Expanding Warning: Anticipating Diffused Threats

Abstract

The strategic warning function can be understood in two ways. One emphasizes existing and anticipated threats and threat streams, known challengers, and discrete events. This understanding of warning asks, for example, about the who, what, where, when, and how of the next attack. It is dependent on clearly defined spatial and temporal parameters. Another understanding of warning emphasizes the unknown, the more diffuse threat potential. More anticipatory in nature, this function of warning looks beyond the expected and the usual to ask about possible events not yet recognizable from available intelligence or relatable from previous experience. The first understanding of warning, as it is generally practiced, offers either predictions or forecasts of potential future developments, couched in terms of definitive statements or probabilistic assessments. The second, presented in this article, foregoes both prediction and forecasting, suggesting instead that warning can be expanded and augmented by adopting a foresight approach that emphasizes option identification. Intended to supplement existing warning activities, foresight-based warning activities would leverage unbounded scenarios and iterative probability assessments to enhance and expand warning through greater consideration and attentiveness to emergent, unique, unexpected, and diffused threats.