire surge in North America, Russia, Africa, South Asia, and Europe. Each year, they break former records and spread wider, while becoming much more intense.

These fires define the parts of the world that are going to become a place apart, i.e the “Burning World”. These mega wildfires are already pushing modern emergency services to the limits of their response capabilities.

In California, since 2017, those fire monsters have been directly endangering urban life (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Global Apocalypse Now, The California Way”, The Red Team Analysis Society, October 12, 2020).

However, these mega wildfires are not only devastating the world. They also reveal the capabilities of societies to answer, or not, to the near future state of environmental incineration.

As a result, a question arises: are modern societies able to adapt to this new state of affairs? And is a new “geopolitics of a “burning world” emerging from the capabilities to adapt, or not (Hélène Lavoix, “When Denial and Passivity Verge on Stupidity” – The Red Team Analysis Weekly – 9 January 2020)?

One of the main challenges we face in answering these questions is the utter lack of baseline or historic frame of reference. Indeed, there are no recordings of such a long series of extreme burning events. Indeed, the Burning World is the present reality; it is also the “shadow of the future” (Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, 1984).

That is why we must include in our reflection and our scenario-building effort scenarii ideas found in fiction. Furthermore, waiting for proper and in-depth scenario-building, fiction can be useful to outline what the future could look like, if we read it through a strategic foresight framework.

What is at stake here is of the utmost importance, because our modern societies have to answer with the utmost haste to the question: how can we adapt to the Burning World?

In order to explore this hypothesis, we shall use disaster movies and science fiction as materials for strategic foresight. In a first part, we shall use The Towering Inferno in order to anticipate the consequence of the domination of human future by fire.

Then, we shall use the movie Reign of Fire as a thought experience. Through this film, we shall look at the future of societies in a world where resources become fuel.

Then, we shall re-read the novel Sunstorm by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clark, to propose alternate ways to orient the future of the Burning World in a sustainable way.

Anticipating our Burning World and the “End of (known) History“

In order to anticipate how societies may, or not, adapt to the Burning World, it is important to identify the main features of a fire saturating a large scale inhabited and developed area.

Indeed, a fire destroys buildings, infrastructure, the vegetation cover, part of wildlife and people. But more than that, it can consume huge amounts of resources (Jean-Michel Valantin,  (“The Global Wildfire (1)“, The Red Team Analysis Society, September 27,2020).

When there is no past

The problem is that using historic examples is going to be very misleading. For example, the bombing and burning of European cities during WWII, or of the jungle during the Vietnam war, were followed by an end of the “war burning era” (Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945 and John Dower, Cultures of war, Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima, 9/11/ Iraq, 2010). Thus, it was followed by rebuilding through the injection of financial and building materials as well as thanks to natural regrowth.

However, the very problem of the opening era of mega wildfires is that there will be no end to it. On the contrary, the singularity of the Burning World relates to something very difficult to accept about climate change.

Climate events are not becoming extreme because we are far from the extremes; they are becoming extreme because of the sheer scale of their geography and because their intensity is changing (Ed Struzik, “The Age of Megafires: The World Hits a Climate Tipping Point”, Yale 360, September 17, 2020).

The Towering Inferno and the flight up to survival … for a few chosen

Thus, we need to use the “thought experiments” literature, movies and series offer as they are extrapolating from these kinds of issues. For example, The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1974) is quite interesting in anticipating what could happen in California and Australia over the coming years.

As it happens, the movie shows characters trapped in a burning skyscraper. As the fire starts in the middle of the skyscraper, it is too high for the fire department to intervene. From there, the fire spreads towards the roof. The inhabitants of the building are cut off from the ground by the raging fire. They have no other choice than to flee higher and higher, while mass dying.  

We must understand that, for these characters, the time-scale of their future is totally determined by the fire and the rhythm of its inexorable extension. Their only hope to survive is to reach the water stored in reservoirs on the roof and to release it, in order to save some of the people.

In other words, the “inferno” is a fire that spreads at the scale of a whole habitat. It forces the remaining population to gather around water, knowing that there is not enough of that very water to save everybody.

The Reign of Fire and a world of ash

Towards a world of ash and soot

Normally, in ecosystems such as forests, wildfires can literally be “biological kickstarters”. However, mega wildfires are now signals as well as drivers of the “new abnormal”, i.e climate change (Mark Lynas, Our Last Warning: 6 Degrees of Climate Emergency, 2020). Indeed, we have to remember that fire is a chemical reaction. So, a fire only lasts as long as the fuel that feeds the chemical reaction.

So, we have to anticipate how to adapt to a world where areas at continental scale are going to become fuel for longer and longer “mega fire season”. This means that they will burn again and again. And these regions will keep on burning until there is nothing left to fuel the fires, and thus until nothing can regrow.

Thus, once the fuel will be exhausted, all that remains after the incineration will be a world of ash and soot. It will have very few resilience capabilities. There are very few research or fiction works that dare to rise to the challenge of “thinking the unthinkable”.

The Reign of Fire

As it happens, the 2002 movie Reign of Fire (Rob Bowman, 2002) explores what comes just after the “Burning world”. At the start of the 21st century a flight of dragons wakes up and escapes from the London underground.

They are quite indestructible and they burn the whole world to the ground. A last community survives by living underground, in the caves of a medieval castle, near a river. Their crops are very fragile, and they must prevent their incineration by dragons.

New characteristics for a Fiery Planet

Towards a Geography of Fire

The movie’s scenario tells us of the quasi-“transplantation” of a 21st century on an “alternate” planet. This “burning Earth” can barely sustain the most fragile form of human existence anymore. Indeed, its habitats and ecosystems are now fuel for the Burning World. 

As a result, this helps us to understand the coming new geography of our Burning World.

In a few years time, California, the West Coast of North America, the Amazon Basin, and Australia may risk becoming worlds of ash and soot.

This would entail survival politics (David Wallace Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, Life after Warming, 2019). Those would be based on the mixing of the biological and social imperatives of society while the Earth becomes another planet.

An ethos for a fiery planet

It also tells us that the kind of changes currently occurring has also a drastically important psychological and cognitive dimension. The latter are necessary to allow human beings coping with living through a permanent state of catastrophe, without choosing denial.

On the contrary, a “peasant/warrior/fireman” mentality is going to be a meaningful way to adapt.

Preventing the Firestorm?

These tentative foresight scenarii extracted from fiction about the Burning World are definitely not enticing.

They force us to understand that there will be a drastic degradation of collective sustainability. Habitats and resources are going to turn into fuel, heat, smoke, ash and soot. And what will remain of human life will be “poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes, The Leviathan, 1651).

Given the near-impossibility for a large population to adapt to the Burning World, the sole other alternative seems to be to find ways to mitigate the Firestorm. What is being done to mitigate it through international negotiations and the development of the energy mix is certainly useful.

However, in the same time, the mega wildfires are multiplying. And they are also intensifying and spreading at a larger scale (Michael Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose, The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, 2019). 

Thus, we must explore yet another alternative, mixing mitigation and prevention.

Sunstorm and alternative world politics

The novel “Sunstorm”, by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clark (2006), explores that family of scenarii.  In 2037, an astrophysicist and an artificial intelligence (AI) predict that an exceptional sun storm is going to incinerate the Earth in 2042. So, the “ultimate bonfire” becomes the “shadow of the future” for the entire human race (Axelrod, Ibid.).

This triggers an international effort, minus China, to build a giant smart space mirror. It is designed in order to deflect the 24 hours “sun bombing”. The novel describes the political, scientific, industrial, diplomatic and psychological dimensions of this colossal endeavour. It also describes how it transforms world politics.

The book is also a narrative of loss and sadness. Indeed, if the project is largely a success, the damages are immense. Nonetheless, this tremendous effort empowers modern societies to survive the passage of this “sun fire bottleneck”. 

