Do small nations matter?

The collapse of the Soviet Union heralded the onset of an era that was seen as a unipolar moment. The United States was the global power without peers. And yet, that didn't quite mean that America could do as it pleased. Small and nimble nations could leverage their unique attributes to frustrate US policy. With a growing rivalry between China and the US, is the unipolar moment coming to a close? If so, what does that mean for smaller nations? Are they likely to matter more or less?

To start at the beginning, size does have its advantages. A large nation, such as the United States, will necessarily have a large population that sustains a large economy. Larger states are bound to be dominant economically by virtue of the size of their financial and commercial activities. These larger economies can support a larger level of governmental activity and a larger military. It also makes them an attractive destination for migration as a cultural magnet internationally. These are the sources of large nation power - economic power, military power, and cultural influence. In this sense, small nations are at a  disadvantage and matter less.

This, however, is not entirely the case. On each of these bases of power, it is possible for smaller nations to find a niche role. The global economy is one that is highly specialised and inter-dependent. If one part of the network ceases to function fully, the whole network becomes vulnerable. We have seen this in a number of cases in recent years. For example, flooding in Thailand in 2011 disrupted the production of key motor components that had a knock on effect to disrupt the production of motor cars on a global scale. This was the result of a natural disaster, but had it been the result of governmental policy, the effect would have been very similar. These vulnerabilities were made quite clear in the vaccine nationalism that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this sense, size does not matter.

Equally, a large military establishment does not always guarantee the effective use of military power. The various conflicts that have arisen in the Middle East this century amply demonstrates this point. The most recent - the Americans and NATO withdrawing from Afghanistan - suggests that hostile forces, whilst less numerous and not as well armed as their opponents from larger nations, can prevail over mighty military establishments. Whilst size generally suggests a path to victory, this is not always the case.

Cultural influence is a further concept where size counts, but not absolutely. There is a large degree of cultural influence from larger entities, but there is also a role for niche players. For example, American cinematic blockbusters tend to dominate, but European cinema has a role to play in producing films of greater artistic content. The Oscars serve one audience, whilst Cannes serves another. The dominance of the genre does not lead to a blanket monoculture and there are plenty of niche crevasses in which cultural variety thrives.

Even in a period that is seen as unipolar, there has been ample opportunity for smaller nations to exert a degree of influence that is not suggested by their size. If we are moving away from the unipolar moment, it is not unreasonable to expect this situation to change. It is not clear whether this change will favour smaller nations or not. On the one hand, the deft nation will be able to play one of the larger nations against the other, to it's advantage. Turkey provides an example in this case, where the United States is played against both Russia (for military support) and China (for economic support). This has the potential to become a feature of the immediate future as the larger powers vie for influence with the smaller nations.

On the other hand, it is also in the interests of the larger nations to ensure a degree of conformity amongst their client states. It is interesting to see this process in action though the funding arrangements of the various BRI projects. Recipients of China's BRI largesse are left in no doubt about their role as client states and their obligations to support a wider Chinese view of the world. In this respect, small nations do not matter as much as they might because they are expected to follow a given line. Some smaller nations find this conditionality unacceptable, whilst others see it as perfectly acceptable.

Looking ahead, it is likely that we shall see this process in operation at the COP26 meeting of nations later this year. There is a broad desire to construct some form of agreement, but little consensus over how that agreement should be structured. In the end, power politics will come into play and determine that eventual outcome. This will prove to be the key test as to whether or not small nations matter. For effective action, they need to. But will the greater powers be willing to surrender their interest to the lesser powers? That remains to be seen.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2021

Could NATO fall apart by accident?

The point of running a game like The Belarussian Right Hook is to discern the potential contours of an emergent future. In my form of foresight, the point of studying the future is to outline these potential contours in order to take action to reinforce the futures that we like and to act to resist the ones that we don't. This makes the exercise necessarily analytical, but this act of cognition needs to underpin any action that may affect a future outcome. 

