We shall still need much effort and research before to obtain detailed, proper and actionable timelines – and this without even considering timeliness.
For the Chronicles of Everstate, we looked for an interesting way to present time, considering our very imperfect knowledge and understanding of “historical time”.
One of the possible solutions was to locate the Chronicles in a very distant time. This was the first option we explored, to start our scenarios in an imaginary year 5230. However, considering the unconscious or conscious mental associations that readers could make for such a year, as well as the very real possible historical developments on planet Earth, this was unsatisfactory.
A second solution explored, was to use a less precise timeline such as the Near Future and the Far Future. This was also disappointing as we would then lose the benefit of a chronology, however imperfect, and of sequences when they crucial in terms of policies and responses.
The best solution* was to remain true to our methodology. As we had created an imaginary modern nation-state, we created the corresponding imaginary time, Evertime: a time that mirrors our own as if in a parallel dimension, yet with an imprecision of dates.
Using years mirroring more or less ours could also help us identifying with hindsight what can be improved and why. Thus methodology and analysis can benefit.
The Chronicles of Everstate thus started in 2211 EVT (EVT being the acronym for Evertime).
————
*This solution was found during a brainstorming with our art director, Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli, to whom I am truly indebted for helping this idea to emerge. This underlines, once more, the value of brainstorming involving people coming from very different and diverse backgrounds.
The initial variables chosen to start building our scenario are the five most important variables of our model, according to Eigenvector centrality, as explained in the article “Revisiting influence analysis”.
Consistency is then checked, but only for the variables that are linked.
As we aim at finding a plausible and average, mild set of initial criteria, we shall start from the following set, which is also intuitively representative of the situation, real or perceived, in which many real world countries have found themselves for a couple of years.
Note that a complete set of scenarios depicting the whole range of possibles for the futures of the modern nation-state would need to cover all possible combinations of variables. We shall not address the way to handle this specific challenge of scenario-building here (we cover that in our on-site training courses).
We then verify that the chosen scenarios are consistent with the consistency matrix.
One of our aims is to obtain timelines that are as precise as possible for all our underlying processes and dynamics, as explained in Creating the model. However, most of the time, such a detailed scientific knowledge is still lacking (see also “Time in Strategic Foresight and Risk Management“. As a result, the timelines set are tentative. To underline this absence of certitude, we created a time that is specific to Everstate, Evertime. As explained in “Creating Evertime“, Evertime (in short EVT) mirrors our own time, but yet is also an ideal-type. It emphasises dynamics and sequences of events rather than specific dates for the onset of events and very precise durations.
However unsatisfactory this device when we want to depict our very real near future, this approach allows isolating the time component and focusing on sequences. As a result warning and steering of policies is eased. Each reader or user is free to adapt the temporal outline according to its convictions or methodology, waiting for better scientific knowledge.
We now have all the necessary material, as well as all the methodological background explanations to begin telling the story of Everstate, starting with setting the stage.
Geopolitical situation: Everstate, a middle-range power
As a medium state power located on the Eurasian land mass, Everstate had not seen its geopolitical position fundamentally altered since the end of the Cold War, and even since the end of World War II. However, recently, some tensions had begun building up and Everstate had to start contending with them as they could easily transform in very concrete new external military threats.
What had contributed to maintain its geopolitical position were different factors. The impact its ecological setting could have had on its geopolitical position was remote and long forgotten. Yet, it could still play a part. Similarly, the various actors of Everstate did not perceive anymore its continental climate, soften for the southeastern part of the country by the influence coming from the sea, as a factor influencing geopolitics. The harshness of the snowy and mountainous North had long been perceived as a bounty for tourism. The large river crossing the country from Northwest to Southeast was seen from the perspective of industry, trade and tourism and no longer as a possible way in for invaders. Finally, it had been centuries since the rich agricultural eastern plain had not attracted invaders or greedy neighbours looking for rich lands.
Everstate’s army was efficient, considering current military techniques, expertise and previous experience, even if its size had been reduced. The previous period of peace, as well as the evolution of society and the size of the population had led to this downsizing. The defence forces could thus carry out with success very specific and targeted missions, but not deploy extensively and exhaustively.
In Everstate, central order was relatively strong. The governance was quite efficient although some areas were starting to be less effectual. As a result, evidence of discontent, so far apparently limited to complaining and grumbling, had started being recorded, letting believe that the security of citizens was not anymore fully ensured. We were, however, apparently quite far from major domestic escalation of violence, and even further from civil war, which both could impact the geopolitical situation. Furthermore, as none of the latter events had occurred for the last century or so, they were deemed to be impossible: people were thought, rightly or not, to have become unable of such actions, because of the comfortable life they had enjoyed for so long.
At the beginning of this second decade of the 21st century EVT, Everstate was well in line with the most common winning international norms. This gave the country international legitimacy and implied that it did not have to face any major normative war against the dominant order. Its society was modern; it believed in material well-being, constant improvement thereof and in the virtues of constant and rising economic growth; it obeyed the law of the market and of capitalism, economics being quite foremost.
Meanwhile, the old monotheist religions still existed but their institutional and political role was marginal, as most of society was mainly concerned with other matters, more materialistic than spiritual. Nevertheless, as in other countries, some tensions existed between small groups of one or the other monotheist religion and sometimes flared up.
Everstate’s governance starts displaying a creeping loss of performance
Governance was thence still quite efficient, with, nevertheless, a slow, creeping loss of performance.
The state was organised according to a formal and rational-legal bureaucracy, upheld by a legal apparatus. It was subdivided administratively according to both geography and major domains of interest (defence, foreign affairs, homeland security, agriculture, trade and industry, tourism, finance, etc.) related to the security of Everstate, as identified throughout the previous ruling periods.
Everstate was governed under a democratic parliamentary regime. As a result, Parliament was involved in political decision-making, would it be only through the restraining power it exerted over the Executive. The political game that was played within Everstate’s ruling elite was classical. It involved obviously the search for power of the nation’s elected representative. Yet, another power struggle, unseen and forgotten was also at play: the nation, this imagined body of citizens (Anderson, 1991), also tried protect its power.
As part of the international society and obeying its norms, Everstate was a full member of the various international institutions that upheld those norms, from the United Nations, to the organisations of the Washington Consensus (IMF, World Bank) and to the World Trade Organization (WTO) (Watson, 1992).
