Sharpening the Tools of Foresight Analysis and Scenario Planning Through Engagement With Critical Security Studies

Abstract

The methods of foresight analysis and scenario planning (FASP) are being applied in a wide range of use cases as institutions to plan for an uncertain future. Such efforts promise to mitigate future risk by informing action in the present. However, FASP approaches have failed to consider what lessons might be learned from the shortcomings of prior imaginative practices for risk mitigation. This article draws on work from Critical Security Studies to consider how FASP methods might be sharpened as tools for policy makers and academic researchers alike. In particular, we argue that FASP risks reproducing the very forms of overconfidence and epistemological closure that earlier risk management paradigms generated. By engaging concepts such as premediation, non-knowledge, and the politics of prediction, the article highlights how imaginative practices can both mitigate and manufacture vulnerability. A critically informed FASP framework therefore requires methodological transparency, epistemic humility, and explicit attention to the generative effects of imagining futures in the present.

Introduction

This paper considers the methodology of foresight analysis and scenario planning, a powerful tool for security analysis. This tool emerged from the field of “futures studies” and has found applications in a variety of strategic and policy domains. However, the relatively recent emergence of specific foresight analysis methods does not mean that the desire to evaluate the future in order to take risk-mitigation steps in the present is entirely without precedent. This paper argues that by bringing foresight analysis and scenario planning into conversation with critical perspectives on earlier risk management approaches, the foresight analysis framework can learn from issues of past models. This would also provide a novel and conceptually useful bridge between critical security studies and conventional debates in strategic and security studies.

The field of security studies emerged in the post-World War Two era, where a group of civilian scholars of international relations sought to learn lessons from that conflict. They hoped that learning lessons of the two large-scale conflicts of the early twentieth century might inform improved strategies for great power politics in the years that would follow. This era, which Stephen Walt (1991) called the “Golden Age” of security studies, witnessed the refinement of concepts like deterrence, national security, and other rationalism-driven and largely realist scholarship (e.g., Wolfers, 1952; Jervis, 1979). A renaissance of security studies beginning in the mid-1970s grew along largely state-centric and realist lines of debate (Walt, 1991), only to be disrupted as the sudden end of the Cold War surprised the realist logics dominating security studies (Lebow, 1994). It was from this moment of failure in traditional security studies that a new body of scholarship arose. Scholars sought to change the traditional referents and concerns of states’ military vulnerability to include higher-than-state referents like regions and lower-than-state referents like individuals across a broader range of use cases; this founding discourse of critical security studies became known as the “broadening and deepening” debate (Krause & Williams, 1996, 230; c.a.s.e. collective, 2006). Less American (Hoffmann, 1977) and more European in its institutions and power centers (Murphy, 2024), ¹ critical security studies pushed the boundaries of security analysis to bring forward new ontological, epistemological, methodological, and empirical approaches. The subfield has developed a robust intellectual community in part through the concentration of its debates in specific venues (Wanneau, 2016). This phenomenon of intellectual movements finding strength in specialized areas—a phenomenon called “camp IR” by Christine Sylvester (2007; 2013)—provides the benefit of accelerated development of the community, although the inwardly-focused activities of camp development, combined with a broader shift in international relations for less cross-camp conversation, means that the growth of critical security studies was not always visible or legible to those operating in the field’s mainstream. ²

This paper bridges the gap between critical security studies and more mainstream analysis through the specific utility of critical debates on risk for current analytical tools of foresight analysis and scenario planning. The first section discusses foresight analysis and scenario planning, while the second turns to critical security studies’ analysis of risk. The discussion and conclusion section outlines lessons learned and future directions of research. This engagement with critical security studies broadens the scope of work for foresight analysis and security planning beyond a classic frame of policy-relevant problem-solving that minimized the human element. Instead, a critically informed approach to foresight analysis and scenario planning values scholarly humility and contextual embeddedness.

