Category Archives: Methodology of Strategic Foresight and Early Warning

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Scenarios for the Future of Libya – Scenarios 1: Towards Peace? (1)

Image: Libyan dialogue participants in Skhirat, Morocco, posted on UNSMIL Facebook page, 26 June 2015rAfter having focused on understanding the actors in Libya’s civil war, and presented our basic scenarios outline (see previous post), with this article we shall begin detailing the scenarios and evaluating their likelihood, starting with assessing the potential for a peaceful solution for Libya’s future within the next three to five years.Scenarios 1: Towards Peace The Council of Representatives (COR) and General National Congress (GNC) have agreed to participate in diplomatic talks for the sake of achieving peace and ending Libya’s civil war. Click to access larger imageScenario 1.1: The Peace Negotiations, Brokered by External Forces, are Successful and a Peace Treaty is SignedAn external actor, …

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Climate Change, a Pause or an Aposiopesis?

On 4 June 2015, Science magazine published “Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus,” which addressed what some see as an apparent pause in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998. In the paper, Thomas R. Karl and others presented updated global surface temperature analysis, which they think reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC and does not support the notion of a “slowdown” or a pause in the increase of global surface temperature. For those who firmly believe there is a pause or even a downward trend, that paper released the Kraken. Whatts Up With That?, a website dedicated to climate change skepticism, called the new paper “laughable”.  Dr …

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Scenarios for the Future of Libya within the Next Three to Five Years

Image: “Rebels Heading for Tripoli” by Surian Soosay [CC BY 2.0] via Flickr Now that we have identified and understood the actors in Libya’s civil war (see State of Play), we may outline the various scenarios regarding Libya’s future within the next three to five years. A civil war with two rival governments, armed coalitions, …

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Monitoring the War against the Islamic State or against a Terrorist Group?

The war in Syria has now become fully internationalized, after its expected regionalization, notably favoured by the failure to stabilize Iraq after its state was destroyed by the 2003 US-led Iraq war. The two, initially unrelated wars have morphed into a war against one of the fighting actors on the Syrian battlefield, the Islamic State, originally born from the Iraqi …

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The Red Team Analysis Weekly 157 – Information Wars

Editorial – Information Wars – Information or more broadly belief-based wars seem to multiply right now, relayed by many official declarations, articles and analyses, although fortunately not all.  This is a worrying phenomenon because it leads to direct polarization (enhancing feelings of threat, fear, “all because of an evil other that must be fought”) and to inaccurate analyses, which in turn also fuel polarization. Information wars: propaganda, biases and conspiracy theories We can see this phenomenon at work regarding Ukraine, Iraq, or, in a lesser way because the spotlight is not right now directed at this issue, China and the various disputes in the East and South China Seas. In Iraq, the way the al-Maliki government accuses Saudi Arabia to support ISIS, when actually a more …

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The Red Team Analysis Weekly 149 – War and Weak Signals

Editorial – War and Weak Signals – While progressing through the raw mass of information of The Weekly and editing it, initially, it seemed obvious the editorial should focus on Obama’s visit to Asia, the TPP and especially on the U.S. President’s assertion in the Yomiuri Shimbun regarding the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands: “The policy of the United States is clear — the Senkaku Islands are administered by Japan and therefore fall within the scope of Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. And we oppose any unilateral attempts to undermine Japan’s administration of these islands”. The accommodating Chinese News reactions to this American statement, as a willingness to keep the U.S. outside the dispute, are also to be underlined …

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Actors and Factors In Future Threats Analysis (3) – The Crisis in Ukraine

(photo by Andrew Butko, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)This article focuses on a third analytical challenge at the core of the foresight and warning process, the fact that actors and “factors”, or rather variables, are often mixed together. Using the example of the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, the first article of the series explained how to map a strategic foresight and warning question, notably how to move from factors to variables and the second underlined the importance to define and name the actors relevant to the question as objectively as possible and suggested ways to do it.The “black box” actorAs we recall from the last post, during the first steps of a mapping for the future evolution of the crisis in Ukraine, both factors …

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Actors Labelling and Factors In Future Threats Analysis (2) – The Crisis in Ukraine

(photo by Mstyslav Chernov/Unframe – CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimediacommons)This article is the second of a series that deals with the core of the foresight and warning analytical process. The first text explained the mapping process and how to move from factors to variables. Here we focus on the second challenge analysts and participants to workshops face: how to include actors relevant to the question as objectively as possible.The process we use to map an issue or a foresight and warning question seems simple enough, especially once one understands what is a variable and how to specify it, as we saw and explained in detail previously. However, when done, notably within a workshop setting, when different participants brainstorm to map …

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Actors and Factors In Future Security Threats Analysis (1) – the Crisis in Ukraine

(photo by Mstyslav Chernov/Unframe – CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimediacommons)This series of articles deals with the core and basis of the foresight and warning analytical process, explaining it while stressing three most common challenges analysts and participants to workshops face: identifying factors correctly (this article); specifying actors objectively (2-); overcoming an inadequate mix of “actors and factors” (3-). Practical ways forward will be suggested.The example that will be used as case study throughout those three posts is the 2013-2014 crisis in Ukraine, with, as corresponding strategic foresight and warning (SF&W) question, “What are the possible futures for the Ukrainian crisis over the next two years?”Compared with our previous methodological series, these posts may seem to address more basic problems. However, …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 144, Geopolitics also matters for businesses

Editorial – Geopolitics also matters for businesses – Among the big changes that the “Ukraine and Crimea crisis” are bringing or catalyzing, we may be seeing the end of the hegemonic belief that economics, and “business” only matter. Now that the E.U., its European members and the U.S. could be moving towards sanctions against Russia …

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