From Sunstorm to climate change

Even more interesting is that the authors are clearly developing a metaphor about climate change and the Burning World. Indeed, the “space mirror” is one of the theoretical answers some scientists envision in order to “cool” the planet (Clive Hamilton, Earthmasters: the Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering, 2013).

The space mirror, as other geo-engineering speculations, would be deflecting a portion of the sun’s radiations.

A global threat as a common good

The novel says that it is possible to change the current climate and “firestorm” trajectory. However, success would demand to pool and coordinate the present political, scientific, financial and industrial resources.

This would be possible through the collective understanding of a planetary threat recognized as an unintended “common” of the human race (Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, 1968).

It does absolutely not promote any kind of “degrowth” or of collapse, quite the opposite. The novel reveals that it is possible to re-orient modern societies. Outer space becomes the new place where they may reach towards sustainability and start searching for new resources.

In other terms, it is time to use current resources and capabilities to mitigate and prevent the “Burning World”. In order to achieve this goal, decision-making needs to use foresight and early warning scenarios.

Featured image: Image par sippakorn yamkasikorn de Pixabay

What is an Issue in terms of Strategic Foresight & Warning and Horizon Scanning?

An issue, in terms of warning and by extension SF&W, is “a situation, an objective, an opportunity, a danger, a threat or a risk, which is specific and defined.” (Grabo, 2004)

For example, SF&W issues can be interstate and civil wars, fragile states, instability, energy security, oil, economic crisis, global water security, epidemics and pandemics such as the COVID-19, etc. We address them here in our section “Global Issues”.

An issue can be explored through strategic foresight. During the warning process, it will be monitored, usually thanks to indicators based on models. The analyst will assess its potential developments (to obtain a judgment on the future).

Monitoring issues will allow for the identification of warning problems, which will then be surveilled, again through adequate models and related indicators. If we use the example of energy as meta-issue, then issues could be “oil security,” “peak oil,” “peak uranium,” “the volatility of oil prices,” “coal security,” “the politics of energy between Europe and Russia,” space mining, etc. and problems the more specific “Gasprom policies,” “Nord Stream,”, “Oil and gas tensions in the eastern Mediterranean”, etc… If we look at resources as meta-issue, then deep-sea resources security is one of the issues.

The collection of necessary information takes place during the monitoring and surveillance phases. The model and related indicators lead the collection of data and pieces of information.

References

Grabo, Cynthia M., Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning, edited by Jan Goldman, (Lanham MD: University Press of America, May 2004).

Featured Image par Fathromi Ramdlon de Pixabay 

Global Apocalypse Now, the California Way

Design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli

Facing Apocalypse

The Apocalypse literally means “the Book of Revelation”. From a theological as well as heuristic point of view, it means that the Apocalypse is the moment in history when entire societies are forced to lift the veils of illusions. Doing so, the revelation of the real state of things emerges, implacably.

Golden State or burning state?

That is why California’s burning is a truly apocalyptic situation. Indeed, the tsunami of fire that engulfs the “Golden State” reveals that California is reaching the limits of its sustainability.

However, in geopolitical terms, California is a major actor. Indeed, it is where Hollywood and the Silicon Valley are located. It is where they thrive, and it is from there they exert the U.S. technological and cultural influence on a global scale. California is also a major industrial and agricultural actor. Finally, California is also the trade and military interface between the U.S. and the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

Hence, the burning and aridification of California also means a potential massive disruption of American power and influence. Actually, the strategic significance of these mega wildfires is even deeper. We can sum it up in a simple question: what are the geopolitics of a burning world? In other words, who will burn and who will access to water (“When Denial and Passivity Verge on Stupidity” – The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 9 January 2020) ?

Fire Apocalypse, Now!

An “apocalyptic moment” is nothing but a moment of revelation about the true state of things. Thus, qualifying the year 2020 as “apocalyptic” is indeed revealing some deep truth about California and the reality of its frailty.

Over the last few years, with yearly wildfires, a historic part of the Californian landscape, ecology and development have been replaced by something else. This “something” is a singularity, i.e mega fires that are fuelled not by natural conditions, but by being part of the ecology of the New Frontier (Ed Struzik, “The Age of Megafires: The World Hits a Climate Tipping Point”, Yale 360, September 17, 2020).

Climate as flamethrower

This “Fire Frontier” emerges as if a continental flamethrower were devastating the whole west coast as well as the South West from British Columbia up north, Washington State, Oregon, to southern San Diego (2020 Western United States Wildfire Season, Wikipedia).

In the meantime, during the whole summer, immense wildfires burnt through the neighbouring states of Arizona, Nevada and Idaho.

The majority of the wildfires were, or are, of historic proportions. During the 2020 Summer, 5 million acres burnt, exceeding all other previous record. Knowing that 17 out of 20 of the largest wildfires in California happened since 2003, this new record is a signal of the events to come (Ed Struzik, “The Age of Megafires: The World Hits a Climate Tipping Point”, Yale 360, September 17, 2020).

The violence of the 2020 fires is such that their heat triggers category F-2 and F-3 tornadoes as well as thunderstorms. The winds they generate expand the fires and generate lightning clouds. In turn the lightning create new fires. The winds accelerate the fires’ coalescence, turning the wildfires into monsters, which are impossible to control (Cynthia Gorney, “In lightning-struck California, the smoke is now scarier than the pandemic », National Geographic, August 21).

Fire as the new wilderness

The presence of immense swaths of dead forests end up being immense fire stocks. Indeed, those forests are suffering from the drying ground. They also die because of the invasion of mountain pine beetles, which larvae are no longer killed by winter because of too mild temperatures, and dry ground (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Global Wildfire (1)“, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, January 27,2020).

This fire violence is the bifurcation of California and world history into the singularity of climate change. Indeed, the causes of the current climate change are the interactions between carbon fuels’ use for the development of modern societies, and the geosphere. Those interactions are radically altering the planetary conditions out of which they emerge.

Such an event, with this rhythm and intensity, has never occurred in the history of our planet. This is why it is a singularity. The 2020 mega wildfires are a signal, among others, of the way the 21st century and totally unknown conditions will interpenetrate.

In historic terms, it is fascinating to note that the conquest of the West and the closure of the Frontier are the consequences of the conquest of California. 150 years after the closing of the geographic frontier, a singularity frontier opens up in the very same space. What is at stake is knowing if the modern Californian cities and industries emerging from the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries are able to adapt to these new and hostile conditions?

In this regard, the case of the California power grid is quite interesting.

Burn, power grid, Burn!

First of all, California’s power grid is 60 years old. Then, its design and construction belong to the climate prevailing in California 60 years ago, and not to the rapidly and violently changing current climate.

However, this very grid transports electricity towards homes, cities, utilities. It also feeds places such as the Silicon Valley and its global internet pure players, from Google to Facebook.

Some corporate and individual actors are choosing to get off the grid by acquiring solar panels, in order to be energetically autonomous. However, all over the state, massive ashes clouds, resulting from the fires, cover the panels, thus nullifying their efficiency (Editorial Board, « California’s wildfire power eclipse », The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 14, 2020).

Electric frailty

As a result, the Californian electricity operators have to operate numerous rollbacks. They also ask people to use less energy at home, shutting off their air conditioning, for example.

In the same time, during these tough times, California has to import more electricity from other states. Yet, multiple blackouts occurred. The power grid has been under massive stress, forcing power grid managers to “exchange” rollbacks and blackouts “against” overloading an aging and unsafe grid on the verge of collapse.

In other terms, in a rapidly warming planet, California has to upgrade its overstressed power grid, while having growing electricity needs, because, among others, of the collective urban needs for air conditioning in a time of heat waves (Sammy Roth, “Why California’s power grid keep flirting with disaster? We’ve got answers”, Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2020). 

