A warning does not exist if it is not delivered. This is a key lesson highlighted by the famous expert in warning Cynthia Grabo, who worked as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. government from 1942 to 1980 (Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning, Editor’s Preface). Similarly, a foresight product such as scenarios, for example, …
Continue reading “Communication of Strategic Foresight and Early Warning”
Scenario building, also known as scenario analysis, is a crucial methodology to anticipate and prepare for the future. This is a method used from risk management to strategic foresight through early warning systems. More broadly, it is a key tool for all anticipation that needs to be actionable. The higher the uncertainty, the more important …
Continue reading “Are your Strategic Foresight Scenarios Valid?”
Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli The militarization of the Arctic – So what? Over the last few years, NATO, the U.S. and Scandinavian militaries have been multiplying national and regional manoeuvres in the Arctic. This is especially true in Norway and the Barents Sea, very close to the Norwegian and Russian land, air and sea frontiers. …
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 …
Continue reading “What is an Issue in terms of Strategic Foresight & Warning and Horizon Scanning?”
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, …
Continue reading “Global Apocalypse Now, the California Way”
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 …
Continue reading “Arctic China: Towards New Oil Wars in a Warming Arctic?”
Political risk is an idea many actors very often use. But what does political risk mean? What does political risk address? With the video below, we explain what is political risk. Meanwhile, we experiment with a new medium. We also test an approach through brief explanations of fundamental concepts and ideas. Let us know what …
When dealing with the future, we use a language that includes specific notions such as the expression of probability and of impacts. In terms of probability, for example, we use words such as “likely” and for impacts terms such as “severe”. Furthermore, to be truly complete, we should add a confidence judgement. As explained by …
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(Credit Image: Pierre Markuse, CC BY 2.0) The global wildfire is engulfing the world. Throughout 2019, immense swaths of Australia, California, Alaska, Russia, central Africa, and the Amazon basin, were part of this immense bonfire. This conflagration took place after the historic fire seasons of 2018, 2017, 2016… (David Wallace Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, Life …
AI, AI Everywhere The Artificial Intelligence field (AI) is creating a continuity that encompasses climate change science and the preparedness of the U.S. military to climate risks. This continuity appears through the central role of AI in two apparently disconnected foresight civilian and military uses. AI and climate science Climate Central published in Nature a …
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