Everstate, as many other states in the world, was also a member of a regional institution, a Regional Union of independent and sovereign democratic states, it had joined freely in the decades following World War II. The Regional Union is neither a Federation, as the United States, Canada, India or Germany, for example, nor a Confederation, but something different, in the making. Its mission, shape, organisation, membership, areas of exclusive or only shared competence and consultative responsibility are being continually reworked and redesigned through various treaties and pacts. It adds one more layer of complexity to the overall governance of Everstate.
In Everstate, the power of the ruler (the nation and its representatives) was neither weak nor strong. However, as, by comparison, the power of various elite groups was relatively strong, then, some appropriation of public power was taking place. Because the separation between the public and private domains had been achieved for some time, this appropriation of public power was either hidden as rampant corruption and nepotism, or taking new forms that were still difficult to unmask and name. The appropriation of public power by these elite groups had direct consequences on governance. Indeed, it lowered its efficiency and perverted its objectives.
The nation-state’s income had been slowly but steadily growing over the past decades. However, it had to be seen in the light of the necessary expenses that seemed to grow uncontrollably faster.
Indeed, as society had lived at peace and developed over the last 60 years, it had grown more complex. Conditions had changed, from the way to live and relate to each other with urbanization and digital and communication technology, to food availability and quality, to health behaviour. Meanwhile new threats had emerged. This led to a more complex situation in terms of governance. While governing implied more tasks and more complex ones, it became more costly. Hence, a few decades ago, the various resources extracted for governance and for ensuring the security of the citizens had started to be insufficient. This phenomenon was accentuated by the appropriation of public good and power by elite groups.
The legitimate monopoly of violence of the state was still there. Nonetheless, it was nevertheless weakening, as the reduction of overall available resources had started taking their toll. Even if such events were thought to be improbable by most, any evolution involving rising grievances up until an escalation towards civil war would be affected by this weakening monopoly of violence. In turn, if such an unlikely and unfortunate spiral started, it would further impact the army’s performance, the monopoly of violence and governance.
The legitimacy of Evertstate’s political system, inherited from past dynamics, was still strong and its impact was thus positive. As a result, despite a security to the ruled – or the citizens – that was starting to be less than perfect, no risk of strong rising discontent and polarisation was thought to be possible.
The incredible and growing amount of information available nowadays presents us with specific challenges we need to overcome.
Meanwhile, the rediscovery of propaganda and the power of rumours spread on social networks, now labelled “fake news”, only make more acute the need to find our way through the mass of information available.
This is even more important if, as students, professionals or citizens, our aim is to be able to understand, foresee, warn about, and finally adequately answer accumulating dangers, threats, risks or more broadly changes and uncertainties.
Our information age is characterised by what Martin Hilbert called the “global information explosion” (“Digital Technology & Social Change” University of California Course, 2015), when we constantly face “information overload” (among many others, Bertram Gross, The Managing of Organizations, 1964; Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, 1970; also Stanley Milgram, “The experience of living in cities“, Science, 167, 1461-1468, 1970).
Google estimated in 2010 that 129,864,880 books had then been published (Leonid Taycher, “Books of the world, stand up and be counted! All 129,864,880 of you.” 5 Aug 2010). Wikipedia estimates that “approximately 2,200,000” books were published each year across the world. Meanwhile, it is almost frightening to look live at the constantly growing number of internet website: 1,080,387,230+ on 15 Sept 2016; 1,675,967,895 on 28 March 2019; i.e. an augmentation of more than 595 million website, or 55% in a bit more than two years and six months(internet live stats).
Those are general figures, but they are also representative of what we must face when we work on a specific topic, because we have to deal with all the relevant knowledge and understanding accumulated.
To this we must, most of the time, add current unfolding events and facts. For example, if one wants to start working on an issue related to Libya, a simple google search on the word Libya returns 224,000,000 results in September 2016 and 299,000,000 in March 2019. A larger theme, such as energy, returned 1,340,000,000 results in September 2016 and 2,900,000,000 in March 2019.
Let us take another example with already filtered information, such as the bibliography of a PhD thesis. Even though information has been sorted out, we could get a 14 pages list of scholarly books and articles (approximately 336 texts) or more, and 49 pages of references to archival material. In that case, archival references may correspond to 4 to 5 large storage boxes of documents and 12 CD-Rom of digitalized text documents (example taken from my PhD).
Another example of pre-sorted information is a “simple” reading list for one topic for a Master or PhD course. Such reading lists used to cover at least ten pages (e.g. Princeton, International Relations 2007, approx. 200 books and articles).
In all cases, this is a lot to read, most often in an always too short amount of time. And we are only focusing here on written media, when time must now also be made for other media such as videos, audio media, and social network exchanges.
How can we thus face this challenge?
In the meantime, how can we make sure we do not fall prey to “fake news”? To the “fake news” problem, I would also add how can we avoid losing time reading low quality pieces? The use of other media, besides written texts, complicates the problem and present also technical challenges. They are outside the scope of this article.
At the heart of these two issues we have a major question. How can we read efficiently and usefully for our purpose, and more generally for analysis and understanding of political, geopolitical, and international relations’ issues*?
The remaining part of the article will provide practical advice to learn to read efficiently and usefully, while avoiding as much as possible, to fall prey to “fake news”.
We shall first stress that the aim is understanding and that accumulation of knowledge is only a means to this end. Second, we shall focus on purposeful reading of classically written academic and scientific texts (including articles, books, reports, monographs etc.), and see why and how their structure are both crucial and helpful, stressing very practical ways to read. We shall then turn to other types of written texts, namely newspaper articles and primary materials (speeches, official documents, etc.) and finally stress a hard way to sort through useful or not documents.**
The aim is quality understanding not accumulation of quantity of knowledge
In our field – and in many related others – the first and absolutely crucial idea to keep in mind is that, initially, what we seek to achieve is NOT to accumulate a large quantity of knowledge, but to develop a proper understanding of a topic, question or issue, however loosely defined it may be before you start reading anything.
Knowledge is, of course, fundamental, but it is a means to an end. Knowledge will thus be a building block for the construction of your understanding.
