The East Seas Security Sigils

The aim of the East Seas Security Sigils is to be a daily scan focusing on security in the East Seas, as explained below. We are currently investigating new AI ways to deliver an even better East Seas Security Sigils. The original complimentary version ran from May 2012 to April 2023. A brief presentation The East …

The Water Sigils

The aim of the Water Sigils is to be a daily scan focusing on water security. We are currently investigating new AI ways to deliver an even better Water Sigils. The original complimentary version ran from May 2012 to April 2023. The Sigils are a series of scans exploring the horizon for weak signals related to various …

Horizon Scanning and Monitoring for Early Warning: Definition and Practice

(Rewritten and revised edition) Horizon scanning and monitoring for early warning are part of the family of activities used to foresee the future, anticipate uncertainty and manage risks. Their practice is crucial for successful strategic foresight and warning, risk management, futurism or any anticipatory activity. While monitoring is a generic and common term used for …

Strategic Foresight & Warning Analysis

Strategic Foresight and Warning (SF&W) is at once process and analysis. By SF&W analysis we mean all methodologies and related issues allowing for the development of an understanding grounded in reality that will generate best anticipatory products, useful to decision-makers and policy-makers for carrying out their mission (to find your way within the myriad of labels …

The Deep-Sea Resources Brief

Human societies currently face dwindling resources and rising competition for them in the contemporary “resources order.” Thus, besides and in accordance with other ways to handle this challenge, new types and sources of resources are increasingly valuable and can make a strategic difference for polities, as well as for humanity as a whole. Meanwhile, if we are to ever learn from our worrying present, we must also, continuously, make sure that the extraction and use of those new potential resources will not have any unfavourable impact on the planet and its ecosystem, including this biodiversity to which we belong.* As has now been known since the end of the nineteenth century (Ifremer, les Nodules, 2012), mineral resources lie on the …

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Beyond Fear of Near-Earth Objects: Mining Resources from Space?

In February 2013, the fall of a meteor in Russia’s Urals (e.g. “Meteorite hits Russian Urals: Fireball explosion wreaks havoc, up to 1,200 injured“, RT, 15 Feb 2013), added to the close fly-by of Asteroid 2012 DA14, and to reports of a meteorite sighted over Cuba, reignited a renewed interest for near-earth objects (NEOs), notably because of the threat they may constitute to the earth and its inhabitants. Yet, NEOs are not only about dangers and Armageddon scenarios, they may also well be an opportunity.  The possibility to use resources from space also exists and may be seen as a major wild card, which could completely upset most scenarios on resources and energy issues, thus constituting a “grey swan,” to use Taleb’s terminology. From dream …

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The Space Resources and Security Sigils

The aim of the Space Resources and Security Sigils is to be a daily scan focusing on space and international security. We are currently investigating new AI ways to deliver an even better Space Resources and Security Sigils. The original complimentary version ran from May 2012 to April 2023. An opening article on the importance of space …

The Deep-Sea Resources Sigils

The aim of the Deep-Sea Resources Sigils is to be a daily scan focusing on the security and geopolitics of the deep sea. Why deep-sea resources must be monitored and what is at stake can be found in the corresponding Sigils Brief. We are currently investigating new AI ways to deliver an even better Deep Sea …

The Coal Sigils

The aim of the Coal Sigils is to be a daily scan focusing on coal security. We are currently investigating new AI ways to deliver an even better Coal Security Sigils. The original complimentary version ran from May 2012 to April 2023. Why a Sigils focused on coal since 2012? According to a release by the …

The Iran Crisis Sigils

The Iran Crisis Sigils is part of The Sigils, a series of scans exploring the horizon for weak signals related to various issues relevant to the security of societies, polities, nations and citizens. The aim of the Iran Crisis Sigils is to be a daily scan focusing on tensions with Iran and related geopolitical issues. We are …

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