It should be said that many possible outcomes could result, not just the single outcome from a single game. When we previously played this game, NATO was able to destabilise Russia to such a degree that we could question whether the current Russian regime would survive a defeat in the field. Such are the uncertainties of military action. However, our focus is now upon the defeat of NATO in the field that resulted from this game. We ask the question of whether or not NATO is robust enough to withstand defeat in the field?

We identified three key areas of interest. First, does NATO have sufficient political cohesion to survive a defeat in the field? Much of the defeat can be attributed to a piecemeal approach to the conflict, along with varying degrees of commitment from the various NATO members. Second, there is the question of the point at which NATO ought to become involved to counter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Had NATO become involved earlier, then it could be argued that things would not have gone so badly. Third, to what extent has long term budgetary parsimony severely degraded the ability of NATO to act in the field? Budget restrictions are a recurring theme, everyone seems to agree that something should be done. Then other priorities emerge for the funding. This had quite an impact in the game.

NATO is essentially an organisation for mutual defence in Europe. It has only been used in anger once - in Afghanistan - which some might argue was a bit of a mistake. Western hubris gave NATO a role outside of Europe. Now that history hasn't ended and the Russian challenge has re-emerged in the 21st Century, the political effectiveness of NATO can be called into question. NATO suffers from three weaknesses. First, NATO is not the only security organisation in Europe. The Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Union blurs the issue. In the game, we had NATO members not in the EU, we had EU members not in NATO, and we had countries that were in neither the EU nor NATO. This fragmentation of authority and decision making made the NATO response hesitant, which proved to be a decisive factor. It would be interesting to play the game again, where NATO can mobilise in Turn 1 of the game, rather than sitting things our.

Second, NATO contains differing views on how warfare should be conducted. Some members are relatively war-like, whilst others tend to incline towards more peaceful solutions. This manifests itself in the willingness for the public in the NATO nations to engage in military action. We didn't model this into the game other than a political hesitancy on the part of some nations to become involved. This touches upon the third weakness - the activities of Russia. Russia has been involved in a campaign of political influence amongst the European NATO nations for some time. It uses a combination of propaganda and commercial interests to influence European opinion. This has an impact on the willingness of the nations affected to undertake and support action at the point of conflict. It certainly has an impact on the second key area of interest - the point at which NATO becomes involved in the conflict.

In this game, NATO only became involved with the triggering of Article 5 by virtue of the Russian invasion of the Baltic States. It was only at this point that NATO started to mobilise for action. By the time that the NATO forces - especially the German and Polish armies - had mobilised, Russia controlled Estonia and Latvia. This had the effect of placing the conflict zone in Lithuania. There were two points at which NATO - given the political will - could have achieved a better result. NATO could have mobilised and deployed in the Baltic States as Russia invaded Ukraine. This might not have deterred Russia, but it would have changed the basis of Russian calculations. We ought to play this game. Second, after crushing Ukraine, it seems obvious that an ambivalent response from NATO would encourage Russian ambitions in the Baltic States. Had NATO mobilised and deployed as the Russian forces re-positioned themselves, that would have changed the basis of Russian calculations. Again, this could prove to be an interesting game. 

However, this presumes the relative effectiveness of the European NATO forces. This is an assumption worth challenging. A decade of austerity across Europe can be believed to have had an impact on the combat effectiveness of the European NATO forces. Many senior officers, upon retirement, have written about the degree to which combat effectiveness has been degraded. Some of this, one suspects, might be vested interests pleading their case. However, some of this might represent an accurate warning of a very real shortfall. We won't know until the point of conflict arrives. A policy that relies upon the European NATO allies as first responders could be questioned on grounds of effectiveness. This is a fairly large unknown. In the game, the German and Polish armies were relatively ineffective and the whole NATO campaign relied upon them. This is from where defeat originated.

A defeat for the organisation would be a significant threat to its survival. It is interesting to speculate how a future NATO would evolve after a defeat in the field. This would make an interesting game in itself. Our game ended when Russia occupied all three Baltic States. We had it that Russia then offered peace terms to the European NATO allies. That peace conference, in itself, would make an interesting game as a precursor to the game about how NATO would evolve - if it survived - after the peace settlement. Those are games for another day.