Keeping this idea in mind will help you overcoming – at least partly – anxiety about what you do not know. What must matter to you is to know enough to develop a good understanding of the topic you are studying, as well as, in the case of anticipation, to allow you thinking out of the box.
We are not trying to hoard knowledge, nor do we aim at showing off how knowledgable we are. We read to understand at best something (and hopefully, also, meanwhile, we enjoy it).
Even if you were working in tactical intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks, for example, where at one stage you would need to know, ideally, everything to make sure not to miss an attack that is being prepared, before to reach this step – which fundamentally belongs to the monitoring and surveillance phases (see Helene Lavoix, “Horizon Scanning and Monitoring For Anticipation: Definition and Practice“, RTAS, 4 March 2019) – you would first need to develop an understanding of the terrorists’ strategies, their beliefs, their motivations, previous modes of operations, etc.
It is this initial fundamental phase related to understanding that is our primary concern here.
Moreover, even during the monitoring and surveillance phase, you would also need to focus your reading on these useful pieces of information relevant to your task, i.e. preventing a terrorist attack.
Thus, even in that case, quality understanding of information primes over blind quantity accumulation. Meanwhile, reading still matters.
Reading classically scholarly written documents
This may come as a surprise to you, but, to read usefully and efficiently, we only relatively rarely read documents, be it books, reports, articles, memos or even short briefs, from A to Z.
Most of the time, the pleasure of reading all the words of a written document is only reserved for leisure and novels, poetry, etc. In a work environment, reading every word is impossible – and potentially not very useful either. This may not be very nice for the author, who has spent months and sometimes years researching and writing, but this is the way it is, and the only way forward considering the breadth of accumulated knowledge. And, do not worry, most authors also do the same; they skim through texts for their own purpose.
However, purposeful reading is only possible because we can rely on a normative typical structure for scholarly written work, which reflects millennia of scholarly work and grounds the quality of written documents. It is this classical structure or more exactly what we assume is implied by that classical structure and contained within it that allows speeding reading. What I mean here by “speeding reading” is that we take in the gist of a book or article, or we focus on very specific points contained in the text, which may be of particular interest to the specific issue or problem we try to understand.
Should this structure not be respected, or not entail what we assume is behind it, purposeful reading and speeding reading would become much more difficult, or slower, if not impossible.
As a result, we shall read texts with different origins and structures in a different way, as we shall see very practically below.
What is this typical classical scholarly structure?
an abstract, i.e. what this article or book is about, which is often a very brief summary of the introduction and conclusion;
an introduction, itself composed of
a hook, i.e. what makes the document relevant and thus interesting for the reader;
a definition of the terms of the question or issue, which is addressed in the rest of the document. In the case of scientific books, this is where you will find, typically a literature review of the state of knowledge on the research problem, furthermore often highlighting existing debates. It leads to:
the specific question or issue or research problem that will be addressed (what is called in French the “problématique“) with its scope. In the case of books you will also find here the methodology and the type of material (interviews, archives, news articles, speeches, etc. ) that will be used;
a presentation of the outline of the document;
the body of the document presented according to the outline;
the conclusion, which fundamentally answers the introduction. It usually includes:
a reminder of the research problem, issue or question;
a brief summary of the findings as developed in the body of the document;
an opening on further research, new ideas that follow from the findings, etc.
a bibliography, which is a list of all the documents used in the text.
Furthermore, all the text is accompanied by footnotes, which are nothing else than references to the various types of evidence used and ideas developed previously by scientists and authors (e.g. standardisation according to APA Style).
It is vital to understand that footnotes or similar references are a crucial building block of our world. They underlay the whole system of copyrights for example, scientific progress, as well as the difference between facts and objective analysis (presence of footnotes or similar types of references) on the one hand, hearsay, propaganda and opinion (absence of footnotes or similar type of references), on the other. This is thanks to footnotes and references that you will get a key weapon to fight against fake news.
Using classical text structure to read purposefully
Now you know this structure, you most probably already envision how it can help purposefully with speeding your reading and your understanding.
Follow the next steps… unashamedly:
Read the abstract. If this is interesting and relevant for your purpose, continue, if not discard, and move to the next document.
Read the introduction. Abandon if you find out it is not relevant to your current purpose.
Read the conclusion.
According to your own purpose, read chapters, pages or even paragraphs that are relevant but only those. These can – and must – be read in detail. It may here be useful – or helpful – to take notes, and jot down the thoughts that reading generate in you, if this can enhance your understanding. This is even truer for the texts that are the most difficult to understand, because we are not used anymore to such complexity of thinking. I am thinking here about, for example, some past philosophers, whose works remain crucial.
For very specific research – for example references to a specific fighting group in Syria, or Libya or elsewhere, or to a faction, or to an event, etc. – use the index of the book if available.
Thanks to electronic format, do not hesitate to use the search engine. You have a search function for PDF, word-processor documents and also in browsers. Enter your keyword, and the places in your text where your keyword is mentioned will be emphasised. You thus know which paragraphs you need to read. This may sometimes lead you to read a bit more to be able to understand what the author meant – always be careful never to misinterpret what is written – but you will have spared the time to skim through the book or article, which you would have needed to do without a search function.
That’s it, you have extracted from the article, or book (or report, monograph etc.) all you need to know for your specific current work.
Don’t worry, you will remember actually much more than what you think, and, if ever, for another purpose you were to need this book or article again, your memory will send you a warning message suggesting you go back to this book.
This somehow unconscious memory is one of the reasons why reading is – so far – superior to entrusting this function to an artificial intelligence. If you are not the one reading, then this “unconscious memory” cannot function. You may think you spare time, but, on the long run, you lose time by depriving you of fundamental information.
Finally, be flexible with the principles explained above. Always use your good sense, remain practical, and also follow your instinct. Sometimes, it is crucial to read a bit more or more in-depth, as this is in this unexpected area that a solution to one nagging problem will be found.
As explained, earlier, it is important to emphasise again that it is because we are certain that, if needed, we can go to the body of the book or article, where the research and the arguments are explained that we can fully trustfully skip them. We know that if needed we can go there and find the details necessary, as well as the right evidence.
It is, also, of course, because we trust science and the related architecture of understanding that we can skip the research and arguments. Indeed, we assume that the research and the demonstrations are correct. As a result, if the standard of research and of scientific reasoning and thinking were to be lowered, then we would not be able to skip the argument, even if, formally nothing has changed.
