Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures: Using Scenarios to Manage American Strategy,

Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures: Using Scenarios to Manage American Strategy, by Michael F. Oppenheimer

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Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures: Using Scenarios to Manage American Strategy, by Michael F. Oppenheimer

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Michael Oppenheimer's Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures is both a synthesis of our knowledge on scenario planning and a practical guide for policymakers. One of America's leading scenario planners, Oppenheimer has advised the Department of State, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President's Science Advisor, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Brookings Institution. In this book, he develops a sophisticated and coherent method for foreign policy specialists who necessarily deal with rapidly changing situations involving high levels of uncertainty. As he explains, figuring out possible outcomes and designing and appropriate policy requires an ability to identify the drivers of change, the potential wild card events, and the central policy questions in any given situation. Once policymakers determine these, they must plan a scenario. To do that, planners need to know how to build the best team of experts possible, run a session, and create credible narratives for different scenario alternatives. To illustrate how it all works, Oppenheimer draws from a range of real-life planning scenarios, including China and Syria. To be sure, new crises will arise that supplant these current ones, but his basic method will aid policymakers in almost every future situation. While nothing ever goes completely to plan-least of all international conflict-preparing with multiple scenarios in mind will always be the least worst approach to global and regional crises. Methodologically rigorous and comprehensive, Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures will be essential reading for policymakers and policy students trying to determine the best path forward in any given crisis.

Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures: Using Scenarios to Manage American Strategy, by Michael F. Oppenheimer

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1536754 in eBooks
• Published on: 2015-12-01
• Released on: 2015-12-01
• Format: Kindle eBook

Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures: Using Scenarios to Manage American Strategy, by Michael F. Oppenheimer

Review "Foreign policy strategy requires planning for multiple scenarios, imagining alternative futures, and facing up to risk. It also involves a constant, honest, rigorous assessment of whether existing policies are working - including how to adapt if they're not. Michael Oppenheimer shows how to conduct precisely these kind of assessments in his extremely useful new book, based on years of practical experience. The result is a work that should prove worthwhile to policymakers and analysts - indeed anyone interested in improving the quality of American foreign policy." -Colin Dueck, Associate Professor, George Mason University School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs.

"Michael Oppenheimer has written a comprehensive user guide to scenario-based analysis. But Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures is also much more than that: a thoughtful plea for the systematic application of methods that would help our policymakers lay bare their underlying assumptions, improve their recognition of unfolding trends, and, ultimately, better prepare the United States for even the most unpredictable of world events." -Daniel S. Markey, Senior Research Professor in International Relations and Academic Director of the Global Policy Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

"The only thing certain about the future is that it will surprise us. This seminal work, by one of the pioneers in the field of scenario analysis, offers a creative but disciplined way of thinking about the future. It provides illuminating perspectives on Russia, China, and other pivotal countries, along with a practical guide for developing and applying scenarios to policy-making in a complex world." -Robert Hutchings, Dean, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas at Austin

"To be secure in a rapidly changing world, America needs a better balance between assertiveness and restraint in its global policies. That balance can best be discovered by constructing careful scenarios of future alternatives. Here is an invaluable guide for using scenarios to test for strategic coherence and tactical agility." -James Hoge, former editor, Foreign Affairs

"In his latest work, Michael Oppenheimer addresses the crucial weaknesses of American policy-making with a call for 'strategic coherence and tactical agility'. Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures is a necessary how-to for practitioners operating at the front lines of business and politics." -Ian Bremmer, President, Eurasia Group and author of Superpower

About the Author Michael F. Oppenheimer is Professor for Global Affairs at the Center for Global Affairs of New York University's School of Professional Studies

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Most helpful customer reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Futures Jock By Frederick S. Tipson Michael Oppenheimer knows whereof he speaks (and writes). For more than two decades, he has organized powerful analytical projects for policy-makers, intelligence analysts and academic experts that identify a realistic range of possible futures for specific countries and regions. As he puts it: “The principal objective of alternate futures is to improve observation of a rapidly changing and complex reality, and to encourage early recognition of and reaction to emerging trends that may shift the ground under current policies.”Oppenheimer’s skills in designing and moderating these scenario sessions are legendary among those lucky enough to participate. But the outputs have seldom been easily available to a wider audience. Now Oppenheimer conveys concrete examples, from China to Iraq and Syria to the Doha trade round, and sums up the lessons from these intense and focused discussions. This is a compact, well-argued book that captures the urgency of reforming foreign policy-making to challenge assumptions and discipline expectations of the future.The relevance of alternative futures goes well beyond the backroom debates of intelligence experts and foreign policy shapers. Indeed, in this Presidential election season, no deficiency is more obvious in our candidates than their inability to deal with uncertainties, relative risks, conflicting objectives, underlying stresses and rapid changes. Candidates speak as if the world was a simple mosaic of black and whites in which the choices are obvious and the leader is a lone decider.Yet what the next President will require (and his aides must facilitate) is sophistication in recognizing, unpacking and explaining complexity to rally essential allies and build broader public support. The public is ill-served by campaigns that convey grade-school level discussions of American interests and options. Oppenheimer’s ability to capture the range of potential outcomes in concise, compelling formats is a skill we would do well to apply more broadly and more urgently, not only for government officials, but also for the voters at large.

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Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures: Using Scenarios to Manage American Strategy, by Michael F. Oppenheimer

Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures: Using Scenarios to Manage American Strategy, by Michael F. Oppenheimer