The nature of global conflicts is changing. We need new kinds of intellectual capital.
Indeed, why not?
In the 20th century, the United States, UK and France were engaged in international rivalries, first against Germany and later on against the former Soviet Union. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it is generally argued that violent strife has shifted from the international to the internal sphere in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Balkans. The nature of conflict is changing again, in the new era; great powers are parties to wars and disputes with states as well as non-state entities.
The world economy is going through structural changes. Old economies are gradually making way for the new ones. Growing strain on the global financial system, energy supplies, commodity trade and poverty demand new thinking.
Much of intellectual capital on global strategic issues is concentrated in the United States, UK and France. It tends to define global discourse in primarily Western terms. Elsewhere in the world, the focus is on national objectives and regional rivalries. There is a deficit of thought leadership to resolve global conflicts to which great powers are parties. This has further resulted in the neglect of core problems of humanity.
Strategic Foresight Group holds the promise of emerging as a genuinely global think tank, not just serving the needs of any one country. A great challenge of our time is to shift from the centuries old model based on the doctrine of enforcing national interests to a model based on the collaborative harnessing of the spirit of humanity. Strategic Foresight Group has demonstrated in merely half a decade that it has the conviction and competence to develop an alternative worldview in a constructive way. We also have intellectual and political assets to draw input from all continents and deliver output to decision makers anywhere in the world. We would now like to invite stakeholders and partners from different parts of the world to transform our promise into the reality of a collaborative global endeavour. We are confident that together we can make a difference. Then why not?
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Projections
In March 2003, SFG published a public report, Shifting Sands: Instability in Undefined Asia, which made the following projections:
Afghanistan: Hamid Karzai, will get re-elected in 2004 and will be in power till 2008. Afghanistan’s aid economy will create a small group of elite in Kabul. Its warfare and poppy economy will increase trafficking in drugs, illicit arms, extortion and conflicts between warlords.
Pakistan: The military will remain in control, while the elected government will provide a cosmetic democratic force. As the Jamali government strives on a very narrow margin, it may be replaced by another government at the discretion of the army.
Iran: If the US miscalculates its strategy in West Asia, and if its war on terror is perceived as a war against Islam, and if the Ayatollahs succeed in creating a sense of insecurity about the US motives in the region, people will rally around the clerics.
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Scenario Planning
Scenario Planning is used by business. But why not use it to foresee, war, terrorism and political discontinuities?
Strategic Foresight Group is one of the pioneers of using scenario planning for macro-political environment. Scenario planning is developing alternative visions of the future. It is not about predicting a particular future. It is more about mapping discontinuities than extrapolating trends. Scenario planning helps policy makers envisage various trajectories for tomorrow, so that they may take decisions today.
Selected examples of scenario planning exercises undertaken by us and produced in the form or either public reports or private confidential reports:
- Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Government of Canada, on the future electoral politics of Bangladesh
- Swedish Emergency Management Agency, Government of Sweden, on the implications of Asian extremism for European security
- Integrated Defense Staff of the Ministry of Defense, Government of India on the macro-economic and macro-political future of Central Asia.
- Government of Norway, on ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.
- Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, on the future of regional cooperation in Asia.
- World Economic Forum, on the future of the Indian economy and India’s geopolitical outlook.
- Malaysian Institute of Management and Urban Forum Malaysia, on the future of the Malaysian economy.
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Publications
Violence provides its own justifications. But why not hold a mirror to show realities?
Strategic Foresight Group has developed frameworks for measuring future costs of a given conflict so that the concerned societies may decide if they can sustain them and carry on with the conflict or choose another policy mix. The costs are measured on a large number of different parameters including economic, political, societal, cultural, psychological, diplomatic, and other factors. They are not merely about defense expenditure and opportunity costs of business. In fact, in certain circumstances, political and humanitarian costs far outweigh economic costs. The success of its report on the Cost of Conflict between India and Pakistan has resulted in the demand for SFG to undertake similar exercises for other conflicts zones, including the Middle East.
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Initiatives
 Strategic Foresight Group is currently engaged in improving relations between Western and Islamic countries. As part of this endeavour it has convened over a number of roundtables, held in collaboration with the League of Arab States and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament.
Recommendations from the roundtables have resulted in the adoption of initiatives at multiple levels. The Arab Islamic Renaissance and the Inclusive Semi Permanent Conference on the Middle East are examples of these.
 Since its inception in 2002, Strategic Foresight Group has demonstrated its ability to create analytical concepts, craft solution to regional and global problems, build networks of leaders and experts across the world and facilitate dialogues between senior policy makers representing opposite views. Increasingly, in a changing world, policies are not only determined by political and administrative leaders but also by business elite. SFG has been a resource to a number of institutions like the World Economic Forum, Goldman Sachs, Indian Merchants Chambers, as well as business leaders in different parts of the world.
Strategic Foresight Group’s analysis and reports have had an impact in various circles. For example, the group’s report, An Inclusive World: In which the West, Islam and the Rest have a stake, has been debated in both Houses of the UK Parliament. Its report on the Indian milk industry altered the national milk policy. Further, Strategic Foresight Group has at times been a contrarian voice; for instance in 2002, when international media predicted a war between India and Pakistan, SFG was the only one to articulate an opposite view.
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