Strategic Outlook 2016

It attempts to interpret and foresee how political, economic and social trajectories may influence security and crises. Its purpose is to help international businesses think about the future and plan how they will succeed in an ever changing world.

As this is an exercise in anticipatory intelligence, we offer probabilistic estimates of future risks. We highlight the dynamics and trends shaping events. And we share some of our assessments of the intentions and strategies of relevant actors, forecasting potentially threatening scenarios. Each regional assessment contains a top level overview and a summary of our current thinking.

Forecasting, as we regularly caution, is not an exact science. This is especially the case in matters of geopolitics, security and conflict, where concealing intentions and surprise is often the essence of a successful strategy and the pursuit of power.

Nothing is certain except change. Of the all the forecasts we can make, the most assured is that the world in 2016 will throw up crises that few (if any) will foresee. Anticipating that is in itself a step forward for better crisis planning and resourcing.