If ever the scientific thinking and architecture of understanding were shaken, then confusion would ensue. As a result, the spread of fake news would be favoured, while reading would immediately be slowed, as everything would have to be checked.
Unfortunately, the ego of untrained individual, who think they know best and spread absurdity is a perfect way to start destroying scientific thinking outside scientific circles. Unfortunately, this is increasingly widespread nowadays. A whole article would deserve to be written on this very topic.
Let us, despite these worrying trends, consider we remain in the case where the scientific understanding and structure are standing. Once you have read your first text as explained above, you can now move to the next document.
Using at best the literature review available in an introduction
The state of the art or literature review in an introduction, when it is well done, is an incredible tool to read efficiently, usefully and quickly. Thus, use it as such.
Whatever the topic, issue or problem upon which you are working and that you are trying to understand, try first to find a (good) book addressing the same issue. Then, read with attention the literature review. The latter will give you all the authors, books and articles dealing with your topic and that must be read. Even more interesting, it will provide a first summary of these other documents’ content, and explain where they are wanting. This first summary will allow you to decide if you must add this or that text to what you need to read to understand. At worst, you will still be able to incorporate in your understanding the summary or specific points the literature review will have underlined.
As a trick, the best documents to find proper literature reviews are PhDs and classically written good scientific/academic books. Master theses may also be of great interest because many of them are actually a literature review.
Using bibliographies and footnotes
Any serious article, post, book, report, monograph, etc. uses footnotes and/or bibliographies, as underlined previously. In the case of web-publication, what you must look for are proper references, most of the time with hyperlinks.
Those will be gold mines for you as they will, in a way similar to the literature review, point you in the direction of the next works you must read.
Newspaper articles (facts and evidence)
Mainly use newspaper articles for facts and evidence, making sure they are properly sourced.
Newspaper articles are also useful to help you identifying which primary material, such as a speech by an official or member of government (see below), you MUST read. In this latter case, you cannot be satisfied, most of the time, only by what the journalist chose to report. Indeed, most newspapers have a specific editorial line and are partisan. Hence, you must read the original text and if the newspaper refers to a news conference, then, if possible, find transcripts of these.
Most of the time, the title of the article is enough to let you know if you need to skim through the news article, read it in detail, or just move to another one.
In some instances – unfortunately increasingly rarer – when a newspaper article includes in-depth interview(s), then read the whole article. Currently many newspaper articles relay only opinions – which is different from analyses – and, save in cases when they are contextualised and characterised properly, opinions are of no interest to us. Of course, if our purpose is to work with beliefs and ways to understand the world, then opinions become very important, because they are our primary material (analyses also may in that case be handled in a similar way). Nonetheless, opinions are not analyses and must be handled as opinions, not as analyses.
Primary sources: speeches, reports, official documents, interviews, etc.
Reading material from primary sources
Screenshot of the timetable for available Daily Press Briefings of the U.S. Department of State on the web.
When you deal with primary material – material which originates directly from an actor that is relevant to your topic, e.g. a President, a spokesman, a member of the armed forces, a ministry or service within an agency, a company, groups and movements, people (in a representative way according to your topic) etc. – then, most of the time, you must
Skim through it, to make sure it is relevant to your focus: for example, if you are working on energy, then a statement by the President of the U.S. or of Russia on, say, education policies for children below six years old, is most probably irrelevant. When you skim through documents though, be careful not to miss second and third order related topics.
For those materials that are relevant – or for the part of the document that is relevant – read each and every single work of it, as nuances and specific words used matter.
Evaluating the reliability of the source and of the information
In general, primary information must always be evaluated for its reliability. The best way is to use what was created by the intelligence services. An information is evaluated according to the source (who gave the information in the first place) and to the piece of information itself (e.g. Department of the U.S., Army, Headquarters, “Appendix B, Source and Information Reliability Matrix”, Field Manual No. 2-22.3 (34-52), 2006 – download Appendix-B).
If we take the example of tweets, for example, which are sometimes our only source of information on some unfolding events – this was, for instance, very often the case for Libya – then you should contrast people who only state things, from those who make the effort to give evidence that will back their statements by any means, including photos, and videos. Once you have evaluated that a person on twitter is serious, then, even though s/he may sometimes post statements without evidences, you can attribute a higher quality to the information because of the reliability of the source you estimated.
However, especially with the spread of artificial intelligence means, remain extra careful.
Knowing how to evaluate the reliability of information is absolutely crucial to fight against fake news. Practicing systematically the evaluation of the reliability is, of course, even more important.
If this may appear as cumbersome initially, you will get used to do it and thus benefit from the learning curve.
Actually considering the lowering overall standard of publication, and the rising confusion (read among others the excellent article Max Read, “How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually.” Intelligencer, 26 Dec 2018), it is a very good idea to apply your evaluation to all information, including to what should be good analysis, not only to primary sources anymore. This is very unfortunate and painful to write, but … better be safe than sorry.
Sorting through documents the hard way
The classical structure of a scientific and academic text and its significance, as well as the importance to evaluate the reliability of information, allows you to sort through the mass of documents you should read to understand an issue.
It also allows you to discard those that are of sub-optimal quality.
If a text does not contain references, i.e. no footnotes in the case of a paper document, eventually no proper sources in case the author is not acquainted with the footnote system, and/or no properly referenced hyperlinks in the case of a text published on the world-wide-web, then it becomes a collection of opinions, and hearsay. At worst, these types of texts are one of the places where you will find the crudest fake news.
Such a text has no value and you can just discard it, i.e. not read it.
Of course, this does not concern reasoning and demonstrations, which belong fully to the author and which are of value. However, it is very rare in matters of national and international security that a whole text will be about reasoning and demonstrations, which belong only to the author. Most of the time, references and facts are needed, which must thus be properly referenced, or the author will refer to others’ reasoning and demonstrations, which similarly must be referenced.
Even if it is unfortunately a growing trend on the web not to use references and sourcing – even from well-known think tanks, do not lose your time reading these articles. Because we do not know who said what, and where the author found this or that idea or fact, we just cannot consider the text as more than mere hearsay and opinion (to say nothing of plagiarism). Nothing can be checked, the assumed quality and reliability we mentioned earlier are not there, thus it is better using your precious time to read something else.