Foresight Analysis and Scenario Planning in Security Studies

Foresight analysis and scenario planning represent proactive approaches to decision-making in the face of uncertainty. These methodologies are crucial for navigating complex and dynamic environments across various domains, including business, policy, and technology. Foresight analysis and scenario planning are grounded in systems thinking and complexity theory (Smith, 2005). They acknowledge the interconnectedness of various factors shaping the future and embrace the non-linear nature of change (Horton, 2012). According to Meadows (2008), systems thinking involves understanding the interrelationships between components within a system and their emergent properties. Foresight analysis extends this perspective by exploring how external drivers, trends, and uncertainties interact to influence future trajectories.

Scenario planning, as articulated by Schwartz (1991) and Schoemaker (1995), emphasizes the importance of narrative storytelling in engaging stakeholders and challenging conventional assumptions about the future. It enables organizations to envision alternative futures by constructing plausible narratives based on critical uncertainties. By creating multiple scenarios, organizations gain insights into potential risks, opportunities, and discontinuities, thereby enhancing their strategic resilience (Raban & Hauptman, 2018). Wilner and Roy outline that “as a methodology, strategic foresight allowed us to do several things. It provides a toolkit for analyzing current developments and anticipating their broader consequences, and for exploring systemic interactions between disparate domains” (2020, 551). Foresight analysis and scenario planning have been widely adopted across diverse sectors to inform strategic decision-making and policy formulation.

In the business realm, scenario planning enables organizations to anticipate market disruptions, technological innovations, and competitive threats (Bradfield et al., 2005). Increasingly

a broad array of Foresight Analysis techniques is available to help analysts and decision-makers anticipate the outcomes of current struggles in places such as Syria or North Korea or—over a longer time frame—to assess the impact of global climate change, trends in cyber warfare, new money laundering techniques, or the future of the arctic.” (Pherson, 2018, 102)

For one specific example, Royal Dutch Shell’s use of scenario planning during the oil crisis of the 1970s enabled the company to adapt to changing market conditions and maintain its competitive edge (Heijden, 2011).

Similarly, scenario planning has proven invaluable in the realm of public policy and governance. Wiebe et al. argue that “foresight activities, including scenario development, quantitative modeling, and scenario-guided design of policies and programs, play a key role in exploring options to address socioeconomic and environmental challenges across many sectors and decision-making levels” (Wiebe et al., 2018, 545–46). Governments and international organizations utilize foresight analysis to anticipate emerging challenges such as climate change, demographic shifts, and geopolitical instability (UNDP, 2015). By developing long-term scenarios, policymakers can identify policy levers and strategic interventions to steer societies towards desirable outcomes. This is likely true “particularly in the context of uncertainties in world affairs, [where] decision-makers are increasingly relying on forward-reasoning to inform their policy” (Sus & Hadeed, 2020, 432). Moreover, foresight analysis and scenario planning play a crucial role in technological innovation and research foresight. They enable researchers, innovators, and policymakers to anticipate the societal impacts of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and nanotechnology (Roco & Bainbridge, 2002). By considering ethical, regulatory, and socio-economic dimensions, foresight analysis facilitates responsible innovation and technology governance.

The breadth of use cases for FASP techniques in the policy world is impressive in scope, considering futures impacted by climate change (Weber & Oyegunle, 2019), global order (Samson et al., 2024), and trade regimes (Cling, 2014). Recent work applying the methodology in the context of technological development helps illustrate the utility of the method for considering the possibilities of uncertain futures. Comparative analysis of multipolarity, fragmentation, and renewed cooperation scenarios helped explore potential finance technology development pathways (Kalash, 2025). Wilner and Atkinson’s (2026) recent exploration of AI futures similarly facilitated the identification and specification of risks and regulatory opportunities in the context of national security. Further scenario analysis of AI futures helped to highlight the range of potential impacts of AI development on defense, finance, and beyond (Samson et al., 2025; Cass-Beggs & Mota, 2026). Scenarios to model the potential rollout of quantum technologies on the finance sectors offered insights into the steps that central banks and finance ministries can consider (Forrest et al., 2026).