On the Frontier of Burning world

We must keep in mind that California is the 6th or 7th economy in the world. It is also one of the two main agricultural regions in the U.S. with the Middle West. However, modern economic development is totally dependent upon access to electricity.

This is all the more true for California. Indeed, the electricity needs of the Silicon Valley, of the Hollywood studios and of megapoleis such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego are immense.

Enter Burning World

However the multiplication of mega wildfires threatens the electricity supply of California. The fires burn wooden poles and melting wires over hundreds of kilometres, while menacing utilities and renewable energy’s hardware. In other words, California is presently transporting itself on a new planet, the Burning World (David Wallace Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, Life after Warming, 2019).

We could also say that the new reality is that the Burning World is becoming the new ecological reality of California. There, the current infrastructures have become inadequate.

The Californian case begs the question: is adaptation possible, for modern societies, to and in the Burning world? This question will be at very heart of the next article of this series.

Arctic China: Towards New Oil Wars in a Warming Arctic?

Design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli

The new geopolitics of the Arctic

In the Arctic, the climate and the “New U.S./Russia/China Cold war” are both warming at a very rapid pace (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Towards a US-China War? (1) and (2): Military Tensions in the Arctic”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, September 16, 2019). Indeed, since 2016, Russia is multiplying massive military manoeuvres. This includes militarization, nuclear war, and hypersonic weapons exercises in Northern Siberia, as well as in the Russian Arctic archipelago.

In the meantime, China is heightening its oil and gas operations in the Barents Sea, while the number of convoys that use the Northern sea route keeps on growing (Atle Staalesen, “Arctic gas finds new way from Yamal to China”, The Independent Barents Observer, April 1, 2020). Meanwhile, the U.S. and NATO also regularly deploy large military exercises including air power show of force.

From a warming Arctic to warming geopolitics

In other terms, the very complex cooperation between Russia and China in the Arctic is becoming a driver of tensions with the U.S., which are also feeling the attraction of the warming North (Valantin, ibid). Because of the rapid warming of this region, the strategic driver of these tensions is the opening of the Arctic to the international competition for energy, mineral, and biological resources (Michael Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose, The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, 2019). However, this strategic evolution must not hide the emergence of a fundamentally new geopolitical situation.

This new situation is nothing but the turning of the Arctic Siberian littoral into the continental launch pad towards the Arctic of the Russo-Asian powers that dominate the gigantic landmass of Eastern, Southern and Central Asia and Russia (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Warming Russian Arctic: Where Russian and Asian Strategies Interests Converge?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 23, 2016).

Arctic Covid-19

This continental dynamic holds a deep geopolitical meaning because of the accelerating destabilization of the Arctic ice cover. However, another dynamic haunts the Arctic and disrupts its emerging geopolitics, i.e the Covid-19 pandemic (Hélène Lavoix, “The Emergence of an International Covid Order”, The Red Team Analysis Society, June 15, 2020).

In this new series, we shall see how these new tensions are escalating and how the new geophysics of the Arctic disrupts the deepest geopolitical equilibriums of our world. This disruption emerges from this new frontier of sea power.

The first stage of this massive geopolitical shift is the structuration of the Arctic through the same kind of competitions and tensions that are organizing the Middle East or the South China Sea. Those competitions result from the conflicting national and private interests fighting to access natural resources. In the same dynamic, these tensions restrain the ability of the actors to reach those resources.

The Arctic as a new South China Sea…

The New American and Chinese frontier

On 6 May 2019, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed in Finland the participants to the Arctic Council, the international body of all the nations of the Arctic region. During his speech, he declared that:

“The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance, … It houses 13 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil, 30 per cent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore… Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade, … This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days … Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st century Suez and Panama Canals”.

However, Mike Pompeo also added:

“Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims? » (Mike Pompeo from Jennifer Anslen, “Pompeo: Melting sea ice “presents new trade opportunities”, CNN, May 7, 2019.

This geopolitical and strategic statement unveils the way the highest U.S. federal authorities are particularly aware of the new geopolitical reality: with the support of Russia, China is becoming an Arctic power. As it happens, a growing number of Chinese cargo convoys use the new Russian Northern Sea Route.

This sea route joins the Bering Strait to the Norwegian Sea, as well as the Pacific, the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic. Thus, using the Northern Sea Route allows the Chinese merchant fleet to reach the commercial ports of Scandinavia, northern Europe and of the North Atlantic, including Iceland (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Arctic China (1) – The Dragon and the Vikings”, The Red Team Analysis Society, 26 May, 2014).

The Chinese presence in the Arctic is also scientific. A growing number of Chinese expeditions are mapping the sea floor in order to identify oil and gas resources. In the same time, others study the consequences of climate change on the Arctic environment.

Those scientific missions aim at identifying potential new sea lanes and biological resources (Thomas Nilsen, “China seeks a more active role in the Arctic”, The Independent Barents Observer, May 11, 2019). In the same dynamic, major Chinese energy companies are investing in Russian oil and gas operations. They also develop their own off-shore operations in the Russian exclusive economic zone.

Towards a Chinese and American Arctic “South China Sea”?

In other terms, the Russian Arctic sees the deployment of the same kind of commercial, fishing and energy developments as those taking place in the South China Sea. However, the comparison that Mike Pompeo draws is also of a geopolitical nature. Indeed, the South China Sea is a historic theatre of rivalries between China and other riparian states, as well as and relatedly between China and the U.S. (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Chinese New Silk Road part 1 – The South China Sea”, The Red Team Analysis Society, March 13, 2017).

Thus, when Mike Pompeo utters such warnings, he as well implies that the U.S. presence in the Arctic is also going to ramp up. And that it will become an active competitor of China in the Artic region.

Those mounting tensions between the U.S., Russia, and China in a warming Arctic also reveal a deeper trend: the transformation of the warming Arctic into a multi-scale theatre of competitions and conflicts. Those are driven by the competition between great powers for access to and control of vital resources. Then, the competition created turbocharges tensions between regional actors. Yet, the South China Sea is not the only analogy for this kind of international politics.

… Or as a new Middle east?

Actually, we find also here the very drivers of geopolitics and dynamics that can be observed in the Middle East ( Andrew J. Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East, 2017).

An Arctic “Middle Easternization”?

One of the distinctive features of Middle Eastern geopolitics is the way it inherited regional tensions. International politics there is also rooted in a multimillenial history and in challenging geographic, hydric and climate conditions. This geo-historic context meets recent international tensions centred on oil and gas. This cross-over of civilizational and energy tensions are forcing cascading political and military shifts. Furthermore, this happens in a very rapidly socially and ecologically changing region (Fred Pearce, “MidEast Water Wars: In Iraq, a Battle for Control of water”,Yale 360°, 25 august 2014).

It is interesting to note that, currently, the warming Arctic becomes an imbrication of different geopolitical levels. From this point of view, one could say that Norway is going through a “Middle Easternization” process. It is a small country, independent, while being an important oil producer. It is also an immediate land and marine neighbour of Russia.

Norway is also a NATO member, and the Norwegian ports are harbours for the numerous Chinese scientific and commercial ships. It is also an active candidate to host the northern Europe end of the intercontinental fibre optic cable planned by China. That cable could extend from China, and could be laid down along the Siberian coast to Norway. There, Norway would connect this cable to European fibre optic networks.

This project is feasible because of the warming of the Arctic and the accelerating decrease of the summer and winter ice cover (Maija Mylella, Arctic Finland “Data cables are the new trading routes, Finland wants data highway to Asia via Arctic waters”, The Independent Barents Observer, June 15, 2017 and Thomas Nilsen, « Major step towards a Euro-Asia Arctic cable-link », The Independent Barents Observer, June 6, 2019).

A warming cold war?

