Prospective Sense-Making: A Realistic Approach to ‘Foresight for Prevention’ in an Age of Complex Threats

Warren H. Fishbein

Chapter 15 in Forecasting, Warning and Responding to Transnational Risks, 2011, pp 227-240 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Both governmental and academic experts increasingly recognise the necessity for systematic efforts to ‘look ahead’ in order to better address — and hopefully to head off — potential security crises in what is almost universally seen as an increasingly fast-changing, complex and danger-filled world. For instance, the 2008 report of the US Project on National Security Reform, probably the most authoritative recent review of security issues from a US perspective, argued that the ‘current environment virtually puts a premium on foresight — the ability to anticipate unwelcome contingencies’ (Project on National Security Reform, 2008: vii). Leading Canadian environmental-security expert Thomas Homer-Dixon has called for the development of ‘prospective mind’, and former national-security advisor to Vice President Al Gore, Leon Fuerth (2009), has advocated ‘forward engagement’: both are roughly comparable calls for systematic, sustained and highly proactive consideration of potential future challenges in a wide range of connected-issue domains (see also Homer-Dixon, 2006). And, in terms of concrete actions, numerous governments, multinational groupings and private sector organisations have in recent years established programs to more effectively anticipate challenges in security and other issue areas: among the most prominent are Singapore’s Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning program (RAHS), the UK’s Horizon Scanning Unit, OECD’s Futures Program, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Program (see, e.g., Habegger, 2008).

Keywords: World Economic Forum; Pearl Harbor; High Reliability Organisation; Strategic Assessment; National Intelligence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-31691-1_15

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230316911

DOI: 10.1057/9780230316911_15

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().