When only facts are concerned, similarly, if a text does not use sources, then it means that you cannot check the origin of the idea or fact. This means that the reliability of the information delivered is possibly dubious, and in any case that we shall never know. Thus again, do not lose your time with this text, even though it comes from a prestigious publisher (think tank, risk management company, famous person, high level official, etc.).
The only way to consider such texts would then be as primary material, but you must then apply to it the rules explained above about the quality of information.
If you apply all these ways to read, and if you use your good sense and your logic – including sometimes to go against the principles explained here, as there are always exceptions – then you will not only have greatly reduced the amount to read, but also improved the way you read. Meanwhile you will have contributed to fight against fake news and sub-optimal content.
Furthermore, by accepting it is impossible to read every word ever written on a topic, by abandoning any dream of omniscience, you will not only lower your anxiety, which will enhance all your cognitive processes, but also develop a kind of “confident humility”, which then will be an incredible asset in mitigating biases and thus in improving the quality of your analyses (see Geopolitical Risk and Crisis Anticipation online course 1, module 3).
You are now ready to read efficiently and usefully any document.
Reducing further the number of documents to read, which we have started to see here briefly, is also absolutely crucial, but belongs to analytical methodology (e.g. see Geopolitical Risk and Crisis Anticipation online course 1). As you now master useful reading, you are fully ready for this next step.
Notes
* We shall not address here technologically-based supports (besides simple searches), which are in themselves an entire topic and most of the time, anyway, demand some amount of reading to be properly implemented. Furthermore analysts want, like and need to keep a mastery of their subject matter, thus knowing how to read remains a crucial skill.
**The skills transmitted in this article were first taught to me by my lecturers at university and then resulted from more than twenty years of practice in research as well as analysis.
Featured image: PublicDomainPictures, Public Domain, Pixabay
This article explores the way artificial intelligence (AI) is inserted within its environment through the Internet of Things in a particular domain, agriculture. As a result, “smart agriculture”, a whole new way to produce food, is born. We look at the way various actors include AI in farming and thus envision and develop the future of agriculture. We then evaluate consequences on the best way to develop and integrate AI into real life activities. Meanwhile, we assess the impact of smart agriculture not only on agriculture security, but also on governance and geopolitics.
This is the second article of the series exploring the
interface between artificial intelligence and its
environment, as well as related impacts on society, politics and geopolitics.
This twin interface is composed of sensor and actuator. A sensor is what senses the world around the AI, be it digital or real, to input it into the AI-agent. The actuator is the end of the AI process. It allows outputting the results found by the AI-agent in the world, again, be it digital or material, in a way that is understandable to human beings.
This twin interface is a disruptive driver for AI. Indeed, success in handling and developing sensor and
actuator, or on the contrary, failure to do so, could favour the boost or burst
of the current AI development phase for actors. Furthermore, the key importance
of this interface implies it is a stake in the
current race to AI-power, besides the other drivers of AI.
We started exploring in detail this twin interface in the first article of the series, “Inserting Artificial Intelligence in Reality“. Using those examples, we found that we could best understand and handle AI if we conceptualised the interface as a sequence between worlds: the world intelligible to humans and the world intelligible to AI-agents. Finally, we started looking at the way AI-agents could be integrated according to different realities: digital-digital and digital-material.
Content – Published in two parts (see here for the second part). The table of contents becomes interactive only for members.
Corporate actors – The road beyond sensors and digital-digital output only
Impacts and consequences
Surprise, Surprise! Those key actors for the spread of AI …
Knowledge is power
Smart agriculture security?
This article, published in 2 parts, dives deeper into the twin interface that allows integrating AI in human reality. It notably looks for actuators.
In the first part, we look at the Internet of Things (IoT).
Indeed, it is a first type of ecosystem within which AI-agents may find and use
sensors and actuators, and thus be fully operational
and thrive. Thus, we explain what is the IoT and why it is a favorable
ecosystem for AI-agents.
Then, we focus as case study on “smart
agriculture” aka the Internet of Food. We explain first what is smart
agriculture. Meanwhile, we highlight how it is an
answer to the challenges of current and future food security.
In the second part, we look at how companies whether giant ones, start-ups or projects, insert AI-agents in the real world. We notably feature “John Deere FarmForward 2.0 – Revolutionizing agriculture, one plant at a time”, which goes way beyond what the usual giant actors of the digital world, such as the U.S. GAFAM, promote.
John Deere’s video and others’
endeavours help us imagine how smart farming will look like. Their effort at
creating not only sensors, but also actuators is crucial.
Finally, we turn to the impacts and consequences of smart farming. We find first that, considering the stage of development of AI, those actors that are currently crucial to see a further implementation of AI are not the giant digital companies, but those offering a real operationalisation of AI in the physical world. We then highlight how new beholders of data and thus related knowledge could impact the power of traditional actors. Third, we look at the new security needs of agriculture and how this potentially impacts international relations and geopolitics.
This is a premium article. To access this article, you must become one of our members. Log in if you are a member. A pdf version of the article is available for members with the second part of the text.
FULL ARTICLE 6353 WORDS – pdf 23 pages – plus bibliography
Featured image: Herney via Pixabay, Public Domain.
*Note that, as with previous estimates, this trend does not include the devastating impacts of climate change. Likewise, other disasters a large population could foster are not considered.. Among others, we already pointed out this possibility in 2008, see also, for example David Talbot, “U.N. Predicts New Global Population Boom“, MIT Technology Review, 2014.
Foreseeing the future, whatever the name given to the endeavour, includes two major tasks.
The first one is, of course, the analysis, the process according to which the foresight, forecast, warning, or, more broadly, anticipation is obtained.
The second one is less obvious, or rather so evident that it may be overlooked. It is, however, no less vital than analysis. We need to deliver the output of the analytical process to those who need the foresight, the decision-makers or policy-makers. Ideally, the recipients must understand that output, because they will act on it. They need to integrate the new knowledge received in the decisions they will take.*
A huge challenge runs across these tasks: biases.