However, in October 2018, Norway was host to the most important NATO naval exercise since the end of the Cold war in 1990. This exercise was meant to deter the “unnamed adversary”, i.e. Russia. It also allowed for the deployment of enormous air and sea capabilities at the North Atlantic Northern sea route gateway. Those military deployments are a warning sent to Russia and China ( Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Warming Arctic – The Road to Neo-Mercantilism(s)“, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 12, 2018).

As we can see, Norway is a “hub of geopolitical scales imbrications”. It is as complex as any Middle Eastern country. In the meantime, climate change supports the access to the massive energy and biological resources of the zone. In the meanwhile the Northern sea route becomes an alternative solution to the Suez canal.

The Arctic enters the Covid19 World

Both the “South China Sea” and “Middle-East” comparisons help us understanding how the warming Arctic is rapidly changing. The latter becomes an attractor of interlocked local, regional, international and global geopolitics and resources competitions. This new reality is becoming more obvious and pregnant since March 2020. Indeed, the new Arctic geopolitics is also becoming a powerful vector of the Covid-19 pandemic (Hélène Lavoix, “The Emergence of a International Covid Order”, The Red Team Analysis Society, June 15, 2020).

The “Covid World” Rules

Those geopolitics, nonetheless, bow to the domineering geopolitical situation that Helene Lavoix qualifies as the “Covid World”. In other words, nowadays, the Covid-19 pandemic is becoming the main and the most powerful geopolitical force in the world. This can verified through the mammoth and world-wide geo-economic disruption it brings in its wake. Because of its cascading effects, the Covid-19 leads the world economy towards the mother of all depressions.

Indeed, the pandemic affects all the Arctic countries, and also the strategic energy and military sectors. Furthermore, the “Covid World” also absorbs the Arctic through the possible infection of different military units.

For example, the Murmansk region is badly impacted by the virus. This is particularly important, because Murmansk is the most important civil Russian harbour on the Arctic coast.

The Murmansk oblast is also the headquarters of the Russian Northern Fleet. The latter plays a growing role in securing the immense economic exclusive zone. It also hosts the mammoth construction site of Novatek, the second Russian oil and gas company. Those constructions support the development of the massive liquid natural gas of the Yamal Peninsula, as well as other projects.

Meanwhile, for example, in June, the Murmansk Oblast suffered a higher number of contaminations than neighbouring Norway. This slowed down and disrupted the workings of the civil industries, with more than 2000 workers infected on the Novatek site of Belokamenka, as well as on those of the Northern fleet (Atle Staalesen, “After infection of more than 2000 workers, situation comes under control at Belokamenka construction site”, The independent Barents Observer, June 16, 2020 and “The City hat builds Russia’s nuclear submarines has more than 2000 Covid-19 cases”, The Independent Barents Observer, June 23, 2020). 

Thus, the pandemic disrupts the rhythm of the civil and military development plans of the warming Arctic . 

Covid disruption

This situation is not trivial. Novatek is a major developer of the Yamal I and II operations. Those attract massive foreign investment, from China, India, and Japan, among others. Those developments are deeply dependent on the warming of the region that allows access to new resources. Those extraction operations are of great interest for Asian nations. They work at diversifying their energy sector, in order to use less coal, while supporting their economic development.

Thus, the delays that the virus imposes to these operations are a potential constraint for the economic development of Asia. Reciprocally, this unveils how Asia links itself to the development of the Russian warming Arctic. It also unveils the way those massive geo-economic strategies on a warming planet are currently absorbed by the “Covid World”

Thus, we now have to look at the way those public and private actors adapt both to climate change and to the “Covid World”’.

Featured Image: Design by Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli for The Red Team Analysis Society

Scenarios to Navigate the COVID-19 Pandemic and its Possible Futures (1)

This article presents nested scenarios to handle the uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim is to provide an organised framework to foresee the future of our world as it lives through the pandemic, while easing understanding. Such a comprehension, which brings together the past, the present and possible futures is necessary to allow for proper preparedness, innovation, planning and action.

    The scenarios can be used as the basis to build more specific scenarios answering precise questions and looking at the future of particular actors, countries, geographical regions or even cities.

    If scenarios are a key tool to handle uncertainty, the sheer number of unknowns we must face with the COVID-19 pandemic also presents challenges for scenarios to be actionable. To handle properly the uncertainty and cover the whole range of possible futures, we need to multiply scenarios. But then, when presented with too many scenarios, decision-makers may be at a loss to know how to use them. Ideally, they may aim at creating response strategies that are resilient and robust against all scenarios. However, that may be difficult, if not impossible. We thus need to find a way to articulate our scenarios so that they become even more useful.

    The nested approach we created allows for tying things together and for navigation among a possibly long list of various scenarios. As a result, decision-makers are offered a coherent whole within which they can navigate. Furthermore, that approach handles a particularity of scenarios for pandemic: improving the account of time and timelines. Time, in pandemic, becomes a factor that needs also to be monitored, including for warning. As a result, the actionability of the set of scenarios for decision-makers is further improved.

    You can find the bibliography and detailed articles related to the scenarios in our COVID19 section.

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    1 – Three Meta-Scenarios

    Explanation

    • The 3 meta-scenarios are organised around the fundamental critical uncertainty that determines our futures and indeed, somehow, the history of human evolution and progress: 
    • Do we have any power against the new threat that is the SARS-CoV-2?
    • In other terms, is it in our power to make the SARS-CoV-2 fade away? Alternatively, will it disappear – or be reinforced – as it appeared, without our intervention?
    • As a result, and considering the necessity to cover all possible futures, we obtain three meta-scenarios:

    1- “The Miracle” – a very favorable scenario where everything is solved finally without human intervention and where things can continue or rather go back to the pre-COVID-19 world.

    2 – “Human Genius” – This is the meta-scenario that we shall focus and detail.

    3- “Towards extinction” – The less palatable option, which is not detailed. Here, the initial COVID-19 pandemic threat could reinforce and, possibly added to other negative factors, such as climatic events, and other pandemics, finally lead to our extinction. 

    “The Miracle”

    Improbable

    Narrative

    The SARS-CoV-2 surprises us once more, but this time positively. It has suddenly disappeared. 

    Scientists wonder why. They knew that, considering our lack of exhaustive knowledge on coronaviruses in general and in particular on a virus discovered only a couple of months ago, surprise could happen. 

    They had pondered about the possibility that the virus could loose either its infectious power or its lethality. They did not dare to hope that it could just disappear, for reasons not well understood yet, as happened for the SARS-CoV outbreak in 2003 (1). They had also wondered if, alternatively, a strong immunity could not also develop naturally and finally very quickly among human beings.

    But here we are, the miracle has happened. The SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 have disappeared. The pandemic ends. 

    (1)  Yvonne CF Su et al. ‘Discovery of a 382-nt deletion during the early evolution of SARS-CoV-2”, bioRxiv 2020.03.11.987222; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.11.987222

    Explanation

    What is critical here is our powerlessness as human beings. The happenstance of this scenario is not in our control. Nonetheless, the factors influencing the probability of this scenario must be monitored and due warnings delivered, if warranted.

    Until this miracle takes place, the dynamics and impacts are similar to those of the “human genius” scenario.

    Considering current knowledge on epidemics and on coronaviruses, this scenario is improbable, in the short to medium term (between 20% and 50% – closer to 20% than to 50%), but not impossible. The factors influencing the probability of this scenario must be monitored.

    “Human Genius”

    Probable

    Narrative

    Faced with the unbearable costs that letting the pandemic run wild would create, because uncertainty forbids the hope to reach a natural immunity rapidly and without harm, human beings have no other choice than to work to show their genius. 

    As they have most often done throughout the course of evolution, they rise to the challenge. They work to understand the threat and to find how to overcome it. 

    They know they will need time to find out a definitive solution.

