Jari Kaivo-oja:
Today we are living in spring 2022 and the Ukrainian war continues with deepening human tragedies. There seems not to be an end to violence and brutal aggression in Ukraine (BBC News, War in Ukraine). We can define that the Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing war between Russia (together with pro-Russian separatist forces) and Ukraine. It began in February 2014 following the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity, and initially focused on the status of Crimea and the Donbas, internationally, recognised as part of Ukraine.
About ten years ago, I was personally working as a foresight expert in seven Black Sea countries organising foresight workshops promoting peace and preventing conflicts. The Black Sea Peacebuilding Network (BSPN) was originally designed to increase civil societies’ contribution to conflict resolution in the Black Sea region. The BSPN has allowed civil societies in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine to work towards a common goal and to produce positive precedents. The project created networks for national and regional civil societies to build greater regional capacity in conflict transformation by operating at the grassroots level in the region.
All seven member Black Sea countries had their own Expert Councils for Conflict Transformation and Peace Initiatives. The expert councils elaborated alternative and unbiased recommendations for conflict resolution and peace initiatives. The overall goal of the project is to enable civil society organisations in the seven Black Sea countries to reach a critical mass in order to become full-fledged stakeholders in conflict resolution, and thus pressure regional governments to work towards sustainable peace in the region. The anticipated impact is enhanced national civil society peacebuilding capacity, ultimately aimed at promoting sustainable peace in the Black Sea Region. The Black Sea Peacebuilding Network is financed by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Our CMI report “Foresight Results and Insights to the Black Sea Peacebuilding Network” (Kaivo-oja et al. 2012) noted:
“Today security issues are no longer simply state- and military-centric issues. This report thus aims to analyse the background factors behind violent conflicts in the Black Sea region. Many critical security studies have noted that the so-called billiard-ball model with simple causal relationships does not work in international politics (Booth 2004). Processes leading to conflicts are today more or less complex and multilayered (see e.g. Ohmae 1999, Buzan et al. 2007). In many studies, cross-impact analyses are needed (see Gordon & Hayward 1968, Alter 1979, Gordon 1994, Hough 2007, Buzan, Ware & Hoffman-Martinot 2007). The challenge of this report was to identify key drivers, which can potentially increase the probability of violent conflict. We also identify those trends, which have the biggest impact on violent conflict.”
This was our target and we reached this target in our CMI foresight study. The foresight analyses in this CMI report acted as a driver of reflective mutual social learning processes among policy-makers that stimulated the generation of common public policy visions. We wanted also to provide information and knowledge to civil society organisations. The foresight analyses in this old CMI report provide still country-specific information and knowledge and trend-related information and knowledge. Many other reports did not provide this kind of information.
Like in 2012, also today NGOs and civil society organisations, are playing a very important and influential role in modern democratically oriented societies. It is good to remember their important strategic role in the struggle toward more sustainable and peaceful work. It is also good to note that after 10 years of publication, this Black Sea Peacebuilding Network’s CMI report is still relevant reading for decision-makers.
One could critically say that the Expert Councils for Conflict Transformation and Peace Initiatives were not able to prevent Ukrainian conflicts and Ukrainian war. Other hard and soft powers were more influential and we did not give peace a chance to happen. This is a partially true statement, but if we are more critical, we can also claim that the Expert Councils for Conflict Transformation and Peace Initiatives was successful to postpone, and partly cancelling a potential, larger Black Sea crisis. Instead of the Ukrainian war, we could today observe all seven countries’ violent Euro-Eurasian war. The worst-case scenario has not yet materialised in the Black Sea region. This kind of broader potential conflict was a starting point of the CMI project in the Black Sea Region. As we noted in this CMI report:
“This report is focused on first year key activities, which include analyses of key trends, which could lead to violent conflicts in the Black Sea region. Conflicts can be local, national or broader international conflicts. From these alternative perspectives we want to present some results which are relevant for (1) the whole Black Sea region, (2) each BSPN county, and also (2) cross-border conflicts.”
With this blog message, I would like shortly to point out that the war in Ukraine has not come as a surprise to producers and professionals of the international intelligence community, and to the foresight experts like me. There were many real-life activities to prevent potential conflict situations and war before the Ukrainian crisis and war. In the field of political science, Professor Alpo Rusi’s book “Dangerous Peace” (2021, orig. 1991) with earlier editions was quite a visionary book with various early warnings for policymakers. Unfortunately, we missed a complete success in this case. However, early warnings were given by many researchers and experts.
Often only such important strategic foresight reports from experts are not bothered to read with great care. Also, national and international political agendas are often congested with many other topics. This is, of course, regrettable, as it was also in the case of the COVID-19 crisis.
In the current situation, we need a road map for peace in Ukraine and Europe. Every war has been brought to an end at some point. Often the cost of war suffering rises to high levels and human suffering becomes unbearable.
I personally hope that the international community of futures, anticipation, and foresight researchers, and other specialists will make an important contribution to achieving this objective, sustainable peace in Europe and in the world.
Jari Kaivo-oja
Research Director, PhD, Finland Futures Research Centre, Turku School of Economics, University of Turku;
Adjunct Professor (University of Helsinki and University of Lapland);
Professor (Social sciences, Kazimiero Simonavičiaus University, Vilnius, Lithuania)
References
Alter, S. (1979) The evaluation of generic cross-impact models. Futures. Vol. 11., No. 2, 132–150.
Booth, K. (2004) Critical Security Studies and World Politics. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Buzan, B., Ware, A. & Hoffman-Martinot, V. (2007) People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Period. 2nd Edition. Colchester: ECPR Press.
Gordon, T. J. (1994) Cross-impact Method. United Nations University Millennium Project, p. 1–2.
Gordon, T. J. & Hayward, H. (1968) Initial experiments with the cross-impact matrix method of forecasting. Futures, Vol. 1, 100–116.
Habegger, B. (2010) Strategic foresight in public policy: Reviewing the experiences of UK, Singapore, and the Netherlands. Futures. Vol. 42, 49–58.
Hough, P. (2007) Understanding Global Security. 2nd Edition. New York: Routledge.
Kaivo-oja, Jari, Ville Brummer, Ville, Miettinen, Erno & Mirziashvili, Mikheil (2012) Foresight Results and Insights to the Black Sea Peacebuilding Network. Interim Technical Report. Black Sea Peacebuilding Network. Crisis Management Initiative (CMI). Martti Ahtisaari Centre.
Ohmae, K. (1999) The Borderless World: Power and Strategy in the Interlinked World. London: Harper Paperbacks.
Rusi, A. M. (2021, orig. 1991) Dangerous Peace: New Rivalry in World Politics. London and New York: Routledge.
Picture: pixabay.com
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