The Unfrozen North - Turn 1 (2025)

By 2025, we decided that the Polar Ice Cap would have retreated beyond Severnaya Zemlya, effectively opening the Northern Sea Route from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. This would have the effect of opening the Arctic Ocean to commercial traffic from East Asia to Europe and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

To facilitate the opening of the Polar Silk Road, China established the Arctic Investment Programme. As a feature of this, a transportation corridor between Harbin, Yakutsk, and Tiksi was put under development. That corridor would be completed by 2030, for use thereafter in Turn 3. Port facilities in Tiksi were included as part of this development, and would come on stream in 2030. As part of the AIP, funding was offered to Canada to develop the North West Passage, but this was declined.

Russia developed a mineral and hydrocarbon extraction research facility at Murmansk. This was funded and staffed by Chinese SOEs and developed a reputation for expertise in these areas. On Sakhalin Island, Japan financed the further development of the LNG trans-shipment terminals. This went hand in hand with the establishment of an Economic Development Institute in Sapporo to focus on the development of the Sea of Okhotsk region, including the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kurile Islands. 

The United States deployed six Coast Guard cutters to the Arctic Ocean, but their home port remained as Seattle, reducing their effective time in the region. Work was commenced on developing a home port facility at Prudhoe Bay. Owing to Canadian resistance to the use of the Pan American Highway to transport materials, this would not be complete until 2035, for use thereafter in Turn 4. This was part of a general retreat of US commercial interests in Canada. By 2025, Big Oil had exited Canada owing to the shifting economics of oil extraction. Canada aimed to provide alternative work for the displaced labour by encouraging the fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Denmark, at the behest of the European Commission, tabled an environmental motion that wasn't fully understood by the international community. Russia voted for the motion, but the US and Canada vetoed it. The motion tabled by Denmark managed to alienate the population in Greenland, giving rise to an uptick in support for the Greenland Independence Party.

This was the situation in 2025. The Arctic Ocean had become navigable, China had seized the opportunity to develop the Polar Silk Road, and the NATO response had been disjointed and disunited. Would things change in the years to 2030?

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

The Unfrozen North - The Starting Point In 2020

Once we have defined the scope of the game, the next step was to narrow the focus a little to determine what it is that the actors were seeking to achieve and to set out the resources they had at their disposal at the start of the game. We felt that a good opening game would be one that defined a baseline scenario for 2050. This would be a continuation of current trends resulting from current policy. The players could change the direction of policy from within the game, but we felt it would be interesting to play the game as a continuation scenario.

In subsequent games, we might like to explore a transformational scenario, a new equilibrium scenario, or even a collapse scenario. We would do this by modifying the objectives of the players and the resources they have at their disposal at the start of the game. However, this was a continuation scenario, and that determined the player's objectives. 

We felt that Russia would be the key to the game, so we cast the most experienced player in this role and constrained them with a declining population and western imposed capital controls. We took the objectives for Russia to be the commercial exploitation of the mineral and hydrocarbon deposits in the Arctic, along with the opening of the Northern Sea Route, and the commercial exploitation of the Arctic based fisheries.

Defining this role for Russia naturally led to the objectives for China and Japan. The objective for China would be the successful opening of the Polar Silk Road by 2050, along with the creation of Russia as a tributary client. The objective for Japan was a little more commercial - to have access to the Northern Sea Route and to enjoy the benefits of the Arctic fisheries. We hoped to spice things up a little by asking Japan to pursue it's claims to the Kurile Islands.

Weighed against the Asian interests are the interests of the NATO states. Although we were to focus on the Arctic Council, we added a little granularity of a loosening NATO as well. We saw Canada as being the lead NATO state in the Arctic by virtue of the extent of it's Arctic coastline. From within our reference frame, we thought that Canada would seek to exercise a degree of territoriality over the Arctic, but from within the framework of the Arctic Council.

We saw the US as taking a diametrically opposed view to Canada. The position of the US was to maintain the Arctic as a global commons to be enjoyed by all, but to make ready for the exploitation of the hydrocarbon deposits within the Arctic. The position of the European Commission was in sympathy with the Canadian desire to maintain the institutional framework of the Arctic Council, but also in sympathy with the American desire to regard the Arctic as a global commons. We hardwired into the game a fragmented and fractious NATO infrastructure.