    Thus, in the meantime, they find alternative ways to allow for the time necessary to find the solution against the SARS-CoV-2 threat, whatever the complexity of this solution. 

    Explanation

    This “meta-scenario” is both the most likely of the three meta-scenarios and also the only one upon which and within which we can act. 

    Thus, it is within this meta-scenario, that our scenarios will be located. This is thus our first and largest “nested world”.

    2 – Human Genius and its three Scenarios

    Explanation

    • The 3  major scenarios of Human Genius are organised around the critical uncertainty regarding immunisation. Indeed, immunisation is so far the best if not only way we know to overcome infectious and deadly diseases. 
    • The key question is:
      When shall we be immunised against the SARS-CoV-2, without having to face the unbearable costs and uncertainty of hoping to reach a natural immunity?
    • This translates in three scenarios. The first two scenarios are organised according to time and around vaccines. They answer the question: When shall we have a vaccine available (i.e. discovered, manufactured and delivered to the various countries needing it)? The first scenario then forks around the question of mass vaccination.
    1. “The Long awaited Christmas 2022“: This scenario subdivides in two to consider two possible courses of action regarding competition over vaccine. The timeframe considers the needs for a worldwide immunisation (see further details, bibliography and references in different articles considering vaccines in our COVID19 section)
    2. “A little bit longer…”
    3. “A new path opens“: This scenario takes into account new potential discoveries that would allow us obtaining immunisation with something different from current vaccination or treatments. This scenario and the two focused on vaccination are not mutually exclusive. They may evolve along parallel avenues. It is shown here with the vaccine scenarios for the sake of presentation.

    “The Long Awaited Christmas 2022”

    Probable

    Narrative – up to March 2021

    Considering the SARS-CoV-2 threat, the search to discover a vaccine is unprecedented and progresses at a speed so far unequaled in human history. The number of candidate vaccines being developed went from between 15 and 20 in mid-February to 70 in mid April 2020 and continued growing to more than 130 candidates. Many of them are successfully moving through the trial stages, which have been changed and shortened to satisfy the urgency of the situation.

    As a result of this enormous effort, while all insist the new way to organise the trials is safe, in March 2021 a vaccine against the COVID-19 is licensed.

    Luckily, only one shot of the vaccine is necessary for immunisation of at least one year (note that some candidates vaccines seem to need two shots).

    Now manufacturing must start. The herd immunity for the COVID-19 that needs to be reached considers Sanche et al. study, and is thus of 82.4% of the population. 6.35 billion doses must be manufactured, and then delivered to all the countries of the planet.

    “Merry Christmas 2022”

    Likely

    Narrative – from March 2021 – to Winter 2022

    Fortunately, production capabilities are sufficient. They are organised well ahead of time. All components necessary to produce the vaccine and inject it are available. The doses of vaccine are safely delivered to each national administration for Christmas 2022. 

    The mass vaccination campaign can start.

    Explanation

    This scenario then sub-divides into two main scenarios according to the willingness of people to accept the vaccine.

    “A most precious Christmas present”

    Improbable

    Narrative – Starting Winter 2022

    The mass vaccination campaign, although complex, has been well prepared ahead of time. It proceeds at a speedy pace throughout the world.

    Because of the very early planning, in a record time herd immunity is reached, for now.

    The world succeeds in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, for the time being.

    Explanation

    This scenario should be used as the basis for the creation of a new set of scenario allowing for handling all the uncertainties linked to immunisation. It should also be used to plan ahead the mass vaccination campaign.

    “A failed Christmas”

    Likely

    Narrative – Starting Winter 2022

    The efforts and successes of vaccines labs and manufacturers has been daily hailed throughout the period leading to the mass immunisation in the media, notably financial ones. The speed with which the vaccines has been developed has been continuously highlighted. Each new announcement of success was followed by rises on the stock exchange.

    However, meanwhile, the impact on the general public has been neglected. What many understand, rightly or wrongly, is that the typical process of trials has not been safely followed. Conspiracy theories have started to abound regarding a real hidden aim of manufacturers to seek ever more profit.

    Meanwhile, the very novelty of some vaccines has hardly been explained to the population at large.

    As, since the beginning of the pandemic, people throughout the globe have witnessed the uncertainty of science and quarrels linked to ego and career rather than to a real appetite for understanding, trust in science has diminished.

    Meanwhile, many political authorities have, also lost part of their legitimacy.

    As a result, added to the previously already growing distrust of vaccines, many refuse vaccination. Too many to allow for herd immunity.

    After months of inadequate efforts to entice the population in being vaccinated that were too little and too late, less than 50% of the population in many countries accepts the vaccine.

    The pandemic is there to last.

    Explanation

    The likelihood to see this second, unfavourable, scenario taking place will depend upon the the way the period leading to the start of mass immunisation.

    The way political authorities in each country and internationally will handle the pandemic is critical.

    The scientific community, the media, vaccine manufacturers as well as financial players will also play a very important role.

    “Free-for-all”

    Likely

    Narrative – from March 2021 – to Winter 2022

    Governments and pharmaceutical companies could not foresee early enough the way to manufacture the doses needed for the whole world.

    Many factors foster tension and bitter competition between governments as each want to make sure they will be able to immunise their own population.

    The whole world has to face many drivers of instability and tension: the dire impacts of the pandemic, including economically, the period of transition into which the international system stands, the tensions for supremacy notably between the U.S. and China, the refusal by other powers to become subservient to the too mega-powers considering the risks they just lived in terms of survival, Erdogan and Turkey’s attempt at taking advantage of the international situation to create a new sphere of influence in the Mediterranean region and the Middle East, etc.

    How hight can tension run? Can we now have to face a war? 

    Explanation

    A “war”scenario is one possibile scenario to follow from the “free for all” scenario but will not be developed here.

    A crucial factor that will make the tension more likely is the capability of governments to move towards collaboration or conflict between the start of the pandemic and the date of discovery of a vaccine.

    By June 2020, the U.S. international attitude regarding face masks, vaccines and treatments would tend to increase the likelihood to see tension rising rather than collaboration. On the contrary, successful efforts of other countries to adopt a collaborative approach would lower the likelihood to see conflict settling in.

    Further specific scenarios would need to be built to precisely account for these cases.

    “A little bit longer…”

    Improbable

    Narrative

    The scientific community has made tremendous efforts to discover a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2.

    Yet, with time, one after the other candidate fails, at one stage or another of the process.

    We are now past March 2021, and new vaccine candidates continue being developed. One has to succeed… one day. 

    Covid-19, scenario, Antiviral Treatment, monitoring

    Explanation

    This scenario will become active only if the previous one fails (all candidate vaccines fail).

    It is thus an alternative scenario that would be triggered around March 2021 if the trials have failed. 

    “A new path opens”

    Probability: Unknown

    Narrative

    Scientists explore new paths towards understanding better the SARS-CoV-2, notably, but not only, in the field of genetics, phylogenetics, evolutionary epidemiology, genomics, genomics epidemiology, etc.

    New findings open completely new avenues of thoughts to handle diseases and viral infections.

    A new way to fight the COVID-19 pandemic is now possible.

    Explanation

    This scenario may be a completely unexpected way to fight the COVID-19. 

    Its complete novelty, however, forbids estimation of probability or timeframe.

    It is nonetheless important to keep it in mind as research in these areas must continue and as it may constitute a revolutionary way out of the pandemic.

    3 – Easing the pain

    Explanation

    • The next layer of critical uncertainty is focused on the search for antiviral prophylaxis and treatment. 
    • As soon as a treatment exists and is fully efficient, whatever the stage of the illness – preventing the development of the disease as well as death – and as soon as it is widely available, then the pandemic will end.
    • Even more so than with the previous layer, considering the number of ongoing clinical trials, monitoring must be ongoing.
    • As long as we have not found a completely ideal treatment, even if partly efficient treatments exist, we shall remain in a scenario where we have to live with the COVID-19 pandemic. This scenario sub-divides as follows:

    1- ““The ideal medicine chest” – The first type of treatment may result from known drugs. In that case, as for the vaccine, the discovery may lead to either collaboration or tension. It is impossible to give a date as many trials are ongoing.