Advancements in computational modeling, data analytics, and simulation techniques have revolutionized foresight analysis and scenario planning. Big data analytics enable organizations to harness vast amounts of structured and unstructured data for predictive modeling and trend analysis (Dubey et al., 2018). Machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics facilitate the identification of patterns, correlations, and weak signals indicative of future trends and disruptions. Furthermore, agent-based modeling offers a nuanced understanding of complex socio-economic systems, allowing for the exploration of emergent behaviors and tipping points (Manson et al., 2012). By simulating the interactions between heterogeneous agents within a virtual environment, agent-based models enable researchers to test policy interventions, scenario outcomes, and resilience strategies.

Despite the benefits that can be derived from such approaches, scholars caution against the pitfalls of overreliance on quantitative forecasting and deterministic modeling. For example, Meadows (2008) warns against the hubris of predictive analytics, highlighting the inherent limitations of reductionist approaches in capturing systemic uncertainties and black swan events. Similarly, Taleb (2010) advocates for a precautionary principle in decision-making, emphasizing the need to embrace uncertainty and build robustness against unforeseen shocks. Relatedly, Millar and colleagues (2025) demonstrate how temporal assumptions of inevitability can shape what policy options are presented as possible and/or desirable.

Foresight analysis and scenario planning are indispensable tools for navigating uncertainty and shaping desirable futures. Grounded in systems thinking and complexity theory, these methodologies enable organizations to anticipate challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and mitigate risks. By embracing uncertainty, fostering strategic dialogue, and integrating diverse perspectives, organizations can enhance their capacity for adaptive governance and strategic foresight in an increasingly volatile world. As the pace of change accelerates and disruptions become more frequent, the need for robust foresight analysis and scenario planning will only intensify. By embracing emerging technologies, leveraging big data analytics, and fostering a culture of strategic foresight, organizations can navigate complexity, embrace uncertainty, and thrive in an ever-changing landscape.

Preemption, Premediation, and Risk: Lessons from CSS

Although the specific language and methodologies of foresight analysis may be a novel addition to policy and research toolkits alike, there is a certain resonance with longer-running desires to think our way into a less risky world. It is our argument in this paper that by learning from critical security studies scholarship on prior efforts to manage risk, foresight analysis, and scenario planning methods can avoid the conceptual dead-ends that prior efforts to be prepared for the future encountered. These dead-ends stemmed from a tendency to conflate anticipation with control, producing a false sense of mastery over inherently uncertain futures. Earlier risk frameworks often narrowed the field of vision, privileging plausible and policy-relevant scenarios while marginalizing low-probability or structurally unthinkable possibilities. In doing so, they not only underestimated uncertainty but also helped constitute the very vulnerabilities they sought to mitigate. In particular, we focus on Marieke de Goede’s (2008) application of “premediation” to highlight potential challenges to imaginative practices in security studies. Premediation is an imaginative practice that deploys the language of risk but is action-oriented insofar as its risk analysis seeks to change the imagined future. Practitioners imagine particular futures and prepare for particular cases—the correctness of these cases is less important than their ability to enable action in the present (de Goede 2008, 159). To this end, “premediation is not about the future at all, but about enabling action in the present by visualizing and drawing on multiple imagined futures” (de Goede 2008, 159). Through imaginative practices, future risks become actionable in present, erasing the temporal separation between what is and what may be. ³ Although not all FASP exercises recreate these problematic tendencies, direct attention to their mitigation can strengthen the methodological approach.

The centerpiece of de Goede’s analysis is financial risk, specifically calling attention to the purpose of the commodification of financial risk being action in the present rather than certainty about the future. She argues:

Financial risk was always about imagining futures in order to secure and make profitable the present. Seemingly an eradication of uncertainty and volatility, speculation has always exceeded risk and entailed important imaginative elements through which the future was both envisioned and brought about. (de Goede 2008, 164).

