How NATO Nations use Foresight
to bound the Future World
Long range forecasting for the security environment
ISMOR 28
30 Aug – 2 Sept 2011
“No matter how clearly one thinks, it is impossible
to anticipate precisely the character of future
conflict. The key is to not be so far off the mark that
it becomes impossible to quickly adjust once that
character is revealed.”
Sir Michael Howard
August 2011
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Outline
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Bit on NATO SAS panel and the RTO
Bit on background to the specialist meeting
Details of the meeting
Proceedings and discussions
Conclusions and recommendations
Where you can find out more
August 2011
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The NATO SAS Panel
North Atlantic
Council
Conference of National
Armaments Directors
Military Committee
Research and Technology Organization
Research and Technology Board
Research and Technology Agency
System
Analysis
and Studies
Systems
Concepts
and
Integration
Sensors
and
Electronics
Technology
Information
Systems
Technology
Applied
Vehicle
Technology
Human
Factors and
Medicine
Modelling
and
Simulation
Group
TECHNICAL TEAMS
Network of 3500 scientists/Engineers collaborating on ~ 130 activities per year
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Long term planning process best practice
August 2011
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SAS 088 Objectives
The theme for the SAS-088 Specialists Meeting was
“Long Range Forecasting of the Security Environment”
• The SAS-088 Specialists Meeting aimed to:
• Share knowledge, facilitate cooperation and critically evaluate
national and international approaches to estimating medium-to-long
term security conditions, to inform defence planning;
• Explore what methods, techniques and processes NATO nations
use to perform long-range forecasts of the future security
environment; and,
• Understand better the implications for the future security
environment to assist defence forces in establishing coherent
strategies and force structures for future NATO military operations.
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Specialist Meeting - Participants
• Study Co-Directors:
– Noel Corrigan, GBR, BAE Systems,
– Shaye Friesen, CAN, DRDC CORA,
• Organising Committee:
CAN (co-chair); GBR (co-chair); SWE (hosts); EST; NOR; NATO/ACT
• Papers from:
CAN, DEU, EST, GBR, ACT, NLD, NOR, POL, SWE
• Participants from:
BEL, CAN, CZE, DEU, ESP, EST, FRA, GBR, ACT, NLD, NOR, POL, SLO, SWE, USA
• Keynotes:
• Stephan De Spiegeleire, The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, NLD
• Simon Jewell, Director Strategic Capability Solutions, BAE Systems GBR
• Cdr Dick Börjesson, Future Capabilities Directorate,
Swedish Armed Forces SWE
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Specialist Meeting - Summary
 A 2 day Specialist Meeting, with third day for core team
synthesis and draft report generation
 Scale – more than 40 attendees , 3 keynotes, 12 papers
 Structure – keynotes, 3 sessions of 4 papers each,
Syndicate discussions, final wash up session
 3 Sessions
 Methods
 Process
 Integration with Policy
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Methods
• Scenario based
– As a means to provide a systematic outlook of ‘real world’ politicalmilitary conditions (strategic & operational) for developing precise
military assessments of capabilities and force structures that may be
required for future operations; the scenario approach is used within
NATO and national capability and force development processes
• Theme based
– a complementary method to the scenario-based approach for
producing foresight products for policy and defence planning. Since
understanding current and possible future environments is essential to
strategy, the thematic approach aims to provide options for decision
makers that are less concerned with predicting a future than with
making informed and better decisions.
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Scenario approaches
• Force Planning Scenario
Development Method: Defence
Research and Development
Canada (DRDC)
• 10-Step Cyclical Process: Army
2040 Project – Canada
• Siegener Scenario
Development Method:
University of Siegen - Germany
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Thematic approaches
• NATO Joint Ops 2030
– Supreme Allied Command
Transformation had 18 themes for
their analysis of 2030
– A Theme is a description of
developments that could lead to or
provoke change in the ‘why’ (role
and embedding), ‘what’ (missions
and tasks) and ‘how’ (structures,
processes, and concepts of
operation) of future operations and
organisations
– A realized strategy is influenced and
built upon intended, deliberate,
unintended and emergent strategies
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Tools
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Scenario Analysis Tool
Matrix-Based Quad Chart
The Futures Wheel
Science Fiction Writers
Sociometric and Evolutionary Analysis
Scenario Workshop
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Quad view 1
Scenario 1
Major Terrorist Attack (CFDS 3)
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
CBRN Attack
Explosive Attack
Cyber Attack
Attack using new
Technology
Scenario 4
Scenario 5
Scenario 6
Scenario n
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Quad view 2
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Quad view 3
Gone Mad
Environment
Global
Quagmire
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High Octane
Energy
Materialism
Green World
& Climate
Recyclable
Society
Proactive Action
Crisis Reaction
Sustainable – Supply Exceeds Demand
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Unsustainable – Demand Exceeds Supply
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Process
• NATO Long Term Requirements Study (LTRS)
and Multiple Futures Project (MFP)
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resonated very positively with Alliance nations and its partners,
Inform and Support a new Strategic Concept Development
Support Policy Forming Process
Align Transformation work. - common transformation situation
awareness
– http://www.act.nato.int/mfp-documents
• The Case of Estonia
– Dominated by Russian Policy and behaviour
• NATO: The Joint Analysis Lessons Learned
Centre (JALLC)
– NATO lacks a proper institutionalized lesson learned process
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Integration with Policy (1)
• Sweden - insights provided to the Swedish Armed
Forces and government in planning for future
challenges
• Possible future missions as inspired by the NATO Multiple Futures
Project;
• Long-term implications of economic inflation on the Swedish
national defence budget;
• Six strategic military trends;
• A risk assessment of the new all volunteer system; and,
• An assessment of a comprehensive approach towards national
and international crises management.