    2 – “See you in 15 years…” – If the trials of all the known medicines fail, then one must hope to find a completely new treatment. Then, the minimal amount of time to safely develop a new drug is 15 years. In that case, the hope and timeline of the vaccine will take precedence. Vaccines will then become even more important.

    3- “The Age of Reckoning” – In this scenario, we look at the way we live with the COVID-19 pandemic, because no full treatment has yet been discovered. The possible treatments found in this scenario may alleviate pain and reduce fatality, but not in a way that would impact the dynamics of the pandemic. It is the scenario we shall further develop.
    This last scenario also takes place as the previous two are ongoing. Thus, they are not mutually exclusive along the whole timeline, but presented as such for the sake of convenience.

    “The Age of Reckoning”

    Almost Certain

    Narrative

    We live with the SARS-CoV2, this virus that triggered the start of the COVID-19 epidemic in China, probably sometime during the year 2019.

    The disease is highly contagious, we do not have a treatment, we do not have a vaccine, we still know little about this coronavirus and the disease it entails.

    scenario, covid-19, pandemic, epidemic

    Explanation

    This scenario is organised according to the way major actors want to see the socio-political system adapt and change. Do they truly consider the COVID-19? Do they want to make sure that safety for all citizens comes first? Or do they want to go back to the pre-COVID-19 world?

    Some of the major critical factors which are furthermore involved are the way the disease itself evolves, the dynamics of the pandemic, and how political authorities handle the pandemic and manage, or not, to ensure security on all fronts. As a result legitimacy becomes foremost. Indeed, legitimacy can be reinforced – in the case of rather successful actions – or, on the contrary, weakened – in the case of suboptimal governance. The quality of legitimacy will then hinder or favour the actions of political authorities.

    Then, the actions of elite groups are also considered as fundamental.

    The scenarios are organised in three periods: the shock, denial and fundamental change (forthcoming).

    “The shock”

    Certain – Past

    Narrative

    We remember when we started to understand we had to face a new disease. Strangely enough, it feels like it was both ages ago and yesterday.

    The pandemic developed first in China then in South Korea and Singapore.

    With hindsight, the rest of the world showed a complete disbelief and inability to even think we could have to face a global pandemic. Then it hit us. Not only were we all rather unprepared, with the exception mainly of the two first hist countries, but we also probably went into shock. This just could not be true, it was not true. A real pandemic was impossible in the 21st century.

    As countries were hit and finally had to witness exponentially rising numbers of infections and hospitalisations, as they were suddenly faced with the possibility to see their health system exploding, as the ghost of past pandemics such as the Black Death settled, political authorities reacted in various ways. Their actions were function of two priorities: saving life while also preserving livelihoods. And their actions met with varying success along these two axes.

    Globally, lives were saved by millions for the time-being, even though half a million died in what was dubbed the first wave. Meanwhile, the economic toll was terrible.

    Explanation

    This past period is crucial in then determining the trajectory of countries, as well as the way they will be able to relate to each other. Groups of countries according to their actions and performance along the two main axes, health safety and all other types of security can be created.

    “Denial”

    Almost Certain

    Narrative

    The first shock is now past. Thanks to a very active scientific community, we have started gathering knowledge on this virus and its disease, even though many unknowns remain.

    Some countries are still handling a first wave, while others have started meeting a rebound. Some have not yet truly started their first wave, as they benefited from the decisions and actions from others. All other countries who managed to more or less control the pandemic are on the razor’s edge.

    As a result from their position on the pandemic timeline and on the way they handled this period, political authorities, the scientific communities and, in general, elite groups have seen their legitimacy being reinforced – few countries – or weakened – many countries.

    Those countries where the legitimacy of political authorities has fallen and continues to do so have become everyday more difficult to govern.

    Yet, this goes unnoticed.

    Throughout the world, the master objective is to come back to the world ante, to the world that existed before the COVID-19, despite claims to the contrary.

    Measures are taken when the COVID-19 forces them, but they are still piecemeal measures. They are created within the mindset of the old past world. They are designed to allow us to go back to the past.

    The system and elite groups benefitting from that system are very vocal and they benefit from power and resources accumulated over the last decades. Yet, this power and these resources may not be as solid as they think. Part of this might is only as strong as the system to which it relates.

    Other voices warn that something different must be created, that the pandemic is not over yet, that even the countries most successful in controlling the pandemic are on the razor’s edge.

    These voices suggest that the COVID-19 could be turned into an opportunity to create a novel system better adapted to the 21st century and the many challenges it must face, from climate change to new technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences, nano-technologies etc.

    Explanation

    Seen from the Summer 2020, this is the current period.

    This sub-scenario is subdivided into three typical scenarios and their archetypal actors’ groups: Towards a Pre-COVID-19 World 3.0 and the Hamartians, Muddling through and the Muddlers, Fortitude and the Changers.

    “Towards a Pre-COVID-19 World 3.0”
    The Hamartians

    Likelihood to assess according to countries

    Narrative

    As few as possible measures are taken to control the COVID-19. Furthermore they are as superficial as possible.

    Hubris and the past govern political authorities and societies.

    The system and elite groups benefitting from the pre-COVID-19 system are stronger than all other voices suggesting otherwise or differently.

    To be continued…

    “Muddling through”
    The Muddlers

    Likelihood to assess according to countries

    Narrative

    Many measures, on all front, are taken but they are chaotic and do not show any real reflection, any innovation nor any coherence.

    Political authorities and elite groups think they want to control the pandemic at best while also learning to live with the COVID-19. Yet, they are still prisoners of the past, of their old mindset and of old structures and interest groups.

    Citizens alike are divided. Some of them think anew, while others want to resist change.

    Some groups start exhibiting extreme ways and cathartic collective behaviour, thus acting out the deep malaise and fear of societies without proper legitimate and adequate governance.

    The system and many elite groups benefitting from the pre-COVID-19 system remain short-sighted and insisting on their old privileges, whatever the price they will make others bear.

    Yet, some new elite groups, including some from the old elite, are also starting to develop a new awareness and understanding of the situation. They start thinking that something different could be done.

    To be continued…

    “Fortitude”
    The Changers

    Likelihood to assess according to countries

    Narrative

    Many measures, on all fronts, are taken. Much thought is given to the pandemic and new knowledge is favoured and considered.

    Political authorities and elite groups know they are far from knowing everything and that the situation is both terribly challenging and completely novel. They know it is extremely difficult to both try to control the pandemic while ensuring all types of security.

    They are very cautious in progressing, yet very strong in implementing measures.

    They succeed in mobilising their citizens to face this new challenge and to try creating a new system better adapted to the reality of the 21st century.

    To be continued…

    Credits images

    Featured image: PIRO4D – Pixabay
    Miracle: Fathromi Ramdlon – Pixabay  
    New Path: Manfred Antranias Zimmer – Pixabay 

    Beyond “the Looking-Glass”?- The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 16 July 2020

    This is the 16 July 2020 issue of our weekly scan for political and geopolitical risks (open access).

    Editorial: As a very short editorial, we highlight two articles which are extremely interesting, not only because of their content but also because of the publishing platform considering the content, namely Reuters. Content and publisher together make these articles unusual and as a result they become significant signals.

    Continue reading “Beyond “the Looking-Glass”?- The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 16 July 2020″

    Disruptive Questions – The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 9 July 2020

    This is the 9 July 2020 issue of our weekly scan for political and geopolitical risks (open access).