For now, the conclusion that we draw from this game is that, under the right circumstances, NATO could fall apart by accident. Of course, this future is not a given. NATO can act in the present to avoid this. It can bolster its political cohesion, it can sharpen its defences, and it can act to counter Russian influence in Europe. It remains to be seen whether or not this will happen.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2021

NATO Falls Apart - The Timeline

The original object of this game was to derive a timeline that could be used as an input into an economic and financial wargame at a later stage. The actual result was something of a surprise for us. Our original thoughts were that Russia would occupy Ukraine. The Russian invasion of the Baltic States was unclear at the start of the game, but as Russia had done so well, and as it had received such little opposition from NATO, Russia could become emboldened to resolve matters in the Baltic States also. This is how the timeline wove itself.

Timeline: D+3

Geopolitical headline: Russia advances from south west Belarus to occupy Lviv and north west Ukraine, before moving southwards to threaten Kiev. Russian columns advance from southern Russia across southern Ukraine to occupy Kharkov and to threaten Kiev. Russian reinforcements arrive from the Central and Far Eastern Military Regions and are deployed along the Russia-Ukraine border.

Response in:

Washington: Outrage at events, diplomatic efforts to contain the situation.

Brussels: Outrage at events, diplomatic efforts to contain the situation.

Tokyo: Concern at events.

London: Concern at events, diplomatic efforts to contain the situation.

Beijing: Concern at events

Timeline: D+6

Geopolitical headline: Russia occupies Odessa and Kiev. The Ukrainian army is destroyed in the field and Russia occupies all of Ukraine.

Response in:

Washington: Concern at escalation of events. Warning issued to Russia about the integrity of territorial boundaries in Europe.

Brussels: Concern at escalation of events. Warning issued to Russia about the integrity of territorial boundaries in Europe.

Tokyo: Concern at escalation of events.

London: Concern at escalation of events. Warning issued to Russia about the integrity of territorial boundaries in Europe.

Beijing: Concern at escalation of events.

Timeline: D+9

Geopolitical headline: Russian forces regroup and are redeployed along the Russian border with Latvia and Estonia. Russian forces deployed along the Ukrainian border with Poland.

Response in:

Washington: Outrage at escalation of events. Warning issued to Russia about the integrity of territorial boundaries in Europe.

Brussels: Under the Common Security and Defence Policy, the Visegrad Battlegroup and the Nordic Battlegroup are alerted to activation.

Tokyo: Concerned by events, places armed forces on alert.

London: Follows US lead within the NATO framework.

Beijing: Concerned by events, places armed forces on alert.

Timeline: D+12

Geopolitical headline: Russian forces invade Latvia and Estonia, defeating their armies in the field. Tallinn and Riga are occupied. Lithuania is invaded and Vilnius besieged. Article 5 is triggered and NATO counter-attacks. German and Polish forces relieve Vilnius and push back Russian troops to Riga. The Visegrad Battlegroup advances across southern Ukraine to occupy Dnepropetrovsk and Donetsk. Romanian forces besiege Odessa.

Response in:

Washington: The United States is placed upon a war footing. Material assistance is provided for European NATO allies and US forces are mobilised for action in Europe.

Brussels: Under the Common Security and Defence Policy, the Visegrad and Nordic Battlegroups are committed to action. Germany supports collective action.

Tokyo: Concerned by events, armed forces remain on alert.

London: Commits RAF and Royal Navy to the conflict, along with land based forces when they are available. GCHQ commences cyber warfare against Russian targets.

Beijing: Concerned by events, armed forces remain on alert.

Timeline: D+15

Geopolitical headline: NATO airpower is committed to action. A small Ukrainian military force is gathered in Kharkov. Russian forces recapture Kharkov and Donetsk, pushing back the Visegrad Battlegroup. German forces besiege Russian occupied Riga and are repelled back to Vilnius.

Response in:

Washington: Congress approves Presidential action, US forces to be committed as they become available.

Brussels: Proposal to commit EU to NATO actions, no decision taken.

Tokyo: Concerned by events, armed forces remain on alert.

London: Commits to supporting NATO action.

Beijing: Concerned by events, armed forces remain on alert.