• Netherlands - review how the level and character of
defence expenditures were expected to evolve in
relation to the current level of ambitions
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Integration with Policy (2)
• Norway - prioritized long-term security forecasts
that take a historical perspective, while translating
global strategic trend projections to potential
challenges on the national level
• Poland - Forecasting of the future security
environment and armament development planning
are parallel processes requiring increased
information exchange and cooperation
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Foresight Assumptions
• You cannot know the future, but a range of possible futures
can be known;
• The likelihood of a future event or condition can be
changed by policy, and policy consequences can be
forecast;
• Gradations of foreknowledge and probabilities can be
made; we can be more certain about the sunrise than about
the rise of the stock market;
• No single method should be trusted; hence, cross
referencing methods improves foresight; and
• Humans will have more influence on the future than they
did in the past.
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Foresight Principles
• Broaden the aperture
• Answer three questions
– (1) what is it specifically trying to tell decision
makers?
– (2) why is it significant?
– (3) why should the decision maker care?
• Develop close relationships with decision makers.
• Explicitly tie foresight efforts to current issues and policy
development
• Must be monitored against the environment
• Must be timely
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Ten trends in Foresight for Defence
1. Interest is growing
2. Better balance between planning horizons –
away from presentism
3. Diversification of types of foresight
4. Diversification of methods
5. Diversification of frames of reference
6. More focus on non –”known knowns”
7. Black Swan Hunting
8. Anchoring foresight
9. Towards whole of government Foresight
10. More inside-out Foresight
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Cultural influences
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Conclusions
• The national perspective is reflected both in the methods used, and
in the priorities given to particular attributes of the future
• The use of a range of techniques and methods is preferred
• Foresight studies have limited impact within many NATO nations:
Politicians are not interested as the outputs are outside the
timescales of their tenure; the Military appreciate the benefits but
must weigh these against short term operational imperatives;
• Many NATO nations lack a sufficient body of foresight experts with
expertise in the appropriate methods and tools. (Though the track
record of foresight “experts” is not particularly good)
• The value of a forecast is not in its quantitative accuracy, but rather
how well it supports decision-making in the present
• This requires early and continual engagement with decision makers
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Recommendations
• NATO nations should recognise and exploit the range of
foresight methods and expertise available within the
alliance
• NATO to adopt a range of best practice identified within
the nations and the agencies
– SAS panel to codify this practice
• Improve the utility of foresight by strengthening the
linkage with policy formulation amongst the nations
– Ensure the needs of the policy makers are recognised and
addressed
– Ensure all stakeholders, including industry, are engaged
August 2011
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Further Reading
• More information - report, papers and
presentations, at
• http://www.rta.nato.int/abstracts.aspx?RestrictPanel=SAS
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Foresight – all good?
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Much foresight being done (also – even especially – in Europe/the NL), growing cottage industry
<-> Genuinely popular in various circles (also at highest levels)
Striking degree of presentism/reductionism (especially with point scenarios)
Striking irrelevance of foresight
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Few good examples (NOT defence planning NOR petrochemical sector)
Should be an organic part of strategic planning, frequently isn’t
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Virtually no validation effort (and what little there is, is very discomforting) / little meta-foresight
Security foresight (unusually) ‘negative’ bias
Suspiciously facile acceptance of ‘process as important as outcome’
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No real constituency for forward planning
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Politicians (“not in my tenure”)
Parliament (in Europe, defence/security = political death warrant)
Defence/security industry (shareholders interested in short-term)
Military (certainly not in an era of high OpTempo)
Academics (too ‘applied’, not ‘rigorous’ enough)
Media (not sexy enough)
The broader public (too complicated)
Growing impact of complex adaptive systems-thinking (<-> OR)/ Risk vs uncertainty
 need for more rigour and modesty (META-foresight) and anchoring it in strategic planning
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Foresight – all bad?
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Our track record on foresight is dismal (see also Taleb 2006 The Black Swan, especially chapt.
9 ‘The scandal of prediction’)
– Understood theoretically
• Batchelor 2007 – “private sector forecasters also have incentives to bias their forecasts
to optimism or pessimism” to stand out from the crowd
• principal-agent model (reputation) – Lamont (2002)
• herding model – Banerjee (1992)
• Scattering – Henry (1989)
• Seer-sucker model (Armstrong 1980 – “no matter how much evidence exists that seers
do not exist, suckers will pay for the existence of seers”)
– And empirically
• Tetlock (2005) – 82’000 predictions of about 300 pol/ec experts; experts' error rates
much higher than they estimated; not better than non-experts; negative relationship
between reputation and ex post prediction accuracy
• Makridakis e.a. (2000) competition
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Yet consensus forecasts (robustly) most accurate ones (Zarnowitz and Braun 1993 - see also
Surowiecki 2004) – at least in economics
– Especially with diverse set of foresights (Bunn 87; Goodwin 2000)
– Different ways – unweighted (de Menezes, Bunn and Taylor 2000) and weighted (Harvey
and Harries 2004; De Spiegeleire e.a. 2005 for a concrete example)
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Knightian (1921) Risk vs Uncertainty
– Risk – computable, ‘ludic’, Gaussian – still at the heart of the discipline
– Uncertainty – incomputable, epistemically opaque, Mandelbrotian – up and coming
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