We must overcome the various natural and constructed biases – systematic mental errors – that limit human understanding. This article will present first the classical way we deal with biases: we consider them – quite rightly – as “enemies” and we devote much effort to mitigate them. Then, considering the specificity of the delivery stage, this article suggests that another strategy is necessary. We need to turn our usual strategy on its head and befriend biases. In that case, scenarios become a tool of choice for an enhanced delivery of our foresight to decision-makers […]
The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.
The Everstatans: the citizens (including companies), the people, the Nation
Everstate’s central governing bodies or political authorities: the government, Parliament, the national representatives, the civil servants constituting the formal and rational modern bureaucracy.
Everstate’s regional and local governing bodies: elected representatives at town, department (or county) and region level.
Everstate’s political parties: Two major parties (loosely associated with social democrats on the one hand and conservative on the other). Other parties are insignificant in terms of national representation.
International Special fund for Sustainable Innovation and Green Energy (ISSIGE) [Scenario 2 – Panglossy]: A special fund into which the new Everstatan government decides that Everstate must participate. This fund will help polities harnessing the ecological evolution and the increasing complexity of resources, and transform those into opportunities. A specific instrument will be organised around the Regional Union and should “fund pan-Regional infrastructure projects.”
International meeting group for the resilience of the financial system (IRESFIS) [Scenario 2 – Panglossy]: Spearheaded by Everstate and its newly elected government, IRASFIS is linked to the G-20, and involves the major financial private institutions. It must bring back trust to markets and allow for a return to a proper flow of liquidity.
The International Society of States: all states actors in the world (using Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society, idea and concept).
The Regional Union: “Everstate, as many other states in the world, was also a member of a regional institution, a Regional Union of independent and sovereign democratic states, it had joined freely in the decades following World War II. The Regional Union is neither a Federation, as the United States, Canada, India or Germany, for example, nor a Confederation, but something different, in the making. Its mission, shape, organisation, membership, areas of exclusive or only shared competence and consultative responsibility are being continually reworked and redesigned through various treaties and pacts.”
The International Governmental Organisations: UN and agencies, WTO, WB, IMF etc.
The lenders’ nexus: the largest banks and financial funds and more generally any organisation lending money and operating on the financial market. Includes the shadow banking system.
Novstate: “the powerful Everstatan Company… specialised in strategy and technology consulting. Year after year, Novstate is awarded the same contracts, which end up being seen as almost proprietary, and wins new ones… Even the direct security apparatus of Everstate is not anymore fully public, as a few private companies, Everstatan and international, play there an increasingly crucial role, from multi-involvement in the army, which is challenged by its reduced size, to various security functions such as logistics or the screening done at airports.”
Novstate’s CEO: Has created Novstate at the end of the 2180s. He has become an acclaimedbusiness expert and governance counselor.
Novstate’s network of Friends Companies: “.. Novstate does not only advise governance bodies but also supplies governance services, often in areas where there are also advisors, as it unites in its network of “friends’ companies” – a new business concept derived from social networking – small security firms, quasi armies, high-tech start-ups, biotech laboratories, etc.”
Evernet: a very performing high-tech Everstatan company.
Everstate’s universities and scientists: “…Very good quality universities… Those last 60 years they have provided increasingly recognised scientific knowledge and understanding, notably in the areas of main normative concern, such as economics, business and technology. They … also play the role of think tank.
The Modern University of Everstate (MUEVT): The largest university of Everstate. It was created at the end of the nineteenth century and fundamentally reorganised after World War II.
The Everstatan School of Liberal Politics: An influential and rich department within MUEVT that at is at the forefront of research and publications in topics related to economics, monetary and fiscal policies, electoral politics, international regimes, peace studies, etc.
Lessons Learned Comment: When taking examples for an ideal-type, there is interest in naming examples in a way that will be evocative for readers at the moment of delivery. However, with time, these very names may become a drawback as they may push clients to focus on a specific case rather than on the essence of what that example meant. Conclusion, it would be better to use truly imagined names, and to add in a note specific examples to help the client with fathoming what is meant.
Novcybio International: A foreign company that develops new biotechnologies. It headquarters are located abroad, outside the Regional Union.
Novcybio Everstate: A wealthy Everstatan entrepreneur bought farmland in the impoverished Southeast at a very low price. Offering to use it to test Novcybio’s products, he could create and develop Nocybio Everstate.
In February 2019, during the Saudi Arabia-China economic forum, the two countries signed for more than 28 billion dollars deals (“Saudi-Chinese Investment Forum Signs 35 Deals During Crown Prince’s Beijing Visit”, Ashark Al Awsat, 22 February, 2019). These gigantic deals are part of the growing Saudi-China relationship. They are the economic and political continuation of the six weeks tour in Asia King Salman of Saudi Arabia made in March 2017. This tour ended with a state visit in China and a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The visit included the opportunity to start the negotiations about the integration of Saudi Arabia to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), actually a grand strategy (Michael Tanchum, “Saudi Arabia the next stop on China’s maritime silk road”, East Asia Forum, 22 March 2017).
This article explores how the specificities of the Chinese BRI and of the Saudi grand strategy create and deepen the existence of converging strategies for the two countries.
(Rewritten and revised edition) Horizon scanning and monitoring for early warning are part of the family of activities used to foresee the future, anticipate uncertainty and manage risks. Their practice is crucial for successful strategic foresight and warning, risk management, futurism or any anticipatory activity.
While monitoring is a generic and common term used for many activities, horizon scanning is very specific and used mainly for anticipation. Horizon scanning is a term that appeared in the early years of the 21st century. It refers both to a specific tool within the strategic foresight process and to the whole anticipatory process (Habbeger, 2009).*
We shall here focus on horizon scanning as a specific tool within the entire strategic foresight process. We shall contrast it to monitoring for warning (hereafter monitoring). First, we shall present definitions for the two concepts. Then, using comparison of the practice of the two activities, we shall highlight the similarities and differences between the two. Meanwhile we shall identify best practice. Finally, we shall conclude that horizon scanning, as a tool, is, actually, the first step of any – good – monitoring for anticipation.
Definitions for horizon scanning and monitoring
Horizon Scanning
As a tool, horizon scanning allows for the identification of potential new themes or meta-issues and issues, answering our concerns as defined in our agenda or context. We shall then need to analyse in-depth the issues thus identified.
Horizon scanning looks thus for weak signals indicating the emergence of new meta-issues and issues. As a result, a scan must adopt the largest possible scope for the core question under watch.