    Editorial: The tension with China does not stop rising, as the U.S. struggles painfully with the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world is now fraught with so much uncertainty, two actors notably, Turkey and India, try to take advantage of the situation to push forward their agenda, while the Islamic State is still around. Meanwhile, many European states and the EU, as well as the financial and economic world, for a large part, seem to have chosen to ignore the pandemic, even so the COVID-19 does not relent, far from it, even though we only start discovering possible long term neurological impacts of the disease after recovery. As Ed Yong, in The Atlantic puts it as far as Americans are concerned, but this can be applied to many actors, “the coronavirus pandemic has become white noise—old news that has faded into the background of their lives” ( “The Pandemic Experts Are Not Okay”, 7 July 2020).

    As a result, from the ideal point of view of stability and security for all ensured by legitimate political authorities, warning signals are in the red. The longer the current situation lasts, the more likely the odds to see unpleasant outcomes for so many actors.

    In this overall framework, we also need to ask a couple of disruptive questions, to be true to the red team approach. Which countries handle better the COVID-19 pandemic and thus appear to care more for their citizens: countries in the Far East such as South Korea, Japan and China, or many G7 countries? Does that imply that values such as “human rights” are questioned at a very deep level in the countries treating the pandemic as “white noise”? If core values are questioned, then what is the impact on society and on its governance? As a result, if people and citizens do not feel protected, and in case a foreign power were to develop smart offensive strategies to increase their influence – and assets – abroad, with whom would side the forlorn citizens?

      Using horizon scanning, each week, we collect weak – and less weak – signals. These point to new, emerging, escalating or stabilising problems. As a result, they indicate how trends or dynamics evolve.

      The 9 July 2020 scan→

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      Horizon scanning, weak signals and biases

      We call signals weak, because it is still difficult to discern them among a vast array of events. However, our biases often alter our capacity to measure the strength of the signal. As a result, the perception of strength will vary according to the awareness of the actor. At worst, biases may be so strong that they completely block the very identification of the signal.

      In the field of strategic foresight and warning, risk management and future studies, it is the job of good analysts to scan the horizon. As a result, they can perceive signals. Analysts then evaluate the strength of these signals according to specific risks and dynamics. Finally, they deliver their findings to users. These users can be other analysts, officers or decision-makers.

      You can read a more detailed explanation in one of our cornerstone articles: Horizon Scanning and Monitoring for Warning: Definition and Practice.

      The sections of the scan

      Each section of the scan focuses on signals related to a specific theme:

      • world (international politics and geopolitics);
      • economy;
      • science including AI, QIS, technology and weapons, ;
      • analysis, strategy and futures;
      • the Covid-19 pandemic;
      • energy and environment.

      However, in a complex world, categories are merely a convenient way to present information, when facts and events interact across boundaries.

      The information collected (crowdsourced) does not mean endorsement.

      Featured image: Milky Way above SPECULOOS / The Search for habitable Planets – EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars (SPECULOOS) is searching for Earth-like planets around tiny, dim stars in front of a panorama of the Milky Way. Credit: ESO/P. Horálek.

      Scenarios for the Covid-19 and Post-Covid-19 Worlds – a Bibliography

      The COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 worlds are fraught with uncertainties. We still have to face many unknown regarding the disease and thus the pandemics (e.g. Julie Steenhuysen, “Scientists just beginning to understand the many health problems caused by COVID-19“, Reuters, 26 June 2020).

        Yet, we must take decisions and act when the fog clouds our horizon.

        Scenarios are the best tool to help actors handle uncertainty. They allow for more robust decision-making. They help struggling against unpreparedness.

        Of course, ideally, these scenarios also need to follow a proper methodology to be truly actionable (e.g. Are your Strategic Foresight Scenarios Valid? Test and Check List in 6 points). However, here, our purpose is not to evaluate the methodologies used, nor to validate or endorse any of the products below. Whichever the methodology, scenarios also help open up the mind-forged manacles to borrow the words of William Blake, think out of the box and overcome silos. They may also be first steps towards improving the quality of our scenarios.

        Thus, this probably incomplete bibliography aims to salute the collective work of professionals. Their efforts should contribute to handle the pandemic at best and to navigate the post-pandemic world (once we shall have reached this stage, which is not now). The bibliography also aims at providing decision-makers with further ideas and scenarios they may not have envisioned. Finally, it is intended as a tool for students and practitioners.

        As futurists or strategic foresight practitioners (including all scientists using scenarios), if you created scenarios regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and/or the post-COVID-19 world, please don’t hesitate to let us know using the comments.

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        Strategic Foresight and Futures Studies scenarios

        Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability (AFWIC), Global Futures Report, Alternative Futures of Geopolitical Competition in a Post-Covid-19 World, June 2020.

        Atos, What the world will look like after the COVID-19 crisis, May 2020

        Alfonso Bruno, Valerio & Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, Three Scenarios for a Post-Coronavirus World, Fair Observer, Jun 04, 2020.

        Borchert, Heiko, Looking beyond the Abyss: eight scenarios on the post-Covid-19 business landscape, April 2020.

        Burrows Mathew J., Peter Engelke, What world post-COVID-19? Three scenarios, The Atlantic Council, 23 April 2020.

        Colyer, Timothy, 4 Scenarios for the Post-Coronavirus Economy Through the Lens of Post-War Recovery, Brink, The edge of risk, 24 May 2020.

        Dumaine, Carol & Stanley Feder, “The Covid19 Crisis: What’s at Stake?
        Alternative Scenarios and Implications for the U.S. 2020-2023        “, 20-20 Foresight Project, Based on information as of May 24, 2020. – and related article: Jonathan Aberman, “What’s our potential post-Covid financial scenario?“, Washington Business Journal, 18 June 2020.

        French Government, Avis n°7 du Conseil scientifique COVID-19, 4 SCENARIOS POUR LA PERIODE POST-CONFINEMENT, 2 June 2020.

        For further epidemiologists’ scenarios, see Models for the COVID-19 Second Wave.

        Futuribles, Crise du Covid-19 : quels scénarios pour les 18 prochains mois ? 

        Henning, Job C., Saunders, Jeffrey, and Koran, Michal, There’s no returning to business as usual — geopolitical scenarios shaping a post-COVID-19 world, 8 May 2020. With short videos illustrating each scenarios, which is a great idea.

        Henning, Saunders, and Koran, May 2020 – Scenario 1 out of 6 Scenarios shaping a post-COVID-19 world – Watch the other scenarios here (scroll down the page).

        IIEA Expert Voices publication, The Multilateral Order Post-Covid: Expert Voices, June 2020 – pdf.

        ING, Four scenarios for the global economy after Covid-19, April 2020

        Lavoix, Helene, Scenarios to Navigate the COVID-19 Pandemic and its Possible Futures (1), The Red Team Analysis Society, July 2020.

        Millenium Project, Three Futures of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States January 1, 2022:  Implications for All of Us, October 2020 

        Talwar, Rohit, Scenarios for a post-pandemic world, Maddystudio, 2 July 2020

        The Long Crisis Network for Local Trust, Our COVID Future -The Long Crisis Scenarios, May 2020.

        van Til, Frederik, THREE SCENARIOS FOR GLOBALISATION IN A POST-COVID-19 WORLD, Clingendael Spectator, 1 April 2020.

        Wade, Michael, Scenario Planning for a Post-COVID-19 World, IMD, May 2020.

        Quantitative tools and scenarios

        COVID-19 Scenarios – Quantitative tool, (see development by various universities and scientists :Biozentrum, University of Basel, Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, Sweden), etc.

        Big Four and large strategy firms’ “scenarios”

        Deloitte, Covid-19 Economic cases: Scenarios for business leaders/Recovering from COVID-19, Economic cases for resilient leaders 18-24 months, 6 April 2020.