Timeline: D+18

Geopolitical headline: Air conditions are favourable to Russia, giving overwhelming air superiority. Russia retakes Dnepropetrovsk and largely destroys the Visegrad Battlegroup. Ukrainian forces recapture Kharkov. The German and Polish armies are destroyed outside of Vilnius, which is occupied by Russian forces.

Response in:

Washington: Diplomatic and material assistance to NATO allies, USAF committed to action.

Brussels: Wrangling over the degree of commitment to provide to NATO. Hungary, Greece and Cyprus begin to object to the EU becoming involved.

Tokyo: Concerned by events, armed forces remain on alert.

London: Commits to supporting NATO action.

Beijing: Concerned by events, armed forces remain on alert.

Timeline: D+21

Geopolitical headline: Russia destroys the remaining Ukrainian forces and reoccupies Kharkov. Odessa is relieved and the Romanian army is destroyed. Russian forces consolidate their position in the Baltic States and advance no further.

Response in:

Washington: Diplomatic and material assistance is given to the NATO allies.

Brussels: Wrangling over the degree of commitment to provide to NATO. Hungary, Greece and Cyprus object to the EU becoming involved.

Tokyo: Concerned by events, armed forces remain on alert.

London: Commits to supporting NATO action.

Beijing: Concerned by events, armed forces remain on alert.

As the game unfolded, the collapse of NATO was not readily evident. Germany and Poland were able to field armed forces of reasonable strength on paper. The Visegrad forces in southern Ukraine were able to threaten the Russian hold on that country, and there was a threat to Russian forces along the Polish-Ukrainian border. 

The turning point was the German siege of Riga. Had the German forces occupied the city, Sweden and Finland could have ferried troops into the combat zone, which would have made all the difference. The failure to retake the city, even with air superiority, was the high point of the NATO advance. As it happens, both Riga and Tallinn remained closed to reinforcements from Sweden and Finland. This proved to be decisive. It allowed Russia to consolidate its hold on Riga and provided a launching pad from which the German army could be defeated in the field and from which the Polish army could be expelled from Vilnius, to be destroyed in detail. At that point, 21 days into the crisis, NATO ceased to have any forces in north eastern Europe. It was here that we called a halt to the game.

This is such an intriguing timeline. It has a feel of 1940 to it. The Red Team launches a blitzkrieg offensive that conquers all before it. There are a quick succession of Allied collapses. And with that, the international order prevailing up to that point falls apart. As stated before, this game is the prelude to an economic and financial game. One can wonder what impact this sequence of events would have on the financial markets. I guess we will have to play that game to find out.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2021

NATO Falls Apart - The Game

My long term commitments have shifted a bit recently. so I found myself with a bit of time on my hands. This is a rarity that doesn't happen too often. However, it does occur from time to time, so I always have in mind a list of things that I would like to do if the tempo weren't so pressing. High on my list of things to do was to revisit The Belarussian Right Hook (more details). To recap, the premise of the game was to consider the possibility that Russia could use the cover of joint exercises in Belarus to launch an operation to tidy matters away in Ukraine.

When we played the game before, we generated some interesting results, but I was left dissatisfied with the game on a number of levels. I felt that the Russian forces grouped around Brest in Belarus at the start of the game should have been deployed at an earlier stage, and I also felt that the Russian reinforcements from the Central and Far Eastern Military Regions ought to have been brought into the game a lot sooner. This version of the game encompassed both of those features. The Russian 20th Army Corps, located in Belarus, was tasked to be the first Russian unit to move. The reinforcements from the Central and Far Eastern Military Regions were permitted to enter the game in Turn 1 (in the first three days), if the Russian player had sufficient movement allowance to effect that.

We retained the complications of the Blue Team player - a complicated structure involving NATO members, EU members who are not members of NATO, and Ukraine and Moldova, who are neither members of NATO nor the EU. We added the complication that elements of the EU Nordic Battlegroup - essentially Sweden and Finland - could only enter the game via the ports of Riga or Tallinn, if they were not under Russian control. We retained the rules regarding Belarus - for it to be on the winning side, regardless of who that might be. And we kept the rule that the nuclear threshold would not be passed.