The resources commanded by the players at the start of the game in 2020 were very limited. The Polar Ice Cap effectively blocks all navigation across the Arctic Ocean. Russia has port facilities at Murmansk. The US and Canada share a transportation highway. And that's it. We found this to be a good opening point because much if the key infrastructure underpinning the development of the Arctic region has yet to be laid. In that regard, the players had a blank canvass onto which they could project the necessary developments.

At this point, the game was defined and we were ready for battle to commence.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

Introducing The Unfrozen North

In the autumn of 2019 I was engaged in an exercise to reveal a number of strategic concerns faced by the defence community by the middle of this century. Two of the concerns thrown up by this piece of research were the consequences of disruptive climate change - particularly with regards to the thawing of the Polar Ice Cap - and the strategic consequences of a loosening of the cohesion of the institutional framework of the international order. It struck me at the time that this would have the makings of an interesting matrix game.

A good starting point in game design is to consider the critical uncertainties that the game is to examine. One axis stood out as a possibility - institutional fragmentation -vs- institutional cohesion. In terms of the matrix game, we took this to signify the degree of effectiveness of the Arctic Council. A cohesive institutional framework would imply an enhanced Arctic Council, whereas a fragmented framework would imply a diminished Arctic Council, when compared to today.

We took the view that the extent to which the thawing of the Polar Ice Cap could be disruptive  was dependent upon how the various actors viewed the unfrozen Arctic Ocean. At present, the Arctic Ocean is treated as of it is more of a global commons, to be enjoyed and shared by all. This is largely due to the remoteness of the region and high cost of commercially exploiting it. As the ocean thaws, increasing it's accessibility and reducing the costs of operating in it, there is an incentive for some actors to adopt a policy of territoriality within the Arctic, effectively enclosing the commons. We took that as our second axis.

We felt that six actors to the game ought to give us some interesting results. In terms of general stance, we felt that the two main Arctic nations - Canada and Russia - would take a higher degree of territoriality, with Canada preferring the multilateral framework of the Arctic Council and Russia seeking a degree of institutional fragmentation. As opposites, we felt that the minor Arctic actors - the US and Europe in the form of the European Commission - would seek to retain the Arctic as a global commons, with the US comfortable with a diminished role of the Arctic Council but with the European Commission seeking to enhance it's role. We took China and Japan as the main shipping beneficiaries of an unfrozen Arctic Ocean. We had both of these nations as veering towards enclosure and as veering towards a reduced scope for the Arctic Council.

This gave us the main framework outline for the game. We next had to identify the starting point for the game in 2020 - we had previously settled on a framework of six turns of five year each - and to write a general briefing for all players and specific briefings for each individual player. However, that is a story best left for another time.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

Matrix Gaming And The Futures Narrative

Things end badly in Taiwan.

Matrix Gaming is a technique that can be used to develop a strategic narrative. We can use this in an historical context to generate, say, alternative histories; or we can use it in a contemporary context to develop a set of current strategic alternatives. From a futures context, we can use the technique to examine a set of alternative futures around a particular issue.

The technique works in an additive way, where a sequence of narratives - often competing narratives - are layered upon each other to tell a nuanced story about an unfolding future. When the competing narratives give rise to an impossible clash of events, the game umpires will help to resolve this clash through a variety of techniques that allow them to do so.

The game is played in a sequence of turns. Each turn represents a specific time period. In a game about the present, each turn could represent the activities undertaken in a day, or a week, a quarter, or whatever time period has relevance. The point is that the game turns are relatively short. In a game about the future, the period of time represented by the game turn can be much longer. For example, in a game examining how an issue might develop between now and mid-century, a six turn game with each turn representing five years would do the trick. If, on the other hand, we wanted to examine developments to the end of the century, then a game of eight turns, each spanning a decade, might be more appropriate. It is best to aim at a game of between six and eight turns.

Each of the players adopts the persona of an actor within the game. This can be a bit like role playing at times. The number of actors is, in many ways, determined by the issue to be examined. The actors could be specific people or nations, or they could be something more abstract. The point is that they are an actor relevant to the issue to be examined. Each actor - real or abstract - is normally given a set of objectives to achieve in the game. In each turn, each actor states an action that they would like to undertake in that time period, along with three reasons to justify that action. This will have a consequence. The umpires will then assess the success of that action - or otherwise - in relation to that consequence. Like this, an ongoing narrative within the game builds up.

At the end of the game, the players will have generated a futures narrative around a specific issue within a certain time frame. This is normally what we would call a scenario and it provides the link between matrix gaming and futures work. Different games will yield different results. It is best to treat each game as a means of highlighting the broad contours of an emergent future. It is possible to vary this by changing the objectives of one or more of the players in a subsequent game on the same issue. Like this, a set of scenarios could be generated using the technique to provide a range of future contours for the issue concerned.