Speculative trading on assets, insurance contracts, futures trading, and other forms of derivative products represent the forms of financial innovation that make future risks actionable in the present. But the existence of these products—as has only become more clear since de Goede’s commentary which preceded the 2008-09 Financial Crisis—has no relation to the actual ability to protect against future risk through action in the present. de Goede turns to a hedge fund example to prove this point:

While particularly practised in imagining the best, then, financial practice also offers important starting points for understanding and analysing technologies of imagining the worst. Indeed, it is precisely through the coining of ‘lessons learned’ that darker futures became more routinely imagined in financial practice. For example, after the infamous failure of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998, so-called stress testing became more widely deployed by financial institutions. Stress testing entails the imagination of unexpected and apparently unlikely events, and calculating their effects on a company’s portfolio. (de Goede 2008, 165)

I would emphasize that articulating the unthinkable by necessity leaves things unthought – as, for example, in the case with LTCM, which went bankrupt precisely through the one thing it failed to imagine. It is interesting to see, more generally, that stress testing often is not particularly imaginative. Frequently, stress scenarios are based on events that have already occurred in some form or another: a stock market crash, a hedge fund default, a radical increase in oil prices. (de Goede 2008, 167)

The example of LCTM demonstrates that overenthusiasm in imaginative risk management practices that draw too much confidence from their practices in the present leave plenty of room for risks to emerge from uncertainty.

Ultimately, de Goede concludes that—contrary to the presumptions of practitioners—“perhaps even more than fostering imagination, premediation limits our imagination and the uncountable ways the uncertain future could have played out,” reinforcing social fragility to the unknown that is not produced through the imaginative process (de Goede 2008, 171). Even when attending to the future in a rigorous method that searches for the echoes of history, overconfidence that takes foresight as prediction can in fact lead to greater vulnerability.

In line with the possibility that threats emerge from that which predictive exercises miss, Aradau has argued that the possibility for error in predictive practices can lead actors astray (2014). Fakes, surprises, errors, and other forms of non-knowledge (Aradau 2014, 2017; Aradau & Perret, 2022) are outputs of prediction that do not come to pass and can result in incorrect judgments about risk, misallocation of resources, and unjust treatment of predicted targets. Again, it is the issue of overconfidence in a process that may produce erroneous outputs that leads to risk-mitigation efforts producing new vulnerabilities.

This critical tradition does not have problem-solving as its focus, but instead a questioning of how social institutions and practices came to be (Cox, 1981), but given the longstanding reflections on the role of scholarship as being in conversation with its policy impacts (e.g., Eriksson, 1999; Waever 1999; Williams, 1999), we can perhaps glean principles from debates in the “methods turn” ⁴ that immediately followed this risk debate in the disciplinary history of critical security studies. Common themes in the methods turn of critical security studies include the absolute necessity for critical scholars to account for themselves in their work, noting that sharing the steps of the research process “has an emancipatory power” (Mutlu, 2015, 932) in line with broader critical politics. In place of reproducibility that erases the scientist, the critical methods turn rebuked the “removing of footsteps” (Mutlu, 2015, 932) and instead argued that recognizing the deeply “embedded and embodied” nature of research observations (Leander, 2016, 464). This is not an exercise in centering the scholar in a form of hero narrative, but in recognizing the complex entanglements that create—and limit—the findings of scholarly inquiry (Murphy, 2022). Although this sort of transparency and embracing of uncertainty may at first brush appear to be a watering-down of purported findings or considerations, this critical intuition that rigor comes from transparency rather than erasing social aspects that might hinder reproducibility (Mutlu, 2019), it is only through a recognition of uncertainty about risks that the risks of (false) certainty may be overcome.

Recently, this critical approach has been disentangled from classic policy-relevant problem-solving research by focusing on the temporality of critique. Chris McIntosh (2022) argues that classic conceptions of policy relevance miss the diffractive effects of scholarship by assuming ontologically fixed and separate worlds of policy and research with a gap to be bridged. He suggests that the relationship is instead diffractive, with meaning produced through the interactions within fuzzy boundaries rather than between bounded units. Scholarship is in this view generative of complex effects and “can be creative and open possibility and potential” (McIntosh, 2022, 7) beyond merely advising from here what should be done over there. In place of policy relevance, McIntosh offers the concept of “present relevance” as a critical alternative that focuses on situating scholars within their contexts, recognizing that “the apparatuses that we design and implement to analyze global political life not only create it not also create our scholarship itself” (McIntosh, 2022, 9). This demands not only the epistemological humility to recognize the impossibility of scholarship accurately reflecting the world around it—as any effort to explain a phenomenon will in so doing diffract the social reality—but also an ethical recognition that we bear responsibility for the worlds that our scholarship co-creates. The integration of critical security studies into foresight analysis and scenario planning displaces the policy-relevant problem-solving frame that seeks to minimize the role and influence of human agency to construct assurances of objectivity. Embracing humility, recognizing agency, and prioritizing present-relevance provides a robust epistemological alternative for foresight analysis and scenario planning to consider.