The purpose of the game was to produce a timeline that we could use in our sequence of nested games. We will publish that timeline in a future post, including reactions from around the world to give us a global perspective to unfolding events in Europe.

Did we achieve something useful? It's hard to answer that question, but we did achieve an interesting result - by D+21, three weeks after the first Russian incursion into Ukraine, NATO imploded. The sequence of events were a lukewarm response to the initial Russian incursion into Ukraine. This encouraged Russia to undertake a Blitzkrieg in the Baltic States. Riga and Tallinn were occupied within three days. The European NATO forces were committed piecemeal, relying heavily on German leadership. First the German, and then the Polish armies were defeated in the field, and NATO couldn't survive the political fallout resulting from those defeats. Russian forces occupied Vilnius, and at that point we called a halt to the game. 

The game provided us with some hard questions that we will explore in a future post. For now, we can place a marker that three avenues of approach suggest themselves. First, how fragile is NATO politically? In the game, NATO fell apart through political squabbling. When things started to go badly, the less committed nations started to weaken their contributions to the collective effort. Second, at what point should NATO become involved? There is an argument that had NATO become involved when the Russian 20th Army Corps besieged Lviv, the blitzkrieg into the Baltic States would have been much harder to achieve. If either Riga or Tallinn had not fallen, then Sweden and Finland could have become involved. Third, just how corrosive is the European skimping on defence spending? How far has the desire for budgetary savings impaired the effectiveness of the European NATO armed forces? We shall look at these questions at greater depth in a future post.

This is one future that we hope not to happen. It suggests a number of courses of action that we can take in the present to avoid that future. It is of some comfort that some of those measures seem to have been taken, but that is a different story for another day.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2021

What happens when generation rent ages?

We are all growing older. We are growing older as individuals (people always have) and we are growing older as a society. What is different about the current trend towards ageing is that it is becoming a societal as well as an individual feature. As a societal feature, it contains all sorts of problems that we haven't encountered before and for which the welfare state is ill prepared. The welfare state is poorly prepared on two counts - for the volume of numbers of aged people in the near future and for the novel situations that they will bring with them.

Let's deal with the novel situations first because they are likely to be more pressing. In the UK, the number of private rental tenants aged between 45 and 64 has doubled in the past two decades. In the next ten years or so, many in this cohort will reach state retirement age. Their personal financial circumstances when they reach retirement age, are likely to be of concern. In its construction, the welfare state rested upon two assumptions. First, that elderly renters would occupy social housing rather than the private rental market. Second, that the private rental market would be used mainly by younger renters prior to them getting on to the housing ladder. These two assumptions can now be called into question.

To begin with, there has been a dramatic decline in the social housing rental market since 1980. Starting with the sale of the council housing stock and exacerbated by the reduction in social housing new builds, the stock of available social housing has fallen considerably in recent decades. From about 5 million units in 1980, the social housing stock has fallen to between 1.5 and 2 million units today. In the same period, the population of the UK has risen from about 56 million in 1980 to about 65 million today. There are far fewer units of social housing to accommodate many more people. Just as the population started the ageing process, the number of units of social housing has fallen, forcing larger numbers of elderly people into the private rented sector.

In the private rented sector, this ageing population of private renters are competing with increasing numbers of younger renters. In the two decades from 2000 to 2020, the number of 25 to 34 year olds privately renting has increased by two and a half times. The average age of the first time buyer in the UK has risen from 26 in 1980 to 31 today. This is all having an impact on the private rented sector. Housing is scarce and expensive. This trend is one seen across Europe and North America, not just the UK.

If these core assumptions of the welfare state no longer hold, then they have a consequential impact on other aspects of the welfare state. The way in which the actuarial profession structure their forecasts of how much is needed in retirement assume a pathway where a person buys a house on mortgage, which has been repaid by retirement. The core assumption is that the retiree has zero housing costs. On this basis, Royal London calculated in 2018 that a retiree would need a pension pot of £260,000 to maintain a median salary. If rental costs are added to the retiree's needs, then a pension pot of £445,000 would be needed. Britons are currently nowhere near the smaller figure, let alone the larger one.

