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Maximizing the Power of Strategic Foresight Array of blue light-emitting diodes and time-gated specialized camera is used to collect whole body image data from test mannequin (Courtesy Howard J. Walls/ Aerosol Control Group Lead, RTI International) precisely and outcomes predicted; in Maximizing the Power the national security environment, variables are dynamic and complex, and outcomes are the product of emergent interactions among people, institutions, of Strategic Foresight and systems. The exact path of these interactions is inherently nonlinear and By Amy Zalman difficult to predict. The national security strategist is thus also in need of specialized thinking n order to develop plans and recom- skills to help him or her mentally model mend actions in support of strategic uncertainty and grasp the nonlinear and I goals, national security profession- complex pathways of change. These als need the ability to anticipate the thinking skills do not come naturally impacts of change in their external to the modern American military environment. The planner’s task is education system, which valorizes an Dr. Amy Zalman is CEO of Prescient, a complicated by the fact that from Enlightenment-inspired scientific ap- Washington, DC–based foresight consultancy. the vantage of the present, there are proach and has historically focused on She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Culture, Communications, and Technology Program at many possible impacts of change. In teaching critical thinking skills. Such Georgetown University. a laboratory, variables can be titrated skills are valuable when a problem is well 14 Forum / Maximizing the Power of Strategic Foresight JFQ 95, 4th Quarter 2019 defined and it is possible to identify its What Is Strategic Foresight? Yet enthusiastic support, while component parts, evaluate evidence, and Strategic foresight is an interdisciplinary necessary, is not sufficient to create a generate solutions. However, they are not domain that draws on cybernetics and future-minded national security work- sufficiently robust to address situations systems thinking, management sciences, force. It is possible to use strategic that are as ambiguous, loosely bounded, sociology, data science, cognitive psy- foresight well or badly. In the national and complex as the possible futures of chology, and creative thinking, among security community today, there is room national security. others. Anticipatory thinking to support for improvement. Strategic foresight In contexts of uncertainty, another set decisionmaking is its essence. The indi- activities are often brought into class- of skills—those contained in the strategic vidual who invests time in learning how rooms and conference rooms in ways foresight toolkit—is required. Arguably, to think like a futurist emerges with an that are superficial. A quick exercise in this requirement is especially vital today: appreciation for the cognitive barriers scenario-building, for example, may give technological advancements and their faced by the human brain when it participants the satisfaction that they have unevenly distributed but powerful effects, attempts to envision the future and will engaged in strategic foresight. But when climate change, and social change are be well-practiced in holistic, synthetic, conducted superficially, such activities unfolding at a challenging pace in our in- analytic, and creative ways of thinking. typically become exercises in reinforcing terconnected global system. Black swans, Organizations that adopt foresight rather than challenging preexisting ideas cascading problems, and uncertainty practices to help them identify trends about what the future will be like. To be stemming from interconnections abound. at an early stage and adapt or innovate clear, superficiality is never intentional. The stakes are high for anticipating and to leverage those trends are in stronger Instead, urgent pressure to produce activ- planning effectively for the potential im- competitive positions than those that ities leads course or activity facilitators to pacts of change. do not. This value is demonstrable: A using frameworks and ideas that are the By way of example, imagine you recently completed longitudinal study easiest to access instead of those that are are a strategist in the 1970s seeking to of large European firms demonstrated the most appropriate. Popular ideas and understand the implications of the newly that those incorporating foresight into activities circulate through the national created Internet. Its early architects did their strategic planning realized signif- security educational community uncriti- not view Internet protocols as a potential icant gains in both profit and market cally, so that rough usage in one place is locus of national security threat because capitalization over the long term.2 replicated in another, and it is difficult to they assumed that small communities of Management science has revealed that get new thinking in the door. mutually trustworthy academics would systematically scanning the peripheral As the history of national security be the most likely users of the future environment for weak signals of change community engagement with foresight Internet. Critical thinking would not can help people and institutions prepare demonstrates, thinking creatively about assist you in generating scenarios of the for otherwise unexpected events.3 the future is a cultural challenge. Large possible futures of the Internet, let alone Foresight is not an unknown quantity bureaucracies, such as the Department of conceiving of it as the foundational infra- in the U.S. national security space, yet it Defense, are often resistant to change and structure of future human institutions. has waxed and waned as a discipline of to reckoning with the fact that conditions In open-ended situations such as the interest. Following sustained enthusiasm for success in the future may be differ- future of a new technology or institution, from the end of World War II through ent from those of today. Institutional systems thinking and frameworks to the early 1990s, interest languished as proclivities can shape and constrain the help structure imaginative and expansive the dramatic events of the moment—the imagination that is required to develop exploration of the implications of change fallout from the demise of the Soviet insights into the future of a profoundly are required. Strategic foresight supplies Union, the 9/11 attacks, the 2008 finan- complex, changing, and uncertain world. these frameworks. cial crisis—took center stage. Recently, To take one example, futurism is fre- This article makes a two-pronged strategic foresight has reappeared on quently presented in mainstream culture argument. First, strategic foresight, a dis- the radar. The growing number of con- as primarily associated with technological cipline I describe in more detail, provides ference sessions, professional education innovation. This is a narrow use of the the vitally needed mindsets and frame- opportunities, and pursuits such as sci- strategic foresight skillset; technology is works required to plan in uncertainty.1 ence fiction writing contests designed to only one of the drivers of complex social Strategic foresight should be taught trigger creative thinking about the future events such as war. When they assume, and used more widely in the national attest to this rise in interest. This is all rather than interrogate, a high-tech security space. Second, where foresight good news, and, hopefully, leaders in all future, military participants in strategic is being taught and used (it has recently relevant institutions will continue to grow foresight foreclose the opportunity to had an upswing in interest), there are their support for fostering successors who identify signals of change and devel- opportunities to improve its application are skilled at thinking both systematically opment across the spectrum of human and better serve planning staffs and and creatively about how to envision an activity. This has in the past led to insti- decisionmakers. uncertain future. tutional blindness to signals of change in JFQ 95, 4th Quarter 2019 Zalman 15 Paratrooper assigned to Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, provides security outside subway tunnel at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, March 21, 2018 (U.S. Army) societies that might produce low-tech, of strategic foresight. To use the foresight foresight offers compelling frameworks asymmetric approaches to armed conflict. toolkit more comprehensively and effec- for asking these sorts of questions, and One of the key tenets of foresight is that tively, planners will also think deeply and the frameworks themselves are not it is imperative to explore not only the creatively about the possible, a much wider fancy or difficult to understand. This is most likely future but also a range of and more complex world of potential all the more reason why advancing the possible futures. It is in this arena where than that of simply the probable. This understanding of strategic foresight as a potential black swans lurk. is not easy; it takes intellectual rigor and discipline and a strategy support tool is The popular premise that future self-knowledge to explore trends that not only a good idea but also a clear and wars will take place in megacities (with may violate one’s institutional worldview. simple route to creating opportunities more than 10 million inhabitants) offers How could a war unfold in a nonurban for asking difficult questions about the another example
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