Foresight and the future of international relations - Part 1

Why foresight?

In his first appearance at the United Nations (UN) on September 18, US President Donald Trump declared that the UN should “focus more on people and less on bureaucracy” in an apparent effort to both praise the potential of the organisation and criticise mismanagement. Many voices have raised concerns about what this means for the future of the UN, the role of the US inside the multilateral system, as well as international relations at large. There have been a few of similar questioning events in the recent past, which make the question of the future of international relations more open than it has been for a long while. We would all wish to be able to predict that future but unfortunately no one can really do it.

So should we all patiently wait for the future to unfold and hope for the best or is there a way to be more proactive? 

Hence, the question: Are there tools to help build the future we want and/or be better prepared for things to come?

In this context, foresight analysis, or future studies - as it is also sometimes called -, is an interesting instrument and one that we use across our Executive Education programmes. Foresight tools are meant to help us devise different plausible futures so that we can increase our resiliency to different realities or decide to act and be proactive in building the future we want.

Foresight tools have been known by policy makers and private sector actors and used by them for policy making and planning purposes for a long time. But their relevance has renewed as the level of uncertainties the world is facing has drastically increased over the past decade. These tools are manifold and have many applications. In this brief, I propose to showcase how the Alternative Futures framework developed by Jim Dator and his team at the University of Hawaii can be used to envisage the future of international relations.

About the methodology

Jim Dator collected hundreds of scenarios developed by foresight specialist from all over the world and identified four story archetypes: growth, constraint, collapse, and transformation. The “growth” archetype depicts a situation in which conditions and trends progress in a continuous direction. “Constraint” refers to a situation where a core guiding value or purpose organises societies and controls behaviour. “Collapse” captures a situation with major social systems and infrastructure breakdown. Lastly, a scenario of “transformation” represents the case of a society or system that fundamentally changes or reorganises itself.

The use of those four archetypes enables us to think systematically about the truly disruptive potential of different futures going beyond a restricted focus on “one true future” or even a “most likely” future. It helps to capture a broader range of trajectories.

Going back to the question of the future of international relations, I propose to discuss the topic in the light of each of the archetypes. This brief will focus on the “growth scenario”, the other three scenarios will be addressed in forthcoming briefs.

It is important to note that scenarios are not guesses. The proposed future is based on an analysis of current trends and signals, the latter being defined in foresight analysis as “small or local innovation with the potential to disrupt the status quo and/or scale in size or geography” (Institute for the Future, 2016). In other words, as evidence of the future in the making.

Business as usual for world affairs? The growth scenario

What would be key features of international relations if things progress in a continuous direction from what we see today? For matters of parsimony, I would highlight three key traits: first, the world economic and political order remains liberal, with open markets and human rights being the underlying benchmarks; second, sovereign nation-states remain at the core of the international system; third, the system gives privileges to a small number of great powers in terms of control of its governance.

Imagining a future of international relations with those features may appear difficult given a series of ongoing trends, such as climate change and resource scarcity, aging population in developed countries, slow growth and high employment in Europe contrasted with faster growth in Asia, as well as the development of artificial intelligence and the reorganisation of the world economy.

Yet, a careful look at recent events still reveals signals of future international relations that would match the growth scenario. Prominently, the adoption of the 17 SDGs can be interpreted as the new global liberal bargain to address the world major problems. Geopolitically, one could see in the recent joint calls of the BRICS countries for reforms of major international organisations, such as the IMF or the World Bank, the willingness of those on the rise to continue to work within the current system, albeit with recognition of their new status. The recent unanimity in the UN Security Council regarding the adoption of a new series of sanctions against North Korea may signal a new era dominated by the Chinese-US couple within the old UN set-up.

Other signals are more ambiguous such as recent evidence of foreign digital hacking in electoral campaigns in the US and France, UK vote in favour of Brexit, the adoption by China of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, and the escalation of words between the USA and North Korea and Iran. Hacking of electoral campaigns in democratic countries may be the ultimate threat to the freedom of choice, and national sovereignty, in a cyber world. The vote in favour of Brexit could lead to a rethinking of the scope of market integration and a return to national pride and solutions. OBOR can be the new model of development aid, centred on one country rather than on global and regional banks. Last, the escalation of words between US and North Korea and Iran may put arms race back as the top priority for great powers.

How will international relations look like in ten years if we combine the trends and signals we identified above? One can envision a return to bipolarity between an US centred group and a China centred group, the former being more concentrated geographically around the North Atlantic, the latter spreading from Asia to the outskirts of the EU and deep in Africa. Those two blocs are economically interdependent bound together by digital ties and global production chains. Yet, given the increasing depletion of resources, zones of friction between those two tectonic plates are increasing and questioning the sustainability of a grand liberal bargain. Smaller powers are increasingly disenfranchised and therefore increasingly tempted to go wild. In the US centred group, vivid nationalist aspirations undermine political cooperation but mega digital companies are driving economic integration. Climate change and the exhaustion of resources by foreign exploitation are pushing millions of people on the road in Africa and Latin America. As the USA and Europe have built up tough entry barriers, relations with neighbouring countries in Central and Latin America and in Africa are sour, making the ground for an increasing allegiance to the China centred group or for state-dissolution under the threat of ideology or money driven groups.

From an international relations viewpoint, this is a very dangerous world that relies on highly competent management by great powers and on the unifying economic power of digital technologies. I let it to you to decide whether this is the future we want but to get ready for such a world we should all make sure that the conduct of international relations will be in the hands of people with both high analytical and problem-solving skills, as well as a capacity to envision alternative solutions. 

This is the second edition of my new series "The Director's words" which features in our Executive Education newsletters. Follow us on LinkedIn>