Meteorological Service of Canada (Environment Canada): Non meteorological data from weather echos can be filtered by using Doppler velocities of targets. After cleaning, only real precipitation is left.
The idea of horizon scanning is built upon older ideas and methods such as “environmental scanning,” “strategic foresight” and “indications and warning” (also labelled “strategic warning” and “warning intelligence” see Grabo, 2004). Actually, as Glenn and Gordon underline, in the 1960-1970s, most futurists used the term “’environmental scanning’. However, as the environmental movement grew, some thought the term might only refer to systems to monitor changes in the natural environment because of human actions. To avoid this confusion, futurists created various labels, such as “Futures Scanning Systems”, “Early Warning Systems” and “Futures Intelligence Systems”. The military, for its part, uses “strategic warning’ and related terms. The objective is to avoid strategic surprises (e.g. Pearl Harbour).
The English “horizon scanning” is not the same as the French “veille”, on the contrary from what some authors assert – e.g. Nicolas Charest (“Horizon Scanning” 2012 and pdf). We could best translate “veille” by “monitoring” – taken in a general way, and not more specifically for warning as here. We could also translate it as “intelligence gathering”.
Charest, actually, refers to a process: “an organised formal process of gathering, analysing and disseminating value-added information to support decision making”. Yet, this is a process from which the future and anticipation are absent. Strangely enough, the author himself underlines that the English meaning of horizon scanning implies foresight, anticipation.
Rather than conflating two practices and two words, “veille” and horizon scanning, it is necessary to distinguish both. Indeed, even though the two activities are closely related, one, horizon scanning, has to deal with the future, when the other does not have to face this challenge.
It is the anticipating quality, the necessity to “make a judgement on the future” to use Grabo’s word (Ibid.), that generates the essential difference between the two related activities.
The use of “horizon scanning” in the denomination of various governments’ offices contributed to popularise the name. For example, we had the UK Horizon Scanning Centre, created in 2004 after a call for developing such centres of excellence across government (Habbeger, 2009, p.14), or Singapore’s Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) programme, launched in 2005 (Lavoix, 2010). The way the idea became fashionable also contributed to the confusion surrounding its meaning.
Monitoring for warning
Monitoring is a part of the strategic warning process. The literature on intelligence, warning and strategic surprise documents well the idea and the process. Indeed, actors have used strategic warning since at least WWII, while intelligence studies are now a constituted body of knowledge and a discipline. For further readings, there used to be an excellent bibliography of reference on intelligence related matters: J. Ransom Clark’s Bibliography on the Literature of Intelligence, notably the section on strategic warning. Unfortunately, it has been taken down. However, it can still be accessed through the internet archive, even the section on strategic warning, but with various dates which may not correspond to the latest version, now lost.
Monitoring issues will allow for the identification of warning problems. We shall then use adequate models and related indicators for the surveillance of those problems. As a reminder, an indicator is a concept and abstraction for something. An indication is the reality corresponding to the indicator at a specific instance. We thus use indicators to collect indications. For example growth of gross domestic product (GDP) is an indicator and 5% is an indication for a specific country and time. Speed can be an indicator and 60 km/h an indication on a specific place for a specific device at a specific time.
Both monitoring and surveillance lead the collection of necessary information, as defined by the model and related indicators.
As a reminder, throughout the whole SF&W process, we process to a narrowing down of our focus, which the vocabulary used reflects. We move from the most general and encompassing to the most detailed. Let us take as example energy as a “meta-issue”. Then, “issues” could be “oil security,” “peak oil,” “peak uranium,” “the volatility of oil prices,” “the politics of energy between Europe and Russia,” “energy for China,” etc. “Problems” could be the more specific “Gasprom policies,” “the Keystone pipeline,” “Energy in the Belt and Road Initiative”, or “Energy and the Belt and Road Initiative in Pakistan”, or even “tension around this or that plant”, etc.
Horizon scanning and monitoring for warning in practice
If definitions differ, is there truly a difference in the way we do horizon scanning on the one hand, monitoring for warning on the other? Is scanning included in monitoring for warning? Should we use the same processes and the same tools for scanning and for monitoring? Or do we have to use different approaches?
Similarly grounded in models, but different sophistication of models
A first difference between horizon scanning and monitoring is the location of each within the overall SF&W process. A scan is the first step of any analysis. What does that imply?
As it is the very first thing you do when tackling an issue, then scanning the horizon implicitly assumes that no understanding or little understanding of the question exists. Yet, actually this is only an appearance.
Try to make the exercise mentally: if you start looking for something, even in the loosest way, to do that you need to have an idea, even minimal, of what you are looking for. What happens is that, unconsciously, you rely on a cognitive model. This cognitive model is implicit. Thus, to scan the horizon you already use a model, even if it is a very imperfect one.
Further away in the process of foresight or risk analysis, you monitor an issue. This is meant to happen towards the end of the analytical process, thus once you know very well your topic. On the figure above, monitoring takes place after we have created the scenarios and identified the indicators for warning.
Monitoring is thus also grounded in a model. However, we have made that model explicit. We have improved and refined it through the process of analysis.
Thus, fundamentally, both horizon scanning and monitoring are similar. Their difference, here, resides actually in the sophistication of the model used, not in the actual process utilised to do scanning or the first steps of the monitoring. Hence, scanning and monitoring can utilise most often the same of tools or supports.
Broad outlook, enmeshed outputs
Second, the definition of a scan suggests that it should only identify weak signals. However, to select beforehand signals according to their strength – assuming this is possible – would be counter-productive and in some cases impossible. Indeed, a strong signal for an issue can also, sometimes, be a weak signal of emergence for something else.
Thus, when gathering signals through a scan that aims at identifying emerging meta-issues and issues, it is desirable to be as broad and encompassing as possible.
In practice, you can note new signals, and loosely start linking them to other meta-issues or issues.
Similarly, monitoring of an issue and surveillance of a problem may also pick upon signals of novel issues emerging. Again, you should make sure you record these findings.
Thus for both horizon scanning and monitoring, you need to have a cognitive make up that is as open and as broad as possible, while also, at the same time being able to link precisely this or that fact, trend or “thing” to this issue, that problem and this indicator.