        McKinsey, COVID-19 series

        Featured image: Alexandra_Koch de Pixabay 

        Chimerica 3: The geopolitics of the U.S.-China turbo-recession

        The American consumer is turning into a self-conscious, active, geopolitical and strategic actor on the world stage. This appears through its new and very negative attitude towards purchasing “made in China” goods (Brendan Murray, “Americans give the Made-in-China the cold shoulder”, Bloomberg, 17 May 2020).

        Towards the great decoupling?

          As it happens, for the last forty years, the deindustrialization of America was “compensated” by massive imports from China (Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World, 2012). This generated the abysmal U.S. trade deficit with China. However, the cheapness of the Chinese products is too a major factor of the U.S. consumption. Thus it is also a major factor of the U.S. economic growth (Niall Ferguson, Xiang Xu, “Making Chimerica Great again”, Wiley one line Library, 21 December 2018).

          Considering, reciprocally, the mammoth importance of the relationship with the U.S. for China’s growth, this emerging American anti-China’s products consuming trend is nothing but world scale geopolitics. It is so because it appears as a signal, among many others, of a powerful dynamic: an American tendency towards decoupling its economy from the Chinese economy.

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          From trade war to consumers war?

          A recent survey unveiled that more than 40% Americans declare that they would not purchase Chinese goods. Only 25% Americans declare they wouldn’t care. However, 35% say that “they wouldn’t like it, but that they would ultimately purchase it” (Brendan Murray, “Americans give the Made-in-China the cold shoulder”, Bloomberg, 17 May 2020). 

          Towards the anti-“made in China”?

          According to Bloomberg, this anti-China consumerist trend establishes that 78% Americans would be ready to pay higher prices for products if their producer would move from China. The poll also reveals that 66% people are in favour of stricter import restrictions on Chinese products, as a way to support the U.S. economy. Finally, 55% declare that they don’t trust China to follow up on the January trade deal with the U.S..

          This poll is particularly interesting given the current context of gigantic unemployment in the U.S. triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The U.S-China Covid-19 competition (2) : America and Chimerica in crisis”, The Red (Team) Analysis, May 15, 2020). As it happens, since mid-March, almost 40 millions Americans are unemployed. During the first quarter of 2020, the U.S. GDP shrank by an annualized 5%. It is the worse drop since the 2008 crisis, knowing that the perspectives of the Covid-19 shock are worse.

          Self-sacrificing consumers?

          We have to keep in mind that, in the U.S, consuming habits, as well as health insurance, mortgage payment and retirement pensions all depend completely on jobs. It is so because there are few public safety net. It is in this context of rapidly degrading economic situation and of deep financial insecurity that 40% of American consumers declare themselves ready to pay higher prices in order not to purchase “made in China” goods.

          In other words, the U.S. consumer declares itself ready to join the ranks of the trade war. And s/he does so by sacrificing some of his or her already diminishing purchasing power. This consuming trend’s shift in progress becomes a new dynamic within the “trade war” that opposes the U.S. and China since 2018. Indeed, the U.S Government links the trade war with the reindustrialization of the United States.

          Indeed, a new American purchasing behaviour would directly strike at the financial returns towards China. This is already happening, because almost 300 billion dollars of Chinese goods are already under higher taxation. It would also strike at the Chinese supply side of the trade relation with the U.S.. Thus, it would impact the Chinese industrial output. Meanwhile, the latter is already contracting at a historic rate, as a consequence of the Covid-19 lockdown (Helene Lavoix, “The emergence of a Covid-19 International Order”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, June 15, 2020).

          Tearing apart Chimerica

          President Donald Trump is strongly promoting this anti-China policy and sentiment. He made official the political and strategic dimension of that stance on 26 May 2020, as the White House report “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China” was released.

          This report states that the Trump administration has “adopted a competitive approach to the PRC, based on a clear-eyed assessment of the CCP’s {Chinese Communist Party’s} intentions and actions, a reappraisal of the United States’ many strategic advantages and shortfalls, and a tolerance of greater bilateral friction.”

          From Trade war to the People’s (consumer) war

          The connection of the trade war and of the anti-China consuming trend to this U.S. China’s grand strategy creates a strong political consensus. This consensus permeates the very fabric of the U.S. growth, as well as of the daily life of U.S. citizens. Thus, this is a deeply felt situation, by families as well as by the government. In other terms, a large part of the U.S citizenry is actively sharing the anti-China grand strategy.

          This is a major geo-economic and geopolitical shift. This U.S.-China relationship is such an intricate and powerful structure that the British historian Niall Ferguson dubs it “Chimerica”. This expression translates the quasi-hybridation between these two mammoth national economies (Niall Ferguson, Xiang Xu, “Making Chimerica Great again”, Wiley one line Library, 21 December 2018).

          Chimerica on the brink

          This process emerged from the installation of thousands of U.S. industries and corporations in China in the 1980s. It created the template for the mammoth trade relations between the two countries. In the same time, China buys huge amounts of the U.S. debt by purchasing Treasury bonds. In February 2020, China possessed USD 1,097 trillion of Treasury securities (Adam Tooze, Crashed, How a decade of financial crises changed the world, 2019 and Jeffery Martin, “China economy has worst quarter in 40 years after Coronavirus lockdowns, leading the world into recession”, Newsweek, 4-17-20).

          So, it clearly appears that the U.S. politics regarding China, such as the trade war or the stance on Taïwan and Hong Kong, are signalling a powerful political intent. This intent appears to be a will to butcher “Chimerica”, in order to decouple the two super powers.

          National interest and all out geo-economic warfare

          In this context, the Covid-19 pandemic and its humongous economic consequences appear as an opportunity for the new Trump strategy. Indeed, it is an accelerating factor of this “great decoupling” strategy. Beyond the nickname of the “Covid-19” virus as the “Wuhan virus”, Washington is escalating the trade war.

          This happens even if both the U.S .and Chinese economies are struggling with the Covid-19 shock. In the same dynamic, Beijing exerts retaliations. Since 2018, it diminishes its U.S. agricultural imports, while forcefully increasing its imports of Brazilian agricultural products (Emiko Tearzono, Sun Yun, “China’s record Brazilian soyabean imports impede U.S trade target”, Financial Times, 14 May 2020).

          Mimetic decoupling?

          This move expresses the way Beijing tries to implement another form of exterior dependency. It tries to decouples China from the U.S. agricultural production. In other terms, the “trade war” might be triggering the same policies in both Washington and Beijing. Those policies aim at drastically reducing the U.S.-China “Chimerican” mutual dependency.

          Towards a dangerous near future?

          However, this begs the question of the economic near term future of the U.S. agriculture. This sector is already hammered by climate change and by the trade war. In China, a food supply crisis in a time of Covid-19 and African swine flu pandemic could trigger food insecurity (Hélène Lavoix, “Covid-19 and food insecurity early warning”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, May 18, 2020).

          Those issues are all the more pressing that if the cooperative Chimerica is broken apart, strategic competition is going to be all the more ferocious. This could be especially true in the Asia-Pacific region.

          Featured image: Henrikas Mackevicius de Pixabay 

          Risk Analysis & Crisis Management – Syllabus Sciences Po-PSIA 2020-2021

          Welcome to the course on risk analysis and crisis management for SciencesPo-PSIA Masters. The aim of the class is to teach you how to best foresee and anticipate future issues, challenges, dangers as well as opportunities, in the field of international security, international relations, global politics, etc. In other terms, we address conventional and unconventional security issues, i.e. all issues from war (be it civil war or international war), international order changes, political authorities changes, through new tech, climate change, energy security, water security, pandemics, etc.

          With the first part of the course you will become acquainted with the process of strategic foresight and risk management or more broadly anticipation. You will learn about its main hurdles and to design strategies to overcome them. You will discover and […]

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