This suggests a future in which the older private renters could clock up significant rent arrears, face eviction from housing, and could fall back on the state for assistance. The social infrastructure, outside of the adult care sector, just isn't there. The situation is worsened by the prospect of the other feature of societal ageing - the sheer volume of numbers of old people needing assistance at the same time. Not only will the state face an intractable problem surrounding the housing of the elderly it will also face the question of placating larger numbers of articulate and older citizens who are ready to exercise their vote.

All of this suggests a future in which there will be a much larger role for the state than we are accustomed to. Greater levels of financial assistance will be needed for housing, healthcare and adult social care. Not only will the levels of assistance be greater, but also the numbers requiring assistance will be much higher too. How this will all be paid for is anyone's guess. It does suggest a fundamental restructuring of the welfare state is likely this decade. So, what happens when generation rent ages? Public spending goes through the roof! (Pun intended).

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2021

What makes a scenario persuasive?

If we accept that the future is undetermined, and if we accept that a plurality of futures can emerge from our present state, then how do we distinguish between competing visions of the future? We don't have perfect foresight, despite, on occasion, an 'official future' being given to us as a planning assumption for our future thinking. In which case, if there is no 'true' view of the future, then surely we have to fall back upon those futures which we find more persuasive as a technique to discern the signal from the noise. What is it, then, that makes one scenario more persuasive than others?

The futures cone might help us to order our thinking in this area. To start with, in order to be persuasive, the future has to be possible rather than impossible. There is a sequence whereby impossible futures become possible, but from the immediate future horizon, we have to accept the impossibility of some futures. For example, some science fiction writers talk of inter-stellar travel using 'faster than light' drives of some sort. Given the current state of our technology, and barring the possibility of humanity being gifted such technology, these futures seem impossible for the immediate future. That impossibility could change in the future, but from the perspective of the present, such futures are unlikely to be too persuasive.

If we travel further into the cone, we move from the realms of possibility to the realms of plausibility. If one future is possible because it might happen, another becomes plausible because it could happen. We are now starting to enter an area where we find some futures likely and others less so. We make no comment on the degree of likelihood in this zone, we just note, in an ordinal way, that some futures are more likely than others. The more likely the future is, the more persuasive we are bound to find it. Of course, the assessment of likelihood is a question of subjective probability, which accounts for different people viewing the same scenario with different degrees of persuasion.

The question of subjective probabilities pulls us from the area of plausible futures to the area of probable futures. In this case, we are a bit more certain about a set of future outcomes. Once again, the probabilities are likely to be subjective, but we are at the point where we can be fairly sure of ourselves because we see the set of future events as fairly likely to happen. The danger here is hubris, which encourages us to abandon any lingering uncertainty about the future. This is the zone in which 'official futures' are created.

The final category of futures we need to consider in this context are projected futures. These are futures that arise on the assumption of ceteris paribus, that things more or less progress as they are progressing now. There is a degree of persuasiveness about these futures, particularly in the very near term future, where it is not unreasonable to assume that most things are set. Change takes time to implement and to have an impact. In this moment, ceteris paribus is not a wholly unreasonable assumption. This can make some projected futures fairly persuasive.

What about preferred futures? We have separated preferred futures form the other categories because they blend a mix of likelihood and desire. These are the futures that we want to happen, which may or may not be influenced by their likelihood. These are the futures from which a compelling vision of the future may emerge. Or they may be the futures where we simply disappear in a cloud of wishful thinking.

As with all things, much depends upon out motives. If we are using futures as an aid to strategic planning, then we are likely to dwell in the area of probable and plausible futures, with the occasional excursion into the realms of possible futures as wild card exercises. If, on the other hand, we are using futures as a device for transformational change, then we are less likely to focus on the likelihood of a set of futures than their desirability. We will find some futures more desirable than others and that desirability enters into our appraisal of which futures we find more convincing. We can try to guard against this bias, but bias and choice are part of the human condition, so they can't be eliminated entirely. 