Discussion and Conclusion

This paper has explored how foresight analysis and scenario planning (FASP) in security studies can benefit from lessons derived from critical security studies. By integrating critiques of past risk management models, we aim to enhance the conceptual foundations of FASP methodologies, allowing them to better navigate the complex uncertainties of the future within their epistemological framework. Recognizing past mistakes can help FASP practitioners avoid repeating them and ultimately improve their practice. In addition, we propose that future research should further examine the intersection of foresight methodologies with critical security theory, exploring new ways to handle uncertainties and prevent overconfidence in predictive models.

One key insight is drawn from Marieke de Goede’s concept of premediation, which highlights the danger of creating false certainty in future scenarios. Premediation, as a technique of imagining specific futures to guide present action, often leads to a narrowing of the scope of possibilities. This process can result in overconfidence and an inability to account for unforeseen events. In financial risk management, for example, de Goede illustrates how stress testing—while a powerful tool—often relies on historical precedents to predict future crises. As seen with the failure of Long-Term Capital Management, this overreliance on past scenarios can blind practitioners to the unpredictable nature of real-world events. FASP can learn from this caution by ensuring that its methods do not rigidly constrain the future to only those possibilities deemed probable based on current knowledge. Practitioners of FASP must resist the temptation to treat historical precedents as foolproof guides to future risks and instead remain open to a broader spectrum of uncertainty.

Claudia Aradau’s work on predictive practices further underscores the importance of humility in foresight analysis. Aradau highlights how predictions can lead to wrong conclusions, misallocation of resources, and unjust treatment of those deemed to be at risk. For instance, security interventions based on flawed predictive models can divert resources away from more pressing issues or even cause harm to those incorrectly identified as threats. In this context, FASP practitioners must recognize that predictions about the future, while valuable, cannot be wholly relied upon to determine policy or strategy. It is crucial to acknowledge that the future remains inherently uncertain, and attempts to “know” it fully are always subject to error. This understanding should shape how FASP methodologies are applied in real-world settings.

To mitigate these challenges, one of the most important lessons is the need for transparency and humility in the methods used in foresight analysis. By explicitly sharing the steps taken in the analytical process and acknowledging the limitations of predictions, FASP practitioners can avoid the false certainty that often accompanies predictive models. This is especially important because recipients of FASP outputs may mistakenly interpret them as definitive forecasts, even when practitioners understand them as exploratory tools. By explicitly stating the assumptions made about the scenario, the causal mechanisms included in the analysis, and the imagined reactions resulting from actions, FASP outputs can make the contingency of the outcomes visible to readers. Transparency about the uncertainties involved not only helps manage expectations of future-telling but also enables more adaptive and resilient decision-making by “showing the work” so that end-users can follow the logic, reason through their own disagreements or alternatives, and recognize the social process underlying foresight analysis. The methods turn within critical security studies emphasized the importance of revealing the underlying assumptions and limitations of research. By applying this same principle to FASP, practitioners can produce more robust, reflective analyses that foster deeper engagement with the complexities of security and risk. Indirectly, then, this acknowledgment of uncertainty may produce a more useful output by providing a clearer instruction manual for the end-user to continue tinkering with the internal mechanisms.

