{"id":3005,"date":"2021-11-29T20:30:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T19:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redanalysis.org\/?p=3005"},"modified":"2021-11-30T09:56:34","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T08:56:34","slug":"evaluer-strategique-dans-surprise-strategique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redanalysis.org\/fr\/2021\/11\/29\/assessing-the-strategic-in-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c9valuer le \"strat\u00e9gique\" dans la surprise strat\u00e9gique"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Strategic foresight and early warning are grounded in the idea of preventing surprise and more specifically strategic surprise. However, if we move away from the general idea of “strategic surprise” and try to be specific, i.e. if we try to apply the concept to a specific threat or issue<\/a> we try to anticipate, then the exercise becomes remarkably difficult. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his “Day of Infamy” speech to Congress on December 8, 1941, after Pearl Harbour surprise attack – Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The “surprise” part of the concept is relatively easily understood and envisioned. When we imagine a threat or danger occurring, we can identify and explain easily the many reasons why this event could happen unexpectedly and find us unprepared. However, understanding, assessing, and estimating these incriminated causes, then remedying them, is more complex. This is indeed the raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em> of strategic foresight and warning and risk management, and the topic of many studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategic dimension, for its part, is more elusive and far less intuitive. For example, if you were asked to specify in one or two sentences the strategic-level impacts of the use of nano-drones for hostile action, or of the global exponential increase of long COVID, or of the global or regional shrinking of the pollinators’ population and had to answer the question immediately, would you be able to do it? This is actually a very difficult exercise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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D-day allied assault routes, from Center for Military History, US Army, Public domain, from Wikimedia Commons. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Try to carry out this exercise for any issue or problem that matters to you. Can you do it very quickly? Was it easier? Probably, if you have already thought about the question and researched it, if it is one of your area of specialisation and expertise, then the chances are that you will be able to answer easily. Yet are you really sure you are truly addressing the strategic dimension of the question? Or are you merely thinking – and wrongly so – that strategy is about the long term?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the issue is about a threat that is obviously strategic, such as a war between Iran and Israel, or between China and the U.S., then it is easier to answer the question. <\/p>\n\n\n