It is, however, an argument in favour of a diverse range of participation in transformative and normative futures. This is hard to achieve in practice because some interest group is bound to be overlooked. A set of scenarios derived from too narrow a base are unlikely to be too persuasive. So what does make a scenario convincing? A more likely and a more desirable scenario will undoubtedly be more persuasive than one that is neither. This is all part of telling a better story.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2021

How do you measure a return on investment for foresight?

Let's just suppose that we agree that foresight ought to have a return on investment. In that case, how would we go about measuring such a thing? It is entirely possible that we could devise new models of foresight evaluation, but a shorter route would be to take existing models of investment appraisal and to adapt them for the purposes of foresight evaluation. The financial community has a long history of doing just this. Would to be possible to commandeer some of their models to put to work in evaluating foresight?

We have stated before that one of the objections to using foresight as a better aid to strategic planning is the utilitarian nature of the methods used. However, in this case, they can also be a strength. We can readily see that it is worth undertaking a project if the benefits outweigh the costs. It is also true in reverse, an activity is not worth undertaking if the costs outweigh its benefits. In commercial language, it fails to meet the action threshold. There are problems with these approaches, but let's set those aside for the moment to focus on the core of the technique. It might help to examine the cost side of the equation before going on to review the question of appraising the benefits.

This approach is best suited to what the evaluator community calls project evaluation. When reviewing the prospective costs of a project, the starting point has to be what it is that the project hopes to achieve. What is it examining? Over what time horizon? With what deliverables in mind? So many foresight projects go astray because this clear vision of what the project is about is absent at the beginning. A degree of clarity is needed at the outset because that will dominate the structure - and the cost base - of the whole project ahead.

If you are certain what it is that you want to look at, the next question to resolve is who is to be involved in the process. In many respects, that is a question of determining which stakeholders have a voice in the process, and which stakeholders are not consulted. In some projects the core stakeholders appear obvious, in others less so. Those close to the subject being reviewed might expect a voice, whilst those affected by it remotely may not. This involves a balancing act for the project managers. On the one hand, a more diverse group will yield more robust results. On the other hand, including too many voices will reduce the effectiveness of the core of the project. In this sense, a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

At some point the project will have to take a view on tool selection. If we have defined the problem to be examined, if we have determined who will be conducting the examination, we then have to take a view on how the examination will be conducted. This is the point at which we encounter the question of uncertainty. We want to choose the right tool for the job, but we cannot know for sure a priori which is the right tool for the job. We can only say that, on a balance of probabilities that a given tool is likely to yield useful results. 

This is where the staffing question and the tool selection issue start to become inter-dependent. Some tools require a wider input than others, Some tools require a more intensive time cost than others. It is at this point that we may have to scale back our ambitions for the project because the budget won't support the initial scale of those ambitions. The process of adjustment may tend to be adaptive in how it rolls out. However, if the project is to go ahead, then eventually a compromise will be reached on the cost side. It is then we can turn to the prospective benefits.

We have already stated that the project will have a focus in the future. This could be a forecast of a future state or, more likely, the discernment of the broad contours of the future. The project is likely to aim at producing insights into the future from which we can profit by preparing for that future today. This is an area which can prove to be quite problematic. 

To start with, our view of how the future might unfold could be wrong. There is considerable uncertainty about future states. The prospective benefits to our actions are remote - they lie a long way off from the present - and may not be clearly defined. The benefits are likely to be less quantifiable than the costs and the impact of our actions might not be experienced in quite the way we previously anticipated. We could do the right thing for the wrong reasons and the wrong thing for the right reasons. There is no way of knowing a priori exactly how things will turn out. The future out-turn could be broadly in line with our original thoughts or it could quite equally be very different. The right foresight tools should enhance the likelihood of the former and lessen the chance of the latter, but nothing is guaranteed.

If foresight is a means to gauge a volatile, uncertain, complex, and adaptive world; then the tools it uses are likely to reflect that state of being. This means that when we measure the return on investment on foresight, we ought to include a statement to the effect that the process contains a wide margin of error. At the end of the day it will be up to the client to determine whether or not a specific project is likely to provide sufficient benefits to justify the cost. What the foresight professional can do is to help frame that judgement in a fairly systematic way.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2021