Signals and their strength for horizon scanning, indications and timeline for monitoring
Image by Jens Langner (http://www.jens-langner.de/) (Own work), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Last but not least, because of various biases, both analysts and clients, decision-makers and policy-makers are often unable to see, identify, and consider some signals “below the horizon.” They will be able to accept those signals only when they are “above the horizon,” which means when they are much stronger, as exemplified in the article on timeliness.
The position of the signal below or above the horizon, or the strength a signal needs to have to see actors perceiving and accepting it, will vary according to person.
It is thus not practically desirable to try sorting out signals according to their strength too early in the process.
In the case of monitoring and surveillance for warning, it is also crucial to sort the indications according to a timeline. That time sequence warns us about the evolution of the issue under watch. Finally, it will allow for the warning and its delivery. At least mentally, each indication or signal, or group of indications and signals must be positioned on their corresponding timelines. We use a plural here, because indications and signals can feed into different dynamics for various issues, as seen in the previous part.
We thus look at strength – for signals. On the other hand, we focus on timeline for indicators and their indications. Thus, does that mean that scanning and monitoring are different?
Actually, the strength of a signal for horizon scanning may be seen as nothing else than an indication of the movement of change on a timeline. Let me explain that further. If the signal is weak, then the situation is far from the actual occurrence of an event or phenomenon. On the contrary, if the signal is strong then one is close to it. A scan would thus be an instance of monitoring, where only indications leading to judgements according to which an event will not happen soon, but nevertheless deserve to be put under watch, are selected.
However, as we saw that it is neither desirable nor sometimes possible to sieve through signals according to their strength, then this vision of a scan is idealistic and impractical.
As a result, and practically, at the end of the process, a scan will gives us signals of varying strength. At that stage, we shall only have a relatively weak confidence of the very strength of the signals identified. In that case, using strength of signal would be a precursor to a much more refined judgement made in terms of timeline.
Horizon scanning thus corresponds to the first stage of monitoring (and surveillance) before judgements related to the signification of the signal, or indication in terms of timelines, are made. It thus exists not only at the very beginning of the whole SF&W process, but each time we monitor.
This is the 2d edition of this article, substantially rewritten and revised from the 1st edition, June 2012.
Featured image: U.S. Navy by tpsdave. CC0 Public Domain
About the author: Dr Helene Lavoix, PhD Lond (International Relations), is the Director of The Red (Team) Analysis Society. She is specialised in strategic foresight and warning for national and international security issues. Her current focus is on Artificial Intelligence and Security.
Bibliography and References
Charest, N. (2012), “Horizon Scanning,” in L. Côté and J.-F. Savard (eds.), Encyclopedic Dictionary of Public Administration.
Gordon, Theodore J. and Jerome C. Glenn, “ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING,” The Millennium Project: Futures Research Methodology, Version 3.0, Ed. Jerome C. Glenn and Theodore J. 2009, Chapter 2.
Risk management is codified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It is aimed at any organisation concerned with risk, be it public or private (Sandrine Tranchard, “The new ISO 31000 keeps risk management simple“, ISO News, 15 Feb 2018). Its forebear is actuarial science, i.e. methodologies to assess risk in insurance and finance (e.g. ENSAE Definition). Its study, as a discipline mainly of use to the private sector, progressively developed after World War II (Georges Dionne, “Risk Management: History, Definition, and Critique“, Risk Management and Insurance Review, Volume16, Issue2 ,Fall 2013, pp. 147-166).
Another “non-academic” discipline deals with risks, uncertainties, threats and opportunities or more exactly surprise. Its name is Strategic Foresight and Warning (SF&W). It results from the meeting of the older military Indications and Warning and from Strategic Foresight. Intelligence and military officers mainly developed SF&W for their needs regarding international and national security issues. Strategic Warning, for its part, for example, remains an essential mission, for example, of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as reasserted in its September 2018 Strategic Approach. Meanwhile, classical reference books on Strategic Warning are now part of the DIA 2018 Director’s Reading List. Strategic Warning and SF&W are more specifically the origin and outlook of our experience and practice here, at the Red (Team) Analysis Society.
Both disciplines and practices, risk management and SF&W, thus have different history, actors and aims. Yet, since the ISO revised risk management in 2009, we now have an almost perfect correspondence between SF&W and risk management. The ISO 2018 update confirms the similarity. This article will detail further the two processes, their similarities and complementarities.
The new risk management process thus lays the foundation for easily incorporating into the risks usually managed by businesses, all national and international security issues as usually related to states’ national interests, from geopolitics to politics, from criminality to war through cyber security. In other words, the process used to manage both the external and internal risks the corporate world faces is now similar to the way states handle their mission of international and domestic security, according to their national interests.
Meanwhile, these very similarities between risk management and SF&W should facilitate discussions and exchanges between the corporate world and the public sector, including in terms of data, information, analysis and process, according to the specificities and strength of each. When differences between SF&W and risk management subsist, we may turn them around to take the best of both world.
Indeed, what matters is to anticipate properly what lies ahead and to take adequate policies. It is not to abide by one label or another.
In this article, we detail the risk management process. We explain the new definition of risk. Then we underline the similarities with SF&W. We stress, where risk management is most different from SF&W, how the former could also help the latter. Notably, risk management provides a framework to address a sensitive area: developing and offering policy or response alternatives to decision-makers.
Featured Image: President Barack Obama attends a meeting on Afghanistan in the Situation Room in the White House. On his left, National Security Adviser James L. Jones, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, National Intelligence Director Dennis C. Blair and CIA Director Leon Panetta. To his right, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (hidden), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. – 9 octobre 2009, The Official White House Photostream, White House (Pete Souza) – Public Domain.
Copyrights for all references to ISO norms remain with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
This article is a fully updated and revised version of a text that was published first as an element of the U.S. Government commissioned report, Lavoix, “Actionable Foresight”, Global Futures Forum, November 2010 (pp. 12 & 20-24/98).
GDPR, Privacy and Cookies
The Red Team Analysis Society uses cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. This includes cookies from third party social media websites if you visit a page which contains embedded content from social media. Such third party cookies may track your use of the Red Team Analysis Society website.
If you click on "Accept", you accept our policy, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the Red Team Analysis Society website and this will close this notice. Accept AllGDPR and Cookie Policy
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
