Author Archives: Dr Helene Lavoix (MSc PhD Lond)

Methodology to Analyze Future Security Threats (2): a Game of Chess

This article is the second of a series looking for a methodology that would fulfill the challenging criteria demanded by our time. Previously, we saw that a single “story” initially told at a general level, the political dynamics that are at the core of a polity, could be used to build the very specific model needed to answer a strategic foresight and warning (national security) question or a political risk interrogation. Very practically, how shall we do that? How are generic dynamics going to help us with our task? How can we proceed? This is what we shall see now. Related Towards an Operational Methodology to Analyze Future Security Threats and Political Risk (1) Methodology to Analyze Future Security Threats (2): a …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No128, 28 November 2013

Editorial – Si vis pacem para bellum (If you want peace prepare for war) and biases – The continuous escalation in East Asia is worrying to say the least. We have increasingly stronger signals pointing towards the possibility of war, including considering Japan’s challenging domestic situation. Windows of opportunities to de-escalate are most likely to open too in …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No127, 21 November 2013

Editorial – This week, three main themes stand out. They are unsurprising as we have been following them for a while, yet they show how difficult it may be to warn about an issue, i.e. to convince a client or an audience that a signal is neither noise nor anymore weak but strong (e.g. changes …

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Towards an Operational Methodology to Analyze Future Security Threats and Political Risk (1)

In this day and age of speed, not to say haste, unequally shared resources and wish to relatively easily obtain answers to complex questions, we are faced in strategic foresight and warning analysis (or political risk analysis) with a very serious challenge. We must choose a methodology that: allows for a “good enough” analysis (Fein, 1994), …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No126, 14 November 2013

Editorial – Below the horizon? The current tragedy of The Philippines, hit by the typhoon Haiyan “is the very model of a modern environmental catastrophe”, as underlined by Reuters’ blogger Philip Simon in his “Cat bonds wouldn’t have helped the Philippines.” This is certainly not below the horizon; it seems obvious, and is displayed on …

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Event EEAS (EU): High Level Conference on Managing Complex International Crisis

EEAS (EU) Event: High Level Conference on Managing Complex International Crisis To inform those of you who would be interested in attending (registration needed) to this very interesting forthcoming high level conference, to which we participate by moderating (and contributing to the organization of) a session. Click on image to register (closing 15 November 2013).

The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No125, 7 November 2013

The Million Mask March organized by Anonymous on 5 November as a day of global protest received little attention in the media and mobilized, according to photos, less than what could be seen previously with Occupy. However, it can nevertheless be taken as an indication of a generalized discontent, even if it is neither mobilized …

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Facing the Fog of War in Syria: The Tragedy of Kurdistan

This post is an update for the State of Play: The Kurds in the Syrian civil war. It can be read independently, but readers will be able to refer to the initial post for background. A general call to arms to fight Jihadis – Since first clashes erupted on 12 July 2013, intensifying on 16 July, notably over and in the city of Ras al-Ain, the YPG (The People’s Defence Units – see updated mapping of actors below) has been fighting Jahbat-al Nosra (JAN) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL) (van Wilgenburg, Al-Monitor, July 16 2013). At the end of July, fighting was raging in the area of the oil fields of Rmeilan “around the …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No124, 31 October 2013

A new world order in the making: America, Britain and Russia – The world is changing and the decisions taken by the various actors are not only reactions to those changes and their anticipated direction and impact, but also contributions towards the very evolution of the system. We thus see the U.S. revising – rather …

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The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No123, 24 October 2013

Japan, an exemplary case for a complex world? The situation of Japan can be seen as a perfect case that exemplifies the complex dynamics into which we are taken. Absence of foresight and warning as well as refusal to consider the reality of environmental risk – and to act accordingly – plays a large part …

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