ABSTRACT
Military planning, especially where long-term procurement, infrastructure, and personnel decisions are required, necessitates decisions which make assumptions about the future. It is thus unhelpful merely to state that the future cannot be predicted. Defence ministries around the world therefore employ specialists, not to forecast future developments, but to employ methods of ‘strategic foresight’ to point to potential developments, which should be factored into such decisions with long-term consequences. Tools are listed here, and the difficulties and risks of employing them are discussed.