At first glance, it may seem that this call for transparency informed by debates in critical research methods changes the final rhetorical flourish. However, this would discount the transformative impact that assumptions of certainty have in such activities. Incorporating the critical practice of making the “footsteps” visible (Mutlu, 2015, 932) through a tracking and explicit presentation of assumptions that are introduced in the model emphasizes the contingency and constructedness of FASP exercises. Crucially, this contingency and constructedness may already be evident to practitioners, who intuitively recognize that the assumptions they are forced to make in the practice of foresight analysis shape the eventual outcome. The methodological lesson from critical security studies is that communication of this uncertain process enhances—rather than detracts—from the legitimacy of the analysis by providing a more robust and legible research design. FASP exercises, like scholarly research, are deeply social processes fundamentally entangled with the complex contexts in which they take place (Murphy, 2022). Recognizing those contexts can help FASP outputs to continue to evolve in the hands of the end-user as new considerations and insights can lead to ongoing iteration of the work. Perhaps more importantly, the external reader of FASP work with visible footsteps may be able to avoid the catastrophic risks emerging from the realm of the unimaginable (e.g., de Goede 2008). Methodological transparency and humility in recognizing contingency are principles that can mitigate the risks of premediating scenarios.

While foresight analysis and scenario planning hold significant promise for addressing global security challenges, they must be practiced with an awareness of their limitations and an openness to alternative futures. By integrating the lessons from critical security studies, particularly those concerning the dangers of false certainty and misplaced confidence in predictive models, FASP can avoid the pitfalls that have plagued past risk management efforts. By becoming present-relevant and acknowledging the diffractive effects of scholarly practices, FASP methods can recognize their generative effects on and in their social reality. The epistemological and ethical stakes of this work demand a radical humility to accompany the practice. Future research should continue to explore how FASP can incorporate critical perspectives and improve its methodologies, ensuring that it remains an effective tool in an increasingly unpredictable world. Conversely, because FASP offer a future-oriented practice of scholarship, there is an important opportunity for scholars interested in questions of criticality and temporality to probe further into the diffractive and generative nature of policy engagement by continued engagement with FASP by critical scholars.

This reframing of foresight analysis and scenario planning is only more critical given the likelihood that a world where uncertainty is increasingly recognized as a core feature, approaches like FASP may be increasingly applied to guide policy discussions. The institutions, norms, and performances of the liberal international order are increasingly recognized as being under strain. Overlapping polycrisis across the breadth of human experience and the emergence of highly disruptive technologies (Charbonneau & Giguere 2025Charbonneau & Giguère, 2025; Der Derian & Rollo, 2024; Lawrence et al., 2024; Oliver et al., 2026; Rakowski et al., 2025) are only exacerbating the difficulty of understanding an already-complex and already-uncertain world. Heng’s (2025) recent findings that governments are increasingly turning to futures studies in order to augment threat perception are—to a certain extent—unsurprising given these conditions. Policymakers seek structured ways to anticipate fragmentation, cascading crises, and systemic shocks. FASP promises to help decision-makers think beyond linear projections and to consider multiple pathways in a world where old assumptions no longer hold. Scenario planning can create space to explore futures characterized by decoupling, institutional breakdown, regional blocs, or technological disruption. In this sense, FASP is well suited to environments defined by volatility and uncertainty. Yet this is also precisely where its limits become most visible. In periods of relative stability, foresight exercises often operate against a backdrop of shared assumptions about institutional continuity. Even when modeling crises, they tend to presume that certain foundational structures will persist. In a fraying order, those background conditions can no longer be taken for granted. The range of plausible futures widens, but so too does the difficulty of distinguishing between low-probability disruptions and structural transformation. A critically informed FASP approach, attentive to the lessons of earlier risk paradigms, is better positioned to navigate a world in which uncertainty is not a temporary disruption but a structural condition.

This paper demonstrates the potential for foresight analysis and scenario planning methodologies to integrate the lessons of critiques of other future-facing imaginative practices in the past. In so doing, we hope to demonstrate the utility of bridging the gap between critical and mainstream perspectives in security studies. Although specialized vocabularies, citational signposts, and even social circles may present obstacles to meaningful mutual engagement, the case study of foresight analysis and scenario planning demonstrates the potential contribution for productive dialogue between these academic communities. Further work in bridging this gap can identify the applicability of specific critical security studies methods within the toolkit of FASP.