Strategic Foresight, Warning and Intelligence Products and Documents

You will find below public documents and products related to strategic foresight, warning, risk analysis and intelligence, published by countries, international organisations and private actors. Interesting documents are added progressively. Latest, we added the video just published (28 April 2021) by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence to advertise their recently released …

Why the Messenger Got Shot and how to Avoid this Fate

“Shooting the messenger” is a popular metaphor to highlight that those who deliver warnings most often are blamed, as if they were responsible for the reason for the warning. Meanwhile and as a result, warnings are also not considered. This saying underlines that the norm is the exact opposite of the objectives of early warning …

Communication of Strategic Foresight and Early Warning

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, …

Are your Strategic Foresight Scenarios Valid?

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 …

Is the West Losing the Warming Arctic?

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. …

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 …

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, …

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 …

What is Political Risk?

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 …

Expressing and Understanding Estimative Language

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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