This can be very useful in seeking alternative futures. The technique brings out the inner creativity of the players whilst providing a focus for their attention on a given problem. It becomes a means to generate a set of strategic narratives in a relatively systematic way. It is through playing with the uncertainties involved that we can become more acquainted with the broad outline of an emergent future.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

The New Silk Roads: The Present And Future Of The World

This is the companion volume to the earlier historical work by the author. It works as a contemporary analysis in the age of Brexit and Trump. As a futures work it is far less convincing. I think that this is because it struggles to escape from the present, and falls into the trap of seeing the future as the same as the present, only more so.

I am very taken by the analysis of the present. In many respects, the opening of this book continues the story of the previous book. The previous book more or less comes to today. This books starts in the recent past and updates us on where we are today. It charts the movement in the locus of the world economy back eastwards again. It establishes the Heart of the World as a central component in our story. It highlights the role of trade and economic interdependence as the basis upon which our prosperity rests. In a globalised world, our gaze shifts back to where it was before the Industrial Revolution.

The rise of Asia has been at the expense of the western nations. More precisely, at the expense of the working and middle classes of the western nations. And they don't like it. The author sees this as the underpinnings of both Trump and his 'America First' philosophy, and Brexit and the 'Taking Back Control' philosophy. The rivalry between the US and China pre-dates Trump, but Trump has given the rivalry a sharper edge. On reflection, this process can be seen in the alarms of the 1980s, when the fear was that Japan would dominate the western nations. That didn't happen, but the fear remains.

This provides the key to the future. We have a resurgent China, a Russia that has found itself after the Communist interlude, a more assertive Iran, and a more dynamic India. This is the lens, according to the author, through which we shall view the future. I am not so sure. It may be a bit early to write off Europe and North America just yet. The dynamism that brought them to prominence three hundred years ago is still there. Africa is another area that has the opportunity to develop its potential in this century. We cannot write off Africa quite yet. However, it is hard to dispute that Asia will loom large in our emergent futures. The question is whether we should resist or accommodate that rise?

My inclination is to accommodate rather than to resist. Not everyone agrees. It will be interesting to see how this tussle plays out in the coming years. What we can say for certain is that we occupy a point of change, and that the future is likely to be quite different from the past.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

The Silk Roads: A New History Of The World

This is one of those books that exposes the depths of my ignorance. I have to admit that I was educated conventionally, which meant that history started in Greece and swept westwards over the centuries. It was all about Europe, with jus a slight nod to Egypt during the Roman era, and how the world accorded with events in Europe. To a younger me, the idea that the centre of Asia would have a long and involved history would have sounded as an absurdity.

How wrong I was. There was an extremely large gap in my knowledge, and this book has exposed to me the some of the dimensions of that gap. At a late age, I now find myself wanting to fill that gap. I know little of the history of China, Persia, India, the Near East, the Far East, the Middle East. In fact, anywhere east of Greece. And I count myself as an educated man!

Now that the epicentre of the world is reverting back to the Heart of Eurasia, it has become more urgent and insistent that I catch up with my knowledge. If we are to understand the world in which we live now, we cannot ignore the Imperial legacy in the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Basin. If we want to engage with our own near futures, we have to have some knowledge of the great trading routes across the spine of Asia - the routes known collectively as the Silk Roads.

This book tells the tale of many roads. I like the way in which it is organised. It shows that one road leads to another and before we know it, we arrive at the present. The book is rich in scholarship and presents a coherent account of where we are today. It explains the significance of the Belt and Road Initiative, and why it is that China is willing to wager large stakes on it's success. It explains the historical basis of the hostility towards the western powers in the Persian Gulf. And it helps to place the enigma of Russia in a wider historical context. With this knowledge of history, have a better understanding of our contemporary world.

There are many strands of the book that I would like to take further. The Asian expansion of Nineteenth Century Russia seems like an interesting topic for study. How much of this was trade driven? How much of it was just colouring the blank spaces of a European map? I think that will be the first place for me to revisit. There are many others. I am hoping that the bibliography and notes may provide some guidance here.

This is not a short read but it is an easy one. The book is written in an accessible style and the narrative helps the reader to flow from one topic to another. The style may not be to everyone's taste. The author has abandoned the dry style of the academic historian in favour of a more journalistic style for the benefit of the reader. I think that it works. It has certainly expanded my horizon greatly.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020